Things you need to understand in Speed Strength Training

If you want to understand speed and strength training, first you need to fully understand the nature of strength.  If you thought an athlete to become faster, he would be stronger too.  Some experts believe that the closer an actual training to a sport, the greater chance of reaping the reward of the said sport.  In football, you would want to tackle your opponent and if you want to be good football player, you need to lift weights slowly.  This has something to do with fast twitch versus slow twitch muscle fibers, the components of speed strength and what kind of exercises are utilized in strength speed training.

Difference between the two

Fast twitch muscle fibers enable your body to develop tension and contract about two to three times as fast as slow twitch muscle fibers.  However, you tend to tire easily since this type of exercise would render yourself not being able to store enough oxygen.  The fast twitch fibers are white in color. The slow twitch fibers have iron and oxygen that binds proteins called myoglobin which gives them a red pigment. Roughly speaking, myoglobin is to muscle what hemoglobin is to blood.

The Importance of Fast Twitch Muscle Fibers in Fast Action Sports

If you are into sports that requires strength, chances are, you would be using fast twitch muscle fibers as they hey split molecules of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) in a muscle very quickly.  ATP allows energy to be transported within cells.  It is known as the energy source that is produced from muscle contractions.  If you are an athlete, you would want to increase the amount of fast twitch muscle fibers since you would be stronger and better with your sport.

Components of Speed Strength can be broken into three parts and here they are:

1.      Starting Strength – The force produce in a matter of split seconds because of muscular contraction.  It has something to do with alertness.

2.      Explosive Strength – The maximum rate a movement is maintained while it is moving.  This can be applied continuous strength that he used to push off the block and accelerate as fast as possible.  To make it simple, you just keep on moving.

3.      Reactive Strength – Also known as reversal strength since the muscle is used first to stretch and then to rapidly contracts to prepare for jumping.  This is where Plyometric training comes from.  The Stretching movement is used to activate a stretch or myotatic reflex that actually contracts the muscle.