For the past few years, speed training has become the new rave within the fitness industry; neatly fitting into the periodization model for supposed optimum conditioning. Whether you're talking about speed training explosive training, the concept is to moving or accelerating the resistance as quickly as possible. Questions remaining include: 1) Will moving quickly develop quicker muscles? 2) Will moving quickly produce better results, i.e., ability to mover faster, than moving slowly? 3) Is it safe to move quickly?.
Quicker Muscles.
Consider that some authorities whom promote speed training also contend slow movement (e.g., 3-4 second concentric or slower) makes you slow, or at least will not improve speed. There are several problems with this reasoning, some of which were addressed previously but deserve reiteration. .
Primarily, it is force that enables you to move faster. Simply try to move faster without exerting greater force. If you discover a method to the contrary, share it with the automobile industry and become wealthy. Now consider elementary physics - that moving a resistance from point A to B (distance) requires force and a magnitude of time to complete the lift. Add it all together and you have the prescription for power, which is force x distance • time, or the rate of doing work. .
By increasing force (i.e., muscle strength), and not speed, you become more powerful and faster. Speed is merely the result of force. As Isaac Asimov stated in his book, Understanding Physics, "a force is that which can impose a change of velocity on a material body; (a force is) that which imposes a change in speed of a body, or its direction of motion, or both; without a continuous force, there would be no continuous acceleration."" .
It is a fact that a stronger athlete (relative to his or her own previous ability) is a more powerful and faster athlete, but within reason and limitations.
