The Need for Speed Part 2

In my last post I talked about my latest training goal is speed of which I am judging over 10m.

Why only 10m? Well for 2 reasons:

1 - You've gotta be fast over 10m before you can be fast over more then 10m and;

2 - Well that's all I can do in my studio without crashing through walls and I'd rather stay inside as you never know what the weather is gonna be at any given time of the day here in Melbourne.

For each training day this week I'll just touch on my focus for each day of which there are a few starting with yesterday (Monday).

Primary Goal - Strength

Secondary Goal - Technique, Vertical leap Enhancement

To keep this very simple, the stronger you are the more force you can put into the ground and thus, more force you can then "put out" in the form of momentum. Think of it like a car, the further you press on the accelerator, the faster you'll go.

To do this I'm working getting my back squat up to where it has to be, and where it needs to stay at the very least. To be honest pretty much hate squats and find them 10 x harder to do then deadlifts of which is is 30 - 40kgs heavier then my back squat.

I'm going for a minimalist approach as well so here's my squat routine from yesterday:

Back Squat Warm Up Sets 3 x 3

Top 1/4 Range of Motion Squat Off pins 3 x 3

Top 1/2 Range of Motion Squat Off Pins 3 x 3

Back Squat 1 x 3 (working set at my top weight) @ 115kgs (aim is to get it to 1.8 - 2 x bodyweight)

This is what I'll do each Monday with the partial squats sets be used with supramaximal weights to overload the movement. It is also being done to try to release the brakes on my nervous system which is what halts your training and is what real "overtraining" affects the most.

After the squat portion of the session I then do 5 - 10 sets of 10m at about 90% to work on technique with the most important points being:

• achieve triple extension on the very first step
• explode as hard as I can one the first step as well
• keep steps close to the ground
• stay low
• do not over step which puts your foot too far in front of your hips which then means you actually "slow down" like when you run down a hill

My 2nd goal, and one I always have, is to increase my vertical leap. Basically I have a fascination with being able to jump high from Warwick Capper in the 80's to Lebron James (NBA) currently.

Increasing my squat numbers will assist with this and on 3 days of the week I'll also be doing depth jumps from various heights.