How Much Faster am I Already?

In a couple of days I'll have completed week 5 of my off-season training program.

I am working with a strength and conditioning specialist from the US named DJ Williams from Chicago.

He is the strength coach for the Chicago Blaze Rugby 7's team which is how I found him after doing a little research on rugby 7's training after our women's team tore the Olympics a new one!

Anyway we;re about to finish up the GPP block which for the uninitiated stands for general physical preparedness.

This is he first training block one jumps into to "get back into it" and to prepare the body for the rigors of harder training to come.

A few weeks ago I blogged about the f$%k all difference between being fast and slow and showed exactly how time matches up to distance and how even half a second can mean your meters off the pace.

Here's what I've managed to do so far this off-season.

My testing drill is a 35m sprint that we do 3 sets of each week.

The first day I did these my best time was 5.20secs.

That equates to 6.73 meters per second.

My best time last week was 4.71secs which is an improvement of .49 of a second.

That equates to 7.43 meters per second.

So if you put 5.20sec me up against 4.71sec me and we see how far we both can get in 5secs then it's 33.65m to 35m - pretty much a meter and a half in that short span of time.

4.71sec me is getting to a lot more balls before my opposition next year leaving more time to take possession which gives me more time to make a decision then more time to execute on that decision.

My ultimate goal is to hit 8 meters per second which equqtes to a 4.37sec 35m but if I can get a 4.5sec before the start of the season, then that will put me at 7.78 meters per second which then has me covering 38.9 meters in 5secs, a full 5m faster then week 1.

Speed is King!!