Speed and Muscle Fibre Types

All Things Speed: Part 1

I will be adding more information on fast v slow twitch dominant muscle fibre types and what you can do to maintain and improve these fibres. What to do if you change your fast twitch to slow i.e by overcooking yourself by too much hard training.

🏆🥊I still believe AJ had too much muscle and not enough of an engine or capacity to deal with dissipating force. Therefore due to lots of fast twitch muscle he gassed out very quickly. Even sprinters do lots of very low level tempo training, which doesn't interfere with speed or power, so they can get through the rigours of going through the competition rounds on the same day or the next.

🏃🏽‍♀️If you get stuck in the middle zone of not training anything in-particular you will just generate lots of fatigue. When you go high, you really do! Its 90% max, high quality, with big long recoveries. When you go low, it stimulates recovery and regeneration, builds capacity, bumping you up to the next level.

👊🏽Do not end up in a middle zone of nothing or be in survival mode during the session, because the only way to get through it is to turn the power down which of course kills speed!

All Things Speed: Fast Twitch Dominant Characteristics - Part 2.

These are just a few features you may see with athletes who are fast.

Muscles that are important for speed

🔥Acceleration 1st Phase
Glutes (butt), quadriceps (thighs), gastrocnemius- soleus (calf complex), shoulder & latissimus complex. If you can't hold your own body-weight out of the blocks, you won't be able to push to get those first crucial 3 strides. Coaches refer to legs being piston like out the blocks.

🔥 Lack of strength is a limitation because if you are weak you will not be able to generate force. What this looks like is popping up too early out of the blocks because you can't keep a low angle. I worked with a female sprinter who improved her overall strength, this meant her acceleration out of the blocks was so much faster. You can observe this by seeing how long an athlete can stay in the accel phase before moving into an upright position.

🔥Acceleration 2nd Phase
Glutes, quads, erector spinae - (holding yourself up, tall) gastroncemuis- soleus, hamstrings, adductor longus, shoulder and latissimus complex.

🔥Transition Phase
Glutes, erector spinae, calf complex, hamstrings, Adductors, trunk muscles. Shoulder and latissimus complex.

🔥Max Velocity
Tendons, hip musculature, hamstrings - biarticular these muscles cross two joints.🔥Speed - Endurance, so you don't hit a fridge half way down the track. This is the component you need to get you over the line !🥇 🙆🏽‍♀️
If you are really special, then it may be you just keep getting faster and faster, Bolt is a great example of this.

🏃If you want to learn more about speed then Sprint coach Henk Kraaijenhof has influenced lots of coaches, one of the great innovator's. Read his book 'What We Need Is Speed'. Muscle biopsy methods have measured muscle fibre composition in the past.