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The term "sport specific" gained popularity in the 80's and 90's. It was used to describe how different sports should be trained different ways in regards to their strength and conditioning. the thinking was that
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REVERSE LUNGE
Another single stretch exercise that is an excellent speed builder. Keep the reps in the 5 to 10 range. |
basketball players should train differently from football players and baseball players should train different from soccer players. While it's true that the differences should be addresses, it's also true that most team sports have a lot in common. Most are speed/power dominated and are heavily composed of multiple bouts of acceleration, deceleration, and change of direction. Lou Holtz once said, "our linebackers are too slow to pull a hamstring." Without a doubt, the one trait that is the most desired by coaches and athletes is the improvement of speed.
Speed training is often made more complicated than it actually is. Athletes look for magical track programs that emphasize picture perfect running form. Coaches will overtrain their athletes with excessive bleacher running and highly advanced plyometric programs. Fourteen year old athletes will take creatine while at the same time skip a nutritious breakfast. The secret to speed development is not that complex. Get stronger, flexible, and reduce excessive body fat and chances are you will become a lot faster.
Strength is often the most overlooked factor in the speed equation. Parents often say they aren't interested in their young athlete getting stronger as long as they get faster. Have you ever notice the physiques of Olympic 100 meter sprinters, both male and female? Their lean, muscular bodies weren't built for show, but rather as a result of years of functional strength training and explosive exercise. Most team sports such as football, baseball, basketball, and soccer primarily require explosive bursts of speed for distances less than twenty yards. Acceleration then becomes the most important factor because an athlete may never reach top speed with these short distances. Even the popular 40 yard dash is dominated by acceleration instead of top end speed. This is why functional strength training (training that actually serves a purpose) becomes so important.
Just a short time ago, many coaches thought their strength training would cause their athletes to be muscle-bound and slow. Now it has been proven that sprinting speed depends largely on muscular strength. If you compared two athletes with identical running technique, limb length, and bodyweight, the stronger, more powerful athlete will always be the faster one.
This refers to your strength in relation to your bodyweight, and the stronger you are for your size, the more ground you will cover with each stride. Strength plays a huge role in the first few steps of a sprint. The athlete must have the ability to overcome inertia in order to "get out of the hole" on his first steps, whether it is out of the batter's box in a softball game or a 40 yard dash.
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