Speed breakdown

 

    

The above clip is from the documentary Talladega nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby. It depicts the story of a race car driver Ricky Bobby from his start-up as a pit crew member to top of the field that suffers a horrific crash and his journey back to the top of racing.

Real talk it's a comedy.... did I have you going??

. Tangent time-want a quick laugh? Call a comedy movie a documentary or quote musicians as philosophers. One of my favorites is, "As the great philosopher once said...Mo' money Mo' problems.

Back to speed. 

"I want to go fast" 

But how?

We touched on this on an earlier post about how to train for speed. Spoiler alert combining strength training + plyometrics + sprint training should increase speed.

Speed is generally defined as all out max effort for 15 seconds. Why 15 seconds? because that is generally the extent of the Creatine Phosphate energy system.

Mechanically, sprinting is the correlation between stride length and stride rate. Stride rate is how quickly and forcefully each leg applies force to the running surface. Increases the amount of vertical force is key. This goes back to our previous article about rate of force development or how quickly force can be applied in the shortest time frame possible. Stride length is the displacement of mass or how long you are spending in "flight". Elite sprinters spend more time in the air than your average person. Watch the 100m dash in slow motion-look how long they are in flight time. 

Ok, so I increase my stride length to improve sprinting? not quite. You want the optimal amount of stride rate and stride length for correct application of force. Go back and watch the video

The entire race the stride length and stride rate are perfect. 

You can also see the start, acceleration and top speed associated with sprinting. Coming out of the blocks (and the 2 steps following the start) represents the highest amount of vertical force within the race. In elite sprinters the start phase lasts 5m or less. As the acceleration develops more horizontal force is applied through shorter stride length. As the race develops into more of maximum velocity the athlete combines the ideal stride rate and stride length to win the race.