SPEED:

Is a crucial and essential performance characteristic in which athletes require to train and develop. It is a quality needed in order to achieve high movement velocities – velocity being a quality of the direction of speed. When athletes are performing sporting tasks, their technique (including the speed of execution) is a skillful expression of their abilities. More often then not, an athlete’s ability to be lightening quick can be the difference between winning or losing.

Speed is defined as the ability to cover distance quickly, or the distance travelled divided by the time. It’s an athlete’s ability to get from A to B as quickly and as efficiently as possible, and is an integral component of sporting performance for a variety of sports.

There are many aspects which impact and athlete’s speed and sprinting performance; the size of an athletes muscles (or lean body mass), their excess fat-mass, running technique/gait, mechanics, stride length and stride frequency, acceleration ability, neurological development and power-generating capacity, gender and genetics. With respect to all these elements, at CSC we provide training modalities and interventions that aim at assisting our athletes to reach their true sprinting potential by improving and developing all of these components which can affect speed.

Acceleration As A Component to Speed:

Acceleration is the rate of change in velocity, or the ability to increase movement velocity in a short period of time. Acceleration proficiency determines sprinting performance, as it’s the initial short distance explosiveness of an individual, which propels them to reach high speeds. This plays an important role in sports because the ability to accelerate rapidly, essentially dictates whether the athlete will make a wining tackle, get to the ball first, out run an opponent or defend a wide shot. So it’s safe to say, the ability to perform rapid changes in speed during key moments in competition are crucial. At CSC through our on-field and gym-based programs, we implement training strategies to improve an athlete’s acceleration to allow them to out perform their competition. 

Max Speed As A Component to Speed:

Max speed is our peak running speed, or the fastest speed an athlete can reach in a sprint. Field-based athletes in particular will reach high speeds during sporting competition and will require training exposures to high speed running in order to reduce the risk of injury at high speeds and bulletproof the body from injury at high speeds. Max speed and high speed running has also been seen to develop an athlete’s power potential and enhances muscular size. Therefore it’s important to strive to improve an athletes max speeds, as it has direct transference to sporting performance. Max speed (and speed in general) is also one of the first elements to dissipate and regress following a lay off from training and/or competition (such as the off-season) – therefore at CSC we carefully and structurally take all of the appropriate steps and measures when re-introducing speed into an athlete’s programming, and work hard with our athletes to assist in the development (or re-development) of explosiveness.  

Speed Endurance As A Component to Speed:

Is the ability to maintain high running speeds over an extended period of time or distance. It provides athletes with the metabolic conditioning to be able to engage in repetitive efforts throughout the duration of competition. Developing speed endurance will also have a positive affect, and increase an individual’s maximal oxygen uptake (VO2 max), and it’s also been shown to improve cardiovascular fitness, repeat sprint ability and even aerobic endurance – all important aspects to sporting performance. An athlete’s training status, playing position and the demands of their sport will dictate which modality of speed endurance training we would utilise at CSC, however again, it is an important element to optimising an athletes overall performance. More on endurance here

AGILITY:

Agility is an important aspect in sport, whether that be evading opponents, or moving and reacting to the play. Think a tennis player moving and reacting to their opponent’s shots, or a footballer trying to avoid being tackled. This ability of an athlete to be able to decelerate (or stop), after initially moving at a high speed, then rapidly change direction, and re-accelerate in response to an external cue is a critical component to athleticism. Most people see agility as a form of non-linear, locomotive, coordinative abilities or maneuverability. Being able to cut, change direction, crossover step, turn and rotate through space at speed. However, these movement patterns describe primarily change of direction ability.

Agility though, as a bio-motor ability, encompasses a number of other important components being perception, reaction and decision-making. “True” agility is a rapid whole body movement, or change of direction, in response to a stimulus. The external element, or stimulus, is the key factor that separates “agility” from purely “change of direction” ability. Therefore, the external stimulus (whether that be an opponent, transition of play or object/implement) is fundamentally what forces or causes an athlete to move or execute a rapid, reactive change of direction during sporting competition.

Elite level athletes have a greater ability to scan or identify a specific action, process that action, then respond with the appropriate movement pattern. At CSC we incorporate a number of training interventions and drills to enhance an athletes physical capacities to be able to execute change of direction tasks in a more optimal fashion, as well as, incorporate training methods and modalities that enforce skill execution under perceptual and reaction-based scenarios or settings. This is turn should transfer to sporting competition and assist athlete’s to perform agile, reactive athletic movements with greater competency.

POWER:

Is basically the rate of doing work.  It’s the time or the speed in which we complete work. We usually express power as “Force x Velocity” (or strength x speed). So power is explosive, intense, rapid, and violent. Athletic expressions of power include kicking, punching, throwing, serving, spiking, swinging, jumping, tackling and sprinting.

Power is often associated with an aspect to performance we call: the rate of force development (RFD). The RFD indicates how fast our muscles can produce force. It’s been shown that our power-generating capacity and our ability to produce high levels or power, repeatedly, is an important characteristic to sporting performance. Hence why developing our RFD is crucial to performance. In order to improve our power potential, at CSC we use science and physics, and consider Newton’s laws of motion to develop power.

Newton’s 2nd Law states that Force = Mass x Acceleration, and his 3rd Law states “for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.” As we previously established; Power = Force x Velocity, therefore in order to be a powerful, explosive athlete, to execute a faster sprinting speed, change direction quicker, jump higher or increase punching power, you need to be able to express higher levels of force (strength) at rapid speeds, utilising ground reaction forces. So how do we achieve this? Firstly, we need to grow our muscles, as a bigger muscle has potential to be a more powerful muscle. Then we implement training interventions that target the Force – Velocity (FV) curve. (For an in depth explanation of the FV Curve click here)

At CSC we look at the demands of the sport of our athletes, then program accordingly using a variety of training methods through our programming. We do this by targeting different aspects along the FV Curve. Some of these methods we utilise include; plyometrics, Olympic weightlifting and ballistic training to develop our athletes power producing capabilities.

The application of power is an essential quality to athletes, as it’s been quantified as the key element that separates amateur athletes to professional athletes. The quickest and most powerful athlete will always dominate in sporting situations that involve 1-on-1 confrontations, or during read-react-and-explode scenarios. So it’s a no brainer, that improving athletic power will improve sporting performance.

At CSC we offer a number of on-field, and gym-based, speed, power and agility programs. These programs are aimed at developing greater physical capacities of performance and enhancing the explosive qualities of athletes to execute their sporting skills at a greater and more optimal level.