Archive for May 8th, 2009
Saturday
Alsion B, Fast!
Speed the ability to minimize the time cycle of a repeated movement. Dynamax. There is a simpler understanding of speed though; the time it takes move between two points. Whether this be your hands from over your head to the floor when executing a burpee or the time it takes to move your whole body from the start to the finish of a 5km run. The less time it takes to move between two points the lower the time cycle of any movement. How do we train speed?
Speed is trained physiologically quite similar to power in that the faster we practice the recruitment of the muscles required the faster they will move our limbs our body weight or the weight we suspend from them. There is also another element to speed and this requires practice.
Neurologically we can develop speed through practicing and developing more efficient movement patterns. Practicing a more efficient running technique will make you run faster over distance developing a streamlined burpee with no flailing arms will allow you to complete more burpees in a shorter time. Technique is a much more efficient way to increase speed.
It comes down to two things for us as CrossFitters proper technique will increase our speed in timed WODs but more importantly proper techniques will prevent us from injury what good is a super fast deadlift with a round back is only good for injury. The second issue with technique is it makes our efforts honest and measurable and repeatable. A soft floppy core in a burpee might allow you to peel yourself off the floor and make the burpee easier and faster but is it really a burpee. Doing half depth dips and pushups might be faster but did you honestly set a PB on Cindy? So remember speed is a matter of techniques as well as time. Be honest be safe and you’ll never need to justify or explain your efforts to yourself or others.
TODAY’S WOD
Pain Storm for May
AMRAP (As Many Rounds As Possible) in 30 minutes of:
7 Deadlifts (85kg)
7 KTE (Knees to Elbows)
7 Burpees
Remember scale your weight if you can’t do 85kg safely. Also substitute situps for KTE if you can’t do knees to your elbows. Or have a recordable measure of how high you are getting your knees so you can maintain the same standard throughout and compare it to next time you to KTE.
Friday: Rest Day
It's all in the timing.
Some of us would be familiar with the equation for power that coach has mentioned from physics. That is P= W/t, power is equal to the amount of work done divide by the amount of time it took to do that work. For us as athletes this work is in terms of the work our bodies or our muscles can do in a period of time. For us as CrossFitters it’s about increasing our power output and wor capacity across broad time and modal domains. The Dynamax definition of Power is “the ability of a muscular unit, or combination of muscular units, to apply maximum force in minimum time.”
We can see then that the faster the time to complete a certain amount of work the higher the power output. Fast is powerful. Time is critical in this formula of power as the we can more significantly increase our power output by decreasing the time than we can by increasing our work. Two classic examples are the Olympic lifts the Snatch and the Clean and Jerk. Now there are innumerable ways to move a weight from the ground to overhead. You could deadlift it, reverse curl it up and then press it overhead. With the Olympics lifts we need speed to execute this lifts to get our bodies underneath the bar, this speed is what increases the power output of our bodies and muscles in these lifts. Now the important thing with developing power is not necessarily the speed of the movement but the speed of the muscle recruitment.
When moving with maximum weights it is quite difficult to move at maximum speed. This, however, does not diminish the power generating capabilities of these exercises. The speed of the muscular recruitment or speed the muscles are contracted is the important factor in power generation. So while the weight may be moving relatively slow we a training a significant neuro-muscular response. So when our muscles are required to generate power at sub-maximal efforts they will be able to fire off in the correct sequence and with maximal speed creating the power we desire.
So don’t get too caught up in the speed of your lifts when you’re working at max. weights just like our 1RM (one rep max) it’s going to be a slow movement despite how fast we’re trying to move that weight.
So remember as CrossFitters this power training is important to our training and increasing our work capacity and one of the best ways to train this is with Olympic lifts so get under a barbell today if you’re not resting.
