preview

Speed Kills Research Paper

Decent Essays

Speed kills. It's a statement echoed in every team sport and it refers to how the players and teams with quick athletes are hard to stop. This has coaches on the hunt for quick recruits and working hard to improve speed, agility, and quickness (SAQ). In today's discussion I want to explore just a few of the ways an athlete can improve their SAQ. There are a number of elements that contribute to improving SAQ, and they occur on the field, and in the weight room. The first and easiest variable to address is technique. Use form drills as part of the warm up to help establish correct neuromuscular movement patterns. (Dintiman & Ward 2011) Clean and efficient movement patterns contribute to improve stride rate and stride length and eliminate wasted energy. (Dintiman & Ward 2011) …show more content…

Field athletes are bumped, and cut so they rarely hit top speed. Therefore, their technique is going to deviate from ideal and be less of a factor in SAQ. It's in the gym is where the biggest impact can be made. It's here where athletes can improve strength, which, helps improve ground contact force. This is important because athletes who display high linear velocity and playing speed apply the greatest ground contract force. (Dintiman & Ward, 2011) While not directly related to their work in the gym, body composition can be manipulated to obtain a high strength to weight ratio. Extra weight, especially extra bodyfat can make athletes slower. More weight requires the athlete to create more ground contract force to accelerate and maintain speed. For every additional pound of weight, a little more than an extra two pounds of ground contract force is needed with each step. (Dintiman & Ward,

Get Access