Congratulations to Ryo Ishikawa for winning the JPGA Munsingwear Cup tournament in Okayama, Japan. He's only 15 years old and already the biggest star on the men's circuit. Ryo and his teammates at Suginami High School in Tokyo have been training with the SpeedChains since the beginning of this year. He said he gained at least 10 yards and was averaging close to 300 yards at this tournament.
Stretching For Speed?
Last month's article focused on the adaptations that occur in muscles due to strength training and endurance training. The effects of that type of training were found to be quite the opposite of common belief. So let's take a look at a few more training methods and then we'll delve into what all research points to as being effective.
As with the previous article here is the key.
- Dragters = fast twitch Type IIb muscles (Fastest muscles)
- Prius = fast twitch endurance Type IIa muscles (Fast but not as fast as Type IIb)
- Mopeds = slow twitch Type I muscles (slow endurance muscles)
Stretching
Stretching might be the most universally accepted exercise in the world. Weight lifters stretch. Runners stretch. Football players stretch. Golfers stretch. Baseball players stretch. Soccer players stretch and so on. Yet, does anyone know what static or proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation (PNF) stretching does to muscles if done over a period of time? Or more importantly, what happens to power performance immediately after stretching? Here are some alarming findings for stretching advocates.
- Power, et al (2005) found that after static stretching significant decreases in torque and force after static stretching, there were significant overall 9.5% and 5.4% decrements in the torque or force of the quadriceps for MVC and ITT, respectively. Force remained significantly decreased for 120 min (10.4%), paralleling significant percentage increases (6%) in sit and reach ROM (120 min). After SS, there were no significant changes in jump performance or PF measures. CONCLUSION: The parallel duration of changes in ROM and quadriceps isometric force might suggest an association between stretch-induced changes in muscle compliance and isometric force output. Torque and force decreases after static stretching. Dynamic warm-ups are far superior.
- Marek, et al (2005) found "Both static and proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation stretching caused similar deficits in strength, power output, and muscle activation at both slow (60 degrees .s) and fast (300 degrees .s) velocities. The effect sizes, however, corresponding to these stretching-induced changes were small, which suggests the need for practitioners to consider a risk-to-benefit ratio when incorporating static or proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation stretching." Strength, power and muscle activation is lower after both static and PNF stretching. PNF stretching isn't the answer.
- Kofotolis, et al (2005) found that PNF stretching causes a decrease in the Type IIb fibers and an increase in Type IIa fibers. PNF stretching causes dragsters to become Prius.
- Nelson, et al (2005) in his study with NCAA Division I track athletes found The BS, FS and RS protocols induced a significant increase (approximately 0.04 s) in the 20 m time. Thus, it appears that pre-event stretching might negatively impact the performance of high-power short-term exercise. Pre-event stretching makes you slower. Resistance or Elastic band training Hostler, et al (2001) found In addition, elastic resistance training caused an increase in the percentage of fibers classified as type IIAB for both men and women, and a decrease in the percentage of type IIB fibers in the men. Resistance band training causes you to lose dragsters.
These are the same types of adaptations found in endurance training or strength training. It isn't really surprising at this point. So what works? Where does the research point us?
Plyometric or Stretch Shorten Cycle Training
- Malisoux et al (2006) studied the effects of plyometric training on muscle fibers. They found several important changes. "Peak fiber force increased by 35% in type I, 25% in type IIa, and 57% in type IIa/IIx fibers." Plyometric training increases force in all fiber types.
- Toumi, et al (2004) studied the effects of varying eccentric phase speed during plyometric training and found that "The results of this study show that when plyometric training is performed with rapid stretch contraction the counter movement jump height increases and the transition phase decreases." Faster loading on the eccentric or knee bend leads to higher jumps. This is probably true with all sports training. The faster, the better.
- Malisoux, et al (2006) studied maximal effort stretch shorten cycle exercises and found, "In conclusion, short-term SSC exercise training enhanced single-fiber contraction performance via force and contraction velocity in type I, IIa, and IIa/IIx fibers. These results suggest that SSC exercises are an effective training approach to improve fiber force, contraction velocity, and therefore power." SSC training improves force, velocity and power of fibers.
- Newton, et al (1997) studied the stretch shorten cycle versus doing concentric only exercise. Here's what they found, "Average velocity, average and peak force, and average and peak power output were significantly higher for the SSC throws compared to the concentric only throws." Translation, doing stretch shorten cycle exercise is much faster and more powerful than doing isolation exercises.
- Finni, et al (2003) investigated the force-velocity relationship of vastus lateralis muscle fascicle and the muscle tendon unit. They found, "In the fascicle level, we did not find an enhanced muscle force in the jumping performances as compared with the classical force-velocity curve. In the muscle-tendon level, the instantaneous force at high muscle-tendon shortening speeds exceeded that extrapolated according to Hill's equation. CONCLUSION: This difference between fascicle and muscle-tendon behavior suggests that the neural input in fast stretch-shortening cycle exercises minimizes the length changes in muscle fascicle and enables storage and recoil of energy from elastic components that contributes to the enhanced mechanical output of the MTU during the push-off phase." For explosive movements, the SSC is at work at the neural and muscle tendon level. It's not just about the muscle.
- Ishikawa, Finni and Komi (2003) also studied the relationship between the muscle fascicle and tendinous tissue of the vastus lateralus. By doing depth jumps and single leg squats they were able to determine the effects of the SSC. They found, "In all DJs, where MTU was stretched prior to shortening, the fascicle and tendinous tissue of the VL also underwent a SSC. The fascicle lengths decreased and the recoil of tendinous tissue increased with increased rebound intensities (P<0.05). The force-velocity curves obtained from the MTU showed the expected force-velocity relationship for SSC activities, demonstrating performance enhancement. However, the increased MTU power during the shortening phase of the movement was due primarily to the enhancement of the tendon compartment." Simply put, muscles AND especially tendons undergo SSC during explosive movements and the increase in power comes mainly from the tendons.
- Almeida-Silveira, et al (1994) found that they could transform slow twitch muscle into fast twitch muscle in rats by subjecting them to stretch shorten cycle training. If SSC training can transform mopeds to Prius and dragsters in rats, there's hope for this occurring in humans. In fact in one study with only four male subjects, this has occurred but of course was deemed to be inconclusive.
- Friedmann, et al (2004) did a study using computer-controlled resistance that overloaded the eccentric phase and concentric phase of the knee extension exercise by 30% of 1 RM. They found, "These results indicate a shift towards a more type II dominated gene expression pattern in the vasti laterales muscles of the CON/ECC-OVERLOAD group in response to training. We suggest that the increased eccentric load in the CON/ECC-OVERLOAD training leads to distinct adaptations towards a stronger, faster muscle." Typical dead weight training is done with a percentage of 1RM of concentric or positive phase in mind. But what we don't realize is that our eccentric strength is higher, therefore the load should be higher on the negative phase is we wish to create a more natural balance of strength that nature designed for us. Having a computer control this overload during training will lead to stronger and faster muscle. However, there is a better way and it doesn't even cost that much.
Most athletes know about plyometrics and already do them. But many trainers insist on a strength base before doing them. In some cases like depth jumps, this would be true. But not all plyometrics were created equal. SpeedChain exercises are all plyometric and can be done by anyone, at any age, and at any strength level.
Sprint Training
Anderson, et al (1994) found that sprint training had a positive effect on muscle fibers. They found, "After training the sprinters revealed a decrease in fibres containing only MHC isoform I and an increase in the amount of fibres containing only MHC isoform IIA." Sprint training decreases mopeds and increases Prius.
Harridge, et al (1998) found that sprint cycle training increases strength. "With the shortening potential of the muscles apparently unchanged, the increased strength of the major lower limb muscles is likely to have contributed to the 7% increase (P < 0.05) in peak pedal frequency during cycling." Sprint training increases strength as well.
Summary
Sport science is beginning to discover that our universally accepted "strength first" training methodology for the past 30-40 years might not be as effective at performance enhancement as we had previously thought. The conventional belief that an increase in strength automatically increases speed needs to be revisited and challenged by the athletes themselves. Since plyometric training continues to be proven to be more effective than strength training for improving performances in explosive sports, it would be great if researchers do more studies in this area.
