Speed Kills

By: Jeff Cathrea, B.Sc. Kinesiology

Jeff Cathrea (B.Sc. Kinesiology), a former Simon Fraser University Clansmen field lacrosse all-star has developed Catch 22 La-X-Training & Conditioning, a lacrosse specific strength, speed and conditioning program for box and field lacrosse athletes.

Remember the anti-speeding ad campaign "Speed Kills"? These ads were used to remind people to slow down while driving. Well, in the sport of lacrosse, these ads certainly ring true, speed does kill, it kills your opponent. So how does an athlete get fast if they are not naturally blessed with blinding speed or lightning fast quickness? The answer lies in your SAQs.

Speed, agility and quickness (SAQ) drills are exercises that train the neuromuscular system to activate your fast twitch muscle fibers. Your nervous system needs conditioning the same way your muscular system or aerobic system needs training. By developing your nervous system to become more efficient, essentially what you are doing is teaching your body how to activate its full potential of muscle fibers for a specific movement. Once your body is able to turn on all the muscle fibers of a muscle body, the movement is going to become much more efficient as a direct result of increased nervous system activation. This increased efficiency will lead to increased speed, a quicker first step and lightning fast reflexes.

So how does one effectively train the nervous system? The golden rule for developing speed and quickness is this: "In order to get fast, you must train fast." This may sound very simplistic (and it should), however, many athletes fail to adopt this strategy while speed training. Consider this, if athletes need to perform each drill to the fastest of their current athletic potential, then how long should each maximal effort last for? To answer this it is important to realize which energy system is responsible to fuel fast twitch muscle fiber activation.

The first energy store used in explosive movement is creatine phosphate (PCr). This energy source is stored in muscle cells and is burned up in approximately 4-10 seconds of explosive activity. Therefore, any movement pattern that is designed to be concentrated on increasing speed should not be performed any longer than 10 seconds. This does not sound like a long time, but consider that most elite level lacrosse players take less than 10 seconds to sprint the full length of the floor! Because it takes approximately 2-2.5 minutes for the body to naturally replenish the PCr stores, rest time should follow a 1:12 to 1:20 work (exercise) to rest ratio. The number of sets of movement patterns will depend on the current fitness level of each athlete, but can range from 5-12 sets of 4-10 seconds of movement. Speed training can be implemented 3-5 times a week into regular training sessions or practices.

What types of exercises can I use to train speed? Essentially the answer lies within your (or your trainerÕs) imagination. Find out which movement patterns you are performing slow while playing and mimic these movements in explosive 4-10 second intervals. The movements should start out basic to begin with by using both feet or hands (for example, a side to side bounding motion), leading to more complex patterns where the bounding distance can increase and finally progressing to single foot or hand patterns. Finally, it is important to remember the golden rule of speed training when implementing speed drills into workouts or practice. "In order to get fast, you must train fast". So make sure these drills are done directly after warm up at the beginning of your training session of practice not at the end as to achieve the full speed potential of each movement.

By following my recipe for speed, not only will you develop blazing speed, awesome lateral movement and blinding quickness but you will become trained assassins, killing your opponents with speed.

Sweat Box : Congratulations to Catch 22 team member Trent Smalley on being selected 8th overall by the Maple Ridge Burrards in the 2004 WLA entry draft. Watch for the inaugural launch of Catch 22 College Identification field lacrosse and strength and conditioning campsÉcoming in early August 2004! Remember to log onto www.catch22lax.com to find information on strength and conditioning, online training, lacrosse news and much, much more. Log on today to become the fastest player on two feet. Don't just train... La-X-Train!