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September 25, 2011

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An Intro on How To Run Faster

Hey, Damian here. I’m going to give you advice on speed training based on my own personal experiences as a basketball player. I want to share with you my story of how I went from being a slow athlete to a very quick one. I’ll tell you this story over my next few blog posts. If you have any interest in this transformation at all, then this story will definitely be worth your while.

Wondering how to run faster?

If you’re anything like me, you’ve asked yourself the question of how to run faster. And if you’re anything like me, then you’ve been consistently disappointed with the supposed answers you’ve found to this question. In my quest to become a quicker athlete, I’ve encountered disappointment after disappointment. In my experience over time, nearly every speed training program I’ve found had left me with merely “average speed”—or even worse, I was actually slow compared to many other athletes. It was enough to make me wonder whether the others simply possessed some inborn talent which I lacked. Needless to say, I found myself in an extremely discouraging position.

An overview of speed training

But after a long series of failures through trial-and-error, I came upon a methodology which enabled me to overcome my slowness and become the sort of athlete I always wanted to be. After learning how to run faster, I wondered how I ever got the idea that others might have a “natural” advantage over me, because this thought seemed so absurd after I discovered success. Over the next couple posts, I’d like to outline my program for how to run faster for your benefit. By figuring out a proper speed training method, I went from being a mediocre athlete to a college-level basketball player. If you’d like to undergo this transformation yourself, then please keep reading. 

September 27, 2011

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How To Run Faster: A Breakthrough

I’ve always been a rather talented athlete, but the one thing I’ve always lacked is speed. But as any athlete would know, this a really a devastating weakness. I understood this, which is why I was desperate for a speed training program which could really address my problem of how to run faster. But like I said in my last post, all the programs I encountered were deeply problematic: either they addressed the wrong kind of speed, or else they seemed wonderful on paper but had no real effects when applied in the real world.

A personal discovery about speed training

Then it occurred to me: I should know my own body better than anyone else, so I could develop a program for myself based on the signals I perceive from my body. In short, I decided to bank on my intuition, because nothing else seemed to be working anyway. This seemed like a somewhat desperate move; but on the other hand, it also seemed like the most obvious thing in the world. I realized that it was very dogmatic of me to listen to programs which obviously had no relevance to my own problem, so I would develop a functional program for myself. I would figure out how to run faster by testing different things, keeping what worked, and throwing out what didn’t. In other words, I would be a scientist.

The problem of how to run faster: solved

It didn’t take me long to notice the miraculous effects of my efforts as a scientist. I was clearly becoming faster than ever before, and it seemed so simple that it was difficult for me to understand how the coaches hadn’t thought of this before. It was all about discarding dogma, and following my body’s intuition. And then it occurred to me that since most human bodies are basically the same, this sort of methodology would probably work for others, too. I’ll write more about some specific speed training techniques in the following posts.

September 29, 2011

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Speed Training: Two Different Kinds of Speed

As promised last time, I’m going to speak to you about how to run faster, on the basis of my own experiences. But first, it’s important to make one conceptual distinction: there’s a difference between linear speed and non-linear speed.  Depending on what kind of athlete you are, one or the other kind of speed will be much more important for you.

How to run faster: linear vs. non-linear speed

You see, the methods on how to run faster for track and field athletes don’t transfer well to athletes in other sports, because the skill needed for each type of athlete was fundamentally different. Meaning: If my goal is to get faster as a basketball player, then the speed training methods of a sprinter simply won’t work for me, because that wasn’t the skill I needed at all. This is because a sprinter needs linear speed, whereas as a soccer player I would need non-linear speed. In other words, a runner of the 100m dash needs speed in a straight line only, whereas as for soccer I would need speed that could sustain across jolts and changes in direction. These are very different skills; as such, different methods are required for each kind of speed training.

A non-linear speed training technique

If you’re interested in how to run faster in terms of non-linear speed—like I am—, then one exercise which works really well for me is the “weave in/weave out” drill. To carry out this exercise, you’ll need a few cones. First you set some cones in a straight line ahead nine feet apart; then, inbetween these cones, you set up another row nine feet to one side of the first row. You should end up with a zig-zag formation. Now you sprint from one cone to next in this zig-zag pattern, tagging each cone when you reach it. You can also try sidestepping to the cones, keeping your body facing forward at all times. This is a great technique for how to run faster non-linearly, because it takes many dimensions of speed into account. I’ll write about more such techniques in my next post.

October 1, 2011

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More Speed Training Techniques

Last time, I noted the difference between linear and non-linear speed, and then I talked about one non-linear speed training exercise which has worked extremely well for me. I’ll talk about a couple more techniques here. These will be geared toward non-linear speed again, because as an aspiring basketball player, this is the sort of speed training which has been the most important to me.

Speed training: alternating starts

In a sport such as basketball or soccer which requires non-linear speed, acceleration is absolutely critical, because there’s a lot of starting and stopping. This requires a different kind of ability than the speed of, say, a marathon runner, who simply needs to continue at a sustained velocity indefinitely. The alternating starts drill addresses this difference, and it has been very important in my speed training efforts. What you do is put yourself in various positions, and then accelerating fast in various directions by pushing off with your limbs. For example, you could sit down on your hands and then use the pushing-away momentum of getting up in order to practice acceleration. Or you could even lie down flat on your face, and try to get into a functional stance and speed fast from this position. This may sound silly at first, but it’s remarkably effective method for how to run faster in terms of immediate acceleration.

Speed training: bounding

Another speed traing technique which has been very useful to me specifically as a basketball player involves carrying out an exaggerating running motion. To do the speed training exercise of bounding, you need to push off with one foot, and then thrust that whole leg forward. At the same time, you push forward the other arm—the one not on the same side of your body as your leg. Then you do the same thing with the other side of your body. This is excellent for getting your feet familiar with handling contact with the ground properly. This is a very concrete skill, obviously. In my next post, I’ll go into some aspects of how to run faster which have a more abstract feeling to them. But they’re in no way less important.

October 3, 2011

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Meta Physics On How To Get Faster

As I’ve said before, I figured out some crucial speed training techniques by following my body’s intuition. I’ll share some of the more arcane insights I gleaned from my methods now. These aren’t specific techniques per se, but if you keep these principles in mind like I have, then they’ll naturally filter into broader speed training program. I can honestly say that they’ve done wonders for me, and I feel that I’ve found a satisfactory answer to my question of how to run faster.

Speed training advice

One thing to keep in mind is that our bodies “leak” out their powers sometimes through extraneous and inefficient movements. So, one important aspect of speed training would be to keep this energy contained, because it can then be channeled into running faster. In order to stop this leakage, it’s important to use techniques which will stiffen your muscles and tendons. Maybe I’ll go into the details of this later; in this context, it’s the principle of it that matters.  Once I tuned in properly, I literally felt my body wasting energy. And I went about stopping this waste as effectively as I could.

Another speed training tip

Relatedly, real speed training involves smoothing out the “flow” of our movements, so to speak. By developing the smoothness of the body’s movements, a lot of wasted energy is preserved and redirected towards productive efforts. This may sound a little mystical—sort of like the doctrines of “tai chi.” But this idea of smoothness simply reflects basic physics. The principle itself is very simple, but it has radical consequences when systematically applied within the context of a speed training program.

I’ve reached the end of this vignette. These are some techniques which have been great help in my journey of how to run faster. I hope I’ve managed to inspire you to look further into this subject.