How To Become Faster Immediately, PT.2 | Sports Performance | The Fit Facility
How To Become Faster, By Improving Posture & Position PT.2
Below is a detailed breakdown on a recent Instagram post regarding linear acceleration.
Linear acceleration is the purest form of speed. How fast you can start, and accelerate to top end sprinting speeds. In most field/court sports, athletes won’t reach top end speeds every play. Which is why it’s even more important to have a strong base for acceleration.
Here the athlete is noticeably faster in the second video than the first. But why? We didn’t improve strengthen just a few minutes, so how is the athlete faster?
We created more efficient movement patterns.
A large part of initial acceleration is simply being in the most efficient and effective position.
**Detailed breakdown of technical flaws, and reasons why choosing the correct strategy can make you faster below**
Flaw #1
The athlete chooses a strategy with both his arms in front of him. This is very common amongst athletes of all ages. Another common variation of this, having the wrong arm/leg forward. For example, left leg up/left arm up. When an athlete chooses this strategy, they have to self correct on the first step on acceleration. One’s CNS does this for them. However, it’ll put an athlete a step behind simply because they have to “fix” the coordination of the arms/legs.
So by simply starting in the correct arm/leg position, we eliminated the need to self correct on the first step.
Flaw #2
The athlete’s center of mass (COM) was too high, and/or the first leg is not loaded enough. This causes the athlete to take a repositioning step to create a more advantageous angle for the initial acceleration push off. Just like in lateral acceleration, this isn’t something that you would want to “coach out” of an athlete, but rather have them start in a better position (lower COM, more weight on the front leg) so they can immediately put force into the ground for acceleration.
By employing some corrective strategies, this athlete was 1 full step faster than he previously was!