Articles

One of the biggest sports legends is Bo Jackson, an athlete who was an excellent football and baseball player in the 80s and early 90s, before a hip injury cut off his athletic career short. His highlights were memorable, gunning down runners with a rocket arm, running up walls to make amazing catches, and rushing out of the stadium on Monday Night football against Seattle. Tied to his legendary status, was his infamous 40 yard dash time, reportedly 4.12. But did Jackson actually run sub 4.2 seconds. Here is some compelling data to answer that question.

This article is an overview of the methods and devices for measuring the efficiency and effectiveness of the aerobic system, heart rate monitoring strategies, resting heart rate, heart rate variability (HRV), heart rate recovery analysis, and the TRIMP training load for team sports.

Self-myofascial release and foam rolling have become extremely popular. This article includes a taxonomy of myofascial measurement techniques and physiological responses to better quantify the effects on sprint performance.

In this article we explore a taxonomy of plyometrics, a review of take off and landing types, athlete career development considerations, and track season periodization.

A goal of this article is get right to the heart of the matter, using jump training to improve the outcomes of speed and power programs in sport, specifically track and field and team sports that involve running and jumping. Most of the information included here is coming from big names and some less known individuals who I feel are successfully designing workouts that involve selective application of explosive exercises.

For most coaches, plyometrics are an enigma. We know that plyometrics improve performance, but there is so little information available that we don’t know how plyometrics do what they do. Information on the value plyometrics have specifically for speed development is especially sparse, outside a few studies on acceleration. Even a solid definition of plyometrics is hard to nail down because the handful of experts on the topic use differing terms to label various jumping exercises.

Looking at world record and Olympic medalists, a clear pattern exists with velocities and jumping performances. And the pattern clearly indicates that speed matters.

A frequently asked question is how fast athletes in sports apart from track and field, where the precision of timing is well established, really are. Other vitals, such as height and weight, are readily accepted, but benchmarks on speed in field sports are viewed with skepticism given the problems with timing accuracy and achieving common-ground testing.

For years we have heard the phrase relax and win, where relaxing is heralded as the secret to speed, to winning. Relaxation is essential. But what facilitates relaxation when sprinting at speed? The answer may be rhythm, a lesser-known quality that may be more important than we think for speed. In this article, we will explore what rhythm is and what we can do in training to improve it.

Ignoring the rise of popularity of CrossFit is impossible now that thousands of gyms, or what is referred as boxes are all over the world. What started out in Washington fourteen years ago is now a major factor in group exercise, and many similarities to general preparation training in sport and CrossFit. You don't have to be an elite athlete or even CrossFit participant to learn how to add Freelap timing to your training.

Thinking of hosting a combine to raise money or awareness of your facility? Testing athletes is growing and it doesn't take much to get started. With good planning and follow-through, high school teams can use combine testing, evaluating a player's athletic abilities, easily with some old fashioned word of mouth and having the right people involved.

Does speed and power matter in baseball? It sure does. In this article we take a look at the baseball specific research on performance and see how the player speed still maters at all levels. With a critical review of the available research, we have a clear understanding of investing into training that helps develop speed, and how fast one needs to be to have major league speed.