The difference between catching and missing that long touchdown pass (or the train for your morning commute) comes down to only seconds and inches, but can end up costing a lot more. Put some hustle behind your muscle and improve your overall speed with these easy and quick tips from the experts at?Life Fitness?and Fitness Town.
Do Strength Training. View your body as an engine: more horsepower means quicker acceleration and faster speeds overall. Focus on building strength throughout your lower body with calf raises, squats, lunges and leg presses and pay special attention to your hip flexors. Powerful hip flexors will improve your range of motion and are the key to sprinting faster. Try the Dual Adjustable Pulley machine for single leg and balance work. In addition to your lower body, strengthening your core will improve your speed, balance, and agility by fortifying the connection between the muscles of the upper and lower body.
Do Plyometrics. Plyometric training involves high-intensity, explosive muscular contractions, which enables your muscles to exert maximum force in the shortest amount of time possible, thereby improving your speed. Pre-stretch your muscles and then harness their maximum force by utilizing jumping, bounding, and hopping movements. Jumping jacks, split jumps, squat jumps and box jumps will torch calories and build lean muscle while helping you log faster times.
Do Intervals. Amp up your overall speed with interval training, which alternates short, high intensity bursts of speed with slower recovery phases in a single workout. Interval training will enhance your cardiovascular capacity (the ability to deliver oxygen to the working muscles) and ultimately leads to increased acceleration and speed.
Put on the Brakes. Speed is more than just a mad, reckless dash. As an athlete, maintaining control over your movements and agility is paramount to your performance. You can?t stop and turn on a dime with your legs flailing wildly beneath you, right? The key to slowing down is to have flexible legs, bent knees and lowered hips. Staying low will occur naturally if you are strong enough. Practice flexibility training multiple times per week. Warm up before workouts with dynamic movements and cool down with static stretches.
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About Dai
Growing up as an obese teenager, I learned firsthand what its like to be "un-healthy". It's not a place I enjoyed being and experiencing all the stigmas that come with being obese was traumatic. At age 15 I made a decision to change my lifestyle. And for 18 years, I haven't looked back. Fitness is, and always will be, a large part of my life. My passion is to engage as many people as possible in living healthy, more active lifestyles. With increasing obesity rates and a lack of focus and education on preventative medicine, our country is facing a health pandemic. The solution starts with parents modeling a healthy active lifestyle for children to follow. We all need to be inspired and held accountable to our fitness goals. My commitment is to provide inspiration, education, equipment and training ? specifically supporting families ? so that childhood obesity is no longer an issue in our country. As Chief Operating Officer and partner of Fitness Town Inc, I oversee the daily operations of 8 retail stores and 2 commercial divisions. Raised in Bowmanville, Ontario, I now live with my 2 children and loving wife, Christie, in Vancouver, B.C. With my spare time, I'm an active member of the Whiterock Early Edition Toastmasters organization and 2 other clubs, and when not honing my public speaking skills, I live out my passion for writing and sharing best health and fitness practices as the editor of the Fitness Town Health & Wellness Blog and The Moose is Loose.michael phelps Kerri Strug Ledecky Nadia Comaneci Rebecca Soni Snoop Lion London 2012 Table Tennis
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