Plyometric Exercises For Basketball

When you are training to learn to jump higher, be it for Basketball or Volleyball you will need to do plyometric exercises. Before you begin doing them be certain you have a base of strength from doing squats, dead lifts or other strength building workouts for your legs. This strength base is what is required to really get you off the ground and will help prevent injury from doing serious plyometrics.

The reason for doing plyometrics is build explosive strength in the muscles to permit you to not only jump but to do it with explosive power. The strength of the muscle plus the explosiveness will equal power and rapid acceleration. This explosiveness comes from the enhancement in the elasticity and neuromuscular reflexes. Listed below are some plyometric drills you can do.

Squat Jumps: Begin in the squat position with hands behind the head.

Jump upward as high as you can and land into the squat position and instantly jump again. The idea is to land and jump again quickly.

Forward Squat Jump: From the standing position jump up and forward as far as possible and instantly jump forward again keeping the feet on the ground as little as possible.

Single Leg Hop: With right leg in front of the left, push off with right foot into a forward jump. ImmediatelyInstantly upon landing jump again off the right foot and repeat. Change to the left foot and repeat.

Box Jumps: Standing in front of a sturdy box, jump up onto it with both feet or do each leg separately. The height of the box depends on how strong you are. Increase the box height as you get stronger.

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Sprint Training And it’s Main Benefits

Article by James Davis

A really good way to start and improve your physical conditioning is sprint training, it really is one of the better methods out there.It is also one of the better methods because it also takes up less time than many other forms of cardio training.

The great thing about sprint training is the EPOC effect you receive after it or excess post-exercise oxygen consumption, this is basically where your body even after training will still continue to expend many hundreds of calories trying to get the body back to its natural state. So make sure you include some serious hill training to your workout to get the full benefits of EPOC.

Another good benefit of this is that your body will up regulate it’s abilities to produce enzymes that get to work at increasing the storage capacity of the muscle for energy substrates such as ATP.The good side effect to all this is it will allow you to work out even harder and for longer next time without the fatigue kicking in to early, also understand that although this is occurring you are still working on the aerobic side of things, so although very intense, you are still utilizing oxygen, if you weren’t you would only be able to last around 10 to 20 seconds no matter how well conditioned you have become.

Another great benefit you will get with your sprint training is it’s effect on phosphate metabolism. Phosphate creatine stores comprise a major component of the body fuel source for all muscular activity, so obviously anything you can do to increase this will be extremely beneficial.

Myokinase is an enzyme that is responsible for resynthesizing the energy from phosphate creatine, and with sprint training, it will increase its concentration within the muscle tissue by up to 20%. The next adaptation that will occur after you’ve been doing sprint training for a period of time is that of glycolysis. This is the primary form of metabolism used during a 10 second all out sprint and contributes between 55 and 75% towards energy production during exercise.

Phosphofructokinase (PFK), an enzyme that catalyses the phosphorylation of the glycolytic intermediate fructose 6-phosphate), has also been shown to increase when sprint training is performed, along with the enzymes of lactate dehydrogenase and glycogen phosphorylase (other enzymes responsible for the glycolysis system).

Intramuscular Buffering Capacity

Finally, the last adaptation that’s seen with sprint training is the buffering capacity of the muscle. During glycoglysis, various byproducts are created such as lactic acid, and when these accumulate, it causes the extreme feelings of fatigue in the muscle tissues.

This then forces you to stop exercising as the fatigue sets in and often will be the end of your workout.

Overtime, sprint training will increase your ability to buffer these byproducts so that you can then workout for a longer period of time while maintaining that intensity.

So, next time you’re debating about whether to do a sprint training session or a moderate paced cardio session lasting for 40 minutes or so, opt for the sprint session.

The benefits you’ll receive are far more numerous and fat loss will be kicked up a notch as an added benefit. Keep in mind that for these type of benefits to occur, you want your sprints to last somewhere in the neighbourhood of 20 seconds to 40 seconds, with a work to rest ration of about 1:2. Repeat this process a total of 6 to 8 times and begin and end with a five minute warm-up and cool-down.

How to Run Faster in 1 Week!

Article by Bob Brown

How to run faster, that is an issue that has been around forever. People have gone to great lengths in order to get faster such as weight training, running, and unfortunately performance enhancing drugs. Knowing how to run faster is actually more important than the process because one cannot do the process until they understand what they are going to put their body, mind, and heart through.

Many people choose to go to the track and run in hopes of getting faster. Many people choose to go into the weight room in hopes of getting faster. But unfortunately, not only do these people have little direction as far as these methods go, but they are unaware that they are actually programming their bodies to work slower.

Think of a time you have gone to run sprints. You ran the first sprint as hard as you could. Then you ran the second sprint as hard as you could but it was not as fast as the first. Finally, by the time you had finished your third sprint, you were completely winded. The following sprints saw a decrease in speed little by little each sprint, and you began the process of teaching your body to move slower. Why you might ask? The truth is unless you are training maximally, you are getting slower. The more sprints you attempt to run, the slower you are getting. Let’s look at the weight room now. Most people go in the weight room and plan on doing squats or leg press for the lower body. Those are great ideas, but the way 99.9% of people apply those exercises makes them slower. Let’s look at an example. Athlete A is planning on doing squats, three sets of eight repetitions; he does a warm up set and is ready to go. Athlete A chooses a light weight for the first set, builds up weight the second set, and finally is using some heavier weight for the third set. The last few repetitions of the third set were challenging for athlete A and he feels he completed a great lower body workout. But what did athlete A really do? He made himself slower. The only repetitions that were remotely challenging for athlete A were the last few repetitions of the last set! He wasted around twenty repetitions, and because he was not working maximally, those twenty reps really served as a way to make his body slower.

Truly knowing and understanding how to run faster means working from the inside out. You must program your nervous system to go fast with an output of 100% all the time. Although this looks complicated, there is an easy fix to these issues. Using isometrics in the proper position CAN make you faster in as little as one week. Isometrics allow you to always work maximally and always give your 100% effort over and over again. If you perform isometrics correctly within the proper running position for five minutes the outcome will be similar to doing five full minutes of sprinting; imagine what that could do! That is the reason you can see drastic results in as little as one week! To find out more about exercises and routines to get faster using isometrics go to http://how-to-run-fast.com. Good Luck!

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Avoid Injuries From Running – 3 Simple Keys For Distance Runners

In order to improve as a distance runner you must avoid injuries from running. Consistency is the underlying goal of any training program. A distance runner thrives on progressing from week to week and month to month. Whether striving to get faster or go farther, a running injury can put a stop to any progress and begin to lose some of the hard earned endurance and speed. To maintain constant improvement, distance runners can benefit from the following keys to avoid running injuries:

Know your personal limits

Every runner has a different breaking point. The best example of this relates to a runners weekly mileage. Elite runners training volume will often include weeks of 100+ miles. For the everyday distance runner, this volume may be far beyond their limit. Your limit is the point that as you approach your body starts to break down.

For example, each time a particular runner approaches 50 miles in a week, an unannounced injury will pop up setting back their training. With proper training personal limits can be pushed back, but it is best to allow your body time to adjust to levels just below your limits and slowly build up to and then beyond.

Recover Recover Recover

The nature of increasing speed or endurance as a distance runner is based on consistently tearing down your body and slowly improving with each consecutive workout. The only way to steadily get faster and stronger is to allow your body to heal in between runs. This is especially true of speedwork, tempo and long runs. Training creates micro tears in your muscles and recovery allows them to heal themselves and get stronger. Proper recovery helps to repair your muscles.

Without the rest needed to rejuvenate, weakened muscles can swiftly lead to injury.

Identify Your Weak Areas

The body is only as strong as your weakest area. Experienced runners will listen to their bodies to see what areas are “talking” to them before, during and after a run. These talkative areas are generally the weak areas of the body. Once identified, these weaknesses can be targeted through specific exercises to strengthen potential problem areas.

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Three Techniques the Experts Use to Gain Break-Neck Running Speeds

Article by Anthony Sanza

Three Techniques the Experts Use to Gain Break-Neck Running Speeds

Running faster is an excellent goal to have, and it’s one that you can achieve if you work hard enough. But unfortunately, hard work isn’t enough. In order to drastically boost your running speed, you’re also going to need to learn the steps required. To help you get faster and stronger so that you can beat anyone who tries to race against you, here are the top three tips the experts use in order to achieve the kinds of speed that break records and turn heads.

Proper Form

Running faster requires you to keep perfect form. When you maintain the right posture and limb positioning, your body will be in a more efficient mode and you’ll not only run faster but you’ll expend less energy while you’re pushing yourself to achieve faster speeds. The proper form in running consists of relaxed arms, a strong push off and faster cadence. To help you maintain proper form, have a spotter watch you so that you can tweak any areas that need it.

Start Slowly

It may sound funny, but in order to run faster you’re going to need to start slowly. This means building up your aerobic fitness and strength in order to build a solid foundation which you can then build upon with more advanced strength training techniques later on. By starting slowly and working on the areas that need it, you will keep yourself from becoming injured and you’ll be more likely to achieve the ideal fitness level that’s required to win races and championships.

Break Through Your Comfort Zone

Every runner knows that wall you hit when you’ve reached the boundaries of your comfort levels. This is when your lungs and muscles begin to burn and the taste of copper fills your taste buds. But if you hope to run faster than you already do, then you’re going to need to break past that comfort barrier. Only by breaking past your personal comfort zones can you hope to reach your personal best in all that you do. To really break through your barriers, try running up hills, doing speed drills or racing against friends and teammates and try to push yourself just a little bit further each and every time. Even though your body may be screaming for you to stop, you must push on. The more you do, the better you’ll get and the faster your legs will take you across the finish line.

If you try as hard as you can and you still can’t seem to break your personal running speed records, it’s time to put these three tips to good use. If you can manage to keep proper running form, start slowly and break through your comfort zones, you’ll soon discover that boosting your speed isn’t so difficult after all once you know exactly what to do.

Tips for Running Faster

Article by Anthony Sanza

3 Tips for Running Faster That Don’t Require Weights

When searching for ways to get faster, you’ve probably come across dozens of exercises and methods, but most of those involve weights. Everywhere you turn, people are telling you to do squats and leg extensions and all kinds of other workouts that are mostly done in a weight room. But what if you don’t have access to a weight room and you want to get faster? The following three tips for running faster don’t require weights, but they’re very effective at making you ultra-fast in record time.

Stair Running

This is a cheap and easy solution for helping you run faster and, unlike other tips for running faster, you don’t need the resistance of physical weights to keep your body under stress. You only need your own body weight. When you run stairs, you are forcing your legs to drive your body upwards, which is building the muscles in your legs that are responsible for increasing your speed and power. Then, when you run back down the stairs you should try to go as fast as you safely can to increase your foot speed. Do this for 10-20 minutes a few days per week and you’ll become faster in no time.

Lunges

When you get into the lunge position, you are isolating the hip flexors and the hamstrings, which are essential when it comes to the pull and return phases of the running process. Simply step forward as much as you can and make sure your front knee stays over your ankle. Then, with your other leg outstretched behind you, dip down as far as you can and slowly come back up. Do ten reps and then repeat with the other leg.Sprints

Nothing builds speed more than running for speed as much as you can. You should practice sprinting at short distances and at long distances to mix it up. Most athletes will use a combination of short and long distance sprints to prepare them for all scenarios where quick or long-lasting speed may come into play. It’s recommended that you do the same. Some of the best tips for running faster include sprints at 10, 20, 40, 60, 80, 100 and 120 yards. By mixing it up, you’ll be ready to push your speed to the limit no matter how long or hard you have to run.

There you have it: a simple and effective way to help you get to the finish line before everyone else. Speed isn’t something you’re born with and you certainly don’t have to have a certain type of body to be fast. And now you also see that you don’t need weights to increase your speed. You only need to use stair running, lunges and sprints at various distances in order to run faster, longer and harder than anyone on the court or field. Simply incorporate these three tips for running faster into your current training regimen and soon you’ll achieve the speed you’ve always wanted.

www.trainingwitheps.com EPS brings you instruction from current Division 1 Army Football player, Rob Wright, who demonstrates speed training drills and proper running form to improve your speed and help you run faster. Explosive Power & Speed offers speed training products such as parachutes, speed ladders, resistance sleds, hurdles, lateral side steppers, resistance harnesses, cones, balance wobble boards, reaction balls, and much more. We also offer a variety of speed, power, and agility equipment along with instructional videos, workout manuals, and workout plans. Our goal is to provide you with the highest quality and most effective tools to fully develop your God-given athletic potential. By using our products and programs, athletes can increase their speed, agility, explosiveness, power, reaction, quickness, balance, and core strength. All athletes can benefit from our products and programs, regardless of their sports.
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Speed Training Tips

Article by Anthony Sanza

4 Speed Training Tips for Running Faster, Harder and Longer

Whether you’re in track, football, baseball, basketball or you just want to beat your neighbor down the street once and for all at a foot-race, you’re in luck. The following are four proven speed training tips that will have you running faster, longer and harder than any competitor, guaranteed.

Watch Your Arms

What do you do with your arms when you run? If you want to learn one of the top speed running tips, it’s to make sure you are swinging your arms forward when you run. Some people tend to swing their arms across their body. When you do this, you are throwing your body off balance and you’re creating drag, two things you definitely don’t need if more speed is your goal. So make sure you swing your arms in the direction you’re heading if you want to get faster.

Tuck Your Chin

It’s a natural inclination to want to lift your head up when you run. It’s the same reaction people have when they strain to pick up a heavy object. But, again, you’re creating drag and you’re also putting your body into straighter position, which isn’t conducive to running at all. Instead, tuck your chin and keep your body forward and you’ll achieve much greater momentum.

Alternate Your Warm-Ups

The human body is amazing in its ability to adapt to stress. When a bodybuilder lifts heavy weights, for examples, that same bodybuilder will eventually have to increase his load if he wants to keep challenging his muscles. It’s the same with running. If you keep doing the same warm-ups everyday prior to your speed training, your body will eventually get used to it and those warm-up exercises will no longer stimulate your body effectively. And no matter how many of these top speed running tips you use, you’ll never get faster if you don’t warm up your body effectively before training for more speed. Plus, when you don’t warm up and then you try to push your body to the maximum, you leave yourself open to side-line causing injuries, and you definitely don’t want that.

Speed Training

If you are only relying on your normal practice sessions to make you faster, you might be running a slower next season compared to those teammates that spend a little extra time working on their speed training goals. By engaging in various drills a few times per week, you can increase your speed by a tenth of a second or even more. Just imagine blowing your teammates and coaches away because you’re suddenly drastically faster than you were just a few weeks ago. If you have never trained for speed before and you suddenly incorporate these top speed training tips into your normal training routine, you’ll experience that very situation.

Muscle Building Workouts That Increase Speed of Muscle Growth

When it comes to build muscles, muscle building workouts are really important for muscle growth. People make a lot of mistakes in gym while working out and after month or two they do not see any progress, and this is the time when they just give up. That is why here are some basic steps that you should follow when it comes to exercises and weekly workout in gym or at home. The workout I will suggest you works for maybe first month but if you want to get further and get bigger muscles even faster you really should read our full guide.

Before going in gym and just start working on, you should follow this basic tips of muscle building nutrition, because it is really more important than workout. When it comes to nutrition you should eat a lot to feed your muscles which need a lot of proteins to grow bigger faster. You should eat 5-6 times per day, that includes meals which include mostly proteins and carbs with low fat.

You can eat whatever you want, just avoid fast food and eat a lot of meat, eggs, drink water and so on…You can read full nutrition advices and program in our guide.

Now is the time for weekly muscle building workouts. You need to know that going in gym 3 times per week is enough if you do it right. We explain in our guide how you can get bigger muscles with only 3 hours of workout per week which is really amazing if you do not have time for workout.

You should work on all muscle categories, legs, chest, biceps, triceps, shoulders, back…Each day you need to work on two muscle categories and have 3-4 exercises which are specific for each. The main thing you should follow are the ideal concentration during the exercises, lifts should be slow, have around 12-8 reps for each exercise and take 1 minute rest after each routine which you need to have around 3-4.

This is the basic muscle building workouts now what you need to read further are the best exercises which will make your muscles grow like never before.

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How To Increase Reading Speed

There are many people who are never able to derive any joy from reading and for them reading is something that involves a lot of tedium and which is also very difficult to do. For them and for others, learning to speed read can become a necessity as their work or profession may require that they comprehend and read quickly through written material and gain the required knowledge without much difficulty. There are many advantages to learning to speed read and among these advantages is getting real pleasure in reading and also making it a more effortless activity.

Remarkably Quick Reading Abilities

Once you have learned to speed read you will find that you are able to skim through pages and pages of text at speeds that are very remarkable and at the same time you are also able to comprehend the text being read and even retain information without any difficulty.

The better courses in speed reading will even show you how to develop skills to read faster and to also retain and comprehend the matter that you read.

What’s more, after learning to speed read you will start to notice a remarkable increase in the rate at which you read and also comprehend written matter and by diligently practicing the techniques of speed reading you will get through text a lot faster and also retain the subject matter as well.

The first person to develop techniques which could help people to learn to speed read was a researcher turned school teacher named Evelyn Wood whose “Wood Method” that was later rechristened “Reading Dynamics” was a major tool that has helped numerous people learn to speed read.

Since then, there have been hundreds of speed reading courses, books, CDs and tapes as well as even software applications that help in learning to speed read.

However, most of these resources work around a single principal and will show you that speed reading is not a magical thing and nor is it something that people are gifted with. Instead, it means understanding and following a number of techniques as well as skills that everyone can learn and by following these techniques and by learning the skills, anyone can learn to speed read.

If you check out the many resources available today that help you to learn to speed read, you will find that they use testimonials as well as excerpts from certain materials that will help you understand the concept better. Once you get to learn the techniques you will have found the answer to the question ‘how to increase reading speed’ and by applying the techniques and immersing you into reading, your skills regarding speed reading will improve dramatically and thus help you achieve your goals.

You should then make the newly acquired skills a part of your daily routine and thus get pleasure from reading, comprehending and also retaining what you have read in the least possible time.

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Improve Soccer Sprint Speed Training

Article by John Quodomine

Many people, including myself, have wondered how they could increase their top sprinting speed when playing a sport. Well, the most basic answer to “How do I run faster?” is to run fast, over and over. Of course there’s a bit more to it than that and there are variations that help too, but that’s the most basic Idea. One such exercise that fairly simulates gameplay can be done on a track. This exercise will help to improve both speed and conditioning. The basics are simply to sprint the straight-aways and jog slowly around the turns. Just keep in mind for all soccer training to WARM UP and STRETCH before performing any training exercises. Another simple sprinting exercise can be performed on the field. Begin at one endline and sprint to the nearest 18yd line, then jog back to the endline. If you consider yourself a beginner then rest for a total of 45sec. Repeat this 2-3 more times. Then sprint all the way to the 50yd line and jog back. Rest for 75seconds and repeat 2-3 more times. Finally, sprint to the other 18yd line and jog to start, taking 105sec of rest before repeating 2-3 more times. That ends the drill. Remember that the “jog back” is included in the “rest time.”

To supplement your field sprint speed training for soccer, there are also exercises you can do in the gym to build explosive power and improve your sprinting speed. One of my favorite exercises for this is the jump and lunge. This is a great leg exercise that I perform on a regular basis to improve general strength and speed. Another good type of exercise for speed is static holds. There are a number of various ways to perform them with some focusing on several muscles while others isolate specific muscle groups. One such method is to perform a wall squat. A wall squat is done by leaning your back flat against a wall and the moving into a squat position and holding that position for a set period of time. The time held depends on how experienced you are. If you are just a beginner then just try doing it for 30seconds and then moving up from there. Perform 3-4 total sets per session. Just remember that your thighs should be parallel to the floor when you are in the correct position.

The most important thing to keep in mind is to WARM UP and STRETCH to prevent injury. Check out Elite Soccer Power for some tips on injury prevention. Also, Total Soccer Fitness offers some good information for improving soccer sprinting speed.

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