We must break down these three phases of the stretch-shortening cycle and work towards increasing speed by becoming more efficient and explosive with our movement-CHAPTER TWO: CONQUERING AMORTIZATION
At the beginning, we went through a three week progression of movements that I felt were prerequisites towards acquiring skills for speed training. Some of the things I wanted to accomplish were having a progressive warm up, lifting exercises to revive and strengthen hip mobility and ability, and one of the more important things…reactive strength. The more appropriate way to define this reactive strength, though, is by identifying it as the “stretch-shortening cycle”. The pre-stretch, or ‘countermovement’ action is known as the stretch-shortening cycle (SSC) and is comprised of three phases: eccentric, amortization, and concentric (Walker, 2016). When we lift weights, we are working through these three phases, but to become stellar and dynamic athletes, we must break down these three phases and work towards increasing speed by decreasing the time it takes to move from an eccentric stretch to concentric contraction. We want to decrease the timeframe of the amortization phase to help generate quicker movements, to improve speed and ability amongst the competition.
In between the eccentric load and the concentric contraction is the phase known as “amortization”. This phase is the “turnover” to which the muscle can take the eccentric load and shift back to a concentric contraction to build a countermovement. Let’s break down the stride, for example. When you take your leg and touch the ground, your leg takes the load and begins to stretch during an eccentric phase. Once your body is ready to transition from accepting the load and delivering it, that eccentric stretch will shorten and cause a concentric contraction which will allow you to extend your legs and progress forward into your next stride. What separates individuals from being slow to fast is how they are able to quickly transition between loading and shortening, meaning having a shorter amortization phase. It’s not only about how fast amortization can occur, but how powerful the shortening contraction can be as to generate more force and increase the distance that it extends from.
Below, you will see a list of movements that we start off with, and how it develops over the course of the workout:
When looking at the prescribed exercises, we see a progression from a warm up, strength movements, and building back into sprint specific exercises to help apply more specificity to the training session. At first we use the jump rope and ladder drills to instill a quick turnover, preparing our lower limbs for dynamic activity that is to come. Afterwards, I go through a series of resistance exercises to help get the hips strengthened through very specific movements. I really enjoy working the Hip Elevated Hip Flexion exercises using a band. The band should be placed around the toes so that while the lifters hips are elevated, the lifter pulls the opposing knee to their chest while keeping the toes flexed throughout this movement. What this is doing is having the hips extended to engaged the extensors, the knee flexed to engaged the hip flexors, and the toes having a band placed for incorporating a continuous isometric hold for improving the strength in the ankles and the anterior tibialis. A lot is being accomplished within one movement, and strength coaches should utilize these concepts to build efficient workouts that don’t take long and get the job done.
Another resistance movement I love is the Horizontal Band SL RDL with Sprinter Form. This movement gets the hips to work on extension in movement, as well as balance and stability in the working limb. Again, we are seeing the law of specificity in play, working to increase speed in a movement that looks very similar to a sprinting movement as well. To complement the resistance, we do dynamic movements through another warm up and then through “wall drills”. The wall drills are placing the athlete against the wall, leaning in a straight line at about a 60-50 degree angle. During this exercise, the lifter brings one knee up, while the opposing limb is on the ground with a partially lifted heel to keep their lower body engaged. The wall drills can be done with a one count, two count, three count, or even rapid fire. Both arms can be placed on the wall for a beginner, but an advanced athlete can keep one arm off the wall to work contralateral movements to help the athlete learn to swing the arm in a correct fashion to deliver more appropriate speed.
Once this is done, I like to do some plyometrics to help work on reactive strength, and just as mentioned earlier, working to decrease the amortization phase in order to deliver quick transitions for the stretch shortening cycle. To do this, I do depth jumps to help understand how to land appropriately, then do depth jumps to vertical jumps, broad jumps, knee tucks, box jumps, anything that’ll require the legs to rebound of the ground and not only build quick movements, but strong movements so that’ll transfer to better stride movements that are quick, explosive, and strong enough to cover more distance.
As we continue forward, I will be looking to incorporate more specificity, and more rigorous movements to help employ continuous growth in speed that’ll harvest itself into a strong, vicious, and quicker individual that’ll be able to pounce on their prey and dispose of any insubordinate scum that linger the streets at night. Who said harvesting strength didn’t incorporate speed?
Citations:
Walker, O. (2016, January 23). Stretch-Shortening Cycle. Retrieved from https://www.scienceforsport.com/stretch-shortening-cycle/