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Our company has led the field in performing fitness related makeovers for women. We do this with a scientific approach. Our success ratio is really pretty amazing however, we have yet to find our magic wand! I t does require some dedication and hard work. If you have questions for us, this is a good place to start. If you want to speak privately, you might want to give us a call. We do have a website that is pretty discriptive; www.diazhumanperformance.com or 805-484-1347 Aside from the Makeover work we do, we also provide heart rate specific diagnostics (VO2 max) assessments for endurance athletes. Our Performance Lab is in Camarillo on the Ventura blvd in Old Town.

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Speed is key and we do it best

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Contributed by: Richard Diaz on 5/30/2007

I have often posed the question to many of our clients; "what's the first thing that happens when you have achieved your peak speed. My answer is... you begin to slow down." The reason I ask this question is to shed light on a common fault in speed work, trying to hold speed for too long when "speed" is the desired outcome.

To clarify my point, achieving speed beyond what we are currently capable of producing requires external influence. In track and field it is common practice to run against resistance such as with a bungee cord or while towing a parachute, in both cases the resistance is abruptly released in order for the muscular contractions required to work against or tow the resistance is still in place, in absence of the load which creates a temporary state of "over speed". This is basically a trick played on the central nervous system which is now recruiting muscular involvement that was thought to be needed but suddenly did not.

Another less fancy method of over speed development is simply downhill running. In this scenario the forces of gravity are providing the external force which commands higher leg turnover and in some individuals, greater stride or both. Personally I am not a fan of down hill running for the sake of speed development in that the risk far out weights the potential benefits.

What needs to be realized is that speed production is much more a neural education than that of muscular overload. The brain controls the equipment that musters the rate and force of contractions that in turn, produces this elusive end product. Unlike muscular development, the central nervous system is a quick study, it learns lessons very efficiently, however, the common problem in this learning curve is the confusion we create in our lesson plans. When teaching speed, don't confuse the signals or lesson plan with fatigue tolerance. Trying to maintain pace beyond peak performance where speed is concerned changes the stimulus and eventually even the muscle fibers recruited.

It takes an average of 6 seconds before peak speed begins to degrade, after which, the body requires downtime before attempting to achieve peak speed once again. So, the broad stroke lesson plan should be to create speed, recover well, and replicate the effort. This is a very straight forward message to the central nervous system that speed is your intent and that you respect the associated requirement to allow adequate recovery before attempting another dose.

In our lab we teach speed on a specially designed high speed treadmill while harnessed and partially unweighted. We will instruct a client to jump onto a moving belt at progressive levels of speed which forces a heightened neural acuity and excitation. Once they have mastered the pace provided they are instructed to jump out, recover and await the next level of progression. It is not uncommon to see speeds in excess of 19-20 mph at the peak of these sessions. It is also not uncommon to see several miles per hour improvements in just a matter of a few sessions. Sounds hard to believe? Not when the appropriate influences are presented and respect offered to the requirement of adequate recovery.

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