The BIG Myth About Speed And Explosiveness!

Where’s the video?

Makes sense. At what age should we allows youngsters to do these types of lifts for speed and strength? When I was younger I would push a camaro around the block to strengthen my legs, and it worked. For speed I would run up mountains and drag tires tied by rope around my shoulders up small hills. I had a great first step and had speed, but not the killer break-away speed I wanted for football. Can this do that for my kids? They are 9 and 11.

I also have an invention I am working on I would like to show you when I get a patent on it. It deals with jumping and squat work.

Thanks for all you do. Sincerrely, Bill…

Hi Alex I am particularly happy that you referred to Dr. Fred Hatfields old training principle. That is, for sure, a corner stone for power training and clearly shows that despite your occasional lapse to immature presentation mode you have some serious message to convey.

@Kari, LOL. Immature? Really?

Doc Squat is a pioneer, no doubt about it.

@CJ, nothing man? What browser are you using? Grrrr..

Alex, the video problems has something to do with Flash. I see nothing in Firefox 3.6.3, but in IE 8 I get told to download the latest Flash plugin.

Hey Alex,

can´t see the video on firefox on mac but on safari

alex,

great stuff !! keep presenting your way and don’t worry about the HATERS talking about your presentation. the main thing is that high school kids buy into your training methods.

Hey Man, thanks for the transmission of learning…I feel smarter now.

On the real great job on the video, keep it coming!

Interesting video. The concept that “speed” of primarily genetic I think is just a little short sighted. There are so many facets to speed development ,i.e. mechanics, posture, reactive strength, etc, with genetics being only a part of that.
The stength component, as you mentioned, is extremely important especially for the younger athletes. How you develop that strength is extremely important as well. Perhaps rather than assigning arbitrary numbers for strength and speed values, you could develop some sort of test program like the FMS by Gray Cook.
Keep up the good work.

Sorry Alex but I can’t view the video either, as a matter of fact I can’t view any of the videos on your site. I’m using Mozilla Firefox as a browser.

Great info. I’m already familiar with the concept but it is always good to be reminded that the majority of the time your in the weightroom you should be focusing on strnegth.

The video doesn’t work on Mozilla, but it does with Internet Explorer.

A jump program I did a few years ago used CAT (moving lighter weight at a faster speed for a certain amount of time) – Tim Grover’s ATTACK Athletics program. Unfortunately, the program ultimately didn’t work for me, but I’ll try to incorporate this concept into FIF.

And the random pictures and sounds with this video is great. Reminds me of a mix Family Guy with some Mark Titus humor (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5V6FCitvRUM) Not the least bit immature!

Thanks Alex!

Helpful video. but is there a way to improve strength without using weight? since due to certain circumstances i cant go to gym

Greetings Alex,

I am getting my sons ready for track and football season. Strength is the way to go.i am implementing a system for them now, do you have any suggestions?
,

Great video Alex!..I realized that in order to get faster, i needed to get stronger so i learned the CAT training from your video.

Thanks a lot,

Manny

hey alex, great stuff you got here. i been realizing that most of the stuff you talk about in your videos are what Jacob Hiller, author of the Jump Manual, preaches. sometimes its liek his manual is rite there infront of you and your just reading off of it hahaha. rite now i feel good that my vertical program supprts everything your saying and guess what? i gained 4 inches in my vertical in my first week of training. this is not BS or anything like that. i used to have a 24 inch vertical now i have a 28 inch vertical. pretty crazy, eh? yea i’m Canadian

Great video, It is very true so many athletes do not understand the concept of being explosive and what it really means. As a sprinter, I have been blessed with a lot of the natural speed but I need to make huge strength gains to continue getting faster.

We’re working on the video issues right now ya’ll! It seems that people using Firefox can’t see it, but Safari and Internet Explorer work just fine, so if you have one of those, give that a shot for now.

But, we gon’ solve this bad-boy!

@Michael, I don’t know if you’re being sarcastic (if you are, way to go, sarcasm is a 10 on the awesomeness scale), but good-looking gym…Big E must be proud.

@Craig, no doubt duder. The speed I’m talking about is in reference to the ability to rapidly express strength in the presence of significant forces, like bodyweight in a sprint or jump. A lot of it has to do with genetics, rate coding, hormonal status and current state of arousal.

FMS is a killer tool too man.

@Matt @Josh @Manny thanks man! I’ll keep it up for ya!

@Patrick, Titus is a cool dude man. But don’t you mean his humor reminds you of Alex Maroko?

@Anh, I’ve talked a lot about bodyweight training on here man. Here’s 2 good posts that should help you out:

http://gamespeedinsider.com/access/athletes-bodyweight-training-and-exercises-in-cancun

-AND-

http://gamespeedinsider.com/access/youth-athletic-body-weight-training

@Asar, I got a great deal for everyone on a great weight training program for athletes last week man called Triple Threat Muscle.

There’s tons of info on setting up a program in old posts here too, have some fun, dig around!

@Omer, maybe he invented a simple time machine, went into the future, downloaded my videos and then transcribed them into his manual. Definitely wouldn’t put it past anyone…did you see how good the hand-writing was on that white board? I’d copy these videos too…heh.

That was it! Thanks for the help Alex and everyone!

Great vid alex appreciate it. we do the exact same thing in the jump manual. kind of the same principles.

thank you now i can understand why i feel like im only getting bigger and not faster…

Hi Alex,
Great job providing sound training principles. I especially appreciate your sense of humor. People are always looking for cutting edge information. Which is good, however, we should never get away from fundamentals like strength. Thanks. God bless.

I thought it was great, that strength will help the explosiveness . . . in my case I want to dunk so my vertical – but if I focus on the CAT while strength training I’ll get way more bang for my training time.

Keep up the good info Alex! BTW if the Flying in Four ever goes on sale again I’ll buy it. What are the main improvements I’ll see on it versus the Vertical Jump Bible which I bought a few years back?

No doubt about it Paul!

@Galen, CAT is where it’s at for explosiveness!

The big difference between FIF and VJB is that one is more of a manual on how to jump higher (VJB) and the other is entirely RESULTS-BASED and is only specific workouts to RAPIDLY increase your vertical jump.

It uses a lot of new strategies and tricks Kelly’s discovered the last few years since VJB came out.

And @Theo @Jaber @Cj, thanks for the words. Get in the gym and make stuff happen!

Nice…my kids are currently doing crossfit for strength/conditioning and catz for speed…i think you are right on the money with your assessment…

Alex, loved the video. I just want you to come out with a video about muscle stabiltiy so I can become more resilent to injury

when i lift as fast as i can does that include the ecentric and concentric portions or just one?

Great video Alex. I agree its important to lift fast for explosiveness. I’m going to be going to the gym in about three hours, so I’ll implement this into my vertical training. Thanks for the info. If I’m gonna to ever dunk on a ten foot rim as a 5’7 teenager, then I’m gonna to have to be extremely explosive. I’m 126 pounds so I was wondering how I much I need my max squat to be to have a chance at dunking? Currently I can get to a nine foot rim with the ball, but I can’t put it in. So, my running vertical is about 29 inches. Do you have any tips? Thanks for doing this Alex…I appreciate it.

Alex you always have accurate up-to-date information posted on site and I just want to show my gratitude for such knowledge because it has helped me to effectively improve my foundation

hey Alex,

Great video!

one question when lifting the bar ( squat ) for an example, do i lift fast or explosively for the eccentric or concentric phase or both.

well written blog. Im glad that I could find more info on this. thanks

a great vidio there alex, loving the advice and humors, its all good. cheers bud i will take this into the gym and get as much out of it as i possibly can!

THANKS bro I will do this in the gym, and it really does makes sence, Great Vid.

Good stuff Alex. I think u mentioned this before not to sure though. thanks for the CAT info…

it’s a good video but do you have like an example of the exercises we should do and how to do it with CAT?

Hey Alex, as a fellow Trainer and aspiring strength and conditioning coach, CAT principle can spark a few questions, I know from going through the now outdated and seemingly out of this profession Luke Lowry (program) his whole basis was doing real light weight because of the speed principles so I strived for a while trying to find the real truth and real answers and this definitely helps. If you have any other video, or book references on this please let us know.
Also as a side note, I think this helps to stress the idea of quality over quantity.

I wanted to drop a few questions and some food for thought if you will. Alex how often (days per week) are you doing high intensity plyo work or high intensity CNS work?
I know within VJB he had it set up so there were different training phases and different training focuses (programs) if you needed to work on more speed/plyo work there was 1 vs if you needed to do all strength work. My reasoning for bringing that up is because with CAT it seems like it can all be done concurrently and they don’t need separate phases, so I wanted to get your thoughts.

Nice video Alex, quick question, how does CAT fit in with Olympic Lifts? Do Olympic lifts accomplish the same synergistic effect of increasing strength and speed to optimize explosiveness gains?

Anh
May 23, 2010
Helpful video. but is there a way to improve strength without using weight? since due to certain circumstances i cant go to gym

Body weight my man!! Push ups, pull ups, plyo pushups. hand stands agaisnt the wall, hand stand push ups, load your back pack with weight and throw it over your shoulder and do squats etc etc etc.. there are hundreds of variations. Hell push your car up and down the street,,,,my son has added 100 pounds to his squat since June 1 (375 to 475 @ 16yoa) doing sandbag workouts, kettlebells and old school strong man.

as far as vertical is concerned, my son did a seated leap onto a 41″ plyobox (they added 2 thin cinder blocks) wearing a 40 lbs weight vest..so… what Alex is saying is correct and the guy who we go to use’s Alex’s stuff for “warm up” before they start workouts.