Strength Series - Do you want to get a spring back in your step?

Can you get up out of a chair without using your hands or groaning?

Can you get up off the ground without using your hands?

Do you feel confident you can move quickly to avoid an accident?

Can you keep up with your children or grand children when they are running around?

If you answer no to any of these questions then this post is for you.

In this post I cover the Acceleration element of the strength algorithm and how to maintain and build it so you can answer yes to all the questions above.

We are always fighting gravity

Mass enables you to move yourself or an object, but gravity quickly kicks in to pull you or the object to the centre of the earth!

To be strong we have to be able to beat and fight gravity. This is where acceleration comes in.

What this means for being strong is that not only do you have to recruit muscle fibres but they have to contract fast enough to beat gravity and they also need endurance to sustain that force until the movement is complete.

Try holding your arms out in front of you and see how long you can hold them before they tire. Now take a small weight and do the same. You can hold this for a lot less time. Then take a larger weight and you may be able to lift it from the ground but may not be able to hold it in front of you at all or for very long. This progression in weight demonstrates the need for endurance and at the last stage, explosive strength to get the weight to shoulder height.

To improve acceleration you need to develop type 2, fast switch muscle fibres that can generate a lot of force quickly. Plus you need to develop a lot of them to generate the muscle endurance capability to beat gravity throughout the movement.

As you age you lose these muscle fibres which is one of the reasons why you answered no to some of the questions at the beginning of the post.

It's easy to get your acceleration back

The training for acceleration is speed training where you use between 40-75% of the maximum weight you can lift and do 3 reps every 30 seconds for 8 -16 sets. This enables you to focus on moving the weight fast but the limited rest period means you have to recruit and develop more and more type 2 muscle fibres to complete the sets.

It is a short set of of exercises performed quickly with good form so is easy to add into any workout.

There are alternatives like plyometrics (bounding and jump training) or sprinting. But as you get older the risk of joint, ligament and tendon injuries increases significantly from these activities so only attempt them after being trained in the correct technique and building base strength to reduce the injury risk.

If you do speed training once a week for your lower body and upper body you will feel the difference quickly and have a spring back in your step.