Everything you need to know about speed

Speed is defined as the ability to increase and decrease the rate of velocity at which a task is performed. But there is much more to it than that. I am going to go over what you need to know.

- Acceleration and deceleration: The ability to increase or decrease velocity produced by a muscle at any given time. This is what makes athletes special. The ability to start and stop on the drop of a dime. 

How to improve acceleration:
Running Hills
Pushing sleds full speed
Quick, explosive lifts. Lifting quickly helps build fast twitch muscle fibers. 
Drills to improve your knee drive



- Maximal speed: The maximal velocity reached at a given time. Usain Bolt became a legend because he had the greatest maximal speed in the history of mankind.  

How to improve maximal speed: 
Fly running training
Speedmaker drill
In and outs


More sports related speed terms are:

- Anticipation speed: The ability to pre-calculate the speed needed at any given time. Most baseball player have extraordinary anticipation speed. Quarterbacks also need great anticipation speed to be able to hit receivers in stride. 

- Recognition speed: The ability to recognize cues given by the movement an opponent or equipment. Corner backs need elite levels of recognition speed to cover wide receivers. 

- Reaction speed: The ability to decrease the time between recognizing a cue and appropriately reacting to it. Corners backs need very high levels of this to be able to play a receiver. Outfielders in baseball need this when reacting to balls in the air. Batters also need this to hit pitches that are being thrown. Tennis players need this to react to the speed and direction of balls being hit.