If you’ve followed my blog at all, then you likely know quite a bit about speed training. It involves various different activities that you can do in order to increase your speed and strength, thereby improving your endurance and performance. But what about overspeed training? Have you ever heard of that?
What Is Overspeed Training?
Overspeed training involves performing exercise-based activities faster than normal, 8 to 13 percent faster to be exact. The goal is to engage new and different muscles so that your performance is enhanced as well. Just as with speed training, the result is greater speed and agility.
The one thing that athletes performing overspeed training need to be aware of is that working out at these fast rates also increases your risk of injury. Therefore, you have to pay close attention to your form, have proper equipment, and be careful to not overwhelm your muscles or, instead of experiencing fitness gains, you will likely experience fitness losses because you’ll be laid up and unable to participate in any exercise whatsoever.
Does It Work?
A study published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research set out to discover exactly how beneficial overspeed training is. To do this, they tested 20 different semi-pro athletes by splitting them up into different training groups to see who had the best results.
The researchers found that the individuals in the group that engaged in overtraining had more gains that the athletes who participated in traditional exercise alone. They increased both their power and their speed, two factors that may be the difference between being crowned number one, or not even placing.
So, if you want to improve your results, you may want to give overspeed training a try. Just be careful to do it correctly so that you don’t cause injury.
Have you ever tried overspeed training? If so, what did you think of it?
