Acceleration vs top speed

[Mark Rippetoe]

I agree that neuromuscular efficiency is largely genetic; I was stipulating that as a hypothetical in order to refute the argument that increased muscle mass in the legs might slow down a sprinter.

Can you explain more about where I am wrong in my thinking (or have blindly accepted ex phyz bullshit) in regards to fiber type?

My understanding has been:
-Fast twitch muscle fibers are distinct from slow twitch muscle fibers both in metabolic substrate considerations and in their ability to respond to action potentials; fast twitch motor units/neurons/fibers can be conflated.
-Fast twitch motor units produce both a greater peak contractile force and average force, which will in turn produce greater acceleration.
-Fast twitch motor units are capable of generating and responding to action potentials at a rate of about 60Hz compared to as low as 10Hz for slow twitch; fast twitch fibers are able to reach tetanus faster.
-Fast twitch motor units relax much faster (typically less than 200ms); fast enough that that they can relax fully before the leg accelerates in the opposite direction (about 200ms in elite sprinters) using opposing muscles.
-A larger muscle will have a greater absolute number of fast twitch muscle fibers, which will produce a greater force and a greater acceleration.
-A stride consists of an acceleration of the leg forward/up and an acceleration of the leg backward/down; top speed is achieved by the greatest repeated acceleration of each leg in both directions.

I am not a muscle physiologist, so I'm not going to comment on this. I think it's obvious that sprinters are big muscular people, but there are lots of big muscular powerlifters who are not particularly explosive. Fiber type is a factor, but the other factors that contribute to neuromuscular efficiency largely control this performance.

[Farmer]

So what is effective sprint training? genuine question.

It involves a lot of things, and funny enough, it is trained ineffectively (or not at all) in most "ball-sports" for a lot of the same reasons as strength training is done wrong.

In Sprint Training, you want to sprint as fast as possible, as often as possible, as fresh as possible.

A real simple place to start, is people can only maintain a maximal effort doing anything for only about 6 seconds.
After doing that, you might have to rest 5-7 minutes (or more, depending on distance/time you just ran) before you do another maximal rep.
This should sound very familiar. (ATP recharge; CNS recovery; etc)
Workout can either be focused around maxV, or acceleration, or both.

Next, you probably only have so many of those maximal attempts available to you in a given day or training session.
Just throwing numbers out there, maybe only 3 to 7 maximal sprints .... those are max velocity sprints.

So low volume. (sound familiar).

How you do know how fast you are sprinting?
How you do know if you are slowing down from rep to rep and the end of the workout?
And keep in mind we are talking about timing maybe the fastest 10 to 30 meters in maxV, or a 50 to 60meter acceleration?
You are talking about timing ~1 sec (10m fly time) to 6.50-7.50 sec (n a 60m acceleration).
You are going to need electronic timing; stopwatch isn't going to cut it AT ALL.
This would be analogous to knowing how much weight is on the bar.

As far as staying fresh.
Maybe you can do these max velocity sprint workouts 2-4 times per week, if you want to run as fast as possible.
That's going to mean you are going to have to watch your fatigue, fatigue from sprint workouts, weight training, conditioning, and sports-ball practices.

Most coaches won't allow their athletes to train for speed this way.
Just like most coaches won't allow their athletes to weight train to get as strong as possible.
A lot of the same problems.

Beyond what I outlined above, once you've improved your speed a bit, THEN workouts like conditioning, sprint-endurance, and being able to withstand lactate, etc figure in when running a 60, 100, 200, 400 etc.

[Sean Berry]

It involves a lot of things, and funny enough, it is trained ineffectively (or not at all) in most "ball-sports" for a lot of the same reasons as strength training is done wrong.

In Sprint Training, you want to sprint as fast as possible, as often as possible, as fresh as possible.

A real simple place to start, is people can only maintain a maximal effort doing anything for only about 6 seconds.
After doing that, you might have to rest 5-7 minutes (or more, depending on distance/time you just ran) before you do another maximal rep.
This should sound very familiar. (ATP recharge; CNS recovery; etc)
Workout can either be focused around maxV, or acceleration, or both.

Next, you probably only have so many of those maximal attempts available to you in a given day or training session.
Just throwing numbers out there, maybe only 3 to 7 maximal sprints .... those are max velocity sprints.

So low volume. (sound familiar).

How you do know how fast you are sprinting?
How you do know if you are slowing down from rep to rep and the end of the workout?
And keep in mind we are talking about timing maybe the fastest 10 to 30 meters in maxV, or a 50 to 60meter acceleration?
You are talking about timing ~1 sec (10m fly time) to 6.50-7.50 sec (n a 60m acceleration).
You are going to need electronic timing; stopwatch isn't going to cut it AT ALL.
This would be analogous to knowing how much weight is on the bar.

As far as staying fresh.
Maybe you can do these max velocity sprint workouts 2-4 times per week, if you want to run as fast as possible.
That's going to mean you are going to have to watch your fatigue, fatigue from sprint workouts, weight training, conditioning, and sports-ball practices.

Most coaches won't allow their athletes to train for speed this way.
Just like most coaches won't allow their athletes to weight train to get as strong as possible.
A lot of the same problems.

Beyond what I outlined above, once you've improved your speed a bit, THEN workouts like conditioning, sprint-endurance, and being able to withstand lactate, etc figure in when running a 60, 100, 200, 400 etc.

Is this 1st hand info....AND did I miss a reference to a book that has this idea outlined?

It makes logical sense to me, just looking for more info.

sb