Need for Speed, Movement Speed

Every martial artist has a need for speed. When two people are fighting or sparring, physical speed plays a great role in deciding the outcome of the event. Explosive speed is crucial to a fighter as are power, timing and stamina.

One of the best ways of creating this type of physical speed is by carrying out quick dashes. These quick dashes can be performed in many ways. The most common way is doing short sprints. Weather it be 100 meter sprints or any other distance, the aim is to complete the sprint as fast as you can, which means moving your arms and legs as fast as you can. This type of training is great for building up the fast twitch muscle fibres in the body. For martial artists, more specific types of quick dashes can include,

Shooting in on an opponent as fast as possible.
From a fighting stance, bobbing and weaving as fast as possible.
Standing 2 meters away from a heavy bag, gliding in, and hitting with a jab as fast as possible.
Performing a high kick on a heavy bag as fast as possible.
From a grappling position, scrambling around to your opponents back as fast as possible.

The list is endless. If you notice with each example given above, they are ended with “as fast as possible”. Doing these techniques fast is different from doing it as fast as humanly possible. Normally when we train, we perform our techniques fast, but not as fast as we could be performing them. As a test, stand up and jab as fast as you can. Then do it again. Then do it another 5 times one after the other, trying to do it faster each time. You probably noticed that you did it faster the last time than you did the first time right? By concentrating on doing it faster each time, you shall eventually enhance your movement speed. Be it a jab, throw, kick or anything else.

A great way to improve this movement speed is, at the start of your training session once you are warmed up and fresh, pick one technique from whatever fighting style you train, and concentrate on performing it as fast as you can. Carry on doing the technique for about 1 minute. After the minute is up you should notice that you are performing quite fast. After a few weeks of this, you will notice your speed developing. Although this is very simple to do, it is amazing that not many people actually do it.

Marks

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