Deceleration is not talked about as frequently as acceleration although its importance should not be short changed. I like to think of deceleration training as developing the athlete’s brakes. Using the analogy of a car, if we are going to build a powerful engine that goes fast, we need to ensure that the brake works.
Field and court sport athletes encounter more decelerations in practice and competition than accelerations, so it needs to be trained. Furthermore, if an athlete’s nervous system senses that it cannot yield effectively it is going to limit its outputs, which results in a reduction in speed. In fact, most of the research shows that an improvement in an athletes’ deceleration also leads to increased speed.
Deceleration is one of the main components of our speed and sports performance program here at Genesis. Improving an athlete’s eccentric strength, while teaching deceleration mechanics is usually the first phase we begin with athletes entering our program. Once we are certain an athlete knows how to decelerate and control their body then we begin to introduce training that improves speed and power outputs as seen below in our curriculum.
Genesis Speed Training Curriculum
1. Deceleration/ Basic Cutting
2. Acceleration
3. Reactive Change of Direction
4. Top End Speed
With many fall team sports such as soccer, volleyball, and freshman football coming to an end it is vital that these aspects of speed continue to be trained throughout the off-season. Here at Genesis our off-season sports performance program is ramping up. If you would like to train with us this off-season reply to this email or give us a call at (317) 386-7459 and we will reach out to schedule a speed assessment.
- Graham