My goal this week is to expand my knowledge further with speed and agility training, especially involving a rugby player.
This is what I have come up with- HOPE YOU FIND IT INTERESTING! :-)
Frederick Claro stated that a fast running speed would involve sprinting a distance in the shortest time possible.
Agility is the ability to rapidly change directions without the loss of speed, balance, or body control (Craig BW (2004) what is the scientific basis of speed and agility. Strength and Conditioning Journal, 26(3), 13-14.).
Of course, everyone is an individual and therefore for me, it is my challenge to increase your sprinting speed as well as combine your agility skills in order to create the best outcome individually possible within your sporting field.
The human body is fascinating containing 3 types of muscle tissue. I gathered good explanations for this discussion from: http://www.muscleandstrength.com/articles/muscle-and-muscle-fibers.html.
The first being Cardiac Muscle Tissue- It is striated and forms the bulk of the Heart muscle. It is involuntary, meaning the muscle contracts unconsciously.
The second type is smooth muscle tissue- Smooth muscle tissue is located in the walls of hollow structures such as blood vessels, the stomach, intestines, and the bladder. Smooth muscle fibers are usually involuntary, and they are non-striated. Smooth muscle tissue, like skeletal and cardiac muscle tissue, can undergo hypertrophy (growth).
The
last muscle type and the one I will discuss further is skeletal muscle.
“Skeletal muscle tissue is attached to our bones. It is striated; that is, the
fibers (cells) contain alternating light and dark bands (striations) that are
perpendicular to the long axes of the fibers. Skeletal muscle tissue can be
made to contract or relax voluntary (consciously).
All
skeletal muscle fibers are not alike in structure or function. For example,
skeletal muscle fibers vary in colour depending on their content of Myoglobin
(Myoglobin is found in muscle tissue, where it binds oxygen, helping to provide
extra oxygen to release energy to power muscular contractions.) Skeletal muscle
fibers contract with different velocities, depending on their ability to split
Adenosine Triphosphate (ATP). Faster contracting fibers have greater ability to
split ATP. In addition, skeletal muscle fibers vary with respect to the
metabolic processes they use to generate ATP. They also differ in terms of the
onset of fatigue. On the basis of various structural and functional
characteristics, skeletal muscle fibers are classified into three types: Type I
fibers, Type II B fibers and type II A fibers.”
Characteristics of Different Muscle
Fibers
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So
from the above knowledge, it is of no surprise that the primary muscle fibres
we want to focus on is the fast-twitch fibres, type II A and type II B.
Predominantly focusing on Type II B for sprinting and agility, because the
contraction time is very fast and there is a predominant ATP-PC system used for
fast energy supply.
Concerning
the rugby aspects of things, it is of course the most obvious that the wing
gains the greatest amount of ground over a short period of time. The least
expected to achieve this goal would be the hooker. However the forwards have a
big task of constantly clearing the ruck and moving from a squatted position or
the floor to a standing position moving through forward momentum during the
running game.
Most
of us all know the basic necessary components for all the players a rugby team.
But
the vast differences in weight, height, muscle fibre type and lastly mobility
can be challenges to their fitness goals.
Expanding
on the above thought, here are a few speed and agility exercises:
