Performing speed workouts is vital in enhancing one’s running performance. Experts say that regimens which involve both short and long distance routines can be advantageous for speed running. Those who wish to achieve weight loss and good fitness levels should perform speed training along with their other usual exercises.
Speed exercises increase muscle power via both speed in beginning and halting function. Every workout becomes less difficult with a fiery force per repetition thus making speed training effective for agile athletes, runners, and power lifters. The exercises enhance speed and agility in every movement and technique. Over time, the fast twitch muscles and their strength increase. There are exercises that add speed enhancers or weighted resistance so that the fast twitch muscles will be forced into overdrive and way past the regular exertion point which usual exercises cause.
When an athlete performs speed training, his ability to do more exercises increases. Workouts such as agility drills, hopping motions, jumping, skipping, and sprinting will make his muscles more powerful.
One of the benefits of speed workouts is burning of calories. The amount of calories in a workout relies on certain factors such as the speed of the athlete. In a one-hour workout session, a person who weighs 160 pounds will burn 580 calories if he jogs at five miles per hour. In order for him to burn almost 1,000 calories, he should jog at eight miles per hour in the exact quantity of time. If he is not able to maintain this pace for the whole exercise, he can do speed training with very fast 1 to 5 minute bouts of running to increase the amount of calories to be burned.
During an exercise, the quantity of oxygen a person produces is referred to as VO2 max. This determines his ability to maintain prolonged exercises at a rigorous pace. To optimally enhance VO2 max, he can do speed training via tempo runs. All he has to do is identify a speed ten seconds faster than his usual five-kilometer pace. In a half-hour exercise, he can slowly go to the identified pace, stay at it for 5 to 10 minutes, and go back down. Trained athletes can actually hold such a pace longer.
According to a study published last 2007, when a person includes speed exercises in his running workouts, this heightens the ability of his body to oxidize fat. It was identified that seven training sessions of high intensity intervals done more than two weeks amplified the ability of fairly active females to burn fat.
Athletes such as runners who wish to take away seconds to minutes off from their own records must add speed workouts to their training routines. According to a study published back in 2006, runners in training who performed close to or at their highest VO2 max levels improved overall times in running one thousand five hundred to five thousand meters. When they performed a couple of speed training exercises every week, they saw positive results in just a month.