Youngy, what is the rationale for doing 6 sets of 3 mins on the speedball with 1 min rest between sets? Since the majority of your athletes are training for a sprint that lasts around 12 seconds or less, I can’t see the sense in hitting the speedball for such a long period. Maybe for athletes training for the 1500 metres, where they have to pace themselves, this approach would be suitable.
I understand that the 3 min long reps came from boxing because each round in boxing lasts for 3 mins. I think for a short distance sprinter, it would make much more sense to do several or many sets of 20 sec or so at maximum speed with a full recovery between each effort.
Comments?
Bump for a reply, Youngy or anyone else.
Your just building a base of fitness without doing anything damaging like long road work. Plus coordination and concentration.
On a side note:
After doing this work for 6 weeks I def. see a difference in my upper body. I added some barbell squats and cleans to the usual routine for the last 6 weeks (I felt that my legs were getting too soft). I also do sled runs (weather permitting)
That makes sense for a boxer who has to fight over 3 min rounds, but does not make sense for a sprinter who is training for an event that lasts 12 seconds or less. Sprinters don’t need the type of fitness that a boxer requires.
It’s not possible for a predominantly white fiber athlete to hit the speedball at maximum velocity for a full 3 mins. The 6 x 3 min rounds with 1 min rest that has been suggested here is real endurance stuff i.e. more suitable, in my opinion, for someone who runs the 1500m event. I think bursts of 20 sec or so on the speedball at maximum speed with a full recovery would make a lot more sense for a short distance sprinter.
I see where you are coming from but for me the logic doesn’t stack up. Why not 6x3min rounds? Surely it’s in the same vein as Big Circuit tempo work and extensive med ball? Good honest hard work without killing the legs.
BTW I used to like 2-3 x 6 x 30s flat out on the speedball after a few weeks of 3 min rounds but now I find tempos, cals and med ball more than adequate for general endurance work.
I really wish you would keep a training journal! 
You seem to confuse specificity with support work.
Still nobody has been able to explain the rationale for 6 x 3 min rounds on the speedball with just a 1 min rest period for a short distance sprinter! It’s excessive and like training sprinters on the track to run a 1500m race, or like doing lots and lots of high rep exercises with light weights until a massive burn is felt in the muscles. How can that support a sprinter?
Mr John!!! Hope all is well. I really should keep a journal Although I think it would be more comical than anything else. Something like the Bernie Mac show only he’s a track junkie… LOL
Your trying too hard to compare speed ball to sprinting. STOP IT NOW
It’s just a way to build a base of fitness. That’s all nothing more. Think of the body wieght exercises as circut training. After I get to the 3 or 4th round of this brutally simple circut my arse is on the wall and I am panting and sweating… It’s not a means to an end it’s just another way to get fit and that is pretty important.
Everyone needs fitness… sprinters gymnast basball players and the list goes on… We’re athletes and we need to be fit as well as strong and powerful.
So the point is that there are a million ways to get fit. This is just one more way to do it. If it works for you and it isnt hurting anything, then why the hell not?
As far as the time was concerned I think Jim Bradley just found after trial and error that is what worked best. I read his book and he tried different times even going for 30 straight!!! and this was the time he found worked best…
I dont use the speed ball right now but it’s fun and it gets the heart rate up…
I just noticed that this thread had been reactivated.
ncyjay01 is 100% correct.
The purpose of the 6 x 3 min rounds is to build a fitness base. It helps develop a strong muscular shoulder girdle and cardio-vascular system that can carry you through the season.
Jim Bradley spent several years in the 1960’s trying different regimes such as 1min, 5min or even a continuous 15 min sessions and after refining it and working it through, he found the 6 x 3min rounds with a 1min rest derived the best conditioning results to allow the athletes to transfer it to the track.
The upper body muscles in the shoulders & back are specifically worked on the speedball to strengthen them to the extent one can drive the shoulders in the running action and not swing the arms.
About 10 years ago, I was reading a chapter on UBE (Upper Body Exercise) in the ISSA manual and it recommended the use of a cranking machine or arm bike for an upper body cardio workout. AND it recommended 3 min rounds/1 min rest as offering the best results.
It occurred to me that Bradley had discovered the same thing with his speedball workouts, 30 years before…
How would you define “fitness”? Imo, fitness is the readiness for perform a specific (physical) task.
Does sprinting require fitness? Yes.
Does sprinting require the type of fitness to run a 1500m race or compete in an amateur boxing contest? No.
This kind of mentality that sprinters need to build a big fitness base was held years ago by the coaches who had their sprinters run long distance in the off season. Of course that was bs, just like long ass speedball workouts is bs!
The way I look at it is.
We have 4 biomotor abilities, being speed, stamina, strength and flexibility
Athletes need to work all three and as CNS is limited you use them on the important parts, being speed and strength, which leaves the other two as lower intensity.
Boxing for 3 minutes is easier on the body then say doing 20 push ups + 200m at 75% + 20 crunches due to the boxing not having stress through your body.
Neospeed wrote: “Of course that was bs, just like long ass speedball workouts is bs!”
Given the number of athletes over the past 40 years (under coaches who have speedball as part of their winter GPP) that have genuinely improved after working with speedball, there is a lot more merit to it than to dismiss it as bs.
But if that’s what you think so be it. I don’t care less what critics think. As long as I remain a coach of a track squad, my GPP will always include speedball. The anecdotal evidence is irrefutable.
In your opinion, would all other general work need to have an event specific duration as well? If this is so for Boxing, what would this mean for the 100m?
Remember also that Wells did huge push-up and sit up rep numbers of significant duration.
We also used to do depletion push-ups (3 sets to failure with 90sec between sets). The assumption here was that the muscles involved would lend indirect endurance to the rest of the musculature via the cross-over effect without risk to the muscles directly involved in the sprint action itself.
It might seem ironic but we found that BP numbers went up more rapidly and very likely other lifts were favorably affected as well. when this was introduced.
This was because of the variability of the challenge to the F/T curve IMO.
On the point you make about BP numbers I found this to be true for my self. I got upto 5x40 push ups and 5x20-25 dips (depending on how much me and the wife drank the night before :-P) Initially my bench went down to 205. After easing off the dips and push ups for a week or two, I can now easily do 225 for 8 pretty cool… Plush my guns look good too LOL…
I think depletion stuff is pretty good. I just would like to get your expereinces with it Charlie. IE when have you done it GPP or SPP or both?
I’ve done that routine. It was on a Cybex Upper Body Ergrometer (UBE) I forget the settings but you have to set it to something like 90-120 RPM and “bury the needle” a few times. It was so tough that I had to lay down for 20 min after. I felt as if I had just ran a 400m. I’ve been thinking to use this when the weather is bad for the Special endurance days. It’s different work but it made me feel like crap just the same.
Hello Youngy- I’ve loosely been following this discussion, so forgive me if I missed it, and I’m curious as to what type of monitoring has been done on sprinters during the performance of speed ball training as far as heart rate, 02/C02 exchange, blood lactate levels, etcetera.
I’m always hesitant to accept sets x repetitions in the form of numbers, time, etcetera as their is no quantitative marker for intensity.
I did notice the posts referencing number of hand contacts per second; however, I have nothing to weigh this against in terms of physiological response; which is why I’d be interested in knowing what % of the anaerobic threshold the sprinters are working at as well as what type of blood lactate levels are generated as a result of the training, and finally, if the intensity of the session is varied depending on whether the athlete is a 100m, 200m, 400m runner and so on.
To the readers of this thread, (and I realize this has been mentioned already to some extent; however, I feel that it must be stressed) we must remember that words such as stamina, endurance, fitness, work capacity, conditioning, and so on, are non-descriptive beyond the understanding of the pedestrian.
Thus, if, for conversation sake, a group of 20 sprinters, of varied qualification, are performing a speed ball session it is quite likely that the physiological mechanisms contributing to the work are different and, as a result, the reliability, concerning the desired training effect, becomes diminished if the intended effect is a specific one.
Example:
OmegaWave data indicates that the following percentages of the anaerobic threshold correspond to the associated adaptations (give or take a few percent in either direction):
+102%- anaerobic qualities
95%-102%- aerobic development
84%-95%- aerobic maintenance
70%-85%- cardiac output
60-70%- restoration
Clearly there is nothing ‘wrong’ with the use of the speed ball as a means of raising general work capacity as well as serving as a, by definition, specialized prepatory training means for the arms/shoulder girdle for the arm action of a sprinter; however, not knowing the specifics regarding the sprinters’ anaerobic threshold, for instance, paints an uncertain picture as to what aspect of the work capacity is being trained and, consequently, to what degree it will positively impact the results of each individual.
Additionally important to note, is that the intensity via which the training session is executed will correspond more or less specifically depending on the event.
while working at the aerobic development zone, for instance, is general for the 100m sprinter it is much more specific to the 400m runner.
I’d rather think in terms of the effect on the various parts of the F/T curve and whether the work is complementary or not. Closer together = more competition for CNS resources.
Yes, we’re addressing the same point in the end.