Two fast cats

Speed. Yeah baby! As athletes we all want it. As recreational runners, cyclists, or triathletes, we all wish we had more of it. It separates the contenders from the pretenders, pronto.

In the pictures above, we have two perfect examples. The fastest land animal, the cheetah, can hit speeds of 60 mph. Can she hold that long? No. Because she doesn't need to. To close the gap on that runt wildebeest, taking its last sip of water from the river less than 20 yards away, she needs to take it to max for about 10 seconds, pounce and then drag dinner back to her cubs and napping mate. That's it. No warm up, no cardio, no filling water bottles, no GU, Gatorade or gels.

One explosive blast of power, the work is over and dinner will soon be served.

This is do or die. There is no Safeway on the Serengeti. If you don't get to maximum speed as quick as possible, you eat dry grass and fire ants. And the cubs need protein.

In example two, we have the same phenomenon, this time with Olympic Champion sprinter Usain Bolt of Jamaica. The Lightening Bolt holds the world record for both the 100 and 200 meters. His time? 9.69 and 19.30 respectively. That is less than ten seconds for an Olympic Gold medal. Do you suspect that he got there by doing lots of low intensity jogging jammin' to Bob Marley on his iPod? He did not (the jogging part anyway).

He did tons of speed work. Gassers, hill repeats, sprints. He broke down each stride with detailed analysis and refined his movement to reflect the goal: Point A to Point B faster than any other human being.

Two examples of the value of explosive power. Is this important to our training? Yes, and across the board. The myriad benefits of explosive power transfers to any distance, and event, any sport. Chess is the only exception, maybe bowling, but those are not our current choices.

Consider explosive power: Stealing second, hitting the hole, fast break, sprint finish, your PB 5K. All explosive power. We can train for it. It hurts a little. But the rewards are huge….

….be they a Gold Medal or merely supper.