OVERSPEED? Any distance guys used it?

People like John Smith and Charlie Francis (and I believe Dan Pfaff and Tudor Bompa as well) are dead set against overspeed. That should tell you all you need to know.

There is actually very little reasarch that has been done becuase people who are up on modern methods know that it is out of favor. The research that has been done shows that overspeed improves speed during overspeed mainly by increasing stride length, BUT it doesn't directly improve power, so the athlete is learning to overstride. There is a paper on elitetrack.com (under sprints) but what it actually shows is that you can get almost the same advantage by running against resistance (slight uphills) as you can with towing.

Why is overspeed out? High injury rates. An athlete (sprint or distance) can get the same gains by working on accelerations in the 30-60 meter range to improve power, then when they work on max speed in the 60-80 meter range (flying sprints or straight runs of about 80m), they can reach a higher top speed. All this is much less stressful (and less dangerous) than overspeed, especially for distance runners that usually don't have quite the biomechanics at speed of sprinters.

Thanks for the response!

Anybody else have input--anecdotal, experience- or research-based, or whatever? Continued thanks!

i did overspeed towing with a pulley system as a sprinter in college (last year) and i loved it. IF you have the strength to hold a pace faster than your max speed for a few seconds, it basically forces you to run with perfect form (or else you're hitting the turf). i didn't find that i was overstriding at all, rather, it optimizes your stride length and forces you to increase stride rate as a result. plus it's just awesome to feel what's it's like to run a flying 40 in 3.2 seconds.

as far as its use in distance training, i think it might be beneficial on a limited basis, but again it is a little more dangerous than conventional running, and you can only tow an athlete at a pace that the body can handle with good form. i'd say it's worth a shot though, as individual athletes can respond to different forms of training than their teammates. i know i loved towing but a few of the other guys weren't too keen on it.

I was preparating for a race where my goal was to break a certain time, but i felt that I was unable to comfortably keep that pace up. I also had a relatively small amount of time to prepare. For intervals I used a type of overspeed training: I ran on a treadmill that went downhill at a 3% grade and ran the intervals at my goal pace but at a lower heart rate. Over time I decreased the downhill angle to 2%, then 1% then 0. I was able to meet my race goals which surprised me given my fitness level starting out and the shrt amount of time i had to prepare. I havent used this method since as i cannot find a downhill treadmill, but would if i could

Well and herbkarp, thank you--your personal experiences are interesting and instructive!

I've always thought that a strong runner towing a weaker runner would be a great setup for distance runners- resistance for the former, overspeed for the latter, and easily regulated to avoid injury. Fun and team-oriented too! Just haven't put togethter the rigging to test it though....

good thread.

I use a form of overspeed every week in training, I'm a 3km/5km runner and I have one fartlek session each week where i run as fast/ or faster than I can down a downhill slope of about 30-45metres, goes through a dip and then rises to bring me to a stop quite comfortably.

As a distance runner with poor raw speed, I find I have very good stride length, but abysmal leg turnover. I have no quantifiable evidence to support my methods, but I certainly feel like by being forced to move my legs faster than normal I am developing the neuromuscular pathways etc which should allow me to sprint faster over flat ground.

As an above poster mentioned you have to optimise lengtrh vs ferq of stride otherwise you fall over.

The modern overspeed is downhill reps on a very mild slope.

The idea of overspeed is that it will help to either 1) increase turnover or 2)increase stride length.

The idea is that stride frequency x stride length = speed, the higer the speed the lower the time for an event. Therefore, if you increase one of these you get faster. Even 1 inch on stride is huge over 5 or 10K.

However, the effects of overspeed only last so long as you are being pulled. The effects do not last past then. You are better off (injury risk can be high) by strengthening the legs via sprints. I suggest 20/20s.

20 seconds of controlled sprinting with 20 seconds rest.

Steven McTowelie wrote:

The modern overspeed is downhill reps on a very mild slope.

Useless unless you also use hill springing in your program.