Speed Merchant

Toroidal Training /Continued

2005-06-14T14:35:00.000-07:00

Somewhere at the cellular level there is stuff going on that makes the speedy person different from the slower person. I explain this difference by using intuition since I have no idea if there is a study by someone to explain how people differ so much in their quickness. Differences can' t totally be explained by simple physical evidence, i.e. bulkiness or other size characteristics. Physics don't explain how a 200 lb. person is quicker than the 100 pound person. At the cellular level the individual differs greatly.

Toroidal training addresses the cellular level in such a way to maximize training efficiency and get the most out of the person's cell as far as speed is concerned. Additionally, this type of training acts as a prophylactic in preventing or lessening injuries, not only to a young athlete but also to the adult later in life. Toroidal training is not so much a training technique, as it is a way to work out for life. Oh yes, it makes you quicker for a lifetime and helps you stay young, my god the fountain of youth! A study just released says people lose about 2% of their athleticism per year between the ages of 50 and 75, then at age 75 they lose their athleticism at the rate of 7% per annum. Work hard when you are young and maintain the edge longer should be your mantra.

Specific Exercises for Toroidal Training

In order to hit the cellular level one must conceptualize one exercise then translate this understanding to every muscle group in the body. The folloing exercises are mine, developed over many years, but if you can attack the cell better than me, go for it. There is always a better way to do things, so make it happen.

To understand the basis for toroidal training, imagine a sit up, now expand the sit up to a left knee to right elbow movement then alternate to a right knee to left elbow movement. This is the basis for Toroidal training. By attacking muscle from every conceivable angle and simultaneously twisting and turning throughout the exercize you begin to see the movements necessary to toroidally train. You are building muscle of course, but you are also affecting the connection of the muscle to the skeleton via tendons and ligaments.

My experience says that this activity when incorporated into a speed type of workout enhances the overall effect of training for speed and quickness. By twisting and strengthing the torso a person's flexibilty and recovery are enhanced during a sit up. By recovery, I mean you can bounce back from a movement quicker, like a spring on a door ,you are making the spring stronger and more responsive. Now imagine applying this same logic to every muscle group of the body. For example, what if you can strengthen the muscles in the eyes that adjust the focus of your eyes, thereby allowing an athlete to focus quicker than someone who doesn't strenghten those muscles. What a huge advantage to a batter in baseball, a tennis player, a soccer goalie and so on!

The toroidal sit up is just the begining. By using this principle during weight lifting one should develop their routine to rotate and move the weights in many different directions. For example, while doing biceps curls, twist the weights at the top of the movement or vary the speed of the movement. This will have a net effect of working your biceps for size and strenghthening the joints and tendons for flexiblity. Additionally, you will see benefits in bone structure development. Resistance creates bigger muscle and toroidal resistance develops quicker -healthier bone, muscle and tendons, a trifecta.

For leg development I recommend the ladder drill as the foundation for a sound toroidal workout. Ladders afford a simle step in, step out format where you must create various speeds and angles. In the next edition of Speed Merchant I will address the ladder drills and other toroidal exercises.

Toroidal Training

2005-05-04T21:27:00.000-07:00

Years ago , I subscribed to a magazine called Fusion. A guy with long hair came up to me in the Seattle airport and asked me to take a free copy of his magazine, oh, he said, if you don't mind we do take donations. So I gave him twenty bucks and he signed me up for a one year "free" subscription.

The magazine was indeed very interesting. It had stories about the Cambodian genocide by the Kmer Rouge and stories about the political club called the Trilateral Comission, comprised of all the world's politicians . All very heavy subjects that made you say hmmm! Along with the political rambling of Lyndon Larouche and the stories of the inhumanity of humanity, it had a significant portion of the magazine devoted to the development of Fusion.

It seems there is this whole scientific thing going on somewhere in secluded labs that is trying to uncover how to harness the power of the sun, i.e. fusion power. There are labs in the U.S., France, China, the former Soviet Union, and many other countries. The significance of the fusion research was that it utilized a reactor vessel called the Tokomak, a super duper magnet. The Tokomak was a magnetic reactor vessel that created a plasma field with toroidal shape. A toroidal shape is simultaneously a donut shape and a shape of the infinity symbol, it changes and is dynamic.

The Toroidal chamber was a highly charged electromagnetic field that was so dense with magnetic forces that it could contain the fusion reaction with the plasma. The key to the Tokomak's success as a vessel for the fusion reaction was that it could contain the reaction of fusion with the toroidally shaped, powerful magnetic field. All of this is theoretical in that you can't look inside the Tokomak while its running since it is over a million degrees fahrenheit in the reaction field.

What the hell does this have to do with speed? It is the essence of training for the speed minded as well as the slow minded, if that is what you want. By training the muscles while considering the shape created in the heart of the tokomak you will condition muscles most effectively. In other words you must train inside the muscle, outside the muscle, inside the ligaments and tendons and outside the tendons and ligaments.

Toroid as Donut

While donuts are the least nutritional food known to man and Krispy Kreme is finding out through financial ruin, there are significant benefits to viewing the training of the muscles as one would view a donut. By working the muscles around the outside of the muscle you will see results with improved speed and reduced injury. The best form of donut training is by cross training. For example, a football player that focuses on straight a head sprints for ten yards will not develop long strides for the distance beyond ten yards and he will be prone to injuries the least of which is the destruction of the knee. The knee is the single most susceptible joint or body part to injury in my experience. It is prone to catastrophic injury as well as many forms of nagging or chronic problems.

To effect the most significant prophylactic training and thereby enhance knee performance and reduce injury proneness, you must cross train and consciously rest the body for extended periods. There are a whole host of ways to donut train but the easiest way I have found is to simply think like a child at play.

Have you ever watched a baby play in its crib? It is able to do amazing contortionist moves, yet it can barely move its gargantuan head, heck it can't even pick up its head and look up until the body grow for 6 to 8 months. In spite of the baby's inabilty to raise his head he can easily lift his legs and arms for hours on end, usually until he wears out after many hours, or needs to be fed or changed, whichever comes first. As the child ages he can do things like run all day or play hide and seek for 3 or 4 hours. If you train like a kid plays, you will have the best chance of training around the muscle and its attachments. Have you ever seen a young child with a torn anterior cruciate ligament?

Cross train like you're a kid! Here are a few activities I recommend in mimicking a child's play:
1. Run up hills,
2. Play kick ball,
3. Play outside all day, dawn to dusk,
4. Ride a bike off and on for many hours,
5. Swim for an entire day,
6. Play tennis in the morning and softball at night,
7. Jump rope for 30 minutes three times a day,
8. Wrestle with someone for fun for twenty or thirty minutes,
9. Play soccer with friends for fun,
10. Go for a scenic hike,
11. Shoot a few hoops,
12. Watch kids play and take the cue from the way they enjoy their youth!

Overall the donut shape of the toroidal training is to have fun and horse around just like a kid. Workout and play to develop the outside of the muscle and the ligaments. Stay fit, create more speed, and stay healthy. Next time, the training of the toroidal shape of the infinity sign, or training in and around the muscles, ligaments and tendons.

Step One

2005-04-19T14:46:00.000-07:00

Literally, step one is the most important step in the development of speed. It epitomizes the explosion of fast twitch muscles. Most athletes that have superior ability exhibit significantly faster first steps. They get out of the blocks faster, they move to the ball faster and generally look smoother and in better control.

An exercise that I have found to be the foundation for first step quickness is the utilization of the Aerobic Step. The aerobic step is the piece of exercise equipment that uses a 4 to 8 inch rise, and you step on it and off of it. Very simply put, this one exercize tool seems to isolate the muscles that heighten growth prospects for those muscles that govern EXPLOSION!

There are many ways to use the step, however the mere fact that you step on to it and off of it for 15 to 20 minutes per day will surely improve your first step. By utilizing differnent angles and for different durations will further improve your explosiveness. If you are from Missouri, and have to be shown, then it is up to you to try it for two weeks to see the results of which I speak. It appears that by using the step, you develop the muscles around the base of the calves,achilles area, and in the head of the thigh.

From the anecdotal evidence, these areas may hold an answer as to where one should be concerned when working on the first step quickness. Realizing that muscles are three dimensionally shaped masses, you should also realize that training that muscle requires training that muscle as such. In other words, to most effectively train the muscle for first step quickness you should work all sides of the muscle and wherever it attaches at the bone.

Since we are approaching the development of first step muscles specifically, then you must focus the use of the aerobic step in a way that maximizes the attack angles on the the three dimensions of the muscle and its attachments(Muscle to ligaments to bone, put in layman's terms, which is all I know). So with that said, you must try to hit every area of the muscles when doing the step.

This is how I would suggest utilizing the step;

1.Start with an easy to do step on and step off, straight at the step for 10 minutes, switching lead steps periodically through out the ten minutes. Step on step off!

2. Step on, step off the other side of the step, for a 30 count, again, simple step on step off then turn and go the other way, so as to always balance lead leg, don't overemphasize any particular leg and you will develop better balance.

3. In a sideways fashion step right foot on top of step then left foot on top of step then left foot off followed by right foot off, repeat for a 30 count for each lead leg.

These are basic examples of how I would start to use the step to build the first step quickness that lies within all of us. All you need to do is create variations on this theme by trying to hit different areas of the spots I highlighted on the legs and you will develop the areas three dimensionally. By the way, I call this method of hitting all areas of the muscle, Toroidal Training. Catchy, huh?

Ain't Heavy-continued

2005-04-13T20:54:00.000-07:00

Everybody saw Michael Johnson run in two different Olympics, so there is no secret about his ability. Conversely, Houston ran in near obscurity because he could only win the very shortest races, but for 60 yards or less no one could beat him except maybe Ben Johnson on steroids. I suspect there are a few cats in Jail though that could give any world class runner a go, too bad about that though!

Michael Johnson, on the other hand could cover longer distances and for a short period of time he did it better than anyone else, ever! His thang was that he had superior form accompanied by super speed developed over many years and most likely over many generations. In my opinion, his key to success was that he left the blocks hell bent with desire, but once he hit the 3rd and 4th gears he had long strides that seemed to defy gravity. For a while he just touched the ground for fleeting moments. He was the Flash!

His robotic form had you believing he was not really that fast, but his results contradicted what you saw. I believe that illusion came from a different type of explosion that I describe as the Stride portion of the sprint. A stride isn't necessarily a languid prolonged movement. Rather in the sprint it is a series of leg bursts that are quite long, however due to their smoothness and rapidity seem to be appear almost slow. The secret is that the longer the stride the more distance covered and if you can pick em up and put down very fast you will be as fast as you can be!

Its like this see, if you cover 10 yards with three strides and you make the strides at a faster pace you will cover the 10 yards faster, simple, huh? So like Mike, you have to practice covering those simple ten yards faster, then string a bunch of ten yards together. If you are running just ten yards you just need to explode but if you have to cover more ground, then you must string more of the ten yarders together.

This may all sound trite at this point but as we begin to discuss training for the different parts of the sprint, then this will make perfect sense, I hope! This discussion can be extrapolated to just about any sport that deals with running except distance running or distances over 800 yards/meters.

He Aint Heavy, He's My Brother

2005-04-11T22:05:00.000-07:00

So it goes that if you train to win you will have a chance, but if you sit on your ass and/or train incorrectly you will be doomed to failure, ha ha ha! How many times have you seen super athletes seemingly working like a dog to improve only to see them fail by a hair. Winners at the top levels usually win by an inch or foot, and what makes that possible is usually the first step quickness superiority of the winner.

What is up with that? Very simple, so sayeth the speed merchant. If you train to be in shape rather than to develop first step explosion or top end speed then you won't have those necessary elements to successfully compete at the very top levels and thusly win by an inch.

Of course, if you train to run a marathon and that is your goal, then it is ok to train to be in shape. It isn't that you will be a world class marathoner, since that is only possible if you train like a mad man and you are from an economically deprived nation. Kind of like a light weight prize fighter; I have observed that you always bet on the fighter or marathoner from the most economically decimated country. Those people have the most motivation to win so it improves your odds!

Train To Beat The Band

Now that I have lain the ground work for why some people are speedier and that some people are anamolous in that they beat the odds, now I will discuss the way to improve your speed to your potential. No kidding, you actually have a chance to get faster, develop quicker first step explosiveness and generate more top end speed if you will just listen to the next few missives from the speed merchant. These insights are based on 45 years of personal experience and countless hours of other folks' input.

Recognize first, that we all have an innate and predetermined top end speed and first step explosion rate. Now, how do we get the most out of these two genetically determined characteristics? Simple, yet not so simple unless you know what the merchant knows!

Your workouts must be specifically designed to create a more explosive first step and to improve and maximize your high gears. To put this in terms of distance, explosion would correlate with the first 50 yards of a race while the top end would be reached after the first 50 yards and heretofore by the 80th to 120th yard of a race. Before the 50 yard mark you are normally accelerating and exploding in the run. While in the attainment of top end speed you are usually maxed out by the 120th yard as to your top speed. For example, Houston Mctear, one of the fastest people I ever saw run 60 yards, appeared to be accelerating through out the 60, where he usually petered out and was caught by the other sprinters by the 100 yard mark.

On the other hand, Michael Johnson seemed to gather momentum until he reached a peak speed around the 120 to 160 yard mark, where he would maintain that speed for as long as 400 meters!

Mctear's Explosion

His innate ability came through at a very young age. He was recognized for his explosiveness while still in high school. If you watched him run you would notice his deep lean, short, almost choppy steps and his wanton desire to bust out of the pack in nearly every race he ran indoors.

DeepLean- The first fifteen steps of a sprint are characterized as a fight against gravity. The runner must use gravity to propel himself forward while maintaining balance enough to get into the next phase of the run. I am sure track afficianadoes can break a sprint into various other segments, however for the merchant's purposes of explaining how to get faster, just hold your horses you afficiandoes.

As the Ubersprinter comes out of the blocks or off the line or off a base or charges to ball or scrambles to get an advantage he always comes out low and keeps his center of gravity down near the earth. If he stands too quickly he loses a step. Its like trying to race a car while starting in 2nd or 3rd gear. You will lose the race if you start at the low speed unless the race is over several hundred miles like Indy. But in my view of the running world, life is a drag, race that is. Vroom, Vroom!

Choppy Steps- Pick em up, put em down as fast as you can at the beginning of the race. In this phase of a run you are using only fast twitch muscle to propel your body forward or sidewards or upwards or whatever. Important point! To carry any other type of muscle at this point of a run is plain stupid! It is excess baggage and simply defies logic to carry it along and expect to run faster.

It really kills me to see people who are trying to improve their speed by working on speed training then going out for a 5 mile run. The choppy steps work best when you are using every scintilla of your energy to pick em up and put em down as fast as you can. The extra weight of slow twitch muscle fibre only adds ballast to the ass. I will talk more about the effects of improper training for speed later.

Wanton Abandon-Eyes watering, air exploding from lungs, and arms pumping like a mofo; That is wanton abandon! There is no appearance of control only a desire to be out of the blocks first. To be a world class sprinter you have to let the animal inside OUT! Modern sprint coaches have refined almost every element of the sprint including the arm movement, leg movements, and body and head leans. While all those elements are critical to being a successful sprinter, the baseline elements necessary for a successful runner/athlete are what you would have seen had you seen Houston run.

Next will be, what makes Michael run and how to train for the development of fast twitch muscle fibre, since thats all you need anyway. Later!

Let's Get Molecular, Come On Let Your Body Move

2005-03-23T19:26:00.000-08:00

Layman, that's the key word to remember when reading these ideas!

Theoretically, the more fast twitch muscle fibre you have in your muscle mass the faster you are, relatively speaking,i.e., if you have two 200 lb. people the person with 10% more fast twitch muscle should be faster,ceteris paribus. And supposedly the more slow twitch muscle fibre you have in your body the longer you can run but not as fast. So what is the ideal combination of slow and fast twitch muscle fibre in an athlete's body? It depends, I suppose, on the athlete's needs in their particular sport.

For example, a marathon runner requires significantly more slow twitch muscle fibre since they need to run long distances at a steady pace. They have no need to sprint for the entire 26.2 miles. Rather they wish to sustain a steady pace that is very nearly a sprint; world class marathoners run 5 minute miles, so that is almost a sprint. On the other hand a 40 yard dash specialist has no need for a steady pace, they are concerned about total acceleration all the way through the 40 yards, then they stop and do it again.

This is all significant since how they train, dictates their optimum results. As the marathoner well knows he needs to log many miles of endurance type training. Simutaneously, he must be careful not to add any useless fat or mass that will detract from the formation of the highly efficient slow twitch muscle fibres that will allow him to maintain the steady pace for a very long run.

Conversely, the sprinter or athlete that needs bursts of speed will be hampered in their performance if they haul around the slow twitch muscle fibres. Their goal is to develop fast twitch fibre that can explode many times during an event or competition. They work hard to improve the fast twitch and to improve recovery from the bursts of energy. Examples of this type of athlete would be Tennis players, footballers(European and American), basketballers, and so on.

Anecdotal evidence shows that the most successful athletes train very similarly within their respective sports. That is, most skiers train the same as other skiers. By dissecting their training regimens, one can understand that their athletic goals dictate how they have trained historically, and how they will continue to train; trial and error holds true in developing training systems, as well. With that understood, one should also consider that athletes alter their training programs very slowly, so advances in conditioning and fast or slow twitch muscle fibre development have been adopted very slowly.

It wan't that long ago that coaches withheld water during rigorous two a day practices so they could "toughen up" their charges. We now know that this practice is foolhardy and dangerous. A few people had to die to change this practice. There are still a few mis-guided coaches out there that continue to practice this barbarism; Are we not men, do we not bleed when you cut us?, Hell yes, so drink plenty of fluids all the time and look for new ways to get faster all the time

Anomalous Merkin

2005-03-21T14:11:00.000-08:00

Every once in a while a person comes along that defies the odds when it comes to speed. That is why records continue to be broken, of course. At a very young age I discovered that I was faster than all the other children my age. In races at school and at cub scout outings I noticed that every time we had a race for a prize I could beat everyone by quite a large margin.

All the way through high school I was the fastest kid in the school for my age. Here are some interesting facts that prove that I was an anomalous merkin. For starters, I went to five grade schools, five high schools and five unversities. At all those schools I was in the top 5 in speed for the 40 yard dash, 100 yard dash and up to the quarter mile.

Next I am of a wide mixof races and gene pools, they include Spanish, French Morrocan, Aztec, Apache, Swiss, and if you believe in the ice bridge theory, Asian. Nearly global stuff! Now that I have married ,our children have even more varied blood lines coursing through them. They both inherited the speed and have competed in college sports.

I was the anomaly, but from now on the kids should pass on the speed component to their progeny, I would expect. After going to all the different schools in the different geographic areas of the USA, I came to understand that there were fast people in all those areas, but I could beat them in a race, no matter the sprint distance. Except when I ran against black athletes who were as fast and in a couple of cases faster. At the top level of competition the winner usually had the best start, and that was the difference between those of us at the top of the speed food chain.

Watch out, the Merchant is on line

2005-03-20T13:39:00.000-08:00

Horse breeders and farmers have known for ever that if you take one mammal and match it with another of like kind mammal, you will get characteristics from both mates. And therein lies the foundation for faster people. Since we are mammals, one should suppose that if you breed for speed you would get it in the offspring most of the time. Over time speed will continue to be enhanced if speed as a genetic marker is dominant. The dominance of speed, genetically speaking, apppears to be a dominant charecteristic if you look at the anecdotal evidence.

One only has to look at the majority of sprinters in the olympics to see that is the case. Anomalies in the speed area do occur, look at the Russians and Eastern Europeans of the last century. They excelled against the typical world class sprinters of African ancestry. Although some of the europeans are suspect due to steroids and biological manipulations.

To illustrate this idea of genetic significance in the development of speed, I would like to relate a story that is based in fact. Once while doing business with a sod grower in central Arizona I asked the grower if he knew the local famous sports family, the Malones. He said that he kew them very well and that he had grown up with the eldest brother. There were three brothers. I told him I had competed against the middle brother in track and field at the high school level.

I then asked him how was it that these guys were so fast and so big. He said its funny I should ask, because he had a very good friend from Michigan State that did his doctoral thesis in African studies on the effects of the slave trade on today's African Americans athletes.

He told me that his friend did quite a study on the effects of genetic engineering by slavers and farmers in early colonial and the pre-civil war periods of north and south America. The study used as a hypothesis that the effect of the slave trade and the use of slaves propelled the Africans a thousnad years into the future as it relates to certain developmental and evolutionary traits. His study had a very narrow focus that tried to identify how the manipulation was done and how we would recognize the effects in todays African American athletic population.

The fellow that performed the study did not tell me the results or the specifics of his study directly, so I am relying on second hand information here. According to my source the study included some basic understandings that included:
1. Farmers demanded slaves for their production needs and they saw the slaves as assets, totally dispassionate about their chattel,
2.Slavers saw the slaves as assets and were also concerned about productivity as well as physical characteristics of their product,
3.The slave trade is the foundation for the manipulation that would prove his hypothesis.

As the study unfolded the doctoral candidate found that as slavers entered the villages of Africa they looked for certain characteristcs of which size and good physical presence were very important. These characteristics acted as the litmus test that was used to evaluate men and women.

Once the slavers had a boat load of slaves ,they would make their way to the new world across the Atlantic. During the trip weak slaves would die and the the stronger slaves lived. This turned out to be the second test in the process for the slavers, they knew that only the strongest would survive and the weaker slaves would be culled from the heard so to speak. They expected to lose a certain number of slaves due to disease or accidents(spoilage), and the healthy live ones were considered to be the best of the best. Slaves would be auctioned to farmers in the new world. This trade for flesh lasted for centuries so over time the slavers became very precise in their evaluation of the slaves.They knew their product upside and down.

Farmers then took over the manipulation of their newly acquired property. Once the farmer had purchased a strong young slave they would utilize the best traits of their new chattel to the greatest advantage. As was part of a every farmers job, he would try for higher and higher yield from his crops and from his slaves. This activity of "hibridization " by farmers went on for hundreds of years and like the slaver ,they too became very proficient at manipulating their assets to their fullest potential. Farmers do the same thing today with their crops and livestock, of course.

Specifically, farmers identified which of their male slaves was a real stud,i.e. strong, large, well muscled, and would seek to cross him with the strongest females. In the cotton growing areas,for example, farmers bred for very stong lower backs and powerful thighs, key ingredients for bursts of speed and power. Their needs were for slaves to be able to haul heavy bags of cottonon hteir backs and be able to do it for long periods of time. On the other hand, there was a lesser need for slaves that would help in the house. Farmers did breed for smaller help, so house slaves were necessary. Their characteristcs included fine hand and motor skills as well as gregariousness, so they could interact with the farmer's family and serve as well as prepare food. A large slave was not a house slave, too threatening and clumsy for the smallish rooms of a farm.

Over time the farmer would try to enhance his odds of having large strong slaves by cross breeding with the neighbor's slaves. Just like a horse or cattle breeder who uses stud services to attain certain characteristcs, the farmer manipulated the gene pool to fit his immediate needs as well as the needs of his heirs. Again, this went on for a very long time in the new world. Slaves and their off spring were handed down generation to generation.

Due to this manipulation over a long period of time, the doctoral candidate concluded that the net effect for the slaves was that the African descendants had advanced nearly one thousand years in their devlopment of size and speed, by having larger and stronger backs and legs . Along with size and speed came a few unpredicted side effects. Leaping ability, finer motor movements, superior flexiblity, quicker recovery from exertion, and higher levels of testosterone than their non-slave counterparts also emerged as side effects.

This story illustrates that the manipulation has made a significant differenence as to why African descendants dominate in many professional sports today. It was never more evident than when you saw Michael Jordan play basketball or when you saw Lee Evans run the 400 meters.

The day of the merchant

2005-03-19T13:46:00.000-08:00

I have lived five lives and I am not a vampire. All these lives have provided great info on how to be the fastest person you can be. The speed merchant has nothing to do with drugs. Rather, the title of the Speed Merchant is an assertion of my ability to communicate with anyone how to become as fast as you can be, given two basic precepts. The precepts are first, that people are limited to an inherent speed or quickness by mostly genetic factors, and second, that your penultimate speed is related to your workouts and training techniques.

I am the self proclaimed Speed Merchant only because noone else says they are the merchant. That said, anyone can give their two cents to this page if it helps someone become faster. I have met people that know a lot about getting faster and I hope they along with others will contribute their experiences and knowledge with the intention of helping us get Quick!

Let the fun begin.

2005-03-18T22:16:00.000-08:00