Written By Jayme Pantekoek | Published June 12th 2022
What FAST Stands For: Part 2
The second two letters of FAST stand for Sport Transfer. As we discussed in part 1, applying different specified tempos, or speeds, to training is a great way to benefit the athlete’s skill set in nervous system function. But now we have to make sure the athlete is using that nervous system in the right position for sport. This is where we start moving away from just improving force application, the FA in FAST, and move toward the other half of the word. The other half is Sport Transfer.
Positioning Of the Athlete While Training (Positional Strength)
How to get the Force Applied to the body to Transfer directly to the Sport, Force Application Sport Transfer (FAST). This is where a lot of styles of training with weights is inferior to the FAST model.
Bodybuilding, powerlifting, CrossFit, and Olympic Lifting all require you to focus on the weight being moved in the strongest pattern possible, because that is their sport. Usually, this requires the training to be done on the heels when doing lower body exercises. This is the exact opposite of what we are trying to teach our athletes when we are in our sports positions.
Sports positions are up on the balls of the foot also known as the transverse arch, to help facilitate quick movements, not on the heels where the athlete can get caught flat-footed and stuck in their position. This is where the other training methods really fall short. They cannot get the strength to transfer directly to the sport where the athlete has to now invest a huge amount of time and energy getting brute strength to transfer to the sport.
The FAST method has a direct correlation between strengthening positions and the transfer to sport, the transfer is seamlessly quick and easy for the athlete to progress in their strength AND speed in the sport.
We always follow up positional strength movements with their antagonist muscle group, these are the muscles and tendons that give our explosive movements stability during that explosive movement. They are also the muscles that get to move the limbs in the opposite pattern of the explosive movement. This is necessary for the whole of the athlete to be able to move smoothly, efficiently and prevent injury.
Sport Transfer Movements
There is no better way to get the force applied to the athlete to transfer to the sport than firing those muscles and tendons in the same sequence as they would in their sport. If you are in a sport that requires the athlete to have rotational power then the sport transfer movement or exercise should have a muscle pattern of first loading that movement through the foot on the ground, up through the rotation of the hip and glute, and then through the rotation of the torso and arms.
From there the athlete can move like a spring and unload or unwind through the movement with speed. If the focus is on quickening the first steps of acceleration, then we can load both the movements of strength training into the acceleration movement by further increasing the angle of the shin to directly correlate to an acceleration pattern.
Having this sport transfer is the key to the FAST method which most styles of training do not offer. One thing to keep in mind is that when you are working the same muscle patterns that your sport offer we need to do counter-movements that create stability in the antagonistic muscles which in turn makes for well-rounded movement patterns, injury prevention, and more stable joints, ligaments, and tendons.
Find out more about our comprehensive development training for your athletes by clicking here or contacting Jayme Pantekoek.