The lower legs are crucial for explosive movement. And the great news is that your Antepes Muscles Runners are specifically designed to strengthen calf muscles and Achilles tendons in a highly sprint and speed specific way. We show you how no movement drills will get your lower leg muscles and ankles ready for speed.
Improve your speed of movement with no movement!
An isometric muscular action is one where opposing muscles work against each other. In doing so they produce energy. The obvious example is a wall sit. As you press back into the wall your leg muscles (specifically quads and hamstrings and front and rear lower leg muscles) will work against each other as you push but you won’t be going anywhere.
Isometric muscular actions are very important for sprinting and jumping - although you might not initially reason why
Isometric muscular actions are very important for sprinting and jumping - although you might not initially reason why.
On foot-strike when sprinting huge forces (6 plus times body weight) need to be overcome in milliseconds. Elite sprinters will only be in contact with the ground for 0.80-0.90 milliseconds at max velocity. On impact there will be the briefest of isometric muscular actions. The muscles and other soft tissue of the ankle, knee and hip will then stretch (an eccentric muscular action) to further block/absorb the impact.
Think of an archer’s bow - the arrow is drawn back (akin to the eccentric muscular action) then before it is released the archer steadies, holds and then releases the arrow. It’s at the point just before the arrow flies that a huge amount of stored energy - which you can attribute to the isometric (and eccentric) muscular action is harnessed.
Now you can see why - even if it's for less than a millisecond - an isometric action is crucial for the subsequent release of huge amounts of power for sprinting and other dynamic sports activities.
If there is no significant isometric (nor eccentric) muscular action then the subsequent concentric one (a shortening muscular action) will not produce such significant power nor speed.
Added Bonus – Injury Protection
There’s an added bonus to no movement exercise - much research shows that isometric drills serve a pre-training function. This means they can make soft tissue (muscles, ligaments and tendons) more injury resilient. Developing this resilience in the lower legs will really help get the most from your built-for-speed Muscle Runners.
Max Prep for Muscle Runners
Your dynamic speed training shoes can make balancing/held movements challenging.
Muscle Runners with their heel to toe cushioning gain™ and Fore-Strike™ innovations are designed to improve foot-strike. And their sprint-spike-like design will guide your foot through ground contact into a superior toe-off compared to conventional running shoes. This is further aided by ForeSpring™ carbon plate technology which is purposed for impact distribution and fluid energy transfer. All this means that your purpose-built speed shoes will really work your ankle complex when performing dynamic drills and sprints.
Muscle Runners’ design actually makes it hard for the heel hit the ground when, for example, sprinting. Consequentially this means that specific isometric (and eccentric) calf power is crucial. If your heel drops on foot-strike at max velocity or when accelerating, for example, you lose speed.
Isometrically power up your lower legs
Without Antepes
1: Wall calf press (straight leg)
Place hands overhead against wall. Keep body straight and lean into it. Really extend through the ankles to create the isometric power.
This exercise targets the large calf muscle – the gastrocnemius
Do: 8-10 reps
Hold for 10sec
2: Wall calf press (bent knee)
Assume a similar position to the above exercise - but this time with knees bent really push through extended ankles into the wall. The bent knee position will target the soleus which is crucial for sprint acceleration. It's the smaller calf muscle.
Strong soleus muscles will prevent your ankle collapsing under the weight of dynamic acceleration.
Do: 8-10 reps
Hold for 10sec
3: Sprinter press
Set a Smith Machine up at shoulder-height so that the bar won’t move and then attempt to push it up by extending the calf muscles of one leg whilst the thigh of the other leg is held parallel. The bar will be across the back of your shoulders.
The exercise can also be done against a wall (as shown) with arms outstretched just above shoulder-height with hands against the wall. You will have to “lean into the wall” to achieve the optimum pressing position.
You'll get added iso power benefits in the hip of the extended thigh by really focussing on pulling that up too.
Hold for 8-10sec and then switch legs
Do: 8-10 reps (4/5 from each leg)
Dynamic Isometric Drills in Muscle Runners
In your Antepes, isometric (and eccentric) emphasis drills will really test you and build lower leg power. Muscle Runners Negative heel gain of 8-10mm (depending on size) is purposely designed to load the forefoot and not the heel on touch down. We've identified other related design features earlier that do similar. Simply put all will make it difficult to actually get the heel to touch the ground. This is why as noted you need that isometric calf power.
1: Dynamic double-foot jump to forefoot hold
Jump forward to land on the forefoot of your Muscle Runners to block the landing with minimal knee bend. The block will create that isometric stopping power. Re-set and repeat.
Do: 3 x 8
2: Downhill sprints and drills
Using a slight downgrade (1-2 degrees) can place greater eccentric and isometric stress on your legs. The downgrade encourages a slight braking and this can lead to both increased isometric and eccentric loading.
Make sure you build up gradually to downgrade sprints and drills (such as straight leg bounds and scissors). More in a future post.
3: Drop and block jumps
Use a 40cm-60cm box and jump off it keeping toes up. Land, and as with exercise 1 in this section, minimise knee bend to stop as “fast” as possible without letting the heels touch the ground. Think of a gymnast coming to the end of their floor routine. The block will really test isometric and eccentric muscular power.
Do: 3-4 x 6
Tip: If you find your knees overly yielding on impact then you are jumping from too high a height. Either reduce the height of the box or lower yourself and therefore your drop height from the platform before jumping. As your isometric (and eccentric) power improves you will be able to jump higher and block.
