There’s no doubt about it. Jamaicans are the speed kings. And queens. Their 1-2-3 in the women’s 100m final was sensational enough. The men though, led by Bolt, have managed to outdo them. Bolt’s 100m and 200m world records were just sensational but their 4X100m left no doubt as to their overall superiority. 37.10 seconds! The previous record was 37.40, set in Barcelona 1992. It was a record that had stood for 16 years. The Jamaicans smashed it by 0.3 seconds. Not 0.03, 0.3.

I was especially pleased for Asafa Powell who put in an extraordinary final leg to smash the record and finally grab a major gold. Maybe he needs his team-mates as motivation, which is unfortunate for an individual performer but certainly possible. Below is an explanation on the role of mental energy for recruiting fast-twitch fibres, something that Bolt clearly has little problems with but Powell does. Congratulations Jamaica, that was truly incredible.
To recruit these fast-twitch motor units takes powerful movements, possibly fuelled by an excited hormonal response associated with increased adrenaline and neural stimulation. In terms of producing more power, this works because the increased mental energy boosts the flow of electrical impulses to the muscle, generating increased muscular tension.

To read more about Training for Sprinting, Speed and Acceleration, click here.

It should be pointed out that extreme levels of this ‘neuronal stimulation’ can lead to impaired sports performance. For example, a golfer relies on the synchronous firing of fast-twitch motor units during the ‘swing’; but if he becomes overly aggressive and ‘tries too hard’ a poor stroke usually results, even though his fast-twitch motor units could be capable of expressing more power because of their increased state of tension.

Fast-twitch muscle fibre is recruited synchronously – ie all at the same time – within its motor unit. This is, in part, a physiological manifestation of a neural activity – sports skill learning. Let’s use sprinting to explain this. Carl Lewis had a wonderful silky sprint action. His finely-honed technique allowed his fast-twitch motor units to fire synchronously and apply power. The end result was championship and world record-breaking form. In short, Lewis’s neural mastery of sprinting form allowed his fast-twitch motor units to fire off smoothly, operating like cogs in a well-oiled machine. It also allowed him to recruit the largest, and therefore most efficient, power-producing units. This latter ability is a further key element in developing optimum fast-twitch motor unit power.

Click here to read an article about sprinting and training techniques