The concept of measuring muscular speed is a tricky one. You can usually assess muscular strength -- a different metric than speed -- by tests such as the vertical jump, the long jump or the five-repetition maximum for squats and bench presses when using a barbell. Your endurance can be measured by how many miles -- ideally two or more -- you can cover in a 12-minute timed run. In comparison to endurance and strength, muscular speed, partly a function of reflexes and partly related to the presence of more fast-twitch than slow-twitch fibers, cannot be measured perfectly. Certain assessments can help you gather a rough sense of overall speed.
Step 1
Time your athletes in the 30-, 40- or 60-yard dash, depending on which distance is most appropriate for your sport. Thirty yards may do well for soccer, 40 for football and 60 for baseball. Results provide an indicator of the athlete's running mechanics, acceleration skills and conditioning as well as inherent speed.
Step 2
Set up cones in the shape of the letter T to administer the T test of lateral quickness and agility. Position cones 1 and 2 10 yards apart and flank cone 2 on each side with cones 3 and 4 five yards away. Time your athlete with a stopwatch as she runs, touching the top of each cone, from cone 1 to cone 2, shuffling to the right to touch cone 3 and shuffling to the left to touch cone 4. She needs to shuffle back to cone 2 and backpedal to cone 1, at which point you stop your stopwatch. After a five-minute rest, have the athlete conduct a second run and record the better result. Agility testing measures a subset of muscular speed -- the ability to transition from one movement to another with control -- while quickness indicates speed of initial movement, immensely valuable in all sports.
Step 3
Have the athlete perform a one-repetition maximum, or 1RM, of an exercise such as the bench press and then rest for 15 minutes. Direct the athlete after resting to perform as many repetitions as he can manage using 80 percent of his one-rep max. If he can do less than seven repetitions, his muscle fibers are fast-twitch dominant. If he can do seven or eight reps, he has mixed fibers, and if he does more than eight, he is slow-twitch dominant. Muscles with fast-twitch fibers dominant can product higher levels of force at quicker rates but fatigue quickly.
Things You'll Need
- Plastic cones
- Stopwatch
- Barbell
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