I don't buy that Rugbywhisperer and I think you would struggle to find any athletic academic article that would back up that argument. (you picked the wrong person for this debate) People who are born to run at elite levels do not just forget or lose that ability (yes they do). Athletics is one of those rare sports where natural ability is the limiting factor, (but sprinting needs very specific work to stay in top form) you can train your arse off and be the most diligent performer off the track but the bloke with more ability will still beat you every time.(you can't turn slow twitch into fast twitch but they certainly can go the other way if not trained). It is a cruel sport like that, and those same limiting factors do not cross-over with rugby at all (wrong).[/QUOTE]
No - definitely not so. As a sprint coach I can testify to that effect.
Sprinting is probably the most fickle and difficult of the athletic pursuits to maintain top performance. Everything needs to be 110% right or top speed isn't reached and this must be maintained all the way through the training season.
The reason for this is that naturally a body (read fast twitch muscles) will degenerate without specific work. While the natural sprinters have an ability to be faster than those without the fast twitch capability, (all the training in the world cannot make a slow person fast - you are correct in that statement) the speed does degrade quite quickly without the specific training. Naturals as you call them will keep the majority (90%) of their speed for a while but the longer they don’t do specific work the greater the degradation of the fast twitch capability. Have you ever seen a retired sprinter. Not like an endurance runner – they go all blobbish over an extended period of time if they are not careful.
A top sprinter who rests for say one month can take up to 3 – 4 months to regain that top speed. Top speed doesn't hang around. You use it or lose it and fast twitch muscles need constant, very specific stimulation to remain in top form. Additionally they don't remain in top form forever. They like all soft tissue need regeneration so even top sprinters have times on and times off (long and short recovery). Recovery is a very misunderstood and underrated facet of sports training.
So a player like Turner while keeping the bulk of his speed through everyday training would, by not doing fast twitch specific work would drop his top speed by as much as 8% - 12% easily.
Every athletics season the top runners don't perform at top speed straight off - they need build up time and that entails speed specific training. Sprint season training needs very specific scheduling for the various facets of the work culminating in very exact speed work when approaching the peak end of the season. That is why championships are not held at the beginning of the season. During that very speed specific training they normally would NOT do any other form of training.
For a top rugby player, that speed specific training has to be sacrificed for team training, skills, endurance (which always degrades speed) games and all the other stuff demanded of the top players these days. Imagine telling the coach that you can't train for 2 days because your muscles need to be rested.
Additionally, speed specific work is very demanding and exact and just cannot be done when an athlete feels like it as in endurance or handling training. You cannot do effective speed specific training when fatigued or tired. It doesn't work. For it to be effective training the athlete normally would have not done any training in the previous 36-48 hours before and similar recovery period after the training. Any training in that recovery period would in all effect totally negate any speed work that was done. Period. No debate. Also, speed sessions when done at peak speed cover no more than 300-450m of sprint work. It is very short, sharp and effective. Elite sprinters would do no more than 2, maybe at a pinch 3 speed sessions a week in peak training so that leaves very little time for other rugby training which if done in that recovery period would severely impact on the speed of the athlete.
Rant over
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