As for the speed aspect, Isometrics, and all forms of resistance training improves speed, acceleration and strength, and more. The only way to become faster is through stronger muscles tissue and increased neurological efficiency. The stronger the muscle tissue, the harder it contracts. With the practice of isometrics your body learns to contract your muscles much much faster and as a result this increases your speed.
This is just one of the reasons that Bruce lee practiced isometrics so extensively.
I myself can move very fast and snatch a coin from someones hand before they can close it. I've also done timed drills with stop motion camera's for some tv shows when demonstrating gun disarms, and can bring my hand from a resting point at my side, to a gun held by an opponent, faster than he can pull the trigger, takes me about .3 of a second.That's pretty fast. I can also do hiit hill sprints at a 17 degree incline at over 24mph.
As regards specific exercises - the best way is to train the whole body. It's all about having a strong kinetic chain. If you just focus on your triceps for instance and build their contractile strength, that's all well and good, but failing to train the biceps can easily lead to hyper extension, and your speed will also be reduced by slow movement of the feet though to the shoulder if they haven't been trained.
This is one of the reasons I focus on whole body training in 7 Seconds to A Perfect Body (www.strong-in-7-seconds.com) course.
Finally remember Bruce Lee's own words on speed - " If you want to move faster, just move faster". ;-)
You may also want to check out my article on Martial Arts Speed here - http://www.isometric-training.com/Isometric-Training-for-Martial-Arts-Speed.html
Hope that clarity's things a little.
Paul
Dec 01, 2009 Rating
Great question - here's the answer! by: Paul from isometric-training.com
I personally am not a fan of the big muscle look, opting for as you say the Bruce Lee physique. Low body fat and rock hard muscle is impressive regardless of how much space it takes up. To answer your question, yes Isometrics can be used to strengthen the muscle, however....not solely.
A muscle can only do three things, get bigger, get smaller or stay the same size.
Strength can ONLY increase in 2 situations.
1. Increased muscle fiber recruitment due to improved nervous force (eg, you recruit more fiber through teaching your body to contract harder - the most of effective method of which is Isometrics), hence Bruce Lee's obsession with iso's.
2. Increased muscular cross sectional size (e.g. what happens when you've reached the peak of nervous contraction, your body adapts and you build bigger muscle).
Isometrics starts with 1, then moves on to 2.
Thus isometrics will certainly make you stronger pound for pound, maximizing your muscular efficiency and then when that has reached it's limit, your body will adapt and grow new tissue. And the process repeats.
So in essence, it's all the exact same thing, just different stages in the process.
I maintain a small compact rock solid physique by limiting my calories, besides it's too expensive and far too much effort to eat all the food necessary for huge muscles. Besides, it's far more impressive to maximize what the strength of what you have, rather than have the size, but nothing to back it up with. ;-)
