By TREVOR MACKAY news@wanganuichronicle.co.nz
The world's fastest speedball is in use in Wanganui.
Junior sprinters in a squad coached by Sport and Recreation director of coaching Stuart Dempster are learning how to use the ball.
Now Wanganui coaches and athletes are to receive the opportunity to see a demonstration of the use of
the ball. Dempster is holding a practical workshop at Sport and Recreation Wanganui on August 17 at 5.15pm.
The workshop features a video and includes a practical coaching session, where Dempster will demonstrate the use of the ball.
He said the Jim Bradley Speedball was the world's fastest. It is similar to a boxing speedball, but Dempster said it was quicker.
The length of the ball is 25cm.
He said speedball training had been used by professional athletes for years to develop speed.
Club to international level athletes from South-East Scotland and Australia had integrated the speedball as a key component of their training programmes.
Scottish sprinter Allan Wells, who had become the Olympic 100m champion in Moscow, had used the speedball.
The speedball was being used by a variety of sportsmen and sportswomen, including Australian Rules teams, professional soccer teams and professional tennis athlete Christine Bozic.
Dempster said that if a sport required athletes to be quick, and to possess speed and strength, then coaches and athletes should not miss the opportunity to attend the workshop.
"Speedball is one of the few training methods which can be safely deployed both for young athletes and adult athletes," he said.
Dempster said Jim Bradley, from his home town of Edinburgh, had been a sprinter who had turned to coaching and had a ball made on the boxing model. It had been too slow and had been redesigned.
Bradley had trained a group of sprinters in a gymnasium, which was also attended by weightlifters. Friendly rivalry had led to a weightlifting competition and the sprinters had lifted heavier weights than the weightlifters.
The Jim Bradley Speedball trained and developed the central nervous system, which was the key component of speed development.
"It develops the ability of the central nervous system to turn over very quickly, sending messages to the muscles. "You can develop speed and endurance, and quick reactions, with it."
Where use of facilities to operate speedballs was concerned, he wanted to thank the Wanganui Athletics Club and Cooks Gardens Trust.
