THE MISSING DETAILS IN LINEAR SPEED PROGRAMS

Adam Szabo

Owner, Excelerate Athletic Development, LLC

When coaches first hire my company they usually say, “We need to get faster.”  I love that statement because I do not believe my teams can be fast enough and I believe that every athlete can get faster.  If a team has even one player who can break a tackle and run for a touchdown and if a team has 11 defensive players who can run to the ball, they are usually going to win a lot of games.  It is also almost impossible to win a state championship without having both of those characteristics.

That conversation leads to the question ….”What should we do to get faster and separate ourselves from our competition?”  Below are some questions that most programs are not asking, and the missing details that can give your program a much needed advantage.

HOW DO WE GET FASTER?

When I ask coaches this question they give me all kinds of answers like, “Get stronger”, “Do plyometrics”, etc.  Those are all good secondary answers and they are correct but the primary answer is, “Run fast.” If I asked people how they would get better at hitting curveballs, nobody would say, “Get stronger.”  They all say that they would get in the cage and hit a lot of curveballs.  I am not diminishing the important role of getting stronger or doing plyometrics but just highlighting that the best way to improve a particular skill is to practice that skill.

CAN WE DO ANYTHING IN THE WEIGHT ROOM TO INCREASE SPEED?

I think it is imperative to use the weight room to teach the body to move fast.  Using Dynamic and Ballistic exercises will help increase speed and the following information describes how to prescribe and integrate these movements:

Ballistic Lifting

Example Video:  Ballistic Bench Press

Cadence:  Fast down and fast up

Weight Used:  40-45% of their 1-Rep Max

When to Use:  For high school athletes, I only do this with body weight exercises and on hammer strength machines to ensure safety.  Most high school athletes are not athletic enough to do this safely with free weights.

Dynamic Lifting

Example Video:  Dynamic Bench Press

Cadence:  Normal down and fast up

Weight Used:  40-45% of their 1-Rep Max

When to Use:  Most athletes can do this on free weights because the eccentric portion is at the normal speed.

HOW IMPORTANT IS TECHNIQUE?

Everything in life is a skill and all skills need to be taught and practiced.  Most football programs are extremely detailed in their football and lifting technique but lax in their speed and agility technique.  Technique is vitally important to improving speed and do not assume that people know how to accelerate and sprint correctly.  In my experience, almost every person gets into the wrong stances and struggles with athletic transitions that lead to their acceleration issues.  Please read my previous articles on teaching technique to see those details.

To show your athletes the impact of technique, have your athletes take out their cell phones (or show them yourself) and have them pull up their stopwatch.  Tell them to hit the start button and immediately hit the stop button.  Their time will be somewhere around 0.20 seconds (which is the average human reaction time and that is why if you want to convert a hand time to an estimated electric time, you add 0.20 seconds).  The athletes will realize that the difference in running 4.7 seconds in the 40 or 4.5 seconds is very small because 0.20 seconds is a very small amount of time.  Very small technique issues can create drastic changes in time and can determine their future opportunities.  Many athletes have slow times, even though they are not slow, because they make so many movement and transition mistakes.  Tell the athletes that even though 0.20 seconds does not seem like a long time it is the difference in whether you are batting a ball down or not, tackling a player or not, or breaking a tackle.

As coaches we never underestimate the power of film but sometimes we forget that we can apply this to the weight room and speed training.  I recommend getting the “Hudl Technique” app and use it constantly to show them their body angles and lines.  Just like during football season my athletes do not believe me until they see it on film.

HOW OFTEN SHOULD WE DO FULL-SPEED TRAINING?

If you asked a track coach, they would say that you should only do full-speed training a couple days a week so the body has some time to recover between sessions.  Also, the body can only handle about six full-speed 40 yard sprints per session, with maximum rest, until the workout turns into a speed-endurance or conditioning workout.

That being said, all athletes need to prepare for the rigors of practice so they will eventually have to sprint and condition every day of the week.  This is where theory meets practicality and this phase of training usually happens in the summer.

I think the easiest way to gain an advantage is to run all year because hardly any program is doing it.  This needs to occur because running is a skill and we do not have our athletes year round.  With high school athletes playing other sports, we need to take advantage of all of the time we have with them and I would never rely on another program to prepare my athletes.  If a football/baseball player does not run during the winter, since most programs are usually in a hypertrophy phase, then they are only going to work on their speed during the summer.  That is not enough time to improve anyone’s speed.  On top of this, I think football programs should work on speed training year round to help the other sports.  The baseball coach will be very appreciative of football coaches helping to prepare baseball players for their seasons.

We also find a way to run no matter what the weather is.  If it is too cold, there is deep snow, or if it is raining, we find any space that we can work in.  We routinely do 20 yard accelerations, plyometrics, and simple agility drills in the school hallways.

WHAT IS THE CORRECT REST TIME FOR FULL-SPEED TRAINING?

The USA Track & Field formula for full-speed training is one minute of rest for every 10 meters run.  Just to make it easy and if you were doing 40 yard sprints, then you would need to take four minutes between each run.  I know what you are thinking…”I am not going to waste 20 minutes of my 90 minute workout to run six sprints.”  I completely understand your dilemma and the moral of the story is to try to give your athletes more rest time so you are actually working on top-end speed.  Coaches constantly give their athletes too little rest time and then wonder why they are in great shape but are not maximizing their speed gains.  In the weight room, this would be equivalent to having an athlete max out on squat, giving them 10 seconds rest, and then having them max out again.  I try to give my athletes between 2-3 minutes of rest between each rep because time is a concern for me also.  If you only give them a minute or less between each rep, only the first one or two will be speed training and the rest will be conditioning.  Make sure to explain rest intervals to your athletes because if they are doing speed training on their own, they will have the time to get the needed rest intervals.

HOW IMPORTANT IS THE START?

I took all of the testing data for my sprinters and football players and compared their 10 yard dash times to their 40 yard dash times.  Even though 10 yards is only 25% of their entire 40 yard dash, 33% of their entire 40 yard dash times occurred during the first 10 yards.  The ratio of time and distance was not proportional.

Ryan Flaherty (world renowned speed coach and I have learned a lot from his videos and podcasts) says that it is improbable to run a 4.5 second 40 yard dash unless the first seven steps are taken correctly and the seventh step lands at least 11 yards from the starting line.  Players also need to make sure they get everything out of “each gear” just like a car.  If they get into a higher gear too quickly, they cannot go back to a lower gear to try to get more out of it.  They need to be patient with their technique, acceleration patterns, and their landmarks so they can “red-line” each gear.

In terms of the football field, players spend most of their time sprinting between 0-20 yards so there is a natural game application.

WHAT ARE THE IMPORTANT LANDMARKS FOR LINEAR SPEED?

Each of the following intervals are estimates and change off of height, weight, strength, age, and gender:

0-10 yards –  The body should be leaned over at a 45 degree angle

10-20 yards – The body transitions from 45 degrees to upright

40 yards – Acceleration ends

40-90 yards – If their mechanics are correct, an athlete will stay at top speed

90-100 yards – During this distance, everyone decelerates and the goal is to decelerate as little as possible.  Technically speaking, Usain Bolt does not speed up at the end to beat his opponents but instead is just decelerating less than his opponents and is keeping his top speed longer.

At first, you will have to teach the athletes to stay in the proper positioning using the field lines but eventually they will be able to do it without any visual cues because the body naturally wants to start to rise at around 10 yards.

CONCLUSION

Most programs are not thinking through the details of speed training as much as they are thinking through the details of strength training.  Most football coaches argue about what exercises and set and rep combinations should be included in their programs but hardly anyone is arguing about how to properly execute a comprehensive speed program.  It is easy to gain an advantage with a great speed program and hopefully the information above will help with your organization.

If you are interested in learning more you can go to the resources page on my website (https://exceleratead.com/training-theory) to find my FREE and moderately priced CoachTube Courses, Coaches Choice Videos, and a variety of other training articles and resources.  My contact information is on my website so please feel free to email me with any questions.