Every good team has the kids that can just get to the ball faster than everyone else. Look at a youth soccer game and you will probably see the game being dominated by just a few kids who are a step faster than the rest. Watch a junior high football game and there is usually one kid that just sticks out because when he gets the ball....he is gone!
Is this speed? Is it agility? Well.....kind of.
What is it really? Acceleration!
Acceleration is the ability to go from 0 to 60 in the fastest time possible. Think about being at a red light in the left lane and you know you got to get to the right lane in less than 50 yards to make a turn onto your street. You know you have to step on the gas and fly past the person next to you in the right lane. Hopefully they are not driving a Corvette!
Team sports involve bursts of high speed. The kid who can get a rebound, land and immediately start pushing the ball up the floor past the defenders is a tremendous weapon for his or her basketball team. That is acceleration at its finest.
The problem with a lot of speed and agility programs is that they focus on track style drills that focus on top end speed. Top end speed is great if you run the 100 meter dash, but very rarely will a team sport athlete reach top end speed at any time in their game. It has been found that most track sprinters reach top end speed at 60 meters. How many times in a game does an athlete sprint straight ahead for 60 meters?
Below are two videos of acceleration drills that I use with high school and college athletes. I like to put them in awkward positions and tell them to get to their feet and accelerate as fast as possible. In a team sport, an athlete is always going to be in chaotic body positions. Why not train like that?
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