Secrets to Improving Speed

Anyone who knows anything about training athletes knows that improving sprint technique and getting stronger are the keys to improving speed. Bring me a beginner athlete with terrible arm mechanics and no knee drive and I can make them faster instantly. Bring me a kid who squats with their heels off the ground and has never done plyometrics before and in one month I will dramatically make them faster.

But its not always that easy. How about my college football clients who are already really strong and run with pretty good technique? How about the kids who have been in my program for 2 years and have mastered all of our foundational concepts?

One of the key components to my program in the last few years has been exercises that focus on hip HYPEREXTENSION. Squats, deadlifts, box jumps, KB swings and RDL's are all exercises that are important and involve hip EXTENSION. Performing those exercises are extremely important and will get you stronger and faster. But none of those exercises are specific to the motion of sprinting and none of them involve hip hyperextension.

Watch how a great sprinter applies force into the ground - behind their center of mass. Look at the left leg of the sprinter below - that is hip hyperextension. Force is delivered into the ground behind the center of mass.



This first video clip is one of our basic plyometrics - a box blast. This exercise is not a true hip hyperextension exercise. However, it is very specific to how I want my athletes to apply force into the ground. My stronger athletes will perform this exercise with hip hyperextension. The goal is to finish each jump with leg action similar to the sprinter above - just in a vertical plane.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-w_RHU0bvM

The next clip is a forward sled march. This sled exercise is very specific to the motion of sprinting and involves hip hyperextension when performed correctly.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ON4gSazObU

The final clip is a bent leg, hip dominant exercise that I call a BOB hip extension (BOB standing for Back on Bench). It is also referred to as a hip thrust and does involve hip hyperextenion. It doesn't matter what you call it, the bottom line is that this kind of exercise needs to be in every athlete's strength program. We perform bent leg hip extensions in every warm up and we do them weighted to some degree at least once per week. In article for T - nation, Bret Contreras (The Glute Guy) states that bent leg hip extension exercises such as the one you are about to watch involve twice the glute activation then conventional deadlifts and squats. Read the rest of the article here......

http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_article/sports_body_training_performance/dispelling_the_glute_myth


And the video clip of BOB hip extension

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skuEQM4egd8


If you have the need for more speed........and who doesn't? Take a look at your strength training program. Does it include exercises like the ones I have showed you today? If not, it might be time to make some additions to your program.

Improving Squat and Dead Lift Technique

Click over to my Youtube channel to see a very simple cue I now use to help kids with a couple lifts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RsHSqznPSI

Football Specific Conditioning Workout

Its a little early for most of my football clients to start conditioning. However, my client and trainer Ricky Crawford has to get ready for the Ohio Senior Bowl this Saturday. Yesterday, we went through one of our versions of 4 Quarters of Conditioning.

1st Quarter

Box Blast x 3 each leg - rest 25 seconds (basically enough time to get hooked up to sled)

135 lb sled sprint x 10 yds

rest 30 - 45 seconds -repeat pair 4 more times for 5 total sets

Rest 3 minutes after last set

2nd Quarter

Lateral box blast x 3 each leg (rest 25 seconds)

115 lb Crossover sled run 10 yards each way

Rest 30 - 45 seconds - repeat pair 3 more times

Rest 3 minutes after last set

3rd Quarter

Bungee resisted Lateral skater bound and stick x 3 (rest 15 seconds)

Bungee resisted 8 yard shuffle (down and back 2x)

Alternate directions each set. 3 sets each leg. Rest 30 - 45 seconds between pairs.


4th Quarter

5 yds and back, 10 yds and back, 15 yds through shuttle

2 x each way 30 seconds between sets

Ricky ran with a 10 lb vest on to simulate pads.

Principles of a Solid Strength and Conditioning Program

If you search the internet, you will find all kinds of strength and conditioning blogs and programs to purchase. Walk in to any indoor sports complex and you will probably find some kind of speed and agility program that is offered. Since kids are playing more sports then ever and youth obesity has increased dramatically, I think it is great that many training options exist. But......How do you distinguish between a sound strength and conditioning program and a class that involves running around hurdles and cones just for the hell of it?

Obviously all strength coaches and trainers have had different learning experiences. Some might prefer squats while some coaches don't squat at all. Some swear by sled training while others live and die by high speed treadmills. Regardless of background and experience, the following principles are universally followed by the top strength coaches in the world.

1. Quality over Quantity..........I would rather see 6 really good push ups then 15 bad ones. I would rather see 5 good reps at 200 then 2 descent reps and 3 forced reps at 215.

2. Train fast to be fast...........Speed drills are 3 - 7 seconds in duration with at least a 5:1 rest to work ratio. I will not go into a long rant here as I have written about this many times before. Do not mistaken mindless amounts of running for speed training.

3. The body must be prepared for high intensity work with a proper dynamic warm up. Just sitting down and stretching then going for a jog will not get it done. See my past blogs for our SOAR warm up progression. The links below will show you some parts of our warm up.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2r9jc5pdxrU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rQDeTQ5dvU

4. Balance in exercise selection. We must sprint AND work on deceleration and change of direction. We must do vertical plyometrics AND lateral plyometrics. We must push AND pull with the upper body. We must do knee dominant lower body exercises AND hip dominant exercises. Imbalance in training will lead to imbalance in the body which will lead to injury.

5. Rest is just as important as the training. If you want to get bigger, faster and stronger, then you can't train at a high intensity everyday. You will be sore, tired and your CNS will be fried. A great strength coach will design a program that will allow you to recover from high intensity workouts.

6. Always be coaching. The easiest thing for any trainer to do is to make you exhausted. But did the trainer make you better? The program and facility is only as good as the coaching that goes along with it.

Training the Athlete That Trains at School

If you work in the sport performance/personal training industry, then I am sure you have a lot of experience training kids that are required to workout at school with their teammates. Most of these kids are football players, but with “sport specific training” becoming the latest craze, a lot of other team sports such as basketball, baseball and softball are requiring their athletes to train at school. Some programs are better than others, some coaches are more willing to communicate with you than others, but the worst thing you can do as a trainer is ignore what is done at school and have your clients do “your” workout no matter what.

I have been in the private sector of the strength and conditioning industry since I started my business in 2002. Since then, I have seen hundreds of kids come through my doors that also train at school. After 7 years of training, I can classify these kids into 3 main categories and 1sub - category.

1. The BFS (Bigger Faster Stronger) or another general template. Although I am not a big fan of the BFS program for any athlete, it is very easy to draw up a workout that complements it. You know your kids are towel benching and box squatting on Mondays, power cleaning and dead lifting on Wednesdays and bench pressing and parallel squatting on Fridays – or some combination of those lifts. Some schools do a great job of adding the necessary auxiliary lifts, and some do not add any at all - or the kids just don’t do them. In my experience, BFS athletes do not do enough explosive work, upper body pulling, core or posterior chain lifts. I will talk more about how I work around BFS later in the article.

The bottom line is this - Whatever program it is (BFS, Westside, ect.) it is only as good as executed. If the kids are lifting too heavy of weight with poor technique, then injuries will inevitably occur.

2. The Assorted Crap Workout. When you ask a kid who works out in one of these programs what they did at school, you will usually get an answer like this “We didn’t do much - uh we benched and we did curls.” These programs usually involve a coach writing the workout on a dry erase board or even worse the kids just go in and do whatever they want. Believe me; a lot of these programs still exist.

3. The school that has a knowledgeable strength coach or trainer. This is becoming more common, and if you haven’t had a kid from one of these programs it means that all bases are covered at school.

Sub – Category 1 - The kids who are run into the ground at school. This usually happens with football kids who start conditioning in the summer. It’s important to know who these kids are because they will be coming to you with a completely taxed CNS, shin splints and sore hamstrings. I still hear of kids who run 800s for football conditioning. The bottom line is that if you train football players in the summer, you better know what they are doing at school.

Some tips to make the best program for school athletes

1. Make the athlete accountable. I require my athletes to keep a log of what they are doing at school. In my experience, most coaches are unwilling to communicate their program to me, so it’s on the athlete. All I ask is that they write down what they do each day in a notebook or even a piece of scrap paper.
2. Explosive, core, pull. This is actually the name of the programs I use for my BFS athletes. I know that they are not doing enough of those things, so that’s what is in their program. Lateral plyos, single leg plyos, and all sorts of exercises for the posterior chain are usually neglected in the school setting that doesn’t have a strength coach. Design programs that fill in the holes. It’s easy to do that if you have your athletes follow tip #1.
3. Check technique in core lifts. I usually ask kids how much they squat at school. If they say 250, I have them show me a set at 135. Most of time, I see very poor technique with that weight - so imagine what 250 looks like! Coach them to be better at school because if there are 70 kids in the weight room and 2 coaches, obviously some kids are on their own.
4. Ask kids if they can do their leg lifts with you and upper body at school. This is something that worked great for me last winter. I had a number of kids who either had knee injuries from the season or L5 fractures from lifting – most likely from poor power cleaning technique. Some coaches will be open to this - especially if the parent talks to them about it.
5. Create a recovery workout. This is something I used last spring when my football kids starting running at school or doing some crazy explosive workouts that were more like fat burning circuit. The recovery workout should include lots of foam rolling, mobility and dynamic flexibility drills. Then, a little bit of explosive work if they need it. Lots of stretching at the end. Most kids have mediocre flexibility at best, so it’s on you as their trainer to improve it because you know it’s not being done at school or at home.

Trainers and strength coaches, I feel your pain. I know its frustrating to create a great program for a kid and then one week later find out they have to workout at school. Be professional and smart. Don’t bad mouth the program at school even though you know it’s the worst thing you have ever seen. Communicate with your clients and work with them to create the program that will benefit them in the long run.