Increase Football Speed & Quickness Interview with Alex Maroko

July 9, 2009 by Elliott
Filed under Jumping Exercises, Recent Posts, Speed and Dynamic Exercises, Sprinting Exercises, Strength and Conditioning for Sports, Strong Body

Speed Training Workout Design

June 4, 2009 by Elliott
Filed under Brad Leshinske, Recent Posts, Strength and Conditioning for Sports, Strong Body

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How to Program Your Speed Training

By Coach Brad Leshinske CSCS

In the first article-How to run a faster 40 yard dash!, we focused on technique and applying principles on how to start and create a fast 10 yards thus creating a faster 40. In this article, we are going to re-visit key terminology and a sample program to help you increase your speed. As we all know, programming is a big key to any sports performance program.

speed-training Terminology you should be familiar with is start, acceleration, maximum velocity, speed, endurance, and lateral speed and agility.

The start is one of, if not, the most important thing you can do to increase your speed, as mentioned in the previous article. A short reminder for those who haven’t read the article; the start is overcoming inertia-we have to start at a dead stop and explode forward. Some key indicators are the stance, proper shin, angle, and leg drive. We want to drive our leg up and over, propelling ourselves forward, and breaking that inertia.

Acceleration is the point at which you try and reach your top speed. Top speed occurs around 30 meters or so. So acceleration occurs after the start to the point max velocity comes in. Mechanics wise, the emphasis is on the backside, which is everything behind our center of gravity. We need our ankle, hip, and knees in alignment and in extension to overcome that initial inertia. This takes place around the first 8-10 steps or the first 10 yards. We want to do this effortlessly, and if you watch a good 40 yard dash, the athlete looks relaxed and doesn’t seem to be exerting much effort. You must stay relaxed. In this phase, there is no bending at the waist and the head is in line with the torso and the legs.

Maximum velocity is when the athlete is running at their highest velocity. This phase is the most demanding on the body; also, this is the phase that is rarely achieved. Here you want to be in a more upright position and your head on the target looking straight. You also want to tell yourself not to run hard, you want to glide in the air. Think of it this way, you want to slow down the slowest. As we are in maximum velocity, we can only sustain this for about 1-2 seconds.

Speed endurance is not running for a long time as you might think. It is the ability to maintain your speed even though your body is fatiguing. You want to maintain your speed while tired and you don’t want to decelerate fast. With this, comes good conditioning. When athletes get tired, they lose mechanics; it is important that we train these principles so we can maintain a high level of competitiveness, even though we are fatigued.

Lateral speed and agility is as simple as change of direction and starting and stopping quickly. For this, athletes must maintain good balance and structure, keeping the center of gravity in control and your hips underneath you.

Provided below is an easy-to-use plan focused on speed:

1. Remember to always warm up in a dynamic fashion getting the blood moving. Your warm up should be 15 minutes speed-training2 of activity.

2. Week 1 and 2 should focus on basic techniques: starting position, arm swing work and the first step to 10-20 yards, always maintain good ford.

3. Weeks 3 and 4, keeping refining your technique, but start fixing your technique problems; whether it is not stepping over properly or not in triple extension (knee, hip, and ankle alignment), or simply raising your body up too fast.

4. Weeks 5 through 7, start adding new drills to help with starts and acceleration specifically. For instance, fall to sprints, hill runs, single leg starts, and 3 point starts.

5. Weeks 7 though 10 work purely on acceleration. Raise your volume of sprints and really focus on stride length and frequency.

6. Weeks 10 through 13, start adding in resisted sprinting for an increase in acceleration. Remember to add this only when mechanics are perfected. Another method is using sleds for resistance.

7. Weeks 13 through 17, you can start to increase the intensity and decrease the volume to prepare for your sport or game; the athlete should be at the peak of their training.

Remember this is just a template; everyone is different. How I train athletes is I like to rotate my days of emphasis. For example, I rotate lateral speed and agility, starts and acceleration, and then finally max speed and speed endurance. Remember, you have to take your rest periods when working on max speed, acceleration, and starts. When training speed endurance, your rest periods are shorter, thus your speed percentage is lower. I like to use speed endurance at the end of class, as the body is already fatigued. We will revisit speed and make them sprint when tired, thus increasing work capacity. Finally, here are some examples of drills:

Starts

1. Fall to sprint
2. Split stance to sprint
3. Kneel to sprint
4. Jump back to sprint
5. Jump forward to sprint

Acceleration Work

1. Jog to sprints
2. 30 yard dash work
3. Hill sprints
4. Resisted runs cords/sleds

Quickness Work

1. Tennis ball drop
2. Ball reaction drills (I throw the ball, they sprint on my movement)
3. Push up to sprint
4. Chasers

Speed Work

1. Flying 20’s
2. Flying 30’s
3. Sprint, jog, sprint, jog

Speed Endurance Work

1. 2 sets of 40 yard runs 5x with a 90% run with a minute rest
2. 100 yard dash
3. 10 sprints of 30 yards each sprint under 5 sec., walk back and repeat

Lateral Speed and Agility Work

1. Hurdle work
2. Ladder work
3. Cone drills
4. T drill
5. Suicide work with recovery

Resisted methods to use; sleds, cords, sand and weight vest. Remember this works on stride length and acceleration.

Assisted or over speed methods: pulling your partner, downhill sprinting, tailwind. Remember this works on stride frequency.

Mechanical drills: wall sprints, arm swings, standing leg strides, marching, skipping high knees to sprint.

Remember to always consult a physician prior to working out and always properly warm up the body prior to exercise.

About Coach Brad: Coach Brad owns and operates Athletic Edge Sports Performance Inc. in Chicago, IL. He trains athletes from grade school to college level in speed/agility, jumping power, and strength and conditioning. You can reach him at llmd@prodigy.net or his new blog at www.theedgesports.wordpress.com or call him at 773-610-FAST.

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Hey Slow Poke… Wanna Get Faster?

Then check this out next: The Complete Speed Training System

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