3 Things to understand if you want to get faster (click to read)
3 things to understand if you want to get faster
(3 minute read)
1) Athletes need to SPRINT, and they need to sprint often.
In order to get faster, you must expose the body and the neuromuscular system to high-intensity, max-effort sprinting. If you’re not sprinting, at FULL SPEED, with full intensity, with a full recovery, you aren’t giving your body that stimulus. Thus, you will not get faster.
Athletes simply don’t get this stimulus in practice. Max-effort, high-intensity, linear sprinting with full recovery doesn’t happen in practice, and sometimes, not even during games depending on the athlete’s sport and position.
So, providing them that stimulus, outside of practice and games, ensures they are being exposed to those high velocities. That is the only way to increase the athlete’s velocity over time, and to build a robust volume of high intensity sprinting throughout the year – which is critical in speed development.
Want to be run faster? Practice running fast. Consistently. Outside of practice. Simple, but effective, if you really want to get faster. Speed grows like a tree, and you must be consistently nurturing it, watering it frequently, and long periods of inaction lead to detriments and de-training (i.e., not getting faster, or getting slower).
2) Gain an understanding of sprint mechanics.
Outside of sprinting itself, which is most important, you want your athlete to start to understand HOW to sprint.
In acceleration, you want to have powerful, aggressive PUSHES, especially in the first 3-5 steps of a sprint. They call this Projection (the center of mass actually covering ground, rather than short/choppy steps that result in no ground being covered).
Next, you want to “scissor” the knees, or “switch” the knees in the air before the next foot hits the ground. This will result in a more horizontally oriented projection of the body, rather than “reaching” out and slamming in front of the body resulting in braking forces.
Lastly, you want “reactivity” on and off the ground. You don’t want to spend a lot of time on the ground. You want to be bouncy, elastic, and springy on and off the ground on the ball of the foot, and avoid heavy heel striking.
3) Strength training & plyometrics.
Again, 2 stimuli that an athlete will not get in practice or games…
Structured, progressively overloaded strength training and plyometric activities can increase the athlete’s ability to produce force and exert that force into the ground. Particularly in youth and high school athletes.
Choose multi-joint exercises in the weight room that allow you to improve your total force output, and get as strong as possible with full range of motion, quality technique in those exercises. Choose exercises in the weight room that move the needle on improving the physical capacity of the athlete to 1) produce force, 2) transmit that force into the ground, and 3) transmit that force in the right time and direction.
Secondly, Plyometrics can help to train the elastic demands of high speed sprinting, and helps to bridge the gap between sprinting and the weight room. They can improve your power production, ground contact time, and musculo-tendinous stiffness – all of which are important in high velocity sprinting.
Most youth and high school athletes don’t understand how to use the weight room to help them become more athletic, and most don’t see the value in plyometric training or even know what it is.
Unfortunately, I see athletes that lack progress because of their inconsistency, and never reach anywhere close to their genetic potential. And, are the same speed or athleticism than the year before… or are slower and LESS athletic from year to year.
If these 3 tenants of speed development are done consistently and in cohesion with one another, your athlete will see month-over-month and year-over-year gains in their speed and athleticism.
If you’re serious about speed development, Speed Unleashed is the step-by-step system I use to build faster, more explosive athletes. It removes the guesswork, gives you the complete plan, and shows you exactly how to train for real speed. You can find out more by clicking this link.