Speed Training and Acceleration Development

Use the speed drills for acceleration running development makes sure that your athletes are getting the most out of them by not sacrificing form in any of the drills.

Ground contact times (the amount of time each foot spends on the ground) are another important factor to consider during acceleration. During the earliest parts of acceleration, especially the first two steps, you are trying to overcome (inertia) the weight of your body by moving it forward as quickly as possible. This takes a great deal of strength and power. The stronger and more efficient you are, the more you can extend your acceleration phase.

An example workout would be hill running. Hill work is perfect for acceleration development as it puts the athlete in proper acceleration mechanics naturally without any tools or cues. You are bringing the ground up to them as they will be driving out and running in the 45 degree angle to the ground.

Since high intensity sprint work involves recruiting specific groups of muscle fibers improves the efficiency of neuromuscular firing patterns, sprinting is taxing to the central nervous system. Once the CNS becomes fatigued, workouts quickly lose their effectiveness. Any type of speed work must be done with full recovery. Generally speaking, that means approximately one minute of rest for every 10 yards that you run. Sprinting is a highly technical activity. Without full recovery, both your muscles and your central nervous system will begin to fatigue quickly, reducing the short and long term effectiveness of your training. For this reason, acceleration should not be trained with fatigue present. To optimize your success, full recovery must be adhered to both in your individual workouts as well as your weekly plan. It takes roughly 36-48 hours to fully recover from a speed workout.

Speed training drills give us an opportunity to teach cues. We use speed drills to break down certain aspects or parts of the whole body of sprinting. For example, I use cue like: 'drive down' during a speed drill in practice. This gives the athlete a frame of reference to use when I need them to make adjustments to their form while sprinting. This will help the athletes carry over the theory of what needs to be done so they can apply it when performing high speed sprinting.

Lateral Speed and Agility Training

Today we're going to talk about agility training.

'Agility' is one of those words that cover a variety of skills. When people talk about agility, most often they are talking about an athlete'sability to make cuts and quickly change directions.
The way I see it, the primary component to improved agility is through the development of COORDINATION.

Before you start putting team through complicated drills that have them going in ten different directions over the course of a 30-second time period, you must take a step back and address their level of coordination.

In my experience, even the best athletes have coordination problems that are so bad that it even makes me blush just to think about it.

The thing about coordination and agility is this:

The earlier you address it, the better the long-term results. If your football players don't begin developing their coordination until their mid-teens, they will be limited in the amount of progress they can make.

That's why I like to get kids started as early as possible, preferably before they hit puberty.
I'm not saying a 17 year old can't improve her agility and coordination to a significant degree, but then if she started when she was 8, she'd be much better off.

Just something to think about for those of you working at the youth levels.

OK, here is what to do...

STEP 1: Improve your teams coordination

My favorite way to both expose an athlete's lack of coordination and also develop it is through the use of an agility ladder.

You can do an infinite number of drills that focus on single leg movement, double leg, linear, lateral, backward movement, change of direction - The list goes on and on.

All of these movements will help address the types of movement they may see in their competition.

As we get those down, we implement the traditional cone drills that allow for more instruction on movement patterns that are more applicable to game situations.

But like everything else, technique is the most important skill to both teach and learn.

As I've said before, I even use agility work with my field (straight ahead speed training) athletes during the preseason as well.

Why?

When players are uncoordinated, in order to maintain balance and keep the athlete from falling down or getting hurt, the brain has to work harder.

In order to compensate for all the extra math that the brain must do instantaneously and on the fly in order to coordinate the movements of all the active muscles in the body, the body must slow way down.

This is why players often look like they are stuck in the mud during agility drills.

Well, sprinting is a highly technical activity as well. So if your players don't improve coordination and agility, their brains will have to slow the limbsdown during sprinting to compensate.

So, like with flexibility, athletes aren't being held back because of some innate lack of ability, but simply because they are only operating at 50%of their true ability.

By applying these (and all the other skills we've gone over so far) they can operate at a much higher percentage of their true ability.

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Rule 144 was adopted in 1972 by the SEC. Rule 144 is an important federal securities law which dictates when, and under what conditions, a person or entity may sell shares of restricted stock into the public marketplace.

Security sales must meet a series of conditions, including filing paperwork with the SEC and compliance with regulations that address when, how and how much restricted or control stock may be sold. Failure to comply with Rule 144 can lead to sanctions by the SEC.

You need to find a Rule 144 Specialist to help you navigate your sale of restricted or control stock under the Securities and Exchange Commission Rule 144.

With so many restrictions, regulations and rules regarding certain sales of securities, it is always safer to just find a Rule 144 Specialist.

Secrets of Power Training and Plyos

Here is a video that goes over and discusses power and plyometric training that you should be using with your athletes:





For more information on plyometrics and to discover how power training should be used in your sports training program for your athletes go now to Complete Speed Training