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Can Your Kid Sprint?

Sprint Acceleration Drill

By Tony Holler

Without sprint training, soccer breeds horrible sprint mechanics and slow runners. Same with football. Same with basketball. Same with baseball.

Kids need to sprint at full speed without a ball. They need to wear track spikes. If they aren’t wearing spikes, they aren’t sprinting. Sprints must be timed. Records must be kept. Every sprint must be less than five seconds in length. Any sprint more than five seconds trains something other than max-speed. Kids should perform all sprint training in a non-fatigued state. Sub-max sprinting will not make kids faster.

Sprint mechanics must be taught. Plyometrics must be included. Video must be analyzed. Rest, recovery, and growth must be respected. For optimum effectiveness, kids must sprint two or three times a week. Anything more than this is counterproductive. Less is more.

Kids Can Learn to Sprint

I’ve witnessed the evolution of sports in America. I played football, basketball, baseball, and ran track. Not once did I pay to play. I didn’t compete against teams from other towns until 7th grade. High school sports were covered by the local radio station and daily newspaper. I kept a scrapbook, not a Twitter account.

Times have changed. Youth sports have become a big deal. Parents invest. Parents strategize. Before kids learn to multiply and divide, they’re playing soccer against teams from other towns. Before kids read Charlotte’s Web, their baseball teams have traveled to out-of-state tournaments. Most boys have played football for several years before they enter high school.

Most kids learn to play their sport but never learn to sprint. Click To Tweet

With this great interest in youth sports, you would think kids would be faster than ever. I’ve found the opposite to be true. Most kids learn to play their sport but never learn to sprint. Sprinting must be taught and practiced. This seldom happens in youth sports.

My advice to athletic-minded parents: Teach your kid to sprint.

Running is Not Sprinting

It seems all little kids play soccer these days. Soccer is an endurance sport. Typical soccer players run seven miles per match on average. Sometimes I see soccer players run faster than others, but I seldom see sprinting. Sprinting doesn’t happen during a seven-mile run. You might be the fastest slow person, but that doesn’t make you a sprinter.

No one sprints in a state of fatigue. Endurance athletes are efficient, not fast. To keep running for an extended amount of time, athletes learn to compensate to keep going. Compensations become habits.

Compensations are adjustments made, often unconsciously, to survive a task. Sprinting is never achieved in high-volume situations. Athletes instinctively switch to auto-pilot, choosing efficiency and survival. When kids compete for an hour, they’re never sprinting. They may be running relatively fast, but they’re not sprinting.

Distance Runners
Photo 1. Distance runners have poor sprint habits. To stay efficient, they barely pick up their feet. If you don’t pick up your feet, you can’t produce much vertical force. On a side note, check out their footwear. Padded running shoes are good for shock absorption, bad for vertical force.

Sprinters with High Knee Lift
Photo 2. Sprinters pick up their feet, lift their knees, and produce tons of vertical force. Sprint spikes are engineered to produce maximum vertical force and zero shock absorption. You won’t find padding in Usain Bolt’s spikes.

Speed Can be Taught and Learned: Clayton Lakatos, 4th Grade

Clayton Lakatos is a 75-pound 10-year-old. Clayton comes from an athletic family and has played soccer, baseball, and flag football. Sounds like your typical athletic kid.

A closer look, however, reveals Clayton is different. Clayton was taught to sprint by his dad, one of the best track coaches in the state of Illinois. Chad Lakatos coaches at Edwardsville High School. Edwardsville won the Illinois 3A (big school) title in 2015 and placed 2nd in 2012, 2014, and 2016.

Sprint Drive Phase
Photo 3. Clayton Lakatos comes out of his drive phase, about to get tall and max-sprint. He’s in a perfect position to deliver a strong vertical force to the track.

Good sprint coaches are data-driven. I have timed over 200,000 40s in my coaching career. Check out Clayton’s 40 times in the graph below.

40 yard dash times
Figure 1. Not many kids run 5.45 at age 9. Speed can be treated as a genetic trait or a skill. Although a genetic component is indisputable, speed can be taught and learned.

Illinois Track Coach Chad Lakatos
Photo 4. Chad Lakatos is the only Illinois coach to win a Class A and Class AAA state championship. Notice his son, Clayton, is wearing his soccer uniform; you don’t have to give up other sports to be a sprinter.

Clayton’s additional marks at age 9. All of these are sprint-dependent.

  • 100m 15.2
  • 200m 33.3
  • 400m 1:25.4
  • Long Jump 12’0”
  • High Jump 4’0”
Sprint Mechanics
Photo 5. Isaiah Michl, coached by Chad Lakatos, as a senior at Edwardsville two years ago. Isaiah ran on state championship 4×1 and 4×2 teams, although he was better known as a hurdler (37.13 in the 300 hurdles). Isaiah now runs at the University of Illinois.

Sprint Mechanics
Photo 6. Clayton Lakatos, age 10, is also coached by Chad Lakatos, his father. Compare his form to Isaiah’s, who is a few years older.

Speed Training Makes Football Players Faster: T.J. Kane, High School Athlete

T.J. Kane was a typical athletic kid. He was best at throwing and catching a football. As a freshman, T.J. was my starting quarterback for a team that went 9-0, outscoring their opponents 458-38. As a sophomore, T.J. again quarterbacked his group to a 9-0 season. Then something crazy happened. T.J. went out for the track team and got fast. T.J. is now an elite high school wide receiver and plans to play college football.

Plainfield North TJ Kane
Photo 7. T.J. Kane races for the end zone, scoring the first touchdown in Plainfield North’s 42-0 rout of Highland Park in round #1 of the 7A IHSA Playoffs.

I don’t think fast was ever used to describe T.J. as a young athlete (that’s a polite way to say that T.J. was slow). He’s still not a candidate to run on my 4×1, but he sure looks fast on the football field. Based on the graphs below, we expect T.J.’s speed numbers to improve.

10 meter fly times
Figure 2. T.J. Kane did not begin consistent speed training until his freshmen year in high school. His time in the 10m fly continues to drop.

40 yard dash times
Figure 3. As a sophomore and junior, T.J. speed trained from December until May, and his times in the 40-yard dash continue to improve.

Athletes get fast when they develop good sprint habits. I believe every football player should sprint train consistently starting at the end of football, continuing through the track season, and into the summer. We are what we do.

T.J.’s dad, Tim Kane, is the head football coach at Plainfield North High School. I’ve been on Coach Kane’s football staff for eleven years. Tim has always promoted my speed training. We have our differences, but we always agree on the subject of speed. You might see this as a natural relationship between a football coach and a track coach, but it’s often the opposite. Football coaches sometimes use the term track speed as a dog whistle for wimp speed.

Last week, when I told a track coach to bring their football coach to TFC-4, the track coach replied, “We have a better chance of developing cold fusion.”

Where to Find Sprint Training

The best way to get fast is to join the track team. Competition and measured efforts take athletes to new levels. I cannot emphasize this enough.

Off-Season Speed Training: Sprint Coaching Methods to Look For

  • Make sure sprinting is timed. If sprinting is not timed, it’s not sprinting. If you see a Freelap timing system, you know you’re on the right track. If you see the sprint coach meticulously recording times and giving athletes instant feedback, you have the right place.
  • Look for a sprint coach who believes in alactic training. Alactic training is maximum intensity work for less than ten seconds followed by enough rest to repeat the effort on the next attempt. Mindless weight lifting, grueling aerobic workouts, and multiple repeats of 200 meters have no place in sprint training.
Look for a sprint coach who believes in alactic training. Click To Tweet
  • If you see mini-hurdles, the coach probably knows his stuff. Wicket drills (running over mini-hurdles) is a staple of sprint training. Remember, sprinters pick up their feet, lift their knees, and then deliver vertical force.
  • Look for a sprint coach whose strength training looks different than your high school football team back in the 80’s or 90’s. The old bench press, curl, and squat guys are going extinct, thankfully. By the way, sprinting is the best strength exercise I know.
  • Find someone who has a true track and field sprint background.
  • Video analysis is a part of every reputable sprint program. In today’s era of slow motion video on every iPhone, it’s inexcusable to train without video.
  • If you see a poster saying Train Smarter, Not Harder, you’ve probably found the right place.

Off-Season Speed Training: Sprint Coaching Methods to Avoid

  • If a speed coach tries to convince your kid to specialize in one sport, sever ties immediately. No entrepreneurial coach should put training in conflict with playing multiple sports.
  • If you see guys running with parachutes behind them, turn around and walk out. Sprint training requires ground contact times of a fraction of a second (0.08 in elite sprinters). If you are pushing things, pulling things, running slowly uphill, or running with parachutes, your contact time won’t be 0.08. You might as well be wearing ankle weights (don’t wear ankle weights either). Note: I’m talking sprint training. Coaches will often push and pull things to train acceleration. When accelerating, ground contact times are much longer than max-speed sprinting. In my opinion, the best indicator of sprint ability is max-speed. The 10m fly is a much better predictor of success than the 10m start. Give me a guy who runs 25 mph, and acceleration will be learned quickly.
The best indicator of sprint ability is max-speed. Click To Tweet
  • Be cautious of speed training with ex-NFL players and ex-college athletes who failed to graduate. In my experience, these entrepreneurs attempt to use their athletic resume to hide their inexperience as coaches.
  • Too many ex-football players are addicted to the grind of football training. The grind has nothing to do with sprinting. Training hard seven days a week will make athletes slow and trainers rich.
  • Avoid places that advertise muscled-up athletes wearing No Pain, No Gain t-shirts with cut-off sleeves. Bodybuilding is for magazine covers, not for speed.
  • If you see a sign that says, Train Insane or Remain the Same, run away.

Track Football Consortium IV

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Let your kids play sports and enjoy their brief athletic careers. If you want to maximize your kid’s chances for success, teach them to sprint because speed kills, and you don’t get fast by running slow.

If you’re interested in becoming a sprint coach, start by attending the Track Football Consortium IV December 2nd and 3rd.

Since you’re here…
…we have a small favor to ask. More people are reading SimpliFaster than ever, and each week we bring you compelling content from coaches, sport scientists, and physiotherapists who are devoted to building better athletes. Please take a moment to share the articles on social media, engage the authors with questions and comments below, and link to articles when appropriate if you have a blog or participate on forums of related topics. — SF

Tony Holler

Tony Holler

Tony Holler is a teacher and coach at Plainfield North High School. Holler has 35 years experience coaching football, basketball, and track. Holler is a member of Illinois Track & Field Hall of Fame and Co-director of Football-Track Activation Consortium along with Chris Korfist.
Tony Holler

@anthonyholler

@pntrack, Science-driven, anti-war, pro civil rights, education activist, democratic socialist, reader, writer, photographer, teacher, coach, music-lover.
RT @jvgraz: Nancy Pelosi "amassed" $100 million while in office but sure, let's go after the barely-a-millionaire guy who's actually trying… - 22 hours ago
Tony Holler

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Comments

  1. Great post! For as much as team sports value speed they sure don’t seem to put kids in the right environment to develop it.

    Reply

  2. As usual Tony tells it how it is with no sugar coating but with incredible insight. I love the fact that he always encourages relationships between sports and the betterment of kids. If you’re a youth or high school coach your #1 goal has to be making the kids that you work with better overall athletes And people. If you’re in it for your benefit do us all a favor and get out of coaching. Thanks again for another great article Tony.

    Reply

  3. I completely agree with Tony. I’m a college sprint coach and my son plays multiple sports and he likes to train and get faster. He has gone to Coach Lakatos’ speed camp for several years and has gone to the one’s we host at McKendree. Speed is definitely a skill. Kids ask all the time “how do I get faster” and I tell them you have to run fast. Speed relates to many athletic endeavors that utilize speed and power. My son Carter’s progression goes as follows:
    Age 6 40yd – 7.19, LJ – 8’3″, Softball Throw – 69’4″, Turbo Javelin 25’10”
    Age 7 40yd – 7.05, LJ – 8’6″, SB Throw – 88’6″, Turbo Jav – 27’3″
    Age 8 40yd – 6.17, LJ – 10’10”, SB Throw – 103′ 2″, Turbo Jav 38’2″
    Age 9 40yd – 5.62, LJ – 12’2″, SB Throw 120′, Turbo Jav 51’9″

    I like to steal Tony and Chad’s phrase “speed grow like a tree.” Truer words were never spoken!!

    Reply

  4. Great post. If you see a coach training athletes to maintain the posture required in maximum velocity you have found the right place. Coaches Eye works so well with air play to the big screen tv. Results via Freelap and visual reinforcement are key. Training and maintaining proper posture along with spinal erector strength development have made our team FAST.

    Reply

  5. Great post. My 3 yr does nothing but run around my 8,200 sq foot facility. We have a puppy that’s added “incentive” to run faster! ha! My only disagreement is the multiple sport comment. Here’s my issue. I’m all for playing everything. I lettered in 4 sports in high school and played small D1 football and track(sprinting). The current issue with sport is that these kids just compete year round. I have two baseball players that finally stopped playing basketball. Why? When can they train and actually work on speed? They’re playing 2-3 games a week and practicing the rest all basketball season, not to mention the summer open gyms that they have to attend. Plus they see baseball skill guys. In the summer, they’re basically playing everyday so I have to be cautious with sprint and strength volume. The results? Since September I’ve been seeing them 3 times a week. The junior has gained almost 20 lbs and dropped from a 6.9 to a 6.68 electronic. His exit velocity(ball leaving the bat) went from 82 to 89-90 mph. 90 is D1. The sophomore dropped from a 7.2 to a 6.8 electronic. I have a freelap, but these time are done at showcases and happen what seems like every weekend. (gots to make money right).

    My point is that freaks can play 2-4 sports. The kids that are close or need the extra work, can’t afford to compete year round. There isn’t any time to train. Especially with a stupid sport coach that beats the hell out of the players.

    Reply

    • I think the problem with “focusing” is especially at the small school level you can’t afford to have 3-5 kids specialize bc the other teams suffer. All I hear from kids is they want to go D1 D1 D1, there is nothing wrong with D2, D3 or NAIA if you are playing for the right reasons aka love of the game, I’ve seen too many kids who want to say they got a scholarship and love the idea they got a scholarship and quit because they’re burnt out. In my experience I’ve not seen one kid specialize that went on to the level they thought they wanted to go to! In fact I’ve seen kids quit and not play in college because they’ve been falsely pumped up by “athletic enhancement gurus” or AAU coaches and when they didn’t get a D1 offer they thought lower levels were beneath them.

      Reply

  6. This is a great article for those of us competing in masters track and field to read, too. I returned to competition after a 35 year break (yes, you read that right). I remember running cross country and endless 400-laps in high school in the 70’s for training though I was a sprinter and high jumper. Returning to the sport now, I was concerned that to get better at high jump (my chosen event in masters, am now a two-time national champion W55+) that I’d have to do all that distance work. Thank goodness great coaching minds have put the kibosh on that. My other point is, I agree with the above points about sensible training schedules and intensity for youth. Track & field can be a life long sport, if you’re not doing killer-mentality training at age 14, thus wearing out parts. I’ll take this article to my masters athlete friends and share. It’s a great one!

    Reply

    • Thanks for reading and sharing this. Good luck to you in masters track & field. Low-volume sprinting is good for all of us.

      As Tom Petty says, “Never slow down, never grow old.”

      Reply

  7. Great stuff with a lot of useful information.
    I do implement sprint training with my combat athletes, as they tend to transfer that into mat area.
    I do tend to think that acceleration is useful for training purposes maybe not for max speed but for power development outside weight gym it does correlates nicely.

    Reply

  9. I have a 7 year old old daughter that can sprint. She is running a 6.4 second 40 meter consistently. She is getting faster and faster. All she cares about is being fast, oh and loving Jesus.

    Reply

    • 6.4 40 metres aged 7?

      Congratulations – you have the fastest 7 year old in the hisotry of the human race. Or you’re lying….

      Reply

      • Not according to the above where Tony charted out Coach Latakos’ son’s progress…. he was under 6.4 at 7 years old. Is your comment really even necessary? to accuse someone of lying?

        Reply

  10. I’m glad I ran across your article, I will make sure to share. What I found especially useful was the information you provided in regards to pulling, climbing exercises…for example parachutes, uphill climbing. I had heard uphill climbing was great was speed. Because of your article I quickly bought agility hurdles instead of the parachute.

    Could you answer a question for me? You mention pulling pushing climbing as bad…what’s your opinion on resistance bands?

    Reply

    • I’m a believer in specificity. Therefore, sprinting at max speed is the best way to train. I’m not interested in things that slow you down.

      Therefore, no sleds, no parachutes, no resistance, no sprint training against the wind.

      Sprinting is neurological, not muscular. As soon as you accept this, it all becomes clear.

      Reply

      • Although, I agree that max sprinting is effective, studies have shown that resistance training using sleds, parachutes, and resistance bands have improved speed at a faster rate than those who train without. Strength relative to your body weight matters. Although I am not a big fan of parachutes myself, I use sleds and resistance bands regularly for speed training with great results.

        Reply

    • I’d say the best way to get a base is to look over research. Chad Lakatos has all the results from his youth speed camps on Edwardsville’s track website from quite a few years. I think you could look at those and establish a baseline or average. Another problem that arises in adolescence is the major discrepancy in maturity. I’ve seen 5’8” 11 year olds who are studs but never get significantly better. I think you have to wait until at least 13-14 to start getting generalizations of a kids athletic potential!

      Reply

  13. My kid has been training for tennis and running since he was 2.5 years. He goes to the sports club everyday for sprinting and swimming. He also play tennis every other day. He is currently 5 years and 2 months. We mostly do 100 meter running. I tried training him for sprinting, but he mostly wants to have fun on the race track and wants to race whoever is jogging on the race track.

    Below are his 100 meter timings:

    3.5 years – 36 seconds
    4 years – 30-32 seconds
    5 years – 26-30 seconds
    5 years and 2 months – 22-28 seconds

    We asked the coaches about sprint training. They recommended that there is no special sprint training at the club. They only recommended that kid at his age play multiple sports. He is too young to join most of the soccer teams( at least in my town) though in couple of months he will be playing in a soccer team.

    My wife is a doctor. From diet perspective, my kid does not eat salt or spicy food. Occasional candies are OK. We make sure he gets enough sleep time (10 -12 hrs) and eats 2 hrs before the sports actvities. This comes naturally to him because my wife doesn’t eat salty or spicy food either. However, I think it helps his athletic abilities.

    There are times when he doesn’t feel like going to the club and we let him decide his schedule. I specifically tell him that if its not fun, he shouldn’t be doing it. Just try to hold his temptation where he actually wants to do more of it.

    He also had growing pains. I was worried that we were overdoing the sports activities, but his doctor recommended that this is normal in 5 year old kids and that he should continue his sports activities.

    I have been playing tennis for 20 years and I have seen parents push their kids to the limit. So my current objective is to let a kid be a kid.

    Reply

    • Also forgot to mention. Look at the difference in his timing in the last two months from 26 seconds to 22 seconds. This improvement was noted immediately after the growth spurt.

      Reply

  14. I am 9 years old and here are my times. P.S I have never had sprint training just playing soccer, basketball, tennis, football, and skiing. And I don’t have an amazing start.
    40 yard dash: 5.60
    100 meter dash: 13.59
    200 meter dash: 27.89
    400 meter dash: 1:06
    800 meter dash: 2:35
    3.80 meter long jump
    1.41 meter long jump
    Are these good times and distances

    Reply

  15. You nailed it! I have been telling school sports coaches to use their track coach for 30 years! It amazes me that this is still not understood (or is it all about not wanting to share the success of the athlete?). Not only will it enhance performance, but it will dramatically decrease injuries if the athlete learns how to sprint. And that is still not understood in the rehab world. If the parent does not understand this, it leaves the youth athlete out in the cold.

    Reply

  16. Hi Tony, I just found this great article after I timed my nine-year-old son and the 40 yard dash. Actually my daughter timed him first. I didn’t believe her so I timed him best of three was 5.68!

    I have four children all of them are athletes. 16 year old Boy/Girl twins, 14 years old Girl, and 9 year old Son.

    I have been lucky to coach the boys in football and lacrosse for 11 years. I am member of US lacrosse and football USAA certified coach in both.

    I was also an athlete and played football in High school and college. I was not fast 4.8 40yd.

    I live on Long Island New York . I spent father’s Day weekend with 30,000 other people at my 16 year old sons lacrosse tournament.

    As I’m sure you know the amount of money people spend in the Northeast and Lacrosse is astounding.

    Coaching and being around so many people pushing the kids to be excellent athletes I have not heard one person ever mention what I’ve read in you’re article.

    It would be great to speak to you let me know a time that works for you.

    Reply

  17. Hi,
    Thanks for this great poste. I just begun to train my 6y and 10 months old son on the sprint for his soccer gamme. One of the difficulties is to fond timing references grids. But when i see that at thé end of thé first training session, he gained 0.7 seconds on 15m sprint (3.16s, 17km/h), it puts me in an optimistic mood. Would you have à more extended ref timings grid by ages available somewhere ? Thanks à lot

    Reply

    • I do not. My advice is to keep collecting data and stay patient. Accept small gains. Even if times are not improving, sprinting pays off. As in life, we are trying to be the best version of our self.

      Reply

  18. I’m a sophomore in highschool and started to really focus on my speed last year. My best event was the 400m which went from a 60 hand-timed to a 54.15 FAT timed. After a while, I was starting to think that I should move up and start doing 800m more but then I started doing a speed school and focused on top speed and acceleration. Its been 3 months and I dropped my 40m time from 5.00 to 4.72 hand timed. Is this good so far? Should I move up to the 800m or keep with the 100, 200, and 400?

    Reply

  19. I’m fortunate to be 20 miles from Plainfield, IL. Do you know of coaches/programs/locations in the northern IL/western suburbs area that train to the points you make in the article?

    I have a 9yo who is a big kid for his age (4’11”, 100lbs) and plays hockey, lacrosse, & soccer. One of his favorite coaches noted that he needs to work on speed and recommended 10y sprints and 5-5-5 shuttles to work on speed; which we are doing, but I’d like to get him in a more regimented, mature coaching structure than just me outside with him and a stopwatch. I don’t have enough training awareness to recognize things he could do, other than just saying “go faster”. Thanks for your attention!

    Reply

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