Youth Speed Training: Adam Feit on Max Velocity

Based on Episode 44 of the Just Fly Performance Podcast, a conversation between host Joel Smith and sports performance coach Adam Feit.

Youth speed training usually starts with acceleration, and Adam Feit’s program deliberately starts somewhere else. Feit, director of sports performance at a private youth performance center in New Jersey that has trained thousands of young athletes, teaches upright max-velocity posture first, warms athletes up for jumping the same way most coaches warm up for lifting, and builds jump variations that ask kids to land on one leg rather than only take off from one. The through-line is that young athletes need positions before they need intensity.

Key Takeaways

• Teach max velocity before acceleration. Young athletes have almost no speed reserve, so they reach top speed early and have to hold it.
• Body position is rule one. No sled, hill, or resisted variation matters if the athlete cannot hold the position.
• Warm up for jumping, not just for lifting. A short plyometric prep block grooves the pattern before the real jump work.
• Train landings, not just takeoffs. One-leg-to-two-leg jumps build the force absorption athletes actually need.
• Answer the specificity question honestly. General preparation done well is the contribution, and the sport coach handles the sport skill.

Teach max velocity before acceleration

Feit’s most contrarian position concerns the order of operations. Most coaches working with young field-sport athletes drill acceleration, reasoning that kids never reach top speed in their sport anyway. He argues the opposite conclusion follows from the same fact.

When working with youth athletes, when you look at them run, they’re gonna reach their top speed, their max velocity quicker, because their speed reserve is just nonexistent. They’re not gonna accelerate to fifty, sixty meters like an elite sprinter. So they’re gonna reach it sooner, and therefore they’re gonna have to hold it longer.

The practical reason for starting upright is that posture is easier to teach and easier to feel when the athlete is tall and fighting gravity, rather than folded into a drive-phase position.

We teach max speed first. If we can’t get them in an upright, tall position in this max speed posture, how can we ask them to generate tension to produce force in this crouched low, driving out position?

From there he is blunt about the hierarchy. His athletes can recite it, because he asks them constantly.

Number one is body position. If we can’t have great body position, it doesn’t matter what type of chain resistive sprint you do, hill sprint, flag sprint, chase sprint, breakaway sprint. It doesn’t matter. If you can’t be in a great body position, it won’t be optimal.

Warm up for jumping, not just for lifting

The idea Joel singles out as the episode’s best is disarmingly simple: coaches prepare meticulously for a barbell and not at all for a jump. Feit builds a short plyometric prep block into the warmup, in the same plane as the day’s jump work.

We do it in lifting. If you’re Olympic lifting, you’re doing some sort of complex work in your warmup. If you’re squatting that day, you might do some corrective goblet squat work or landmine work or band work. Why aren’t we doing that with jumping? We just throw them right in.

In practice it is four to six reps of a simplified version of the session’s jump, done to groove the motor pattern rather than to fatigue anyone.

That plyo prep period might be a rotational tuck jump, or a snap down into a vertical jump. Something to groove the motor pattern right in the warmup. So then when we get to that plyo block, they’re like, oh, okay, same movement, now I’m just adding a hurdle.

Train the landing, not just the takeoff

Feit’s hybrid jumps grew out of a gap he noticed when moving athletes from two-leg jumps straight to single-leg hops. He starts from Mike Boyle’s classification of jumps, hops, and bounds, then adds a category most programs skip.

Why don’t we focus on one to two-legged jumps? Let’s get them powerful on one leg, and help them with their confidence, and land on two. That way we can get that propulsion from that single leg, land on two.

The reasoning is that injuries happen on the way down, not on the way up, and that sport landings are rarely symmetrical.

When do we get hurt jumping up? It’s all about coming down. It’s that absorption of force, that eccentric control.

The second benefit is logistical, which he is refreshingly honest about. With hundreds of athletes and limited floor space, chaining a rotational jump into a vertical jump into a long jump covers three planes in one short block rather than three separate stations.

Answer the specificity question honestly

Working in the private sector, Feit fields the same parent question constantly: is this sport-specific? His answer draws a clean line around what a performance coach is actually for.

Every athlete is gonna do some degree of flexion, extension, rotation, pushing, pulling, hinging, squatting, bending. Our job is to make them more efficient at those patterns, and we’re gonna transfer that over to that field.

He goes further, arguing that drifting into sport skill work is a disservice when it is not your expertise. If a parent wants swing work, that is what a hitting coach is for; his contribution is thoracic mobility and hip sequencing that makes the swing better. He also keeps a reactive, chaotic element in every speed session, precisely so athletes do not lose the ability to make decisions while moving.

Frequently asked questions

Should young athletes train acceleration or max velocity first?
Feit teaches max velocity first. His reasoning is that youth athletes have almost no speed reserve, so they hit their top speed early in a run and then have to maintain it, and that upright posture is easier to teach and feel than a crouched acceleration position.

What is a speed reserve?
It is the gap between an athlete’s top speed and the speed they operate at in their sport. Feit’s point is that young athletes have very little of it, so they reach maximum velocity sooner than a trained sprinter would and spend more of a run at or near that speed.

How should athletes warm up before plyometrics?
With a short plyometric prep block in the same plane as the session’s jump work, done for roughly four to six reps. Feit uses a simplified version of the day’s jump, such as a rotational tuck jump or a snap down into a vertical jump, to groove the pattern before loading it.

What are hybrid jumps?
They are jump variations that mix takeoff and landing legs or combine planes, such as jumping from one leg and landing on two, or chaining a rotational jump into a vertical jump into a long jump. Feit uses them to train landing and force absorption and to cover multiple planes in limited space.

How do you answer parents asking for sport-specific training?
Feit reframes the job as general preparation done well: making an athlete more efficient at pushing, pulling, hinging, squatting, and rotating, which transfers to the field. He leaves sport skill work to the sport coach and is explicit that he would be doing clients a disservice by coaching a sport he does not specialize in.

About the authors

Adam Feit is a sports performance coach who served as director of sports performance and partner at Reach Your Potential Training, a private youth performance center in New Jersey, and as a certification instructor and assistant director of performance nutrition for Precision Nutrition. He has coached at every level, including the Carolina Panthers, Eastern Michigan University, and the University of Louisville, and his recent work centers on youth and high school athletes.

Joel Smith is the host of the Just Fly Performance Podcast and the founder of Just Fly Sports, a former collegiate strength and track and field coach focused on speed, power, and athletic development. Listen to the full episode with Adam Feit on Just Fly Sports.