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With a heavy calendar and very little downtime to train, finding the balance between strength and conditioning training and tactical training is not always easy.

The good ol’ days of torturous training camps are well behind us. We are more conscious about our players’ health, and injuries during pre-season camp is certainly not what we hope for–especially not for the sake of proving a point. So after hard off-season training, is there a way we can establish a reliable and safe baseline for our athletes without risking injury?

As we enter a new season with multiple athletes and sometimes many new faces, our time is limited. Processes to create baselines must be easy to implement and fast at giving us the pertinent information we need. Establishing a program that allows for each athlete to retain current physical and cognitive capacities is very difficult. But it’s a lot easier with solid data.

In-Season Fatigue Profiling: How to Create a Reliable Baseline

A reliable baseline is imperative for a coach to individualize an action plan and use the plan for monitoring an athlete. Are a 1RM and a vertical jump reliable enough to manage fatigue? It can help and can be part of the equation. But sport is about momentum and velocity.

It’s important I know as much as possible about my athletes. I’m interested in five main categories: speed, power, strength, endurance, and lower limb balance. And I attribute a different attention to the components depending on the sport and position.

Speed

First, I divide speed into multiple components, since different sports and positions have different needs. They go as follows:

• Peak Speed
• Time to reach peak speed (acceleration)
• Time to reach peak power (how fast one can deploy peak power)
• Cognitive speed, reaction time

Peak Speed

For some applications, peak speed is important data, but maximum velocity in a straight line is rarely achieved in most team sports. I still like to have this data, though, because it reveals important information. A noticeable loss of peak speed may indicate exhaustion or overtightening of hip flexors or hamstrings, leading to possible injuries. The data also helps with post-injury return-to-play protocols.

Acceleration

Time to reach peak speed (acceleration) is a must-have for baseline data. Most sports are defined by the capacity to accelerate and build momentum. Following the evolution and the variability of this aspect is very important.

Peak Power

For some positions, like football linemen or the front row in rugby, I want to know the speed with which they can deploy peaks amount of power (time to reach peak power). This defines their ability to efficiently deploy the first power steps so in power sports.

Monitoring peak power outputs throughout the season is a primary concern because it directly affects all other performance parameters. A significant decrease in this number will negatively affect overall speed and all the averages associated with conditioning parameters. I’ve learned through experience that a significant loss of power on a five-burst assessment is enough to raise a flag and I should start looking more in-depth for issues.

Cognitive Speed

And what about cognitive speed? If our athletes can’t process information fast enough, their physical capabilities may not be useful. This component of speed is measurable and quantifiable, and it must be part of the baseline; mental fatigue is certainly a concern throughout the season.

I also like to incorporate the vertical jump. I use the jump mat for this. I’m not concerned about how high an athlete can jump because it doesn’t necessarily represent how well they can accelerate. It is valid data, though, for monitoring fatigue and return-to-play protocols.

Strength

I want to know upper and lower body maximal strength. Again, different sports and different needs, but knowing that my athletes can retain a decent level of strength throughout the entire in-season is an important factor for success.

Endurance

It’s great to know how fast, strong, and powerful my athletes are, but can they sustain repeated bouts of exertion without losing efficiency? Can my football player repeat 60 snaps at full capacity? Or is he losing important speed and power after only 20 snaps? The ability to reproduce full momentum in a specific energy file is measurable; that’s why it is part of my baseline.

Lower Limb Balance

Finally, it’s important to know if our athletes remain balanced throughout the different phases of the baseline acquisition. Some look very well balanced during acceleration, but through repeated bouts, fatigue often reveals inconsistencies.

Sometimes an athlete shows significant imbalances on the take-off, indicating poor weight transfer on the ball of the feet. This scenario occurs regularly even with the highest level athletes. This condition is impossible to detect with the naked eye and has great negative impact on performance. It’s also indicative of possible injury, as the overused side will eventually not sustain the extra forces applied. A simple mechanical correction on weight distribution and gait control can fix this. But we can’t fix it if we can’t measure it.

Interventions: Combining Strength Training Testing and Speed Data

I mentioned that a baseline must be easy and quick to implement. According to the list above, however, it looks complicated and difficult. It isn’t. I’ll show you how I get it done and how the numbers become my assistant coaches.

First, I love strength and big lifts; maintaining strength throughout the season is extremely important. Strength is the foundation of power and speed, so it’s a must keep. The squat, the deadlift (and their variations), and the big rows and pulls will always be part of my game plan. I use them in a calculated way, and I use them a lot.

I used to always conduct a 1-3RM evaluation period. Although I never had an incident happen during those periods, the high physical demands of most pre-camps made me reconsider. The intent behind a test day is to establish a starting point to build a strength curve and establish force-velocity ratios. In my quest to be more time efficient, it made sense to simply work with all the information I already have.

For the athletes who I follow during the off-season, I have solid data and reliable information. This means I can build an individualized plan of action for them.

For the athletes whom I don’t know, I do two things. If I have advance notice that they’re coming, I’ll reach out to them and their strength coaches and ask for numbers on specific lifts. I’ll build a progression off those numbers. I stay more conservative on the prescribed loads as I want to make sure I’m satisfied with the athlete’s technique and execution.

What about athletes whom I know nothing about? This is when technology becomes my best friend. We have very little time for trial and error–especially not errors. We all know that strength is required for power and speed. And we know that our strongest athletes are not necessarily our most powerful or the fastest. In other words, their strength doesn’t always transfer well. This is why I want to spend more time on evaluating speed, power, and acceleration.

The great thing about being a strength coach today is that we have technologies enabling us to be better at what we do. It doesn’t matter anymore if an athlete benches or squats a ton of weight if it doesn’t transfer to the task they have to perform.

How can we establish what is sufficient speed or power or the combination of both? I use the HiTrainer to create very accurate portraits of my athletes.

I like to call this tool the “human dyno”–it’s incredibly efficient and versatile. In a matter of minutes, this self-propelled treadmill equipped with load cells and high precision tach collects all the data mentioned earlier.

The baseline protocol is very simple and fast. The athlete runs a total of five 20-yard sprints and five 5-meter sprints (total of less than 30 seconds of work).

It collects the data in real time: peak speed, time to reach peak speed, peak power, time to reach peak power, as well as lower limb balance throughout each run. It also provides all averages for each component.

The graph above represents three separate 20-yard sprint speed curves taken at different times. Notice how the top curve (pink) is much higher than the red one and shows a much steeper first segment (acceleration). As the blue segment shows similar peak speed, acceleration is starting to decrease. Red and blue have similar acceleration, but red shows a significant drop in top speed and capacity to accelerate compared to the pink segment. At this point, we must explore why this athlete shows such a loss in performance.

The HiTrainer Pro also assesses cognitive speed with a reaction time function. This function measures how fast an athlete can react to a visual or sound cue. This also gives me all the data mentioned above so I can see if my athletes are just as efficient while making decisions. I value this highly because, on a regular basis, I see athletes losing up to 50% of their total power output while making decisions. And most of them have a very difficult time reaching their full speed if we don’t train this specific component.

For endurance or repeatability, this device is pre-programmed for any desired sport-specific energy file. After choosing my protocol, once again, the HiTrainer gives current real-time data on the capacity to repeat bouts of maximum energy expenditure. With football, for example, I use a 10-snaps protocol. This pre-programmed feature consists of ten bouts of 5-second sprints. Each sprint is followed by a 20-second complete rest (time to go back to huddle). The screen placed in front of the athlete displays every single sprint and calculates the total averages of speed and power. It becomes very easy to establish levels of conditioning for every athlete so we can act accordingly.

This function is used with hockey players as a representation of one shift on the ice. Notice how peaks of power significantly decreased by the fourth sprint. Also notice the red % on the bottom right. It’s red because it shows an imbalanced ratio of 64% for the left leg and 35% for the right leg. Look back at the previous graph, and we that the same athlete showed near perfect balance on a single acceleration (green % bottom right 49%-51%). It’s an important issue to address–the athlete is overcompensating under fatigue.

In about 5 to 7 minutes per athlete, I have a complete profile of current capacities. The data is very easy for the coach and the athlete to read and understand.

In only a few minutes for each athlete, I create a complete profile of their current capacities, says @hitrainer_pro. Share on X

This is how I monitor fatigue in-season. The tool is simply part of the program and, by using is regularly, the data collected provides me great insight. The machine literally becomes my assistant because it feeds me what I need to know.

Now I have an easy way to monitor all the crucial components necessary for success. As I see one of the components start to decrease enough where my athlete cannot maintain an acceptable variability, we can openly discuss it and see what’s affecting the result so much. We may not know right away what the issue is, but we can certainly raise our hand and call a timeout if needed.

I’ve been using this monitoring process for five years and have tweaked it over time. Like everything else, we must adapt to different environments and athletes.

Baselines and In-Season Training: Final Thoughts

With the very little time we have to train, this baseline assessment has provided great results and has prevented many overtraining, or as I prefer to say, under-recovery situations. It’s also allowed me to easily individualize my workout plans and tailor them to specific needs. Since the HiTrainer is used at every level of athletic development, the manufacturer has done a great job providing wattage and speed standards for gender, age groups, and levels from youth to pros.

This is one of the reasons I can greatly reduce the time needed for lifting; I know exactly what to prescribe and how much. When dealing with a heavy calendar and very little time to get the job done, we strength coaches often have our heads on the chopping block. This monitoring system provides a great insurance policy–it is safe to administer, very reliable, and allows us to make proper interventions when needed.

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

“Flex on three, Flex on three! One…TWO…THREE…” A dramatic pause, three crisp handclaps in unison, and sixteen pre-teen voices rise as one: “FLEX!”

On cue, all sixteen girls flex their biceps—they are strong, they are committed—and then rush to take the pitch. Sixth and seventh graders, they wear jerseys from their home soccer club and line up in a fluid 4-3-3, switching positions tactically and supporting each other in open space. The field this particular afternoon is massive—a regulation-sized pitch at a north coast high school—and the game is physical, one rough challenge after another. The late summer heat radiates from the rubber in the turf, and for long stretches the team regresses, losing shape and losing possession.

To Compete

Still, the game remains scoreless late in the first half because first and foremost these girls know how to compete. Several of them bounce among gyms and sand courts up and down the coast for high-flying volleyball clubs, while others dig in against the most fearsome pitchers in the county for Select and All-Star softball teams. Some play basketball, or “Friday Night Lights” flag football, or field hockey. One versatile, wide-channel player is a competitive gymnast; a tall and rangy defender is a swimmer. Our creator in the central midfield splits time with her rock climbing team.

They do it all. But this is a different game. Participating in San Diego’s competitive Presidio League, all sixteen athletes on the roster are playing their first season of non-recreational soccer. And in this league that is new to them, they are something entirely new: a “Flex” team, specifically designed to support and encourage multi-sport athletes.

Flex:

• To bend (something pliant or elastic)
• To bend (a joint) repeatedly
• To move by muscular control
• Pliancy; flexibility

–American Heritage College Dictionary

Youth sports today are, in a word, inflexible. Practices, games, scrimmages, local tournaments, travel tournaments, skills clinics, private coaching sessions, speed and agility training, team functions and fundraisers–the dominant theme is commitment. For the parents, the commitment of time and money is substantial, driven in equal parts by the desire to see their children succeed and the fear of allowing them to fall behind.

For the players, there is a commitment to being available and game-ready. Always. Particularly in areas like Southern California, where there is no seasonal impediment to playing outdoors year-round. Pick any major sport, and for kids as young as 7-10, there will be games to be played in January, in May, in July, in September, and in December.

Debates about early specialization frequently spotlight the most glaringly proactive: Type A tiger parents going all-in on one sport for their elementary schooler in a (yes, delusional) pursuit of a prized scholarship. They misunderstand their child’s actual ability, the statistical improbability of any one athlete reaching the university level, and the non-linear nature of long-term athletic development.

In my coaching and parenting experience, however, such cases are outliers. More often, the road to early specialization is reactive, a grudging capitulation. Club soccer, club volleyball, club basketball, travel baseball and softball–these programs and their professional coaches don’t forbid their youngest players from playing other sports or demand exclusive specialization. They simply impose an inflexible, year-round playing structure that is so time-consuming that few players can squeeze in the hours to compete in a second sport.

What was once a sport’s traditional off-season is now a de-facto weeding-out season, says @CoachsVision. Share on X

What was once a sport’s traditional off-season is now a de-facto weeding-out season, during which the most committed players maintain a regular practice schedule, participate in skills clinics and scrimmages, and enter competitive, weekend-long tournaments.

For the vast majority of youth players, there is no 10-year plan to land a D1 scholarship, no let-it-ring-from-the heavens decision to specialize from this day forward. There is merely the short-term reality that if they’re not available and game-ready throughout a sport’s off-season, when the regular season does come back around, some other kid will be out there playing their position.

Changing the Game

Question: What would it look like if we relaxed a player’s commitment to being perpetually available and game-ready in a single sport and freed them to compete at an equally high level in others?

Out on that sprawling high school field, scoreless at the halftime whistle, the Flex girls are frustrated as they trot to the sideline. Throughout the half, every time they used their superior speed and mobility to gain a step, slower defenders countered with the guile and positioning to knock them firmly off their runs. Hastily-lost possessions consistently allowed the opposing side to build into space with patient and well-drilled passing combinations.

On multiple occasions, the opposing striker’s ability to create with her head flummoxed our back line—the girls have just reached an age where heading is allowed (per US Soccer regulations). After starting our practice schedule no fewer than four months behind the other teams in the Presidio League, our squad’s technical coach and I have barely begun to introduce the skill.

It is a work in progress.

On the field, and at the administrative level, our home club has a well-established system. They’ve been fielding teams in the Del Mar/Carmel Valley area of San Diego for nearly 50 years, and the program director is a former USWNT star and US Soccer Hall of Famer. This fall alone, the club is supporting over 100 teams in its recreational program (girls and boys, U6-U19), as well as nearly half that many teams on the competitive side.

For those unfamiliar, the difference between a competitive team and a recreational one is like the difference between a catered meal and a potluck. One is not, in all cases, superior to the other. In every potluck, however, the word’s second syllable is the operative one: the guest who volunteered to bring a side may arrive early to emulsify the dressing for their world famous grilled steak ceaser, or they may show up mid-meal lugging a bulk-store tub of expired potato salad.

The choice is stark. Youth players can try out for a year-round competitive team, with the structure in place to play “real” soccer week in and week out. Or they can sign up for a draft-based, 10-week fall recreational season, where the action on the field sometimes looks an awful lot like soccer, sometimes not at all, potluck depending.

The Problem: In the existing model, there is no passable option for those skilled and athletic players who want to play a competitive version of team soccer but cannot manage the year-round commitment due to time conflicts with other sports.

At the club level, that problem is not actually a problem—meaning the issue hasn’t yet shown an appreciable impact on their financial bottom line or their ability to field quality teams. They’ve been at this for nearly half a century and have a functioning model in place. To overcome that systemic inertia, someone engaged on the playing side needed to dig in their heels and push. Yes it’s a bumper sticker platitude. No Gandhi didn’t say it, but “be the change you wish to see in the world” can be simple enough advice.

In this case, that change began with a proposal to the club’s directors and executive board: a new “Multi-Sport” team concept, filling the gap between the recreational and competitive programs. These Multi-Sport teams would allow athletes to train in the summer, play in a fall competitive league, and compete in summer and winter tournaments, but with a looser, seven-month schedule in place of a year-round commitment.

          Flex: to move by muscular control

The Obstacles:

1. The club legitimately believes that year-round, academy style training is the path to higher level success in soccer.
2. The club relies on professional coaches in the competitive program, and those coaches need to earn a stable living, or they will go and coach elsewhere. For coaches to get paid year-round, they need players to coach year-round.
3. Though a non-profit community organization, the club is also a brand with a reputation to uphold. A competitive-type team playing sloppy, disorganized soccer under the club’s umbrella would be a bad look for the club.

The Pitch:

1. Research indicates that multi-sport participation provides athletes a greater opportunity to thrive in different team dynamics, dramatically improves mobility and physical literacy, and promotes a higher game IQ. It also reduces burnout, overuse injuries, and performance plateaus.
• “High school athletes who specialize in a single sport are 70 percent more likely to suffer an injury during their playing season than those who play multiple sports.”
• “Numerous research studies that have conducted over the past 10 years indicate that females are indeed more susceptible to ACL injuries; most studies report that females are 4-8 times more likely to tear this ligament.”
• 88.5% of NFL draft picks in 2016 played multiple sports in high school.
2. The Multi-Sport teams would be coached jointly by a licensed volunteer coach and a technical coach from the club’s competitive coaching staff. This arrangement would benefit the professional coaches by adding a paid weekday training session to their schedule while not piling onto their already-hectic weekend game load (most coach multiple teams).
3. The team I had ready to test the Multi-Sport model brought a proven track record, coming off a successful run through a slate of recreational All-Star tournaments. We had players with the technical skill and tactical awareness to fill every role on the field, the girls practiced and played with a magnetic spirit and passion, and they were collectively ready to take the next step as a team.

The Result: This year, on a trial/pilot basis, the club agreed to field a pair of non-year-round teams that occupy a grey area between the competitive and recreational programs (my team plays in the Girls 2005 age bracket, and there’s a Girls 2007 team). “Multi-Sport” was considered too unwieldy a name—the club didn’t want to limit the teams only to multi-sport athletes or somehow imply that the club was fielding teams across multiple sports. So I needed to rebrand the program before we even got underway.

Bringing us to Flex.

To Bend. Repeatedly.

Back to the game. Returning to the field for the second half, the Flex girls suffer a tough break in the early going as the referee awards the opposing team a dubious PK, breaking the scoreless draw. The momentum shifts and the girls begin to look worn-down, gassed from chasing the game in the smothering heat.

During that downswing, a defensive miscommunication paves the way for an “excuse-me” goal, making the score 2-0. Even so, these girls know how to compete. We push numbers into the attack and spend the final 15 minutes furiously pressing for a goal, creating chance after chance and dominating the run of play, but without finding the back of the net.

Walking off the field at the closing whistle, the Flex girls want exactly what you hope to see from a losing side—more time to play. “Just give us another 15 minutes, we can SO beat those girls.”

That outing has been their only loss through the midpoint of the regular season, kicking off with a 4-1-1 record. Meanwhile, the ’07 Flex team hasn’t found anyone in their division capable of running with them; they’re off to a 6-0 start with a 42-1 goal differential.

For proof of concept, these early results validate one of the basic truisms of youth sports: if you want to win more games, start with better players. Simple enough. Except:

1. Winning games is easy: play weaker competition and you’ll mostly win. If “how do I win more games?” is the primary question you’re asking yourself as a youth coach, you’re asking the wrong question.
2. More importantly, how do you foster and develop athletes who will continue to be better players year after year after year?

Flighted in a C-League, the Flex girls have so far held a demonstrable edge over their opponents in explosive power, closing speed, and aggressiveness to the ball. We consistently dominate two of my primary in-game KPI’s—winning a higher percentage of 50-50 balls and covering more ground than our opponents in the same space. Being able to win possession of the ball at a higher rate, in turn, allows us to hold the edge in a third key performance indicator–maintaining possession for a greater balance of the game.

With their combination of raw athleticism and relative inexperience, the Flex girls have improved at an exponential rate since we began–basic technical elements like first touch and juggling as well as advanced tactical concepts like overlapping and executing passes that eliminate defenders. Even while progressing in leaps and bounds, none of the players are within a broomstick’s reach of their individual ceiling.

The team’s technical coach and I share giddy asides as we plot our training sessions, thrilled to see how the girls swiftly apply each new tool and skill we teach. In these heady moments, there’s a very real temptation to push and push and push, hammering down the accelerator to see how far we can go during the limited time left in the season.

What would this team look like if we could compel all sixteen players to make our technical practice and our team practice week in and week out? What if we scheduled additional Sunday scrimmages to get more touches and game experience? What if we all chipped in to pay for a second weekly session with our technical coach? What if we planned an aggressive slate of post-season tournaments?

Hitting that gas pedal, though, would crash headlong into the Flex team’s entire raison d’être, all while pecking about to answer the wrong question. Could we raise our expectations and demand more, setting a goal to go undefeated during the second half of our season? Sure, but so what? If our Flex team was bumped up and entered a B-Flight in the Presidio League, all of a sudden our cool 4-1-1 record would be it’s inverse (or, more likely, even worse). The teams in the B-Division started with better players.

So while more more more soccer would make each Flex player more effective in a C-Level game today, my core coaching beliefs center around the philosophy that playing more more more everything will either:

1. Make our players more effective on the field five years from now, when they have more personal agency and will be closer to reaching the physical maturity to play the sport(s) of their choice at a peak level.
2. Do no harm (and be way more fun).

Managing more more more everything requires a willingness to bend. Repeatedly.

          Flex—Pliancy. Flexibility.

Because, sure enough, our Flex soccer season cuts through the thick of the weeding-out seasons for the other sports our girls play—largely with coaches who have yet to embrace the Flex mindset. More common, instead, are flawed interpretations of the “10,000 Hour Rule” and the valorization of phrases like “the best ability is availability.”

Coaches like to control what they can control, and getting kids to show up is easy—dock their playing time if they don’t. Miss practice, miss a game, say hello to the bench. The players will get the message and get to the field, or they’ll quit—in which case they’ll be replaced by kids whose best ability is availability.

Kids show up or they’re replaced by kids whose best ability is availability, says @CoachsVision. Share on X

A few of my Flex girls never miss a thing. But some have to leave practices early for other commitments; some miss an entire practice occasionally. Others miss at least one practice every week. Some will miss the occasional game because they have a tournament or conflicting competition in another sport. But what if, by missing one of my practices, the players are helping themselves become more accomplished athletes in the long run?

Because the best ability is and always will be superior ability: the combination of physical, psychological, technical, and tactical qualities applied in the run of play.

On the field, I rarely talk about responsibilities or assign my players a job. Instead, I encourage each of our athletes to bring their unique talents and personalities to impact the game. Our softball players attack balls out of the air with the direct pursuit angles and proper drop steps developed by tracking flies at shortstop and centerfield.

Pitchers and catchers on our soccer team strike balls with sheer #force learned on the diamond, says @CoachsVision. Share on X

The pitchers and catchers on our roster strike balls with a sheer force grooved-in by the weight-transfer and hip rotation required on the diamond. It takes most of our opponents an entire half to adjust to how far several of our softball players can uncork a throw-in, springing their teammates for fast break transitions deep downfield.

Meanwhile, the volleyball players on our roster contribute a completely different skill set. They possess an uncanny sense of width. They understand combination-based attacks and are accustomed to a pattern of securing possession from a central space to set it to big hitters out wide. All game long, these net sport athletes spread our attack out toward the corner flags, delivering dangerous crosses back into the box.

Operating in the space behind them, our rock-climber—typically the smallest player on the field—possesses the strength-to-body-weight ratio to excel in that discipline and picks her way through larger defenders with the same creativity and anticipation she might use to choose handholds and footholds on a free climb.

I could go on and on. These observations support a question I do consider worth asking. Not “how do I win more games,” not “how do I lock down maximum player availability,” but:

What would it look like if we relaxed a player’s commitment to being perpetually available and game-ready in a single sport and freed them to compete at an equally high level in others?

If you’re willing to bend—repeatedly—the answer is out there on the field, with kids playing the game.

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

Even though my coaching career is in its infancy, I’ve been extremely fortunate to build relationships with coaches who speak the same language. Influences from Mike Robertson, Jay DeMayo, and Ryan Horn always leave me nodding my head in agreement after a presentation, podcast, or post on social media. Affirmation of one’s philosophy is powerful, and quite frankly, feels good. But what say you to the coaches who contest or even oppose your training means, parameters, and system?

It may be unsettling initially, which is fine. Progress begins where your comfort zone ends. The truth is, the more you learn, the more you realize you don’t know as much as you thought. This is why I’m compelled to share my experiences with a handful of coaches who made me check my ego at the door. I describe my experience with five mentors, from how we met, the impact they have had on me personally or professionally, and a change I thought I would never make.

If you’re a coach, young or old, novice or master, this article will serve as a reminder that change is the only constant, and we should be adapting as much (if not more) than the imposed demands we prescribe our athletes. Otherwise, we are doomed to fail.

We’ve all had major influences on our career. Those who influenced us early (right or wrong) seem to be the most difficult to drift away from, and it’s hard to accept that there may be another way when it directly conflicts with their philosophy. In these situation, it’s prudent to own a beginner’s mind. It’s extremely liberating and it allows us to learn–rather than build walls to any new information that may contradict our own beliefs.

Andy McCloy, Alabama Strength Coach

I first met Andy McCloy in April 2016 at a private seminar held at Joe Kenn’s house in Clemmons, North Carolina. Interesting to note, the only reason I introduced myself was that, when the strength coach at my alma mater learned I was attending this event, he told me to make sure I made an effort to speak to Andy. Naturally, I looked him up on Instagram, and my initial thought was, “Who is this guy and why is he so good at taking selfies?”

Everything truly seems to happen for a reason. We interacted before, during, and after Coach Kenn’s presentation. Whether we were discussing postural restoration, integrating high/low into the Tier System, or Andy’s impeccable Adidas Ultra Boost game, we just clicked.

The impact Andy has had on me is difficult to put into words. For starters, not one week had passed after the seminar before we had our first phone call, discussing principles and philosophies of training in the private sector. That’s the type of individual he is. As I’ve mentioned before, my father was taken from me at the age of 14, and (knowingly or not) I was looking to fill that void. Andy has made that void disappear.

Since that seminar, our contact has been consistent, insightful, and never boring. I like to think I’ve also brought him value, giving him that extra push to embark on his journey of coaching others in the industry through the vehicle that is BCI Tribe, of which I am proudly a member.

Being a part of Andy’s tribe has instilled a mantra in me I never thought I would adopt: “Serve first, sell later.” It goes against what 99% of all the business gurus will tell you when it comes to your time and worth. At first, I was a bit perplexed that someone as successful as Andy would live by such a code. Other coaches who I respect and follow endorse such claims as, “Time is the one thing you can’t get back.” At first, I was skeptical and immature. I could not grasp the long game or big picture–I wanted to help my business here and now, months or even years down the road.

Regardless, I made a conscious effort to not treat Andy’s advice like a buffet, picking and choosing what I want, while leaving what didn’t agree with me behind. I went all in. Why? You get paid for done, you don’t get paid for completing seven out of tent items on your to-do list. You don’t get paid for doing 99.99% of the work. You get paid for done.

To my surprise, I’ve been happier since I began giving my life away. It’s enabled me to build meaningful relationships in our community, develop an unbreakable level of trust through honest and open communication, and establish a culture in West Michigan that is second-to-none. As Bruce Lee said, “If you love life, don’t waste time, for time is what life is made up of.” In my opinion, paying it forward is time well spent.

Joe Kenn, Carolina Panthers, NFL

Long before meeting Coach Kenn, I was fascinated by this eccentric strength coach and his presence on social media while bringing it “from the sac!” Coach Kenn posted an Instagram video in early April of 2016 where he asked anyone interested in attending a private seminar at his house (this is the type of individual we’re dealing with here) to comment why they believed they should be there. Based on the responses, he would choose who could attend. As irony would have it, no one was selected based on response alone. Many of the coaches (including yours truly) called in favors to plead our case to attend this event. Why not? It’s who you know, right?

If I could boil down Coach Kenn’s impact on me personally as well as professionally to one word, it would be challenge. This past January, I reached out to Joe before my first combine training season. I’m sharing our conversation, as it is pure Joe Kenn:

Me: “If I got a combine guy for nine weeks, how much time should be spent on each strength? (Absolute, Accelerative, Strength-Speed, Speed-Strength, Starting Strength) and in what order?”

Kenn: “You have nine weeks of preparation for seven tests and position drill tryout. I would start with what are the tests he will be measured in and make your assumptions from there.”

Me: “Could you expand on that a little bit?”

Kenn: “NO! If you are going to do combine prep, you should have been preparing all year for this. Players’ careers are in your hands. You are a smart guy. Evaluate the needs of the athlete for the combine.”

Me: “Understood.”

Kenn: “I have spoken to you, you are a smart guy who knows training. If I don’t challenge you to think diligently, who is?”

To say this was a wake-up call would be an understatement. Coach Kenn is the epitome of a teacher who chooses not to give you the answers but rather the tools to learn. I remember walking into the bathroom of my facility, looking myself in the mirror and saying, “You don’t know anything.” There is no elevator to success; it was time to take the stairs.

Coach Kenn’s presentation in his home that weekend shook my training philosophy like a sapling that had not taken root yet. The change I made since meeting Joe may seem underwhelming, but to me it’s as profound as it is simple: total body training sessions. Nothing earth-shattering, right? I wish I could have said the same. At the time, I was an avid fan of Buddy Morris, James “The Thinker” Smith, and Joe DeFranco, all of whom still use split routines, Westside-esque templates.

As a young coach, in a time where novices covet what they see, the Tier System was not sexy enough for my endorsement–until I stopped trying to impress and was open to learning.

If we truly adhere to the Law of Dynamic Correspondence, training must mimic the sporting activity to transfer to the sporting activity. Last time I checked, sport is total body in nature, head-to-toe, and toe-to-head. Why would we not train our athletes in the same fashion?

Now, all roads lead to Rome, and nothing is set in stone. James and Buddy are excellent examples of this, as they are some of the best coaches in the industry who have found success year after year utilizing split routines, so who am I to say I’m right? As Kenn would say, “I know what I know, I know what I don’t know, and I know what I don’t care to know.”

Since adopting the Tier System at my facility and in my coaching, I have nothing but good things to say and have found success with those I train. Effective and efficient training sessions run rampant with my athletes. Simple may not be sexy, but it produces the intended result, a la Bruce Lee.

The Tier System has not only made me a better coach but has also developed my leadership qualities. The simplicity of the template has empowered the coaches who work with me to have the confidence to write programs of their own, which is making them leaders. That is a #wordswin.

Jorge Carvajal, Florida Performance Coach

The demigod that is social media led to Jorge, and I had an enlightening Skype call after he came across my first article on SimplifFaster, How to Build the Ultimate American Football Player. Jorge may not know this, but I had studied him for some time, as we share mutual friends in Carl Valle and Derek Hansen. I had no idea who he was at the time, but if he’s friends with two people for whom I have much respect, he can’t be all that bad. After conversing with him, I came to find that he’s the new guy who’s been around for 25 years. I had some catching up to do.

“Build a coaching practice around a life.” This was not as much a claim as it was a request made by Jorge. As he explained his life to me, and how he goes about his day, I could not help but reference The 4-Hour Work-Week, and we chased the Tim Ferriss rabbit-hole for the following half hour, discussing the application of production > being busy.

The change I’ve made in my life since speaking with Jorge is saying, “yes” to everything. Before that, if the proposal made to me did not invoke a “hell yes!” my answer was “no.” Jorge made an interesting point that transformed my decision process. He explained, “Say ‘yes’ and then figure it out, because if you say ‘no,’ that opportunity is gone forever.”

Since taking his advice, I’ve experienced some alluring observations. As I’ve found myself saying “yes” more often and exposing myself to not only new opportunities but also different, I’ve invoked a fear response in my amygdala. This has been exponentially beneficial; it’s provided a form of checks and balances. I’ve been far more objective in coaching because I’m constantly thinking in the back of my mind, “How do you know you’re doing a good job?” Evaluations aplenty have led to consistent 1% improvements in those I work with, which is a huge win.

In addition to my new affirmative lifestyle, I’ve found enlightenment in accepting that there are no bad decisions, there are only decisions, and we must deal with the consequences of our choices. One of my crucial decisions has been the concept of “n=1” which is a prerequisite I have strayed from in recent months.

How can I coach an athlete to push if I’m not doing the same in my own training? Share on X

I have not been a coach of integrity; meaning I have not been doing the things I am prescribing my athletes to perform. How am I able to coach an athlete to push during the acceleration phase, if I’m not doing the same in my own training? The consequence of that decision was hiring Derek Hansen to prescribe a sprint program for yours truly. I can live with that.

Although I have known Jorge for the least amount of time compared to the other four coaches, the relationship between time knowing him and his impact on me is inverse. My life is fuller, and I’m a better coach and a man of integrity. Thanks, Jorge.

Derek Hansen, Vancouver Speed Coach

Every autumn, my team and I travel to Indianapolis for our continuing education event of choice, the Physical Preparation Summit. I glanced at the list of speakers and saw the name Derek Hansen whose presentation was about speed training considerations for non-track athletes and the high/low approach. I’m a big Buddy Morris fan, whom I met at the Cardinals’ facility two years ago; he was a raving fan of Derek’s. I had to meet him.

After the first day of presentations, there was a social gathering where attendees and presenters talked shop. Derek was gracious enough to indulge me for what was close to an hour as I presented my entire program to him. I was astonished by how generous he was volunteering his information. It was refreshing that a coach of his reputation was willing to give a young coach direction.

When one thinks of Derek, one word comes to mind: sprint. It’s probably the smallest change I’ve made from the five coaches, but it may be the most powerful for its impact on my system and my athletes. For years, I believed in the school of thought that football is simply a game of repeated accelerations, which is not false. But there is more to the story; that’s just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. The benefits I’ve seen since implementing (max velocity) sprinting in my system include, but are not limited to:

• Weights follow speed: Weights will make an athlete faster for only so long before diminishing returns are realized. Why? Sprinting is 5x ground reaction forces and 7x muscle-skeletal forces every time an athlete strikes the ground.
• Sprinting is a plyometric: There is a flight phase where both feet are in the air. I still prescribe jumps and plyometrics, but the ground contact time won’t be nearly as brief as it is when sprinting. The goal of the bulk of jumps I prescribe is to develop stiffness.
• Evaluation: Want to know if you’re dealing with a fight-or-flight athlete? Prescribe sprints with a partner chasing them or vice versa.
• Speed reserve: By building a bigger engine, your athletes will be able to perform at (higher) submaximal speeds for longer durations. It is conditioning without entering a lactic environment.
• Builds other qualities: Aside from addressing conditioning, strength, and plyometrics through sprinting, there’s also less need to address change-of-direction and agility. The ground forces exerted at top-speed may be 800-1000 lbs per That’s far greater than any force output during cutting or chaotic drills and without the wear and tear.

This word keeps popping up since meeting this incredible cradle of coaches­–simplicity. Simplicity triumphs over complexity every single time. I have found that complexity is a symptom of confusion. Our speed development system is extremely vanilla, and it could be considered boring by other coaches. But it’s been the ultimate performance enhancer for my athletes.

Our speed development system is extremely vanilla, but it’s been the ultimate performance enhancer, says @huntercharneski. Share on X

Derek’s message has also contributed to the success of my consulting career. I work with my alma mater’s basketball and football teams as well as a small handful of coaches in the industry who have leaned on me for guidance and direction in the development of all training means, parameters, and systems of their programs.

@DerekMHansen has given me a new passion: #SpeedKills, says @huntercharneski. Share on X

Since meeting Derek, I’ve become enamored with the most coveted bio-motor ability in the world of physical preparation. Speed separates the poor from the average, the average from the good, and the good from the great. How I continue to push my athletes towards great gives me purpose, and Derek has given me a new passion. Speed kills.

Brett Bartholomew, Atlanta Strength Coach

Education-wise, I am fueled by speed. Naturally, I could not pass up the PLAE Speed Mastermind in Denver, CO at Landow Performance this past April where Brett was presenting, (Derek was also presenting, go figure). Between presentations, I approached Brett, introduced myself, and we began talking about my facility and what takes up most of his time. Of course, I bought his book there and then. Pay it forward.

Brett is only a few years older than I, and this alone has given me the confidence to accomplish the lofty goals I’ve set for myself. What’s more, I have found out more about the athlete I was, and still am, after reading his book, Conscious Coaching. Now, I’ve always thought my strength (no pun intended) is my ability to relate to any individual. Whether I’m working with an eight-year-old, an NFL athlete, or a division one female soccer player, I can build a relationship, get their buy-in, and help them succeed.

The change Brett has instilled in me is to be relatable, not their friend. I’ve always said, “I am a relationship coach.” Brett’s work has heightened that awareness, and my athletes have benefitted as a result. Not only have my coaching skills spiked, as I study the person as well as the program, but my mentoring and leadership abilities also have received an upgrade.

Since meeting Brett, my staff and I pride ourselves on the idea of “one session.” If an athlete is on the fence about training at my facility, or their parents are a tad wary about my system, we assure them that all it will take is one session for the parents and the athlete to be sold.

The one session guarantee drives my staff and me when an athlete walks through our doors for the first time. We want them to have a “wow” experience and know we care about them and not their performance. This is our competitive advantage, and Brett has influenced this process greatly. I look forward to our relationship blossoming into something great in the very near future.

Find Your Mentors and Change for the Better

In an industry where change is the only constant, take time to expose yourself to innovative ideas, systems, and patterns. If you stop learning, you stop growing. If you stop growing, you limit the development of your athletes. The world of physical preparation may seem as big as it is daunting–it isn’t. Coaches, myself included, are more easily accessible than they’ve ever been. Just look at my interaction with Jorge Carvajal. Don’t be afraid to reach out to some of the great minds out there. It will challenge your beliefs, but I promise you’ll have something meaningful to contribute to them as well. This is not a zero-sum game.

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

Every university across the country has incoming freshman step foot in the weight room with varying levels of experience. As the strength and conditioning industry progresses, more qualified coaches are being employed at the high school level. Even with a qualified coach at the helm, many athletes will continue to show up on college campuses for their first day of practice needing more work from a developmental standpoint.

While sport coaches breathe down our necks to find out how much their athletes are squatting or how many inches we’ve added to their vertical jump, as strength and conditioning professionals we must know how fast to move an athlete through our progression/regression stages.

About Our Freshman Developmental Model

The research by Istvan Balyi on long-term athlete development provides the basis for this model. Each athlete entering the program begins in the same stage: Stage 1. As the athlete accomplishes the goals of each stage, they will progress to the next stage. This progression will lead to more challenging movements from a technical proficiency standpoint, greater requirements of the athlete’s work capacity, and a larger exercise library the athlete will have to be proficient in.

Technical progression, not strength level, differentiates one athlete’s programming from another’s, says @StrengthZack. Share on X

The driver for progression of movement is, and always will be, technical proficiency. Technique is the highest priority when progressing an athlete. Proper technical mastery of prerequisite movements assures us that the athlete is ready to load each movement in the manner that we see fit. Technical progression, not strength level, is what will differentiate one athlete’s programming from another’s.

Stage 1: Learn to Train

The goals of Stage 1 are to teach the athlete our basic movement patterns and build work capacity. Year in and year out, the incoming freshmen generally display a lack of work capacity.

Prior to the execution of any lifting of any kind of implement, the athletes will do focused work on diaphragmatic breathing.

There are many ways to accomplish this. I have had the most success using the 90/90 wall breathing drill. The video below gives instructions for the execution of the breathing drill. I have found that this exercise not only teaches athletes to breathe properly, but also helps them get into a neutral posture through their lumbar spine.

Video 1. While teaching breathing is trendy, coaches have been doing it for years, just with less sophistication and education. Engrain good habits right away, and build a foundation of quality breathing.

Following the introduction to proper breathing mechanics, we introduce our basic movement patterns: squat, hip hinge, upper body push, and upper body pull. The exercises used during this stage are a KB/DB goblet squat, KB/DB RDL, push-up, and body weight rowing patterns such as a TRX row or barbell inverted row. The introduction of these exercises serves as our basic movement screen as well. We can address basic movement inefficiencies (lack of joint mobility, lack of stability, asymmetries) while the athletes execute these exercises.

These sessions not only focus on movement introduction, but there is always a work capacity component added. Many athletes we bring in are simply not ready to undertake the amount of training we plan to put them through, so we stick to basic means to accomplish the end goal. Various sled dragging patterns, carries with various objects for various distances, and the use of escalated density training (EDT) are all methods that we utilize in our program to increase our athletes’ work capacities and ready them for the rigors of training as they progress through their careers with us.

Each training day looks very similar during this stage, so it becomes imperative to find ways to challenge the athletes during the session. One way is to introduce tempos to movements. For example, on our lower body push day, we may have an athlete goblet squatting with a KB with a five-second tempo during the eccentric portion of the movement. The tempo not only makes the movement more challenging, but it gives the coach an opportunity to continue to evaluate the athlete as they move under load. By constantly tweaking each movement, we as coaches can continue to evaluate the athlete’s strength and weaknesses, which will lead to better development of movement patterns.

Stage 2: Train to Train

Stage 2 takes our rudimentary movements—the KB Goblet squat, KB RDL, push-up, and TRX row—and progresses them. The next step in our progression of movements is the front squat, barbell deadlift, bench press, and pull-up. We still utilize our Stage 1 movements as warm-up movements, technique primers, or for more GPP-type training following the motor learning portion of the workout. For example, we may bench press.

We do a standard 5×5 training plan for the main movement, superset each set with a low-intensity exercise in opposition such as a band row, and then super set t-spine mobility exercises such as a seated PVC t-spine rotation. After they finish the working sets for capacity, we have the athletes execute push-ups, KB goblet squats, and TRX rows for time, usually 15-20 minutes at the end of a session.

During this time, we still coach the push-up to our specifications and even decrease individual volumes if the reps begin to look bad. While fatigue can make cowards of us all, we ensure that even if a kid can only do five reps per set to our standards, we stop the set at those five reps to avoid teaching them poor habits.

Athletes spend an extremely long time in this stage. Our freshman football players spend close to three months in this stage to help break any poor habits they may have come to us with.

We begin to introduce structured programming during Stage 2. Athletes will start to train through different phases (hypertrophy, max strength, conversion to power, etc). Volume will remain higher than with our advanced athletes to continue to develop their work capacity and engrain motor patterns, but we will begin to collect relative max numbers (3-10RM) and train them based on certain percentages of their projected maxes. During this stage, many athletes progress from front squatting to back squatting if they do not have any mobility/stability issues that would hinder them in this exercise. This stage is also where our introduction to Olympic-style weightlifting movements occurs.

“You can’t progress an entire group of athletes as a unit, but you can move them in the same direction.”

Stage 2 training, while intended to increase the athlete’s general capabilities, is still very much educational. We expose the athlete to a variety of different movements and exercises with various implements and tempos, but the key is still building clean motor patterns. The “art of coaching” becomes a large factor here, as the coach holds the key to the athlete’s progression and regression through the stage. You cannot expect an entire group to progress as a unit—there are simply too many factors to account for. However, by using various training means to accomplish the same goal, we move the group in the same general direction.

Stage 3: Train to Compete

During this stage, the athletes have already had exposure to most of the exercise library and the training becomes much more focused. Analysis of the athlete’s specific strengths and weaknesses occurs during this stage. For example, if you have a 180-lb athlete who can squat the house but has a very poor vertical jump, his training may focus more on power production than on increasing maximal strength.

Most of your upperclassmen will be in this stage. We train to increase qualities that will help increase their performance on the field. We use many different assessments during this phase.

Stage 4: Compete to Win

Buddy Morris has spoken on the reason his defensive backs don’t spend as much time back squatting heavy as the interior linemen do—it simply will not translate to increases in their performance of the same capacity. Why waste an entire year trying to increase Patrick Peterson’s back squat when it won’t make him play corner any better? This mindset is what Stage 4 is all about.

Stage 4 is your highly specific training. Many athletes in this category may never catch an Olympic lift again simply because catching a clean will not make them better at their sport. They have far surpassed that part of their career and reached the upper echelon of sport performance. In very few cases will any of the athletes we coach in our careers reach this level.

The athletes at this stage in their development focus on one task. These are the Olympic-level 100-meter sprinters, the 900-lb bench pressers, the super heavyweight Olympic-style weightlifters, and any other athlete geared toward accomplishing one task through training at an extremely high level. Their training is extremely focused toward the end goal. These athletes have moved past improving general qualities.

Simply put, these athletes do not care about the process; they care about the outcome. If a training modality does not improve their performance, they throw it out and seek out a different method.

Athletes in the Stage 4 development phase do not care about the process, only about the outcome, says @StrengthZack. Share on X

A perfect example of programming for this kind of athlete comes from the research of Dr. Anatoliy Bondarchuk. If you are not familiar with Dr. Bondarchuk, many people consider him one of the best throws coaches in world, specifically in the hammer throw. From his text, Transfer of Training in Sports, Dr. Bondarchuk finds a higher coefficient of correlation (0.620) for an athlete increasing his squat with a barbell when they are a 45-50m thrower compared to when the athlete reaches 75-80m throws (0.196).¹ Simply put, the barbell squat becomes less effective for improving the performance of the thrower as they progress through their career.

Additionally, as the athlete progresses from being a 45-50m hammer thrower to becoming a 75-80m hammer thrower, the coefficient of correlation increases for the use of different weighted implements in technical training, while the strength exercises commonly associated with the training of throwers (squat, clean, snatch) decreases. This means that the athletes no longer receive as large of a performance increase using general means (increasing maximal strength) and should now focus on improving strength in their competitive movement (e.g., increased weight of their throwing implement).

Design Your Own Model of Development

It takes time to develop an athlete who is successful at the collegiate level. While we see more and more athletes coming into college with a legitimate training background than ever before, you still must take the time to start from square one and progress kids at the right pace to ensure that they will remain healthy and ready to dominate the field of play. Remember, just because an athlete comes in and is ready to step onto the field of play, doesn’t mean they are ready to participate in the same training program as the fifth-year seniors they are playing alongside.

Check your ego at the door and advise your athletes to do the same. If never letting a kid back squat keeps him healthy and improving on the field, then they may only ever front squat during weights. It is not about records, it is not about likes on social media, and it is not about reporting huge increases in max numbers to your sport coaches. It is about preparing athletes to be successful on the field of play.

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

Reference

1. Bondarchuk, A. (2010). “Transfer of Training in Sports II.” Muskegon, Michigan: Ultimate Athlete Concepts.

 

Like protein, which I discussed a few months ago, testosterone is an aspect of performance that athletes tend to stress about and of which there is an abundance of misinformation. The general narrative is that athletes should aim to have their testosterone as high as possible, which is why many supplement companies do a good business in natural “testosterone boosters.” But are these supplements worthwhile, and what role does testosterone actually play in athletic performance? In this article, I’ll examine this hormone and its role in sporting performance.

A Brief Science Primer on the Real Testosterone Research

Let’s examine the testosterone molecule a bit closer. Testosterone is the main male steroid hormone, driving the development of male sex characteristics. It’s typically considered the prime hormonal driver of anabolism, the process by which things grow–particularly muscle. While testosterone is primarily a masculine hormone, females do also possess it, just at far lower levels than men. This is one of the main reasons why females tend to have less muscle mass than their male counterparts.

Testosterone has several roles that may be interesting to athletes. It plays a role in training response by driving many of the positive adaptations athletes seek to elicit. This includes increases in muscle mass following hypertrophy-based strength training. Testosterone increases the rates of muscle protein synthesis post-training, which tends to occur over the long term as testosterone increases the transcription of genes driving increased muscle protein synthesis and, hence, muscle hypertrophy.

Physiological responses are well illustrated in studies where researchers gave subjects supplemental testosterone (which is banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency) and watched its impact on muscle growth. In a famous study from 1996 and published in the New England Journal of Medicine, a group of researchers compared increases in muscle size and strength in a group of subjects given testosterone and undertook strength training compared to those doing strength training alone.

The results were clear; supplemental testosterone had a huge effect on increasing muscle size and strength. The testosterone and exercise group increased muscle size more than 600mm in their quadriceps, compared to a loss of over 100mm for the exercise-only group. They also improved their bench press 1RM by 9kg while the exercise-only group stayed the same.

There is also emerging research suggesting that testosterone has short-term, non-genetic effects, such as altering energy metabolism and motor system function, both of which can support resistance training adaptations.

Testosterone Ignites the Drive to Train and Win

Testosterone also may affect motivation to train and compete. In a group of female athletes, Christian Cook and Martyn Beaven found that, over the course of five training sessions, circulating testosterone levels impacted the load chosen by the athletes to lift. Here, higher levels of testosterone were associated with greater training weights selected, indicating that when testosterone increases, so does motivation to train.

When #testosterone increases, so does the motivation to train and the chance of victory, says @craig100m. Share on X

Similar results have been reported in males. In a group of professional rugby players, higher pre-game testosterone levels were associated with an increased chance of victory while lower levels increased the chances of a loss. This adds support to the assertion that higher levels of testosterone impact motivation.

It’s clear that ensuring optimal testosterone levels will likely support athletic performance. But how can we do that? Some dietary aspects support adequate testosterone levels. The first is caloric adequacy – i.e., consuming sufficient calories. Long-term calorie restriction decreases testosterone levels.

Sufficient calories, zinc, and #VitaminD support optimal testosterone levels, says @craig100m. Share on X

Both zinc and vitamin D levels are linked to testosterone levels. Low levels of zinc are associated with a decrease in testosterone, so it’s logical to keep zinc levels optimal. Note that I said optimal and not as high as possible; there’s always a physiologically optimal intake, and too high an intake of zinc is associated with such problems as increased risk of cramping.

 

The recommended daily allowance (RDA) of zinc is 11mg, with the upper tolerable limit set at 40mg. Zinc-rich foods include:

• oysters
• beef
• crab
• pumpkin seeds
• green leafy vegetables

The same is true for vitamin D, low levels of which are associated with decreased testosterone. Once vitamin D levels are normalized, testosterone returns to normal. As I’ve previously written about vitamin D, athletes should ensure sun exposure, consumption of oily fish, and potentially a supplement, if required.

Higher levels of body fat are also associated with lower testosterone levels. While most athletes are not fat or obese, some specific events (throws) and sporting positions (rugby forwards and NFL players) are at an increased risk. Although their position may require more weight, this does carry a risk of lower testosterone levels, illustrating how a careful balancing act is required.

How Lifestyle Factors Can Make or Break an Athlete Hormonally

Lifestyle factors also impact testosterone levels. Increased levels of stress can alter the ratio of testosterone to cortisol, causing a drop in the relative levels of testosterone that are available to exhibit its positive effects. Females who use oral contraceptives also tend to have lower levels of testosterone and a reduced testosterone increase following resistance training.

The type of training undertaken by athletes can also impact testosterone levels. Both sprint training and resistance training increase testosterone levels acutely, while endurance based training often decreases testosterone. This may be one of the reasons why strength training has such a positive effect on endurance athletes; it can increase their levels of testosterone and, hence, motivation.

#Testosterone increases with sprint and resistance training and decreases with endurance training, says @craig100m. Share on X

These findings have been replicated several times. Bosco and Viru, two greats in the sports science field, reported that sprinters had higher testosterone levels than soccer players who, in turn, had higher levels of testosterone than endurance athletes – in this case, cross-country skiers.

There is also some evidence that testosterone levels can be manipulated by watching specific videos before training. In one study, Cook and Crewther examined the impact of watching different four-minute video clips (aggressive, training, funny, erotic, sad, and neutral) on testosterone response and performance in a strength training workout with twelve professional male rugby players.

The aggressive, training, funny, and erotic video clips increased testosterone, while the sad clip decreased testosterone. The erotic (2.1%), aggressive (5.4%) and training (4.6%) videos all led to significant performance in the weight training session (measured through a 3RM test). This shows quite nicely the impact our environment can have on testosterone levels, and that taking time to set the correct motivational climate is important.

 

Monitoring Athlete Testosterone Levels

While monitoring testosterone levels is expensive and slow, there is some evidence that, once the technology improves, the information it provides could help maximize the training response.

A paper from 2008 describes a study that put sixteen rugby players through four different strength training protocols and measured their testosterone response. Half of these players started a three-week training block, undertaking strength training sessions that elicited the greatest increases in testosterone. The other half undertook a three-week training block using the strength training sessions that produced the lowest testosterone response. After the initial three-week block, the players switched to the opposite training intervention.

When performing the training that elicited the greatest testosterone response, the players exhibited significant increases in both bench press and leg press 1RM. However, when undertaking the training intervention that elicited the lowest increase in testosterone, 75% of the players showed either no change or a reduction in 1RM performance. These results show the promise of using the individualized testosterone response to exercise to help guide training program design and enhance adaptations.

Getting Athletes on the Right Track Naturally and Ethically

We’ve seen that testosterone is an important hormone in athletic performance by:

• mediating long-term adaptations to exercise
• affecting mood and motivation in the short term

We can help our athletes reach their potential by:

• providing short-term boosts to testosterone levels through the use of motivational videos
• supporting chronic testosterone levels with dietary interventions
• programming training sessions to maximize their testosterone response and attain greater strength improvements

When it comes to testosterone-boosting supplements, there is no real evidence that these work, outside of potentially correcting nutritional deficiencies that may be impacting testosterone levels. As usual, it’s far better for athletes to try to correct these deficiencies by changing their diets as opposed to turning to supplements.

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

 

At clinics, I often ask coaches to tell me their all-time favorite drill, the “dream drill” they find most beneficial in helping their athletes run faster. Answers vary. Some like fast, straight leg-impact bounds, what Chris Korfist refers to as “Prime-Times” because they resemble Deion Sanders’s strut into the end zone. Others prefer the Gerard Mach ABC drills. According to Vern Gambetta, those drills are intended to “specifically strengthen muscles in the postures and actions that are similar to those that occur during the sprint action.”

But drills can be problematic. Gambetta considered the technical benefit of the Mach drills as ancillary and noted that “if they are not taught properly and constantly coached, incorrect execution and repetition will ingrain bad habits.”

I know two things about drills: 1) coaches generally like them, and 2) coaches are so focused on proper execution that if you show them videos of athletes demonstrating those drills, they could spend considerable time pointing out technical mistakes those athletes are making. The reality of speed drills is that coaches often disagree on the proper mechanics to perform them properly.

So what is the one drill I like, the one drill hard for athletes to do wrong or for coaches to debate incorrect execution?

The answer goes back to the mid-70s when I attended a clinic at the University of Illinois Circle Campus. The keynote jumps speakers were Polish pole vaulting coach Andrzej “Andy” Krzesinski and his wife Elzbieta, affectionately called “Golden Ela.” Both were former Olympians. Andy finished 12th in the pole vault at the 1960 Rome Olympics while Ela won the long jump gold medal at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics and silver in 1960. Andy coached 1976 high jump gold medalist Jacek Wzola and 1980 pole vault gold medalist Wladyslaw Kozakiewicz.

I thought their presentation was excellent, but many coaches left early because of the difficulty in understanding their English. Growing up in a Polish family where many relatives had similar language issues, I didn’t have a problem understanding the points Krzesinski was making or the description of the drills he was presenting. One drill, in particular, caught my attention. Krzesinski said it could easily be performed at any school with stadium bleachers. He didn’t give it a name, so I called it the “Polish Bleacher Bound.” It remains my all-time favorite.

An athlete starts with the right foot on top of a bleacher seat, with the left extending down to the bleacher tread. The athlete then drives up into a full extension jump. The left foot is now on the top of the seat, and the right foot drops down to the shorter tread. Repeat the movements in the opposite direction to return to the starting point. To make the drill more complex, have the athlete drive forward down the length of the bleachers and then back, which continually reverses the extended and loaded legs.

Polish Bleacher Drill

Why do I like this drill so much? For starters, it is easy to execute and requires no additional equipment.

Driving up from a thigh parallel position isn’t easy, but the point of emphasis is the contribution of the fully extended drop leg. This requires a powerful eccentric contraction. The greater the force applied by the dropping leg, the less the load on the opposite leg trying to drive up to full extension. With more advanced athletes, the placement of the foot on the bleacher seat can be delayed until the foot of the fully extended leg lands on the bleacher tread.

In a 2004 article, “Means and Methods of Sprint Training,” John Cissik notes my insights from an earlier article: “As opposed to better stride length and stride frequency through the leg swing drills used by many, Jakalski advocates that improvements in stride lengths and frequencies are determined largely, or perhaps entirely, from the ground force applied during the stance phase . . . . According to Jakalski, elite sprinters are achieving their greater velocities through a combination of exerting more force against the ground and an ability to exert it more quickly than other athletes.”

Coaches may find Polish Bleacher Bounds as a way for sprinters to experience the kind of big forces applied in minimal time that are essential to achieve faster top-end speeds. If so, we owe a big debt to Andrzej Kreszinski, the diminutive Polish jumps coach who, on a cold day in Chicago, shared his expertise with coaches for whom English was not a second language.

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

References

Cissik, John M. “Means and Methods of Speed Training, Part I.” Strength and Conditioning Journal 26.4 (2004): 24-29.

Gambetta, Vern. “Mach Sprint Drills: A Personal Perspective.” Functional Path Training, September 29, 2015.

A colleague recently asked me what would be the ideal off-season program for high school jumpers (long/triple/high). Programming for any athlete involved in a power sport should revolve around improving their ability to move faster by applying greater force in less time. Qualities that address this objective are increased speed, strength, elasticity, and coordination. The off-season is also an ideal time to enhance work capacity. This, along with the addition of progressive variation as time goes on, will lead to a more robust athlete when the season starts.

In a perfect scenario, the degree to which each of the qualities is addressed would be individualized with a coach monitoring progress and adjusting programming as needed. At the high school level, however, this is often not an option in the off-season due to conditions set by governing bodies. Therefore, the focus here is to provide options that high school jumpers can complete on their own.

Consideration #1: Fall/Winter Sports

I would be a hypocrite if I did not note that track and field jumpers should participate in other school sports. Football, soccer, volleyball, and basketball all translate very well to the off-season work needed for jumpers. I would even say that cross country could be an option if the coach runs a progressive program and is willing to train the athlete like a sprinter.

The greater a jumper’s athleticism, the more adaptable the jumper, says @HFJumps. Share on X

Many coaches would scoff at this idea, but the way some field/court coaches run their sports is not all that different from cross-country training. Any fall or winter program that prioritizes (or makes exceptions for) developing explosive athletes is a welcoming home for a track and field jumper. Here are some other advantages for a jumper involved in multiple sports:

• It is healthy for athletes with a young training age to get exposure to a wide variety of activities. Studies indicate higher injury rates for athletes who participate in one sport.
• The coordinative pool of a young athlete should be broad and shallow, not narrow and deep. This gives them greater resources to draw from when faced with a task. The greater a jumper’s athleticism, the more adaptable the jumper. If you do not think adaptability is an important skill for a jumper, ponder this: We expect the jumper to take off from the same spot every attempt, but no approach is EVER the same from start to finish.
• It is beneficial for athletes to be coached by other people. Different coaches have different sets of rules and expectations. It is valuable for an athlete to learn how to thrive in various environments.

Consideration #2: Sprint!

I have two general tenets I follow in-season:

• Faster and fresh athletes jump further.
• Fresh and faster athletes jump higher.

I could write another article about these two points, but the emphasis here is that speed must be a year-round priority for horizontal and vertical jumpers. I advise sprinting two times per week on nonconsecutive days. Get creative with your starting position (kneeling, prone/supine, 2/3/4 point, facing different directions, etc.), and spike up if possible.

A simple system would be to start with sprints of 10 meters and increase 5 meters per week, capping out at 40 meters. Keep the total volume between 100 and 120 meters. Give full rest between reps (~1 minute for every 10-meter run) so each rep signifies your maximum capability.

Consideration #3: Play Games!

I think the only reason I ended up with a smidge of athletic ability is because I played pickup games of any sport imaginable as often as possible. Some options are basketball, flag/touch football, ultimate Frisbee, handball, and trashball. Each of these activities incorporates multi-directional movement, change of direction, and “organic” plyometrics, which enhance robustness.

Off-season track athletes not in a fall or winter sports should play games as much as possible, says @HFJumps. Share on X

In my opinion, the king of games to play during this time for a jumper is basketball. The amount of variability in the jumps performed during a game of basketball is second to none. Don’t be afraid to open or close a session with a dunk contest (find an adjustable rim if needed). Incorporate single and double leg takeoffs and try to master as many different dunks as possible (Joel Smith of Just Fly Sports gives some good reasons to do this in this article on slam dunk training. I encourage off-season track athletes not involved in a fall or winter sports to play games as much as possible.

Consideration #4: Barefoot Training/Running

Training barefoot seems to be prevalent in distance running circles, but it should also be part of the training of speed and power athletes. The ankles and feet deliver force to the ground, so an athlete can only transmit force that the ankles and feet can handle. Smith states:

“Whenever the environment and injury risk allows, barefoot work is best. Not only does barefoot work improve intrinsic foot strength automatically, but also allows for a better sensory link of the feet to the ground, a better tripod, and better upstream firing patterns.”¹

From a top-down view, an athlete with better feet is more likely to deliver what he or she can generate. From a ground-up view, an athlete can generate more because muscles will be firing in the proper sequence. Win-win!

An excellent off-season option for jumpers is barefoot tempo running (60-80% of maximum effort). Besides getting the aforementioned benefits of barefoot training, tempo running increases the jumper’s work capacity and tendon strength due to the high amount of contacts. According to Smith,

“Single leg jumping is of the ‘explosive isometric’ variety, meaning it relies heavily on a locking action of the muscle combined with strong tendons. Creating strength in the connective tissues needed for jumping demands specificity and adequate repetition.”2

The lengths of the runs can be anywhere from 50 to 300 meters. Recovery should not be complete. In terms of volume, leave something in the tank so you can operate at a high level the following day. Grass is better for barefoot work than field turf because of variability. With a less-consistent surface, your feet get to make minor adjustments during each step.

Straight runs can make up the majority, but also incorporate curvilinear and circle/figure eight running (with a radius of 2 to 10 yards). Soccer fields have a nice center circle to use. The ground contact and force vectors are different in these activities, which gives the ankle-foot complex a different (and essential) challenge to manage. The carry-over to the high jump approach and running curves on the track are obvious, but a benefit for long and triple jumpers is the ability to better absorb force when awkward landings occur.

Video 1. Athletes can modify the amplitude of the waves from rep to rep. As the comfort increases, they can increase the speed at which they do the drill.

Video 2. The athlete demonstrates a circle run with a radius of 4 meters. Athletes should feel outward pressure on their feet. Again, as comfort increases, speed can increase.

For simplicity’s sake, I’m saying that tempo running falls into the same training category as playing games. If you have a choice to complete a tempo running session or play a game, choose the latter! You can always incorporate barefoot movements/running in your warm-up and other parts of training.

If you have never trained barefoot before, ease into it. Training with blisters is far from ideal. Furthermore, you will probably feel the effects of training structures in your lower legs that you did not even know you had.

Consideration #5: Jump Rope

Jumping rope is an overlooked activity that is ideal for jumpers because of the high number of low-intensity contacts that you can achieve with a rhythmic element. Every jump approach and second spent in flight has a rhythm to it, and anything you can do to develop a general sense of rhythm is a plus.

There are several variations that you can do while jumping rope:

• Alternating tempo
• Double, single, and alternating leg combinations
• Jumping on different surfaces (or even with each foot on a different surface)
• Rotating slightly while jumping (about 36-45 jumps per one revolution works well)
• Moving slightly forward, backward, or laterally while jumping
• Running while skipping rope (Besides increasing coordination and rhythm, it cleans up inefficient backside mechanics by making the push-off short and reactive.)³
• Jumping while working up a slight incline or down a slight decline (driveways work well)

If you want to challenge your proprioceptive system, close your eyes while jumping.  As mentioned above, if you want more bang for your buck, ditch your shoes and go barefoot. You can jump rope just about every day in reasonable doses, and it is an easy item to incorporate into your warm-up.

Consideration #6: The Weight Room

After much deliberation, I decided to include this section. With the premise of the article being activities athletes can do on their own, it is certainly within reason to say that most novice athletes should not create, nor execute, a weight program independent of a knowledgeable adult’s supervision. Every high school has the group of students who show up to open weights after school and do nothing but socialize, or who have a program and/or technique so poor they probably would be better off socializing.

With this said, there are phases of development where a high school athlete can look at a barbell and get stronger. Couple this with the fact that many have a very low training age, and you have a recipe that will guarantee gains no matter what type of weight program they complete. The goal here, however, is to try to make what is done in the weight room slightly more specific to the high school jumper, which leads to the need to briefly discuss the muscle-tendon unit.

Tendons play a huge role in the track and field jumps due to the reactive nature of the events (takeoff times under two-tenths of a second). Tendons are responsible for transmitting the tension that muscles generate. Because of the low ground contact time, muscles do not have time to generate much force.

Owen Walker of Science for Sport says that it is generally accepted that the tendon is the primary site of the storage of elastic energy.⁴ The primary analogy used here is of the muscle-tendon unit as a rubber band. When stretched, it stores energy, and when let go, it releases energy.

An easy way to show this is to perform two vertical jumps. Perform the first as a standard countermovement jump. For the second, after descending, pause for two seconds and then try to jump. You can probably feel the difference without any verification from a measurement device. The first jump utilizes the “free” elastic energy provided by the descent, whereas the second one does not. If the tendons are the primary storage spot for elastic energy, optimizing tendon function should be a consideration when designing a weight program for a jumper.

Dr. Michael Yessis, author of “The Revolutionary 1×20 RM Strength Training Program,” says the best way to address tendon strength and thickness for the novice athlete is to take part in a high-volume/low-intensity strength program. The reason is that higher volume leads to greater blood flow, which tendon growth depends upon.⁵

Optimizing tendon function should be a consideration when designing a weight program for a jumper, says @HFJumps. Share on X

Yessis’ 1×20 RM program is exactly how it sounds: one set of an exercise for 20 repetitions. Because there is only one set per exercise, a workout menu can consist of around 15-20 exercises as opposed to the four to six exercises for three to four sets that is more typical for a low-volume/high-intensity program.

Besides the importance of tendon development for jumpers, there are other reasons that this system could be the best option in the unsupervised off-season situation:

• By working at a low intensity, the athlete can focus on proper technique.⁵ The high volume of each set makes it more difficult for athletes to use a weight they cannot handle. Once an athlete compromises form to complete a rep, the set is over.
• The high-volume and one-set combination means more repetition of a greater number of exercises.⁵ Repetition is a great teacher (assuming the lift is done properly).
• Since the program should address the entire body, athletes can do it twice per week on nonconsecutive days. This again increases the amount of repetition of each exercise per week. Many other programs have different menus on different days.

Another point of note is to ease into the 20-rep range over the course of a few workouts (especially if you are not used to this type of set volume). Once you can achieve the 20 reps with perfect form, then you can increase the load slightly. Yessis’ 1×20 RM book is a quick read for those who want more rationale and programming information.

As mentioned before, there are many ways to get the job done in the weight room—this is just an option that fits well within the goal of this article. I encourage athletes to discuss programming with their coach and always prioritize technique over load!

Consideration #7: Develop Healthy Habits

If a track athlete is not involved in a fall or winter sport, his or her daily schedule is probably less demanding than an in-season athlete. Less obligations can lead to the development of healthy or unhealthy habits. It is always easier to eat Cheetos and play video games than exercise. Make it a priority to develop healthy habits so they become part of your daily routine prior to the start of the track season. This will make you more likely to stick with them throughout the season. Besides remaining active (hopefully using some of the suggestions in this article), these are some additional items to consider.

Designing a Program

Designing a program that takes these items into account could be complicated, but it does not have to be. Find the sweet spot with the considerations addressed. If you planned to do something on a particular day, but then do not feel like doing it on that day, do something else!

While I am a big believer that structure leads to productivity, I also feel that a lack of structure in the off-season is healthy. Take advantage of the power of choice the off-season provides. It certainly does not present itself as often in-season. Above all else, do everything in your power to enter your season happy, healthy, hungry, and bouncy!

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

References

1. Smith, Joel. “10 Ways to Build Better Forefoot and Midfoot Power.” Just Fly Sports, August 17, 2017.
2. Smith, Joel. “Long Sprinting for Reactive Vertical Power.” October 24, 2013.
3. Bosch, Frans and Ronald Clomp. “Running: Biomechanics and Exercise Physiology Applied in Practice.” Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2005. 313.
4. Walker, Owen. “Stretch-Shortening Cycle.” Science for Sport.
5. Yessis, Michael. “The Revolutionary 1×20 RM Strength Training Program.” California: Sports Training Inc., 2014. 31-40.

 

We have set the bar high at the Track Football Consortium. In addition to keynote speakers Latif Thomas (CEO of Complete Track & Field), Shawn Myszka (“The Movement Miyagi”), Jimmy Radcliffe (Oregon S&C), and Stuart McMillan (Performance Director, ALTIS), our 6th Track Football Consortium will feature Olympic legend, Carl Lewis.

Carl Lewis is the most decorated track and field athlete of all time. However, we didn’t ask Carl Lewis to be our keynote speaker because he was fast and set 12 world records in his 18-year career. We didn’t ask Carl to be a presenter because he long jumped over 28 feet 71 times. We asked Carl to join us because of his ideas on training.

Carl Lewis currently coaches sprints and jumps at the University of Houston. Houston crushed the 4×100 at the 2017 NCAA National Championships, running 38.34 for the win. In addition, Carl recently worked with an NFL team, which makes him a perfect fit for the Track Football Consortium.

 

Carl Lewis, Football Coach

If you’ve read my most recent article, the controversial “New Ideas for Old School Football Coaches,” you know that I show a certain disrespect for the football status quo. Carl Lewis shares many of my ideas, believes there is a right way to practice football, and agrees that we could be doing better. Modern football is a sprint-based game and football coaches could learn a thing or two from people who understand speed.

Football coaches could learn a thing or two from people who understand speed. Share on X

You might think Carl Lewis is a better fit for track than he is for football, but he’s as good for one as he is for the other. Lewis recently worked with the defensive line of an NFL team. Right away, he noticed they were making big mistakes.

As Lewis puts it, “If you push, put the feet down, and run through them not to them, you’ll maximize your power and hit with the most force. Keep your chin down and your eyes up. That’ll keep your shoulders down so you’re less likely to be pushed backwards.”

He based the lesson entirely on the mechanics of speed, and it worked. That week, the team held their opponent scoreless through three quarters, had eight sacks, and gave up only one touchdown. They won the game. The defense excelled again in the next game for another win.

Carl Lewis as a defensive line coach tries my imagination, but why not? I can’t think of any position that combines speed and explosion more than a defensive lineman. Look no further than Jadeveon Clowney of the Houston Texans. (By the way, coaches from the Houston Texans and Jacksonville Jaguars attended TFC-5).

The Perfect Method

Carl Lewis has developed the insights he shared with the NFL team and many others on the mechanics of speed into an online training system and information resource that teaches coaches and athletes how to prepare, practice, and perform their best by focusing on the details. “The Perfect Method” also offers tools that build confidence so athletes can perform under pressure. Reinforced by specific examples from Lewis’ career and experiences, lessons taught in “The Perfect Method” are measurable, comprehensive, constantly updated, step-by-step, and accessible in the palm of your hand.

Says Lewis: “There’s only one way to perform your best, and it can be taught.” The key word in that sentence is “taught.” Coaches who don’t understand speed, don’t understand that speed can be taught. Too many coaches believe speed is something found on a chromosome, and you either have it or you don’t.

Coaches who don’t understand speed, don’t understand that speed can be taught. Share on X

And who better to teach us than the King of Speed?

We look forward to collaborating with Carl Lewis for this never-before-seen presentation on thinking differently about how we train and perform on the field and on the track.

Track Football Consortium, December 8-9

Carl Lewis will speak twice on Friday night, December 8th. Co-directors Chris Korfist and Tony Holler will make two presentations each. Chris Korfist is the owner of Slow Guy Speed School and the founder of Reflexive Performance Reset. Korfist is an international sprint guru and the U.S. expert on the 1080 Sprint. Tony Holler, a veteran track coach of 37 years, has written over 100 articles and last year coached the fastest freshman in the nation, 14-year-old Marcellus Moore (10.40 in the 100m).

Featured football coaches will include Steve Jones (Kimberly, WI, 62-game winning streak), Dan Hartman (Hinsdale Central, IL), John Konecki (Crete-Monee, IL), and Dan Fichter (Irondequoit, NY). Joel Smith (Cal-Berkeley) and Jeff Moyer (DC Sports Training, Pittsburgh) will represent the S&C world. Track coaches will include Brian Fitzgerald (Rio Mesa, CA) and Kevin Paterson (Benedictine University). Those in attendance will have a chance to see 11 speakers presenting 19 hours of material. There will be multiple opportunities to collaborate and network. Once you attend a TFC, you are one of us.

SimpliFaster has sponsored all six TFCs and will provide awesome coffee mugs to those who attend this year.

TFC-6 is a 24-hour event, beginning at 5:30 p.m. on Friday, December 8th, and closing at 5:30 p.m. the next day. We developed the schedule with balanced emphasis on sprinting and explosive training. We typically draw equal numbers of S&C, track, and football coaches, with other sports also represented. After all, speed and explosion are not limited to track and football.

 

 

Join us at the Track Football Consortium on December 8th and 9th at Benedictine University in Lisle, Illinois. Benedictine is only 23 miles from O’Hare and 27 miles from Midway. There’s a cluster of hotels and restaurants in Naperville, 3.7 miles from Benedictine.

 

Register here: http://trackfootballconsortium.com/#tickets.

For more information on “The Perfect Method,” visit www.theperfectmethod.net.

Questions?

Tony Holler 630-849-8294, [email protected]

Chris Korfist [email protected]

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

 

 

If we really want to know how fast our football players are, it’s time for us to think bigger than the 40-yard dash.

In American football, the 40-yard dash has always been the traditional test of speed. Anyone who has worked with NFL draft prospects knows how important this test is. It can literally determine whether an athlete has a career as a professional football player. Scouts representing all 32 teams sit in rooms with coaches and front office personnel, sharing the results of their stopwatches and labeling players based on their 40 time. The players are described as the “4.3 guy” or something similar.

The time that appears on the stopwatch seems to be the most important number for these scouts, despite several other tests that are also performed at the Combine. However, the 40-yard dash is king, and seems to be the only test that matters.

You will never hear a scout say, “Well, he’s a wide receiver and ran a 5.02 on his 40. He’s definitely slow, but his shuttle was impressive!” It just doesn’t happen this way. In fact, you’re more likely to hear a scout say, “He only jumped 28 inches in his vertical but that 4.45 he posted for his 40 shows that he’s got some nice burst. I think he’s worth considering!”

There’s no question that the fastest players on the field are typically (but not always) the best performers in the 40-yard dash. It makes sense that coaches and scouts have put the 40-yard dash on such a pedestal. Reason and logic can indicate that if you draft players with raw speed ability, there’s a great chance that they will play fast for you on game day.

Is the 40-yard dash the best test to use to determine raw speed ability for your football players? Share on X

Again, we know this isn’t always the case, as some players struggle to show great game speed despite having very impressive raw speed ability. But no one can argue that most of the players in the NFL that play with great speed are the same players that posted impressive 40 times at the NFL Combine. But is the 40-yard dash the best test for coaches to use to determine raw speed ability for their football players?

Velocity: A True Indicator of Speed

Even though sprint times can give us a reflection of an athlete’s speed ability, the truth is that these times won’t always tell us how fast an athlete can move. In physics, the kinematic quality of velocity, specifically when observed as a scalar quantity, is the truest measure of speed as it relates to a body in motion.

The magnitude of velocity is a scalar quantity and is expressed as distance over time. Technically speaking, any unit of distance over any unit of time can be used (e.g., miles per hour, feet per second, kilometers per minute, etc.), but the unit that is used in the metric system (and most commonly found in sport science) is meters per second (m/s).

Magnitude of Velocity = Distance/Time

In most sports, the distances measured on the track or playing field are recorded in meters, so we easily understand the unit of m/s. American football, however, measures the game in yards. Football sport performance coaches will almost always prescribe sprint training distances by measuring yards, not meters. Thus, if we calculate velocity for these efforts using distance over time, the units are in yards per second (yd/s) rather than in m/s.

It is important that we convert the velocity into m/s so that we may gain a better perspective of how fast these players are relative to the fastest human beings in the world: elite-level 100-meter sprinters. It can certainly be argued that nobody expects football players to run as fast as 100-meter sprinters (and they very likely never will), but it’s still important to gain an understanding of what “fast” really means.

The conversion from yd/s to m/s is: 1.00 yd/s = 0.9144 m/s

You might logically assume that you figure out velocity by simply dividing the distance (40 yards) by the time taken to achieve it (4.40 seconds) to yield a velocity of 9.09 yd/s, which can then convert to 8.31 m/s. However, the problem with this approach is that the velocity of 8.31 m/s is reflective of the average velocity over a very broad distance.

A conversation with James “The Thinker” Smith allowed me to better understand the misguided effort of measuring average velocity over very broad distances. James provided me with the example of Usain Bolt’s world-record 9.58-second 100-meter sprint. If we remove Bolt’s reaction time of 0.146 seconds, then he covered 100 meters in 9.43 seconds. If we divide the distance (100) over time (9.43) then we would yield an average velocity of 10.60 m/s.

But, Bolt’s fastest 10-meter split occurred between 60 and 70 meters, when he covered 10 meters in 0.81 seconds. If we calculate velocity here by dividing the distance (10) over time (0.81), then we would now yield an average velocity of 12.35 m/s!

Clearly, it is more advantageous for us to know that he can sprint 12.35 m/s rather than assume he can only attain 10.60 m/s.

Velocity A: 100 meters / 9.43 seconds = 10.60 m/s
Velocity B: 10 meters / 0.81 seconds = 12.35 m/s

Both values are from the exact same sprint. So, which value is a better indication of Bolt’s highest attainable velocity?

 

I know what you may be thinking: “Great, so 100 meters is obviously a very broad distance. But 40 yards is just a fraction of 100 meters… so wouldn’t it be accurate to calculate average velocity using the 40-yard dash time?” Well, my conversation with James investigated this issue as well.

Considering that 40 yards is equivalent to 36.6 meters, we can use the Usain Bolt data above and go ahead and round up to 40 meters for the sake of example. Bolt crossed the 40-meter line at 4.64 seconds, but if we remove reaction time again (0.146 seconds) then he really reached 40 meters in 4.49 seconds. So, if we calculate velocity by dividing distance (40) over time (4.49), we yield an average velocity of 8.91 m/s.

A 40-yard dash time is not enough information to understand how fast a football player truly is. Share on X

Now, if we take the fastest 10-meter split from 0-40 meters, we can see that the fastest split time occurred at 30-40 meters with a time of 0.86 seconds. Again, dividing the distance (10) by the time of the segment (0.86) now yields an average velocity of 11.63 m/s! There is an obvious difference in favor of calculating velocity based on the smaller segment since it will be a better depiction of instantaneous velocity.

Thus, it’s safe to say that the 40-yard dash time by itself is NOT enough information to truly understand how fast a football player is.

The Flying 10-Yard Sprint: A Better Speed Test Than the 40-Yard Dash

Track and field coaches have used flying sprints for quite some time. Flying sprints have served as a potent stimulating exercise for the development of maximum velocity. The premise is like a build-up sprint, where top speed is reached in a relaxed fashion rather than maximal acceleration from a static start. The idea is to hit a full speed sprint “on the fly,” where a 30-50-meter run-up is performed and acceleration is gradually increased leading into a full-speed burst for a subsequent distance of 10-30 meters.

One of the most popular methods is the flying 10-meter sprint. Rather than sprinting at maximal intensity for 40 meters, which can be a very taxing endeavor, a sprinter can perform a 30-meter run-up and apply maximal intensity only to the final 10 meters. The final 10 meters would be the only timed segment, thus only requiring timing gates for this section. It’s imperative that flying sprints use fully automatic timing gates to get an accurate depiction of the split time.

The Freelap system is a perfect example of a fully automatic timing system. Using a hand timer may be very difficult due to the speed of motion, and it would likely display a split time that is largely invalid. If you do not have access to a fully automatic timing system, you can use smart phone apps like the My Sprint App to time this segment using slow-motion video.

You can adopt flying sprints and utilize them with football players simply by changing meters into yards. Use the flying 10-yard sprint to accurately calculate a football player’s maximum velocity by dividing 10 yards over the time of the flying sprint and then converting it into meters per second. For example, an athlete who performs a flying 10-yard sprint in 1.01 seconds would yield a velocity of 9.90 yd/s, which converts to 9.05 m/s. We now have a more accurate representation of how fast this athlete is.

Flying sprints are both workouts and tests. Simply timing the 10-meter or 10-yard sprint allows you to see where your training is and how your athletes compare to the normative data.

How Does Velocity Affect Acceleration?

Many coaches (including myself, in the past) find themselves assuming that, since American football is a game based primarily on acceleration ability, its training should focus solely on acceleration. It is commonly believed that maximum velocity sprinting is a risky quality to train and isn’t very reflective of how the athletes operate when on the field. As a result, coaches put a huge emphasis on shorter sprints (e.g., less than 30 yards per repetition), with most of the volume performed around 10 yards per sprint.

Small advances in max velocity can lead to large changes across the entire acceleration profile. Share on X

However, Ken Clark’s research expressed the importance of maximum velocity for field athletes. Small improvements in maximum velocity can result in large changes across the entire acceleration profile. Figure 2 provides an example from Ken Clark:

 

In the paper by Clark et al. (2017) 1, there is a similar example where the Combine participants with the fastest velocities showed the fastest times at every split. The images below compare velocity profiles across a range of athletes at the 2016 NFL Combine, including participants representing the 1st, 33rd, 66th, and 99th percentiles.

 

In the image above, Graph A compares the acceleration profile of the various participants at the 2016 NFL Combine as a measure of velocity attained at each segment. The fastest athlete achieved higher velocities at every 10-yard segment after the sprint start, while the slowest athlete achieved the lowest velocities. So, we can see that having very high raw speed will improve an athlete’s ability to hit better times at any given distance.

However, Graph B contains the most eye-opening piece of information, depicting the acceleration profile of the participants in relation to percentage of maximum velocity achieved at each segment. The lines are almost fully overlapping each other! This indicates that these participants portrayed a similar acceleration pattern in the 40-yard dash. Furthermore, the paper by Clark et al. classified all 260 athletes into “Fast” and “Slow” groups based on maximum velocity, and found that both groups achieved similar percentages of their relative maximum velocity at the same segments over 40 yards.

A receiver and an offensive lineman might both reach around 93-96% of their maximum velocity at 20 yards, but the receiver has higher velocity overall, thus hitting a much better split time at 20 yards and onward thereafter. Think of it similarly to having a higher one-repetition maximum (1RM) in lifting weights. If you bench 400 lbs., your 90% will look much different than that of a 200-lb. bencher. The same goes for speed. If you are faster than the other guy, your velocity will be higher at every submaximal percentage of your maximum velocity even if the relative percentages are the same.

So, wait. Let me get this straight. Should I just ditch my acceleration work and focus only on top speed now?

NO.

As with most things in life, the answer lies somewhere in the middle. It all comes down to CONTEXT, or WHY we perform a certain training exercise. Athletes must explore the skill component of starting a sprint, accelerating in the early and late stages of the sprint, and finding comfort at very high speeds when they reach maximum velocity. So, don’t ditch the acceleration work—just don’t forget to include the maximum velocity work!

Don’t ditch the acceleration work—just don’t forget to include the maximum velocity work too! Share on X

Training to Increase Maximum Velocity for Football

Ultimately—as we all tend to understand—speed kills. But how many of us are really doing what’s necessary to improve our football players’ speed?

When I used to bury myself in all the writings and videos of the late sprint coach, Charlie Francis, he always seemed to mention a common theme when it came to maximizing speed performance: Aim for 95% intensity or higher. The intensity in this case was not reflective of effort, but rather based upon an objective speed measure like the split time over a given distance. If you can at least achieve 95% of your best time, then you are on the right track to getting faster.

We may also use this “95% rule” when trying to push the maximum velocity ceiling higher. To achieve at least 95% of maximum velocity, the sprint distance must be long enough to allow for the display of high velocities. Running as fast as possible over 10 yards will never allow the athlete to achieve high percentages of relative maximum velocity. The distance is just not long enough for the necessary acceleration.

Ken Clark makes a helpful point. Due to the acceleration pattern of football players, 20 yards seems to constitute around 93-96% of maximum velocity, regardless of position. It may be safe to say that sprinting over distances equal to or greater than 20 yards, performed with maximal intensity, are reflective of “top speed training” for football players. Even at 15 yards, Clark et al. reveal that all players operated near or above 90% of their maximum velocity.

Consider how many programs only focus on sprint starts that may be 10 yards or less. I am guilty of this myself. My athletes used to live around 10 yards per sprint. But now we see with the analysis by Clark et al. that if we can just push the distance to 15-20 yards, there may be tremendous implications for improving maximum velocity in our football players.

The way I view it, there are three ways to go about developing maximum velocity with football players:

1. Develop Technique for High-Speed Sprinting
2. Train at, Around, or Above Maximum Velocity
3. Test and Record Changes to Maximum Velocity

Develop Technique for High-Speed Sprinting

Technique can be crucial to not only enhancing speed, but also keeping the players safe when conducting maximum velocity training. This is where a lot of coaches get it wrong. While the techniques of acceleration and max velocity sprinting are similar, the displays should be different simply because of the direction of force application. Where acceleration is more dependent upon horizontal force application, max velocity sprinting requires high levels of vertical force at ground contact: upwards of four to five times body weight for elite level sprinters! You should therefore understand the efficient technique of sprinting at maximum velocity if you expect outputs to be high and risk to be low.

Common mistakes for a team sport athlete performing maximum velocity sprints include2:

• Pelvis is collapsed and rotated too much anteriorly: A common way to look for this is if you notice a “duck butt” or the athletes over-arching and/or leaning forward when sprinting.
• Too much backside swing: Kicking out towards the backside of the body or excessive butt-kicking behind the body.
• Not enough frontside lift: Knee does not approach parallel with the hip as the leg swings through on the front side of the body.
• Over-striding by casting the foot out in front of the hips: Does not drive the foot down and back, and often strikes with the heel first rather than the ball of the foot.
• Ankle collapses on ground contact: The ankle deforms once it makes contact and force dissipates as a result. This is often due to the above-mentioned factors and/or insufficient ankle strength and power.

The sequence below is an example of an NFL linebacker showing inefficient mechanics when running around maximum velocity (segment of 30-40 yards). Notice the above-mentioned factors that are present, such as too much backside swing and not enough front side lift.

 

What we want to see when athletes are sprinting at maximum velocity2:

• Posture is upright and neutral: Pelvis is in a position to allow for efficient backside swing and knee lift during frontside mechanics.
• Less backside swing: Leg should extend backwards just enough to allow for force application and then should begin forward movement again.
• More frontside lift: Knee should approach the area where it is level with the hip and the thigh is near parallel to the ground.
• Attacking the ground from above: Foot should drive down and back into the ground under the hips rather than cast out too far in front of the hips. Contact should be on the ball of foot.
• Stiff ankle contact: Ankle should not deform excessively, ensuring that the force developed at the hip can transmit into the ground and be used for higher force application in each step.

The sequence below is the same exact NFL linebacker as before, now showing efficient mechanics at maximum velocity (during a flying 10-yard sprint) after we took the time to develop technique. You will notice improvements, including more neutral posture, less backside swing, and more frontside lift.

 

Some drills you can use to help improve technique in high-velocity running include:

• A-Skips for Distance (e.g., 30-40 yards)
• A-Run or High Knees for Distance (e.g., 30-40 yards)
• Intensive Tempo Runs – Aiming to achieve around 80-85% maximum speed.
• Build-Up Runs – Gradually increasing speed every 10 yards for up to 50-60 yards total.
• Vertical Plyometrics – Ankle-dominant plyometrics can serve an important role in helping enhance force transmission from the hip through the ankle into the ground. Pogo hops, tuck jumps, hurdle hops, low box jumps up and down, etc., are all good options.
• Med Ball Knee Punch Runs (see Video 2 below) – This is a drill I started using based on the need to figure out how to get the athletes to maintain an upright posture and improve the frontside lift while minimizing backside swing. Have the athlete hold a light medicine ball (≤6 lbs) at their belly button and tell them to run while attempting to drive their thigh up towards the med ball. Even if they don’t make contact with the med ball, it’s OK—the goal is to encourage more frontside lift.

Video 2. This is the knee punch drill that athletes can use to improve frontside mechanics. Track athletes can also use this drill for improvement in technique, especially reducing butt-kicking recovery errors.

Train Around Maximum Velocity

You can logically assume that to BE fast, you must TRAIN fast. Plenty of coaches and scientists have stressed this concept for years. We know from experience that training with heavy weights close to 100% 1RM will usually result in improvements in strength. In other words, to be very strong, you must use high resistance in the training of strength.

We have seen the acceptance of this in the field, as strength and conditioning has made its way into almost every high school, university, and professional athletic realm. But true speed training appears to remain mostly absent; an ironic observation, nonetheless, considering how many coaches seem to recruit players for their speed, not their strength.

Acceleration Sprints

Even if athletes perform sprints at maximal intensity, if the sprints are not long enough to put the athletes at speeds that are conducive to their highest relative velocities, we can’t expect that their maximum velocity will improve. Figure 6 displays findings modified from the Clark et al. (2017) paper of percentages of relative maximum velocity for every position at the 2016 NFL Combine. If we accept the notion that training drills to enhance velocity should be 95% or higher of maximum velocity, then we can use this table to see that football players should try and sprint for at least 15 yards, and ideally at least 20 yards, to push the velocity ceiling higher. Of course, space can become an issue in some facilities, but this is the reality of training for velocity improvement.

 

Flying 10-Yard Sprints

We can, of course, also use flying 10-yard sprints as a training modality. Here an athlete can operate very close to or above 100% maximum velocity.

A primary concern for the flying 10-yard sprint is determining how much of a run-up to use. Track and field sprinters typically reach maximum velocity between 50 and 60 meters1 and, as previously shown, Usain Bolt didn’t reach his highest velocity until 60-70 meters in his world-record sprint. However, as shown above, it is likely that all the participants at the 2016 NFL Combine were around their maximum velocity by the time they crossed the 40-yard line.

Of course, it’s possible that players with slower maximum velocities (offensive and defensive linemen, for example) may hit their maximum velocity before the finish line, whereas faster players may be able to continue accelerating beyond 40 yards. But given the acceleration profile presented in the paper by Ken Clark, it is likely best to use a 20-30-yard run-up leading into a flying 10-yard sprint—perhaps a 20-yard run-up for players with larger body mass (i.e., over 275 lbs.), and a 30-yard run-up for all other players may be acceptable.

It’s important to keep the volume of flying sprints very minimal; likely only one to three total repetitions in a workout. This is because it’s an intelligent risk management strategy to consider ALL the yards covered in one flying sprint. For example, we can count a flying 10-yard sprint with a 30-yard run-up as 40 yards of volume for that repetition. If we perform three repetitions, we consider the total volume from flying sprints as 120 yards.

Overspeed and Assisted Sprinting

Admittedly, this is not my area of expertise and something that I still need to research and practice before I can speak comfortably about it. However, the information is out there and overspeed training may have a strong place in the training process for pushing the ceiling of maximum velocity. Overspeed training allows for supramaximal speed outputs. In other words, it allows the athlete to consistently achieve higher than 100% maximum velocity. Though many forms of overspeed training are certainly very risky, technology devices like the 1080 Sprint have now made it possible to train overspeed in a very controlled setting.

Sprint Volume

In my experience, if you keep quality high, linear sprint workouts for football players usually don’t need to exceed 300 yards in one workout. My upper volume range for wide receivers, defensive backs, and speed running backs might be 250-300 yards in a workout. Linebackers, tight ends, power running backs, speed defensive ends, and dual-threat quarterbacks might have an upper volume range of 200-250 yards. Linemen and pro-style quarterbacks might have an upper volume range of 100-200 yards.

Less is often more, and a sample workout for a speed running back might be as follows:

SAMPLE SPRINT WORKOUT WITH NFL RUNNING BACK

1. 2-Point Stance Sprints
   • Submaximal Starts – Around 90% Effort
     • 2×10 yards
     • 20 yards total
   • Full Speed
     • 1×10 yards
     • 1×20 yards
     • 2×30 yards
     • 90 yards total
2. Flying 10-Yard Sprint w/30-Yard Run-Up
   • Submaximal Sprint Around 90% to find rhythm
     • 1×40 yards
     • 40 yards total
   • Full Speed
     • 2×40 yards
     • 80 yards total

TOTAL SESSION VOLUME = 230 YARDS

Based on the distances used, this sample workout would feature a total sprint volume of 230 yards, with 200 of them around 93% of maximum velocity or higher.

Test and Record Changes to Maximum Velocity

As discussed throughout the entirety of this article, the best way to test speed is to test maximum velocity. Although split times correlate well with velocity, they do not always give an accurate representation of speed. I can use calculations from the Clark et al. paper to model the velocity of the 2016 NFL Combine participants and compare the two fastest participants from that year: running back, Keith Marshall, and wide receiver, Will Fuller.

Ken Clark provided me with the results of these calculations and I have put them side by side below:

 

Basically, the math shows that even though Will Fuller ran a slower 40-yard dash time by 0.01 seconds, due to the linear regression relationship of his modeled velocities attained over the 40-yard distance, it’s likely that with more distance (e.g., 50-yard dash) he would have eventually surpassed Keith Marshall if they were sprinting side by side. It is also possible that if Will Fuller had performed a better start in comparison to Keith Marshall, he would have achieved a faster 40-yard time, as Fuller was measured at 1.51 seconds at the 10-yard mark and Marshall was measured at 1.49 seconds. If we base our speed assessment on velocity rather than 40-yard dash time, we can conclude that Will Fuller is the faster athlete of the two, minimal though the margin may be.

This is an example of why tracking maximum velocity is a better indication of an athlete’s raw speed ability when compared to split times over long distances like 40 yards. Tests like the flying 10-yard sprint and technology for calculating maximum velocity are both very useful here and can involve a more relaxed environment for testing speed more often than relying on periodically testing 40-yard dash times.

Are Your Football Players Fast Enough?

I asked Ken Clark if he would be able to use the equations from his paper to design flying 10-yard sprint and maximum velocity goals based on specific positions played in American football. Luckily for all of us, he provided me with exactly that.

He sent me modeled data for the fastest, middle, and slowest players at each position from the 2016 NFL Combine and I used it to construct goals based on position groups. Since the NFL Combine is considered an invite-only event of the top players in college football, you can use these goals to determine if your football player has enough velocity to keep up with the top players in their position group.

 

If they can achieve (or surpass) these velocities, congratulations! You can consider them among the faster players at their position and they should continue to maintain or improve upon their maximum velocity as their career unfolds. Of course, we should also account for the fact that just because a player has raw speed ability, it does not necessarily mean that they will play fast within the technical and tactical demands of football. But that is a topic for another article.

As far as physical limitations go, if a college or pro football player can’t achieve the velocities listed above, then it may be safe to say that they will have to compensate greatly and hope that they can have outstanding perception, technique, and understanding of the game principles to make up for their lack of raw speed. While our goal as coaches is to help remove limiting factors to a player’s performance, if we are responsible for their physical development and see that they are not fast enough (based on velocity) then we owe it to them to help them get faster.

“But what if I coach high school athletes?”

While some highly recruited prospects can achieve similar sprinting speeds as college and NFL football players, they are very rare and certainly do not show a physical limitation as it relates to speed. For the greater percentage of high school football players, it is necessary to list some more attainable goals. Again, since the NFL Combine is an event that invites most of the highest-performing players in college football, it may be fair to use the slowest calculated velocities at each position group as a baseline for high school athletes. While they may not become fast enough to play in the NFL, we can at least hold them to a standard for being fast enough to play in college.

Based on Ken Clark’s data, I determined the following velocity goals for high school athletes:

 

A Balanced Perspective

John Ross, a wide receiver out of the University of Washington, recently broke the NFL Combine record for the 40-yard dash and, subsequently, the Cincinnati Bengals drafted him. Ross broke Chris Johnson’s long-standing record of 4.24 seconds when he crossed the finish line with a time of 4.22 seconds.

Interested in trying to beat the new record? Look at the table below based on more data from Ken Clark that compares correlations of 4.20-4.40-second 40-yard dash times to maximum velocity and flying 10-yard sprint times:

 

Running a 4.20-second 40-yard dash would break the current record set by John Ross. According to the correlations above, an athlete would likely need a maximum velocity of around 10.40 m/s, which would correspond to a 0.88-second flying 10-yard sprint!

For additional perspective, here are the top five fastest velocities achieved during 2016 NFL regular season games, according to NFL Next Gen Stats3:

• Tyreek Hill 105-yard kickoff return for touchdown (penalized for holding) – 10.39 m/s
• Tyreek Hill 86-yard kickoff return for touchdown – 10.18 m/s
• Desean Jackson 59-yard pass reception for touchdown – 10.10 m/s
• Xavier Rhodes 100-yard interception return for touchdown – 10.01 m/s
• Brandin Cooks 45-yard pass reception for touchdown – 10.01 m/s

Keeping in mind that these numbers were achieved during live game action, while wearing full equipment, we instantly notice how dominant and unique the speed of Tyreek Hill is in comparison to his peers.

Moving on from Conventional Testing

The 40-yard dash is a test that requires the athletes to set up in a three-point stance, hold for a moment, and then take off into a sprint while timing starts on first motion. In football, only the linemen start in low positions and three-point stances. Most positions start from a more upright position.

Psychologically, the 40-yard dash can be a very stressful test and often results in athletes trying too hard and displaying inefficient technique, often becoming a huge detriment to their recorded times. If we choose to use the 40-yard dash as our primary test of speed, we must ensure that athletes can learn to deal with the pressure of performing the test so that they stay relaxed while running at maximum intensity.

In contrast, the flying 10-yard sprint is an option for a more relaxed test, performed more frequently, in a position from which ALL players will find themselves (upright running). From this test, we can easily calculate maximum velocity, which is the true indicator of a player’s speed.

Do we care more about the 40-yard dash time itself, or the fact that our players are getting faster? Share on X

Let’s be clear: I am NOT saying that we should ditch split times. Absolutely not. If you can beat your recorded split times, then chances are that you are getting faster. I am simply advocating that the flying 10-yard sprint provides a direct measure to calculate maximum velocity. We can use flying 10-yard sprints to calculate maximum velocity and use split times as feedback to fuel intensity while training for acceleration and top speed.

At the end of the day, we must ask ourselves what we want to measure. Do we care more about the 40-yard dash time itself, or the fact that our players are getting faster? Most coaches would agree that they just want fast players. While the 40-yard dash is certainly one way to decipher the fast from the slow, there are other potential options like the flying 10-yard sprint that can paint a clearer picture.

Special thanks to Dr. Kenneth Clark for helping contribute the data, graphs, and accuracy of the information provided in this article. If you are interested in learning more about total speed performance, be sure to read his research and follow him on Twitter: @KenClarkSpeed.

References

1. Clark, K. P., Rieger, R. H., Bruno, R. F., & Stearne, D. J. (2017). “The NFL Combine 40-Yard Dash: How Important is Maximum Velocity?” The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research.
2. Clark K.P. Speed Science: “The Mechanics Underlying Linear Sprinting Performance.” PowerPoint Presentation.
3. NFL Next Gen Stats Web site [Internet]. NFL Next Gen Stats; [cited 2017 Sep 9]. Available from: Fastest Ball Carriers

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In a previous article, I discussed the hand supported split squat (HSSS) and the back squat to train lower body pushing patterns neurologically and structurally. To create a training trifecta and round out our program, I also use the Romanian deadlift (RDL). Our training model emphasizes intensive stimuli and movements to challenge multiple contractile properties, and the RDL is an essential component.

The True Value of Pulling for Athletes

Pulling from the floor is a fundamental activity that most athletes should master early in their career, but it’s not without its limitations. When technical maturity is low, the sole aim of pulling off the floor can become getting the weight up by any means, which obviously is risky.

During athlete development, we often reach a point where continued improvement with absolute load lessens improvements and enhances risk. Another concern is that these movements are largely concentric only. We also see a lack of deadlifting in seemingly high-level athletic programs. Nordics and hip thrusts have been at the center of posterior chain training for some time, as has unilateral vertical pulling.

Bilateral vertical pulling is often the domain of Olympic lifting coaches. These movements have high output, but the wellspring of development in eccentric and isometric qualities are not particularly challenged with these lifts. Standing single leg posterior chain variants aim to bring a sports-specific facet to posterior chain movements. While these are challenging, they often lack substantive loading and are limited by instability; the opportunity is missed to load the system with an intensive vertical pulling exercise.

Teaching the Hinge Movement by Training the RDL

Posterior chain strength is essential, however, and its potential for load tolerance is enormous. We’ve searched for variations that allow us to achieve enough stimulus to produce adaptation but allow athletes to do what is most important, their sports training. The neurological blowback is too great when athletes take inordinate amounts of time to recover compared to the potential benefits. This is probably why we don’t see much 80%+ conventional deadlift work in many high-level athletic preparation programs.

Top-down #hingepatterns load the posterior with less neurological hangover, says @WSWayland. Share on X

Top-down hinge patterns present an opportunity to load the posterior with less neurological hangover. The RDL and the hinge family of good mornings, Zercher good mornings, snatch grip RDLs, trap bar RDLs, and sumo RDLs, to name a few, are a separate class of exercises where the weight isn’t deloaded on the floor. These are novel because they’re as much a lowering exercise as they are a pulling exercise.

The powerful stretch reflex in a heavily loaded hinge is part of the movement’s benefit. It has the same thinking behind it as the very heavy kettlebell swing, but with more careful emphasis on the lowering of the weight. This lowering allows the athlete to organize the hinge motor pattern and brace effectively.

In one movement we can improve posture, hammer the posterior chain, and challenge both the hamstring with eccentric loading and grip strength. More systemic than Nordics or glute bridge variations, RDLs allow intensive posterior chain loading. Carl Valle covered the RDL’s history and current research in a great post here. One thing that the research is lacking is closely studied interventions using heavy RDLs.

Video 1. Every athlete will have a unique pattern based on how much stretch they receive in the hamstrings, but the RDL also has some gluteal recruitment. Coaches should manipulate the lift’s range, load, and tempo using a pattern that hinges at the hip.

The RDL is a pet lift of mine, and I’ve spent a lot of time exploring the exercise personally and with my athletes. I like that I can apply effective intensive isometric, eccentric, and oscillatory means to the RDL–it’s difficult and risky to do this to the conventional deadlift. Mark Rippetoe, who still has one of the best videos on the web about the RDL, argues, “It offers a completely different way of strengthening the posterior chain than you would find with any other pulling exercise. It’s its own exercise, not DL variation.”

Much like the front squat, I find the RDL can be restorative when applied well because it’s a truer hip hinge than the conventional deadlift. Because it is a top-down lift, once athletes are practiced, they can set themselves better which leads to better execution.

The RDL requires entire posterior chain organization. As a lowering exercise that offers no respite between reps, the entire system must stay organized to avoid failing the lift or breaking spinal position. The movement involves posterior delt, trap, and rhomboids to a greater degree than you would expect.

Famed powerlifting coach Boris Sheiko often uses rack and RDL variants exclusively as back exercises, excluding direct back work entirely. The snatch grip variant emphasizes the need for upper back tension and further bracing. I often use this movement with rank beginners because it forces extension while hinging which beginners can find troublesome.

The depth of the movement is subject to debate. I’ve seen suggestions ranging from mid-shin to just off the floor to just below the knee. The athlete’s flexibility and ability to maintain lumbar-pelvic positions are the largest determinant of depth. I’ve seen coaches like Robert Palka use RDL’s to just below the knee, similar to Fred Hatfield’s keystone deadlift employed famously with Evander Holyfield. Conversely, I’ve seen coaches employ RDL’s from a deficit–almost taking the bar to the feet.

Specific Strength Applications with the RDL

The RDL is first and foremost an accessory strength exercise that works best when loaded generously. The posterior chain is highly stress-tolerant and, as we’ve seen with hip thrust hype, can really be pushed. With consistency, athletes can move impressive numbers compared to bodyweight.

As a lowering exercise, the RDL shines with aggressive eccentric loading. I’m always impressed by most athletes’ capacity for work in this particular realm. Eccentric tempo RDL’s, however, induce much soreness and neurological stress. This is probably why coaches apply such anemic loading to this exercise. Eccentric loading will contribute to hamstring length, stretch reflex, and injury prevention that’s worth the price of some initial soreness.

Eccentric #RDL loading contributes to hamstring length, stretch reflex, and injury prevention, says @WSWayland. Share on X

The energetic cost of eccentric RDL’s is enormous, so we often perform clustered reps of doubles or triples to allow for some alactic recovery. We usually place this as far away as possible from any upcoming competitive event. The key in the eccentric movement is not chasing depth as much as chasing position; athletes often have different limitations on where their sweet spot for depth lies.

Loading strategies vary with the RDL. We don’t measure maximums in any meaningful sense because we see corruption in form. I’ve seen suggestions that loading should be a percentage of your back squat, but I don’t find that useful. I have several athletes who can RDL their back squat for reps.

Isometric variations generally challenge thoracic spine, shoulder stability, and crucially lumbar spine stability and brace as athletes must counter bar drift. Isometric hold position sits best at the top portion of the shin so as not to allow the low back to move out of position. I try to cue athletes to descend and ascend into the RDL as quickly as possible–no mean feat with high loads.

Video 2. This video shows a female MMA fighter integrating the isometric RDL into an entire session of isometric-focused work.

Straps are a necessity with heavy loads since most athletes cannot hang on to such absolute loads at high intensities. The movement also lets you add accommodating resistance which leads to more glute involvement, according to athlete self-reports.

RDL Variants for Speed and Power Applications

While the RDL isn’t useful at very high velocities–so it’s not great for power and speed– I have seen it used as a high-force, high-velocity bridging movement. I’ve toyed with the keystone deadlift used by Fred Hatfield, doing a partial RDL to just below the knee with a more exaggerated arch. This places an enormous stretch on the hamstrings without the need for the depth we see with a conventional RDL. It allows for greater loading and impressive velocities since the hip is positioned advantageously. And we still get a stretch reflex we wouldn’t find in a rack pull from a similar position.

Essential Oscillatory RDL Options

We can also use the RDL to train tension and range of motion to improve contraction and relaxation rates in less favorable (disadvantaged) and favorable (advantaged) positions, depending on training focus. A disadvantaged position is at a stretch–for instance, the bottom of the RDL just below the knee; an advantaged position with the RDL is at or above the knee. Oscillatory, or the Dimel, deadlifts are ideal for this. I classify these as RDL variants. In the video below, the athlete performs an oscillatory RDL for a timed set.

Video 3. Working extensively with combat athletes, I often employ disadvantaged oscillatory movements because these athletes often work from disadvantaged positions. Athletes who occupy more advantaged positions can choose accordingly.

Paraphrasing Matt Van Dyke: “Oscillatory (RDL) can be completed in training to create high forces, intensities, and volume in the weakest position of the exercise to improve strength. Even with light loads, we create an amplification of intensity either in a disadvantaged or advantaged position by using oscillatory exercises.”

Oscillatory training methods involve a rapid push-pull motion to maximize an athlete’s ability to reverse the muscle action phases effectively at high velocities. Bands can be used to accelerate the eccentric portion of the movement to challenge the athlete further. Bands also work well to cue end-range hip extension. To the uninitiated, Oscillatory exercises can appear unusual, frenetic, and gimmicky.

Staggered RDL with Barbells and Kettlebells

Heavy staggered RDL’s are a quasi-unilateral option that reduces some of the problems of the often-challenging single leg RDL. Much like single leg squatting, the single leg RDL is limited by the athlete’s ability to maintain stability, which is tricky with the contralateral brace required and bar’s movement. To overcome this problem, I started using the staggered RDL. Take a small step into a staggered stance, with both knees unlocked, and use the rear leg to stabilize–either on the ball of the foot or with the foot flat on the floor.

Video 4. With the heavy staggered RDL, the target of the movement will be the lead leg which has the greatest stretch. This movement can be loaded substantially. It’s not an HSSS for the posterior chain, but it comes close.

Staggered and split stance variations are also options for speed and power variations. By staggering the stance, we can train sports-specific actions while getting a somewhat contralateral training effect–all at high velocities. Using accommodating resistance bands or chains allows us to challenge advantaged portions of the hinge movement.

Video 5. Traditional RDL movement with a kettlebell is a great option for nearly any athlete looking to learn the pattern. Loading will become necessary as the athlete progresses.

I select these depending on athlete needs. For example, with a grappling athlete, I’ll implement Zercher and other arm-braced anterior-loaded variations, often for timed sets or potentiation clusters. We’ll use heel elevated and flat variations also.

Video 6. Staggering the RDL with kettlebells and employing an isometric stimulus is a very safe exercise that reinforces both the hinge movement and the bracing skills of the lifter.

Trap Bar and RDL Rows

Using the trap bar for RDL’s is a particularly useful, novel variation for athletes who are tall or who insist on forward knee movement; holding a neutral position allows the athlete to punch toward the floor with a neutral grip. In fact, I encourage straight arm punching toward the floor as a cue. Since the bar is not anterior to or against the legs, the knees don’t get in the way of the bar’s path, and the athlete can focus on migrating the hips backward. While athletes can perform this action with kettlebells or preferably dumbbells, these can crash against the legs and don’t allow for the type of loading we can get from a trap bar.

Video 7. The trap bar, or hex bar, is often misused with athletes when they bounce out of the deadlift, but RDLs are a different story. RDL training with the trap bar is a great option for athletes.

RDLs are also commonly used in a combined exercise with a row. This makes sense because the RDL set-up position is very similar to the bent over row set up. Combining both challenges the position of the posterior chain and spine. Obviously the RDL loading is limited by the amount of load one can row.

Sequencing RDL to Peak When it Counts

When sequencing in traditional block fashion, we move from a high-force, low-velocity phase. We start the sequence with eccentrics and increase movement velocity as the competition period closes. The more mature the athlete, the less time we spend in intensively-loaded blocks and the more time we spend time using sub-80% loading.

For athletes who run regular competition schedules, we place neurologically demanding variants as soon as we can after the competition. Assessing readiness, we’ll get the athlete under the bar as soon as possible. For some athletes, primarily golfers, I have them lift the evening after an event if possible.

Upgrade the Posterior Chain with the Right RDL

Heavy RDL and its variations are not a single exercise panacea, and it pays when we put a lot of thought and justification into the exercises we choose. Effective posterior chain training is often vaunted as the key to athletic development. This is understandable given the capacity for the posterior chain to produce force far greater than any amount of force we can produce with the anterior chain or a squat pattern.

The mid-thigh pull is a prominent test of athleticism for a reason. So let’s give the posterior chain the stimulus it needs. RDL is one option among many. I use heavy RDL’s in combination with the HSSS to apply intensive systemic stress plus eccentric and isometric stimulus to athletes that few other movements can.

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

Growing up in the ’70s and ’80s, a big part of my week was getting up early on Saturday morning to watch cartoons. One of my favorites was “Super Friends” (my second favorite was “Land of the Lost”), especially the episodes with Bizarro, who was like Superman’s alter ego. In Bizarro’s world, everything was the opposite of the Super Friends’ Earth, which meant that Superman was actually a bad guy. People referred to him as Bizarro Superman, and he went around stealing everything and doing all the very worst things he could possibly do.

I always found this “Bizarro” concept intriguing. So, I came up with the idea of applying it to speed training and program design. This means that we would do everything in our power to make our athletes run as slow as possible.

The Bizzaro World of Sprint Training: How Many Coaches Are Doing the Opposite?

First, I wondered what I could possibly do to ensure that we could not run fast. Enter “Bizarro Coach.” I started to prioritize things that I would do in my Bizarro World of Speed Training, where my business would be called “Fast Guy, Slow School.”

1. We don’t run. The best way to make sure we don’t get faster is that we don’t run. In fact, we try to move as little as possible. I am pretty certain that if we don’t run at all or even walk or march, we aren’t going to get faster. All of our exercises will be on both legs or we won’t put legs on the ground at all. If we can do that, we will field the slowest team possible.

2. When we have enough of not moving at all and we actually need to do something else, we will move slowly. By that, I mean we will spend most of our time moving at a speed that’s not close to our max velocity. In order to achieve that, we will get really tired first and then try to move at max velocity.

   I’m sure in Bizarro World, when our nervous system is completely fried, we will not be able to move quickly at all and our brains will think that moving slowly when tired is the right thing to do. This will be especially effective when our bodies get in poor anatomical positions and we train the wrong muscles to do the work that the more powerful muscles should be doing.

3. When we finish moving around slowly, fatigued, we will push really big and heavy things very slowly. By doing this, we will ensure our brain knows that our body should move very slowly and our nervous system gets used to being weighted down. This way, our systems cannot get used to being explosive and fast in an environment where there is no weight.

   So that we do not get better at this short movement, we will move our joints as little as possible through these ranges of motion and use the fewest effective muscles as possible to move that really heavy weight. We will contort our bodies into strange positions that are not at all like what they would be on the playing field.

4. For the last part of our Bizarro training program, we will do the same patterns over and over again, and our bodies will never learn to deal with change or any other unknown environmental barrier that may come our way. Therefore, when we hit that environmental difficulty, our bodies will surely slow down and maybe even collapse or break.

This is my Bizarro training program. As we go back to Superman’s real world where he is a good guy, the scary thing is that the Bizarro training program is not too different from some programs out there.

I’m not saying that all these methods don’t have a place in good training. For instance, I know max strength plays a large role in force development and should not be left out, just as a good conditioning program can be important and sometimes athletes will fatigue. But when conditioning or strength results are the foundation of a workout program, sometimes the results aren’t what you hoped they would be. This is where coaches wonder why their athletes aren’t as fast as the team they are playing or why they aren’t getting faster. They went to Bizarro World.

Training Speed the Right Way: How to Go from Bizarro to Superman

So, what can we do to make sure that we don’t build a Bizarro program? The first thing that comes to mind is you need to sprint as much as possible. I’m not saying to do it every day, but a well-thought-out program where short sprints are the basis of your workout will go a long way in making sure that it doesn’t become a Bizarro program.

I make sure that I have one to three days of sprinting in my workouts for most of the year. I have one day of max velocity and one day of acceleration work. For part of the year, I have a force day as well, where we push or pull heavy things. If it is late in the track season, I add some speed endurance work.

If you don’t have track athletes, a day of agility work is great as well. Even if you have a minimal amount of space, you can still find a way to do some form of sprint work, even if it’s just a short five- to 10-meter burst. That is better than standing around and waiting for your turn on a squat rack.

Make sure to do max velocity when athletes are fresh, and endurance work is well-planned for the right time of the year. I see too many coaches who wonder why athletes get slower and exhaust themselves by the end of the year, even though they think that they are well-conditioned. Some coaches think that they just need to condition more throughout the year. The countless gassers, suicides, and other forms of punishment/endurance work are way overdone.

Coaches often misunderstand that athletes get tired from other things besides being out of shape, says @korfist. Share on X

I find it interesting that when coaches start a season, they immediately assume that athletes are out of shape. In fact, most of the athletes have played that sport year-round in their club or have been doing something most of the year. I think they misunderstand that athletes get tired in games from other things besides just being out of shape, such as being nervous with the butterflies that sometimes start a whole day before the game exhausts their body.

How many times have you walked out of a movie like “Dunkirk” and felt exhausted? Or you had a stressful day and experienced the same feeling? Stress costs the body. There is nothing you can do to counter stress other than teach your athletes to relax and breathe. Give them targets to focus on during the day, rather than the game itself. More gassers at the end of practice will not solve this problem.

Here is something to think about regarding the “warm-up” before games. To simplify things, imagine that an athlete has 100 units of energy when they show up for a football game. The athlete uses some energy just by being nervous. Once everyone is taped, there is a pre-warm-up in the fieldhouse or somewhere. Let’s say that cost 20 units because the warm-up is moderate tempo. After the drums and running through the banner, there is the chest bumping and pre-game warm-up. With the added emotion and looking good to the opposing team with deep fade routes and big blocks and hits, subtract 30 units.

Going into the game, athletes may expend a lot of energy that takes time to replenish. Time that doesn’t exist. So, at the end of the second and fourth quarters, players are out of gas. Likewise, when you continually pound your players down at the end of a practice, they learn to get slow and move with really poor form and it will take time to rebuild from that pounding. Most players don’t go home and replenish after their practice. They are too tired to eat and would rather just do homework and go to bed. This starts the downward spiral of fatigue.

What can you do to deal with this? First, identify why athletes are tiring and by what point in the game. Once you determine this, you can pick an appropriate type of conditioning. Gassers are not a cure-all. Try adding conditioning to the beginning of practice in the form of controlled breathing during warm-ups. Have athletes try keeping their mouths closed for the entire time they exercise. This is proven to result in a chemical change in the body and will teach them how to condition better.

Video 1. This is the Buteyko method of breathing. The book, “The Oxygen Advantage,” is a great place to start. If you can plan it out in advance, check out Cal Dietz’s aerobic training block videos on YouTube. Once you establish that foundation, shift the focus to anaerobic reserve.

The Kryptonite Remedy (Bizarro Superman Likes It)

There’s a time and place for everything. I’m not saying that we should get rid of strength training, weight lifting, or anything like that, but we need to make sure it happens at the right place and the right time. For my athletes, the off-season is a great time to get stronger. However, I need to make sure that there is ample transfer of that lift to their movement or skill.

Therefore, if I stay with the squat, I want to make sure that it is an athletic squat. But if I want to be more specific to running, I make sure that athletes are on one leg and challenging their lateral stability. Very rarely, in a sport that requires movement, are they on both legs at one time. If you want to lift heavy to improve your force, make sure it’s a proper angle and body position so you ensure there is maximum amount of transfer to that push or projection of your center of mass.

Be sure to change the workouts. Do not do the same thing for the entire year. In fact, change it every couple of weeks, or maybe even every workout. Always challenge the body to learn more. We want to make sure that our strength gains are actual strength gains and not simply getting really efficient with a single movement.

Be sure that strength gains are actual gains, not simply getting efficient at a single movement, says @korfist. Share on X

If we get really efficient at that movement, and we go to play a game, the movement may not be the same and we may not have the strength that we thought we had. We’ve all seen the player that looks like a tiger but plays like a kitten, and we wonder why there is no transfer from the training. Always challenge the body to learn in the debt. That way you can create a robust and resilient athlete.

This is just a start for ideas to implement. If this topic is of interest, be sure to attend the Track Football Consortium on December 8-9 in Lisle, Illinois, where our topics revolve around the developing multi-sport athletes in the most “non-Bizarro” methods. Top track and football coaches come and share the ways they achieved their success. This year’s keynote is Carl Lewis. Yes, that Carl Lewis. Check us out at Tracking Football Consortium.

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