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Achieving success in sport, particularly at the elite level, is a complex process. The days of natural talent representing the most important factor in being successful are long gone. In a modern world where sport is a billion-dollar business, there are many elements required to ensure an athlete achieves their dream. Among the factors playing a role in turning potential talent into success are:

• Effective Coaching
• Desire
• Mental Strength
• Preparation and Recovery

Because these factors influence athletic training and performance, it is essential for the coaches and athletes to be aware of the extent of their impact. This desire has led to a huge focus on the area of athlete monitoring.

In this article, we’ll look at this concept of monitoring and its impact on modern sport. We’ll look at why monitoring is necessary and the benefits it can bring as well as its potential challenges. We will also outline how the Metrifit system addresses these challenges and provides a platform that is straightforward, effective, and informative. Metrifit will help improve performance, for both teams and individuals, and hopefully prove to be the difference when it comes to achieving success.

Monitoring is Essential to Achieve Success

The benefits of monitoring are so plentiful, it’s hard to understand a time when it was not a significant portion of an athlete’s training program. Quite simply, monitoring improves an athlete’s performance through a combination of several factors. Monitoring an athlete’s training program helps ensure they are in the best possible condition to train. This, in turn, leads to a competitive edge.

Monitoring gives coaches the opportunity to construct individualized training programs and optimize the prescription of training load and recovery. Aside from ensuring an athlete is following a suitable training program, monitoring assists in identifying such potential problems as injury, illness, and burnout. Each of these factors can hamper an athlete’s ability to train consistently. If they can avoid missing training sessions, they will be better prepared to achieve success.

Monitoring also develops an athlete’s self-awareness and accountability, giving them a greater sense of responsibility for their well-being. With access to relevant data, the athlete has a greater understanding of how their own body functions. Consequently, they have increased focus to follow the correct program and a greater sense of motivation and confidence.

What Should an Athlete Monitor?

Next, we need to identify the areas in an athlete’s program that should be monitored to improve overall well-being and performance.

This idea is highlighted in “Monitoring Athletes, Taking Advantage of Technology,” which underlines the requirement that the information gathered must be relevant:

“The first question that the coach needs to consider is what factors should be monitored. The question should identify the difference between what is ‘nice to know’ information versus what is ‘need to know’ information. Ideally the factors are scientifically validated to result in either enhanced training adaptation or performance outcomes directly. In other words, factors that result in confident actionable outcomes.”

Metrifit’s approach not only covers the physical requirements of a particular sport but also helps the coach derive the benefits of other factors that have a significant influence on an athlete’s well-being: training, body, nutrition, mind, and sleep.

Training

The value of monitoring athletes has been discussed at length in recent years. Perhaps Vernon Gambetta sums it up perfectly in the title of his recent article stating simply, “Monitoring Training is Critical for Success”:

“Training is a repeating (rollover) process consisting of four steps: assessment, planning, implementation, and monitoring. Monitoring this process is essential to making the training meaningful and keeping it on track. The most effective training programs that I have seen and implemented are those that have a built-in monitoring system. It does not have to be anything elaborate or scientific. Whatever it is, it just needs to be used consistently,” Gambetta states.

Body

One of the key elements of training and performing is ensuring that an athlete is in their best possible condition for performing. One of the most important factors in this regard is staying free from injury.

Tim J Gabbett highlights this in his article “Training-Injury Prevention Paradox” when he states that there is a clear need to ensure that:

• athletes are following the correct training program
• athletes are training sufficiently to build up their physical capacities
• athletes are not doing too little training

Injuries are more likely to result from inappropriate training, Gabbett explains, and non-contact injuries are more likely caused by excessive and rapid increases in training. He argues that the way to deal with these problems is to monitor the athlete’s training program.

Nutrition

No matter how well a training regime prepares an athlete, they will never achieve optimum performance without proper nutrition. As everyone knows, a car will not run at its best unless it has a full tank of quality fuel. Likewise, an athlete’s body must be fueled correctly to reach their peak, as we are reminded in “Nutrition and Hydration for Sports Performance”:

“An adequate diet, in terms of quantity and quality, before, during and after training and competition will maximize performance. Without the correct nutritional support an athlete will not be able to sustain an intensive training programme over a long period of time, hence improvement will be limited.”

As a result, monitoring diet is essential to achieve the right balance of carbohydrates, proteins, fats, minerals, vitamins, and water to ensure athletes get the most from their training, can recover and, most important, produce their best when it comes to competition.

Mind

When competing for a top place at any level of sport, mental well-being is as significant as physical well-being. As a result, awareness of issues that could potentially add stress to an athlete is hugely important.

Crucial factors with mental health issues are identification and early and effective intervention. Monitoring is vital in this regard. Brian Clarke, Head Strength and Conditioning Coordinator and Wellness Department Chair at Noblesville High School, Indiana found that using Metrifit monitoring during the past year provided X-ray vision into the habits/ lifestyles and stressors their athletes were experiencing on a day-to-day basis. Its importance can also go beyond athletic challenges.

“It offers shy or quiet students a voice they normally would not have the courage to have. I was able to identify some severe mental health concerns in two students this past year based off of consistent low Readiness to train scores and conversations with the students. It was literally a potential life-saver,” Brian explains.

Sleep

The importance of sleep to an athlete is significant in overall performance, and monitoring sleep patterns is now regarded as a must for athletes and coaches. The manual “Sleep and Recovery” explains the importance of sleep in terms of training, training effect, recovery, and performance with mental and physical sharpness directly linked to sleep:

“All sport requires the ability to process information very quickly and react. Athletes also need to have high levels of focus and motivation. These functions will be impaired without adequate sleep. Minimal sleep can also decrease glucose metabolism which fuels the brain and the body for mental and physical performance. Immune function can also be impaired which puts athletes at a greater risk for sickness. When athletes fail to sleep enough (less than 8 hours per night), the body fails to produce the adequate amount of testosterone.”

Challenges and Solutions to Effective Monitoring

Having established the benefits of monitoring and the specific areas that need to be monitored, the next issue is how to access to the specific information required to make a difference to an athlete.

One of the biggest challenges to monitoring an athlete is creating a set of questions broad enough to collect the necessary information and not too complicated or time-consuming for the athlete to follow. Otherwise, it will be difficult for the athlete to buy-in to the system. In “Monitoring the athlete training response: subjective self-reported measures trump commonly used objective measures: a systematic review,” Anna E. Saw, Luana C. Main, and Paul B. Gastin provide an overview of the main challenges to ensuring the appropriate questions are posed:

“These threats to validity have been attributed to cognitive and situational factors. Cognitive factors include miscomprehension and recall error, which may be addressed with clear instruction and minimizing the period of recall. Ensuring understanding of the overall task may also improve motivation to respond accurately, thus reducing conscious bias. Conscious bias is often the result of an individual responding in a socially desirable manner, generally over-reporting favorable responses and under-reporting unfavorable responses. In the sports setting, this may mean athletes ‘faking good’ to appear to be coping or to gain selection, or ‘faking bad’ to have their training reduced. Therefore it is important to not only consider the design of a self-report measure, but also the individual and situational factors which may influence the ability to obtain meaningful, accurate and consistent data from athletes.

It is clear to see that this information is of vital importance in preparing an athlete and the key to discovering such crucial data is clearly in the design of the questions and the structure of the survey to make it as easy as possible for the athlete to provide accurate information.”

Ensuring that athletes enter genuinely accurate information is one of the main challenges to a monitoring program. It is a question that initially concerns some of our clients. In reality, it is not an issue. In fact, not only do athletes buy-in to the system, they take on greater responsibility and ownership.

A monitoring system also creates a strong relationship between athlete and coach. There may be concern that an athlete will log inaccurate information, particularly student athletes. A coach who is on top of his game and familiar with his athlete, however, can quickly identify this by comparing scores to performance. By encouraging ownership, students and coaches equally share in the athlete/team development process. This leads to a strengthening of the relationship between coach and athlete which also contributes to improving performance.

Some coaches fear that the process is too complicated and time consuming and, as a result, will prove counterproductive and interfere with training time.

The key is to use clear and relevant questions with a range of response options that are easily understood, allowing for swift and accurate inputs. A recent Metrifit Webinar illustrates how straightforward logging information is very and how an athlete can do it on a cell phone in seconds. This information becomes instantly accessible to the coach.

“We are very lucky we have a player-monitoring tool, whereby players can communicate with you every day via psychometric data; sleep quality, sleep duration, stress levels, muscle soreness. What that means is by 11 am every day I have valuable pieces of information relating to every member of the squad.” — Cian O’Neill, Kildare Senior Football Manager

The final major challenge with implementing a monitoring system is making sure that we not only gather specific information that is useful but also that we use the information effectively in a training program to improve results.

Benefits for Coach and Athlete are Clear

As we can see, the value of monitoring all aspects of an athlete’s circumstances is essential if they are to realize their potential and perform at peak level on the occasion when it matters most.

Monitoring athletes helps us learn their patterns of behavior and habits. Capturing that data allows coaches to evaluate the information and analyze it, which in turn helps them guide athletes to their best performance.
Vernon Gambetta sums up the process when he states:

“Monitoring training allows you to reconcile what was planned for training and what was achieved. It is very specific to the sport, the performance level of the athlete, the age of the athlete, and the gender. Once a system of monitoring has been implemented, the information gathered must be straightforward and simple so that it can be easily interpreted and modifications can be made easily as needed.”

Analytics

Once a monitoring platform is successfully implemented, the next challenge is to get meaningful data into the hands and minds of the people who can make effective use of it. A central hub of data should become a funnel or platform to collate relevant key performance indicators. Insights from this data need to be visualized in such a way that they promote actionable intelligence. All the data in the world is useless if it’s not used to promote change and improvement.

All the data in the world is useless if it’s not used to promote change and improvement. Share on X

Effective monitoring has many benefits for the athlete as the information gathered can be vital in preparing for the next step of the training program. Monitoring is only useful if it provides information or leads to practices that ultimately improve performance.
Of course, there are challenges to ensuring the best possible outcome for athletes, and we have established how these obstacles are relatively easy to overcome. When that is achieved, the benefits for both coach and athlete are clear.

Metrifit Ticks all the Monitoring Boxes

Our latest product, Metrifit Ready to Perform (RTP), takes all this into consideration and, by providing feedback and analytics, aims to promote self-awareness and accountability on behalf of the athlete.

Metrifit RTP makes the monitoring technology of a professional team available on a new platform and at an affordable price. This is backed up by sophisticated descriptive analytics and intelligent feedback alerting coaches and athletes to any changes in behavior that may otherwise go unnoticed.

Our additional products, Metrifit Gold and Metrifit Elite, offer more complex monitoring and customizable features. For more information, please visit www.metrifit.com or contact us at [email protected] or follow us on Twitter or Facebook.

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. Asking the right questions to assess athlete well-being
2. Metrifit helps to build the crucial athlete coach relationship
3. Metrifit provides x-ray vision into the lifestyle of the student athlete
4. Essential to keep track of factors that impact on performance
5. Monitoring sleep is invaluable for a coach
6. Session-RPE is an easy and effective method of monitoring training load
7. Athlete self-report measures
8. Study highlights the benefits of subjective self-reporting measures in training
9. The importance of relevant monitoring in training
10. The benefits of sleep for elite athletes
11. Monitoring training is critical for success By Vernon Gambetta
12. Monitoring the athlete training response: subjective self-reported measures trump commonly used objective measures: a systematic review by Anna E Saw, Luana C Main, and Paul B Gastin

 

Athletes can achieve great results by harnessing the power of potentiation and efficiency and applying it to selective ballistic endeavors specifically through the use of such dense, complex training methods in the context of applicable sport movements. Acute, complex, high-density training provides the greatest neural adaptation benefits and allows the often separated qualities of speed and strength to feed on, and benefit, one another.

There are two truly outstanding complex movements that marry strength and speed to take explosive power to its highest level:

• French Contrast
• Potentiation Clusters

In the world of jump training and athletic performance, there’s a lot of talk about complex training. Improving speed helps improve weight room marks. And, when properly performed, weight room work offers strong acute benefits to the explosive coordination of various speed movements.

This article takes the idea of complex training and expands on it in practical and theoretical ways. The recommendations are a plug and play training method that will yield immediate results when performed correctly with a wide range of athletes. (See point #1 in my last article on the impact of specific variability in training.)

I started experimenting with higher density complex models after learning about Cal Dietz and his work in this area, his website www.xlathlete.com, and his book Triphasic Training co-written with Ben Peterson.

I was tentative for a long time about the extended use of denser complex training because of mixed research regarding potentiation, most of which utilizes heavy deep barbell squats as the potentiator. This isn’t the best fit for a lot of complex work, as I’ll explain later. But because of Cal’s work, Frans Bosch’s book Strength Training and Coordination: An Integrated Approach, and plenty of time to experiment over the years, I now view training as a coordination and movement puzzle. The proper use of complex and stacked training is a key to solving the puzzle and induces better performance.

Jump training is a coordination and movement puzzle. Share on X

Clearly, many track athletes have been successful without traditional complex training using barbells. But how many of these track athletes played a team sport as part of their training histories, such as football, basketball, soccer, or volleyball?

Many coaches and athletes don’t think of team sports as complex training for skill acquisition. Playing a pickup game of basketball, however, delivers a big stimulus for multi-directional movement demand, coordination, and enhanced efficiency under fatigue. In the course of a training or practice session, athletes generally wait until after a few pickup games before trying to do dunks. Most of my trainees have been at their highest performance level after a few pickup games.

Explosive coordination loves the skill mash-up of team sports play. Share on X

Explosive coordination loves the skill mash-up of team sports play. I believe coaches can use the team sport coordination principles under the potentiation umbrella found in resistance training and combine them with the reflexive power of plyometrics to further enhance explosive speed performance.

Ideas from the World of Powerlifting and the Real Mechanism of Dense Power Training

Over the years, I’ve had an up and down relationship with complex training. The research surrounding the concept doesn’t support using it in a program unless there is a lot of extra time to kill.

It takes about ten minutes for the potentiation effect from a heavy weighted exercise (85 to 100% 1RM) to truly improve a ballistic movement like a vertical jump, according to most papers. With modern programming, it’s hard to find a specific protocol that uses this recommendation. Many coaches use post-activation potentiation training to sell their programs, but based on the science, the training doesn’t work, at least not acutely.

Density and Speed Considerations

When we look at training speed, we generally think of running timed fast 150’s in spikes with 8 to 15 minutes of rest in between. Running fast with full recovery is a premier way to build track speed. But this high rest method isn’t the only way to build speed and power, especially for movements that have a little longer contact times, such as jumping.

I’m a coach who’s been typecast as the plyometric guy, the arena where I have the most distinction based on much of my work. My day job is a university strength coach, and using barbells to improve athletic performance across a variety of team settings is important to me regarding the total development of athletes.

There has been an exodus from overemphasizing performance levels in general preparatory exercises (squats, cleans, bench, etc.). I’ve been a strong proponent of this in the last few years, but I think it’s unwise to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Shying away from the powerful benefits of properly selected and coached barbell training will leave gains on the table for many athletes. Barbell training can deliver the coordinative mechanisms seen in the expression of powerful movements, such as jumping and sprinting.

Barbell training delivers the coordinative mechanisms expressed in powerful movements. Share on X

Anecdotes from the Barbell World

Olympic weightlifting coach Glenn Pendlay recently posted an article about the power of training density for bringing up a lagging deadlift as well as Olympic lift performance: “The Holy Grail of Sports Training: EMOM Sets.”

Pendlay talked about his experience with powerlifting coach Louie Simmons, who recommended a high-density workout to bring up Pendlay’s lagging deadlift by doing small repetition deadlifting sets every minute on the minute (EMOM) over many sets.

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Why would Simmons recommend EMOM training to bring up the deadlift in particular? Doesn’t high-density training build endurance rather than power? Typically, yes, but when utilizing strength exercises (and even contrasting forms of speed), the story can be different.

By the 7th or 8th round of an EMOM deadlift set, something strange happens. The weight starts to come off the ground much faster as if the brakes have suddenly released.

Of all the lifts, the deadlift requires the most mental strength. This means athletes generally lift a smaller proportion of what they’re physically capable of compared to other powerlifting movements. After all, we don’t hear of mothers squatting the house to save their child, but rather pulling up their car! (Perhaps a poor anecdote, but I do strongly believe pulling strength, in particular, has very high untapped reserves compared to other lifting movements).

Perhaps this phenomenon is due to a high risk of injury or because the bar must start from a dead stop position or a combination of these and other factors. Regardless, a very strong mental drive is required to pull the bar from the ground.

What does this have to do with the use of EMOM work in bringing up the lift? Coaches don’t know exactly why EMOM training works (even researchers don’t have this pinned down), but we strongly suspect it has to do with the gradual potentiation of prime movers and a significant reduction of antagonist muscle activity.

We do know, through the research, that any potentiation likely occurs in the fast-twitch fibers. This alone makes high-density training important to improving the rate of force development. Whatever combination of factors improves lifting power and efficiency, it’s the nervous system’s role that leads to better performance.

Overview of Denser Complex and Skill Acquisition Methods

Rather than looking at potentiation from the standpoint of gross motor unit recruitment, such as the relationship between deep squatting and standing vertical jumping, look at it from the standpoint of skill stacking in a circuit-based form of motor development learning.

French Contrast helps improve the motor variability of the total training effect. When we feed the nervous system with subtle differences and perturbations in typical training patterns (such as performing wicket drills with offset mini hurdles or sprint stride drills with uneven pieces of tape), we create a nursery of new improved motor patterns and athletic potential. French Contrast uses both potentiation (improving the availability of the motor pool) and variability (which improves coordination and skill acquisition) to build a better total pattern.

The Million Dollar Workout developed by Chris Korfist and Dan Fichter is another great method that stacks one specific sprint exercise with three supportive skills. Athletes can get really fast, really quickly with this method, which I learned at a Speed Football Consortium. It’s an impressive training method, and my clients have gained great results with it.

I’ll use a quick anecdote from my high jump days as another example of acute coordinative effects. On any short approach day, I performed 8-12 short approach high jumps using 3-5 steps. If I immediately followed the short approaches with a full approach and jump, my penultimate step mechanics and coordination were horribly distorted in favor of the 4-step jump. I would go straight into the bar rather than up and over.

The human body will warm itself up and align itself for whatever skill is being worked. If you perform 5 sets of 8 deep squats and then do a vertical jump, the jump form will imitate the biomechanics of the squats you just performed before you got under the bar.

If we work on a skill one-dimensionally, we’ll create results for that dimension. If we bounce between two or more complementary skills, we’ll end up with a higher and better-rounded level of performance. The better the coach is at selecting the skills, the higher the improvement in performance.

This training concept is heavily used by many current swim coaches. Sets revolve around many circuits of stacking skills, portions of strokes with various emphasis, gear-based swims, cruise-speed swims, and then hard swims. Different strokes can be used to potentiate an athlete’s main style of stroke and enhance their coordination range.

Below is an example of a common swim circuit for sprinters. Much of it is a foreign language to us track coaches, but we can clearly see the concepts of improving coordination and building robust swim patterns.

Sample Swim Sprint Set

• 4×25 with a swim parachute
• Odds: kick to 12.5, swim from 12.5 to 25
• Evens: scull to 12.5, swim from 12.5 to 25
• #1+2 steady effort, #3+4 stronger effort
• 2×50 no parachute swim, build to a strong effort
• 4×25 with fins #1+2 kick to 12.5, swim to 25, #3+4 swim fast

(Note: a standard short course pool is 25 yards long so many portions of sets will be halfway or 12.5 yards.)

Swim is a sport that is built more toward the “art” end of the “art and science” spectrum. This is appropriate because moving in the water is more intuitive, subconscious, and feel-driven than any other athletic movement. In various sports, there may be cases where strength can overcome technique, but you can never fight the water since everything must come within the scope of the technical model.

In this technique and feel-driven routine, it’s no surprise that set diversity and complex skill training has become common practice in swim training sets. I believe land-based sport coaches can learn from this workout approach and apply it to their own programming.

French Contrast: Nuts and Bolts

French Contrast training, in my experience, is one of the fastest ways to build vertical jumping ability in athletes. I’ve regularly seen four-inch vertical gains in one training session. It’s also a great method to realize an athlete’s existing strength in the form of vertical jump and acceleration improvements.

Regardless of the exact science, French Contrast works acutely and chronically. A French Contrast session looks something like this:

• Heavy partial range lift or isometric for 1-3 reps
• Rest 20 seconds

• Force oriented plyometric exercise, such as a depth jump
• Rest 20 seconds

• Speed-strength oriented lift for low to medium reps, 2-5 typically
• Rest 20 seconds

• Speed-oriented plyometric exercise of higher repetition range
• Rest 2-5 minutes and repeat

First French Contrast Movement: Big Strength

The first exercise in the French Contrast circuit is a big strength movement which activates as many relevant motor units as possible based on the ultimate movement outcome of the French Contrast circuit.

This strength movement can be a traditional up and down lift or an isometric, depending on the outcome goal. If you’re building a training phase, it may be better to use standard lifting reps for their hormonal and muscle building effects. For more of a realization effect that maximizes the speed end of the complex, I recommend using partial range, or isometric, work such as an isometric half or quarter squat hold for 3-7 seconds.

Several years ago, jumps coach Mike Goss told me of an interesting study that shows the effects isometric movements can have on potentiation. Using weights on a softball bat to warm up harmed unweighted bat speed. Conversely, athletes who performed 3×5 second isometric reps pulling a bat handle against an immovable resistance in a specific batting position significantly improved their bat speed for a 2 to 12-minute window. This also shows us that isometrics allow for potentiation in a shorter time frame than the 10 minutes we commonly see cited in the research using deep squatting for potentiation.

This idea opens a door for many creative variations of isometric movement that have relevance to a variety of sports skills. Isometrics also help with safety. When working with large groups of less experienced athletes, an easy way to achieve overload is to perform isometric positions. There is much less that can go wrong, and the athletes must focus much harder on achieving the correct position and muscular tension.

For circuits emphasizing vertical jumping, or knee-based movement, a squat (either traditional or isometric) is the optimal first exercise. If the program’s emphasis is on sprinting or bounding, a hinge movement is a good first exercise, such as a trap bar deadlift from blocks. I find it less useful to use isometric exercises for hinge strength simply because of the strain factor. An isometric back extension or good morning, however, are viable options.

The list below gives good leadoff exercises to potentiate and widen the relevant motor pool without inducing too much fatigue. These exercises are typically 60-90% of an athlete’s maximal effort and are performed for 1-3 repetitions or 3-7 seconds of isometric.

Hinging/Sprinting/Bounding

• Trap bar deadlift from 2-8” blocks
• Isometric back extension (heavy)
• Isometric good morning (bilateral or staggered)
• Regular deadlift
• Concentric only deadlift
• Power clean from the floor

Squatting/Jumping/Vertical Force

• Isometric quarter squat
• 1/2 or 2/3 partial squat
• Split stance partial squat from a rack start
• Partial squat from a rack start
• kBox ½ squats
• Deep squats (accumulation phase)

For squats, I often avoid deep squatting for two reasons. First, the depth of the movement leads to firing patterns that don’t blend well with most athletic movements occurring in a significantly lower degree of knee bend. The coordination is just too different.

Second, the lengthening and loading of the quadriceps muscles create too much local fatigue and coordination disruption to optimize the rest of the French Contrast prescription.

I do believe that athletes who are capable of good technique can use deep squats for the leadoff training exercise, but I consider this a method more for eliciting an accumulation cycle training effect on a muscular and hormonal level, not a realization cycle for neuromuscular improvement. Either option is viable if the coach knows where they are headed with it.

Second French Contrast Movement: Heavy Plyometric

The second exercise in the French Contrast is a heavier plyometric exercise with relatively longer ground contact time. The contact time should remain within the scope of the specific movement the athlete is trying to improve. This movement also has strong potentiation qualities. Some of the easiest jumping I’ve done and seen in my career has occurred a few minutes after several sets of challenging depth jumps properly performed.

Below are some sample options for this portion of the French Contrast workout. Jumps are done for 2-4 reps and bounding or resisted sprint work for 10-20 meters.

Hinging/Sprinting/Bounding

• Bounding
• Multi-jumps
• Repeated standing long jumps/bunnies
• Resisted sprints
• Hinge-based jumps

Squatting/Jumping/Vertical Force

• Depth jumps
• Hurdle hops (higher hurdles relative to maximal ability)
• Rapid box hops (on a higher box, 12-18”)
• Box jumps/seated box jumps

Third French Contrast Movement: Explosive Strength

The third portion of the French Contrast is based on an explosive strength. This includes all the Olympic lifts and their derivatives (in the 50-60% 1RM range) as well as simpler explosive lifts such as jump squats.

When performing Olympic derivatives, the most helpful movements for the circuit’s total effect are those performed from the hang or block position. Going from the floor, however, can be done by athletes who can achieve clean bar speed easily. Again, these exercises are generally performed with 50-60% 1RM range, but this can sway a bit in either direction due to the nature of the movements. Rep ranges are 2-4 repetitions.

Due to the higher bar speeds in this portion of the circuit, it’s more acceptable to perform lifts that incorporate larger ranges of motion in all phases of training.

Below is a list of appropriate movements for explosive strength.

Hinging/Sprinting/Bounding

• Hang clean
• Hang snatch
• Kettlebell swing/lumberjack (depending on whether you are in the Poliquin camp)
• Speed deadlift
• Single leg hang clean/snatch

Squatting/Jumping/Vertical Force

• Speed half squat with bodyweight, or less, on the bar
• Push jerk
• Drop snatch
• Hang squat clean (full catch)
• Rapid deep or partial squats with anchored feet (pull into the bottom)
• Jump squat
• Jump squat from bar resting on pins

Fourth French Contrast Movement: High Speed or Overspeed

The final exercise in the French Contrast is based on high speed or even overspeed movement. This includes band-assisted jumps and any plyometric exercise where an athlete uses ground contacts equal to, or less than, what they experience in their specific jumping or speed-based skill in their sport.

There are cases where I might use versions of this list in both the 2nd and 4th exercise slots of the French Contrast series, particularly with track and field athletes rather than athletes who rely on a greater use of ground contact in their sport, such as football.

Below are some examples of this portion of the circuit.

Hinging/Sprinting/Bounding

• Short contact bounding
• Ballistic throws/multi-throws
• Overspeed sprinting (on an apparatus like the 1080 Sprint)

Squatting/Jumping/Vertical Force

• Rapid tuck jumps
• Speed box hops (shorter box)
• Assisted jumps with a band and cage or assisted apparatus
• Drop jumps from a lower box (preferably with some sort of ground contact measurement/feedback)/li>
• Hurdle hops over lower hurdles with generous spacing

Sample French Contrast Workouts

Here are some examples of how the French Contrast’s influence on potentiation, coordination, and motor learning can occur in an actual workout. This article emphasizes this aspect of training since currently there aren’t many “nuts and bolts” articles available.

Here is one of my favorite Squat Pathways of the French Contrast sessions:

• Heavy ¼ squat ISO hold, 5 seconds
• Speed box hop x 3-5 reps or depth jump x 2-4 reps
• Speed half squat or anchored deep squat x 3-4 reps
• Assisted vertical jumps x 4-5 reps

Along the Hinge Pathway, I enjoy this circuit:

• Heavy hex deadlift from blocks x 2 reps
• Standing triple jump x 1 rep
• Clean from the hang or floor x 2-3 reps
• Vertical overhead or overhead back shot throws x 3-4 reps (light weight)

In the videos below, Paul Cater of The Alpha Project in Monterey, California, demonstrates a circuit of both the squat and hinge pathways.

Video 1: French Contrast

Video 2: Hinge Pathway

Throughout this training session, Paul added 10cm (4”) to his vertical jump as he moved through the French Contrast circuits. This is a typical gain when correctly performing this training.

For those who are in the specialized camp and want to go SPE on the circuit, perform a program similar to the following for sprint speed:

• Heavy ISO back extension x 5 seconds
• RDL/hinge jumps x 3-4 reps
• Explosive back extension with 50% 1RM x 3-5 reps
• Vertical overhead shot throws x 3-5 reps (light weight)

I perform 3-6 rounds of French Contrast, or possibly more if “the pan is hot.” I like to take 4-6 minutes between each round to test vertical jumps on a jump mat, especially in circuits that emphasize the realization of motor skills. It takes about 2-4 minutes after each circuit before fatigue subsides enough for the test to be a good one. Typically, vertical jumps will increase by an inch per round for 3-5 of waves of French Contrast before leveling out.

Vertical jumps will increase an inch per round in 3-5 waves of French Contrast. Share on X

From an absolute physiological perspective, potentiation is simply another way to warm up. It’s a very effective way when correctly performed. Squats will warm up an athlete to jump, but most of my athletes say a game of basketball warms them up much more. As mentioned, basketball has a wide variety of explosive movements (random motor learning) packaged in a format with enough training density to have the central nervous system firing on all cylinders.

French Contrast is a modest way to take this concept and alternate between high force and high speed in an approach that accomplishes the same goal in a more controlled manner and delivers a more precise training effect.

Potentiation Clusters

Potentiation clusters are another great method to induce potentiation, coordination, and density-based gains. Potentiation clusters are essentially complex training done in the EMOM style.

To perform a potentiation cluster, simply pair up a low rep strength exercise with an explosive exercise and perform them in a relatively high-density format across 8-12 sets. This is complex training performed in a very specific fashion that optimizes neural adaptations.

An example looks like this superset:

• 12×1 cleans from the floor, starting at 55%1RM and working up to 80%
• 12x20m speed mini-bounding, progressing from speed contacts to maximal distance bounds
• 60-90 seconds rest between circuit exercises

Any strength exercise can be used, but I’ve had the best success with Olympic lifts and moderate to heavy barbell step-ups onto a 10 to 12-inch box. Selective isometrics could also be worked into this method.

I also like simple, and still very effective, supersets of 1-2 cleans with a single rep multi-throw (if space is available). Anything from the “strength bucket” will do.

The speed exercise can be drawn from a wide pool, depending on what we’re trying to improve. For potentiation clusters, I enjoy bounding the most. I’ve found that the more reflexive the speed exercise, the better; perhaps because there is more reflex improvement as opposed to a more static exercise like a seated box jump.

With that, here is a more detailed example of what this cluster might look like:

90-second rest between all exercises

• Power clean from the floor: 1×55%
• Speed-contact alternate leg bounding x 15m

• Power clean from the floor: 1×57%
• Speed-contact alternate leg bounding x 15m

• Power clean from the floor: 1×60%
• Speed-contact alternate leg bounding x 15m

• Power clean from the floor: 1×62%
• Speed-contact alternate leg bounding x 15m

• Power clean from the floor: 1×64%
• Speed-contact alternate leg bounding x 15m

• Power clean from the floor: 1×62%
• Speed-contact alternate leg bounding x 15m

• Power clean from the floor: 1×64%
• Speed-contact alternate leg bounding x 15m

• Power clean from the floor: 1×66%
• Speed-contact alternate leg bounding x 15m

• Power clean from the floor: 1×70%
• Speed-contact alternate leg bounding x 15m

• Power clean from the floor: 1×74%
• Alternate leg bounding for distance x 15m

• Power clean from the floor: 1×77%
• Alternate leg bounding for distance x 15m

• Power clean from the floor: 1×80%
• Alternate leg bounding for distance x 15m

• Power clean from the floor: 1×73%
• Alternate leg bounding for distance x 15m

 

Video 3: Potentiation Cluster

One of my tricks is to set the tone of the 12-round series with speed-oriented, quick contact movements, hence the low %1RM for the cleans, and emphasize speed contacts in the bounding. The last 3 or 4 sets of a 10-12 set routine transition to more force and longer contacts.

When transitioning to heavier relative weights and faster contacts during the last few sets, an athlete will carry both the potentiation of the previous clusters and the coordination pattern of fast force development (similar to the 4-step high jump versus the full approach example). This helps to improve reflex actions and work muscles at their optimal length and tension levels for maximal speed.

When using potentiation clusters, it’s helpful to use a velocity-based bar tracking method to help motivate athletes toward higher rate of force development in the lift.

Conclusion

Before last year, I considered this training method only useful in the “realization” phase of training since it’s based on improving an athlete’s neural efficiency. Now, however, I realize this method is much more than icing on the cake. Instead, neural efficiency and optimized coordination are the cake. At the least, it’s a very important part of the main training blocks. We want to optimize neural patterns and have an athlete’s physiology adapt to those patterns, not the other way around.

This is the last article of the three-part series on the plyometric workouts I’ve found extremely useful to build explosive power in both track and field and team sport athletes. It marks the culmination of fifteen years of trial and error on my part, and I hope coaches find these principles helpful in developmental programming.

Please check my website Just Fly Sports for updates on my upcoming book Speed Strength, which explores the best methods to build strength within the context of explosive speed development.

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

 

In track and field, and running events in particular, the competitive skill is singular. If you’re a sprinter, you can focus on sprinting from a young age and continue to perfect your skills and techniques as you age. This makes the training simpler. It’s not easy, mind you, but you can find a coach who will teach you how to sprint better and focus on that one thing.

Non-track athletes, however, have two skills that affect their competency: their sport skill, and also their sprinting ability. If I’m a football receiver, I can work on how far my pass patterns are and how to catch the ball until I’m blue in the face, but if I don’t figure out how to run faster, it may never matter since I can’t escape the defenders. Speed training is extremely important in field sports. Yet, in my opinion, the coaches and decision makers in sport severely underappreciate it.

Athleticism Needs to Match Skill

I’ll give you an example. I started playing football at 12 years old; before that, I played soccer. During my high school career, I played two to three football seasons in the same calendar year. By the time I reached university, I had 10 seasons of football under my belt. My football IQ and skills allowed me to be a competitive player. I was lacking something, though: My athleticism didn’t match my skill. Not only was I generally weak, as I had only puttered around a gym with no guidance, but I also had zero technical skill in sprinting. How did I go 10 years in a sport, with a plethora of different coaches, organizations, and levels, without ever learning to sprint properly??

The one thing I used to do on every play was sprint. Whether I made a tackle or an interception, or was away from the ball, I still sprinted every play. It wasn’t until I made it to the university level that I had a sprint coach for my team. So, NOW I got to learn how to run better? REALLY!? Isn’t it a little late? I can only imagine what learning some of the fundamentals at an early age could have done for my youth career. In fact, working with this sprint coach is what inspired me to focus on speed in my own coaching.

Sprint training is important in field sports, yet many athletes never learn to sprint correctly. Share on X

The 3 Most Important Components of Speed Training

We have quite a lot of athletes practicing their sports who may not be joining track and field any time soon. Whether you’re an independent or team strength and conditioning coach, you have to take the place of a track and field coach. In my experience, there are three things that non-track (field) athletes need to focus on most when it comes to speed training:

Output and Direction

As coaches, we know that two major factors affect speed: the force we put out and the direction we apply that force. When athletes can do both of those things really well, they will be successful. Teaching the importance of shin angle (the direction we apply force to the ground) to young athletes creates the groundwork for technical cueing through nearly every other drill. What do I mean by shin angle? The angle that an athlete’s shin produces as he makes impact with the ground dictates the direction of the reactionary force coming up from the ground. His goal in acceleration is to have a shin angle with a significant horizontal component to drive him toward his target. This is why sprinters get down in the blocks and football players get down in a three-point stance—they’re creating a shin angle that’s as horizontal as possible.

Many athletes have heard the statement: “Speed is about stride length and stride frequency.” If they don’t understand shin angles, their interpretation of this statement can lead to damage and injury. What results is a group of young athletes who overreach to try and force their stride out longer.

Figure 1 below is a perfect example. This is one of my athletes and the image comes from a session we did together. His back leg is leaving the ground and has a “positive” shin angle, but he reaches too far with his front foot and actually hits the ground with his front shin completely vertical. Thus, he creates a braking mechanism for himself and makes things difficult.

Create a rule when coaching that the angle from the ground through the shin should point in the direction that the athlete plans to go next. Unless he’s braking (negative acceleration), his foot should never strike the ground in front of his knee, whether in a start or at speed. Athletes need a simple understanding of how to best apply their force (direction) to help them sprint and change direction faster.

Once my athletes understand shin angle, I can trust them to identify some of their own issues on film. This allows them to create better habits of positioning on their own.

Acceleration Mechanics

I think it’s safe to say that anyone who understands sprinting knows that acceleration mechanics are important for success. In field athletes, this is even more apparent. The problem is that many field athletes jog around between sprints or even stand and wait. This means that any time something happens where an athlete needs to sprint (with the exception of defensive linemen), they are in an upright position and don’t understand the fundamental techniques of acceleration. This makes “sprinting” to a ball/spot/player all the more difficult.

These athletes need to learn how to create a positive shin angle (image above) and positive body position by creating a forward lean toward their target. This photo is a much better example of positive shin angles and a body leaning toward its target. This will result in a significant amount of force down and back, which will propel the athlete forward and create acceleration. Our body is not set up to accelerate very quickly when we’re completely vertical. Teaching your athletes to use a few acceleration steps with a good forward lean will allow them to reach top speed that much faster.

Force Production

As simple as it sounds, athletes need to learn how to apply a large amount of force to properly accelerate and decelerate. Certain athletes can already do this fairly well and that’s why this has fallen to third on the list. However, even at high levels, there are a large number of athletes who might be exceptional based on their skill set, but lack the aggression and force production to create large amounts of power from each foot strike.

This is what I call, “Going nowhere fast.” The athlete knows he’s supposed to move his limbs quickly but doesn’t know how to apply force to the ground. His limbs move like lightning but his body does not displace quickly (actual speed). Remember, speed is a measurement of distance over time, so no distance means no speed.

Sometimes this can be addressed through cueing and putting them in a scenario where they can focus on applying force without the need to worry about external factors (ball, players, etc.). More likely, you will need to add in various plyometrics to create more power per step (see video below). In order for any athlete to become a fast sprinter, they need to be able to create huge forces for acceleration and then maintain stiffness through maximal velocity.

Video 1: Two Bounding Drills that Demonstrate the Power Created by Correct Shin Angles

Don’t Ignore Speed Development

When it comes to sports coaches, they want to spend all their time focusing on their sport skills. However, when it comes to field sports, this means holding back the athleticism of their players. As strength and conditioning coaches, we need to insist that these players need some time devoted to pure speed development. I guarantee that, given the choice, every coach would rather their athletes play at a faster speed. We just need to help them understand how to get there.

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

General Running Adaptations

Running economy is not an innate ability but must be developed through coordination skills and then refined by more advanced training. Over time, a functional coordination pattern replaces the generalized one, the number of muscles activated decreases to only the necessities, and energy cost reduces.

Beginner endurance athletes initially have a steep learning curve as they acquire general fitness just by putting in miles, regardless of how those miles are structured. When a non-athlete first begins a training program, significant neuromuscular adaptations occur to create basic coordination which lays the foundation for biomechanical efficiency (running economy).

Running economy is defined as “the steady-state oxygen consumption at a given running velocity.” (Bonnacci, et al. 2009). In other words, better running economy equates to a more efficient use and recycling of oxygen during a workout. There is a direct correlation between running economy and performance; improving economy through training has a positive effect on performance.

To develop the most efficient mechanics possible, we must create optimal muscle recruitment patterns. This conserves the greatest amount of energy used per stride. Well-trained, advanced runners have extremely refined muscle recruitment patterns compared to novice athletes. Positive adaptations to training are a function of a learned response where the body acquires specific movement patterns linked with ideal task completion.

As a runner masters the skill in practice through repetition, they experience an observable decrease in muscle activation, recruitment of synergists, and variation in movement. In other words, even the most complex skill will form the simplest, most efficient muscle activation pattern.

Adaptation Considerations for Triathlon Events

The muscle adaptations required for swimming are much different than those of biking and running, and biking and running are just as dissimilar to each other. The lower body recruitment patterns don’t necessarily follow a transfer of learning gradient because the bike requires primarily concentric action while the run is eccentric-to-concentric.

As a result, there is a bit of interference between the demands of the two. The neuromuscular system must quickly adapt to this transition to avoid loss of stored elastic energy. Triathletes should train for both the eccentric and concentric demands of the sport to maximize overall efficiency.

Lower leg muscle stiffness improves elastic energy turnaround and running economy. Share on X

Increasing muscle stiffness improves elastic energy turnaround and running economy because lower leg stiffness has a direct relationship to running economy. Carefully designed strength training regimens can help prepare the body for the eccentric and concentric demands of impact by developing muscle and tendon stiffness.

It takes time to develop leg tendon stiffness. Using balance, coordination, and impact plyometric exercises can help. The stages of learning apply to this type of plyometric training since a significant amount of neural adaptation is required to perform the exercises with great efficiency.

Plyometric exercises directly transfer learning and recruitment patterns to a triathlon’s biking and running events. The transfer occurs because the amortization (absorption of impact) phase is ideally kept as short as possible in both plyometrics and the triathlon events. Younger and more novice athletes have notoriously long amortization phases and ground contact times. With training, especially speedwork and plyometric drills, this naturally shortens to the most economic mechanics for the given distance.

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

Bonacci, J., A. Chapman, P. Blanch, and B. Vicenzino. “Neuromuscular adaptations to training injury and passive interventions: implications for running economy.” Sports Medicine 39(11) (2009): 903-921.

Magill, Richard and David Anderson. Motor Learning and Control: Concepts and Applications. 10th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill Education, 2013.

 

I recently read a great post by Carl Valle (@spikesonly) on 5 Myths About Eccentric Training Every Coach Ought to Know. When I was asked to put a blog together for SimpliFaster, I wanted to do my best to expand on Carl’s position and further put away Myth No. 4—the one that says eccentric training is only for elite athletes.

As with any other method, eccentric training for young athletes needs to be appropriately progressed and developed over time to ensure they are able to reap the benefits without getting injured.

Eccentric training has been demonstrated to be effective in enhancing performance variables. It has also been shown to be an effective means of reducing the risk of injury across a wide range of populations.

The development of eccentric force-generating capacities was recently described by Dr. Mike Young as “perhaps the single greatest determinant of physical performance” at the Exxentric Summit in Stockholm. Mike has had a huge influence on my training philosophy when it comes to the long-term development of athletes, and I’ve had the pleasure of sitting and listening to him present on a number of occasions over the last year. He is certainly convincing when it comes to the importance of eccentric strength and power when we are seeking to produce the fastest, most robust, and most explosive athletes we possibly can.

In his pursuit of the enhancement of eccentric strength and power, he has an impressive arsenal of advanced training techniques, such as momentum-based loading, e.g.: catch RDLs, supra-maximal concentrics, partial ranges using barbells and flywheel training, and shock plyometrics. These help “put the icing on the cake” and unlock what he describes as the final 5-10% of an athlete’s athletic potential after they have mastered the basics. They do this by developing a high level of relative strength and power through more traditional training methodologies means such as conventional mass-based strength training.

I work with younger athletes aged 11-18 within the Elite Performance Pathway (EPP) part of the Physical Education Curriculum at St. Peter’s R.C. High School in Gloucester, England. So I am very much in the realm of what Mike would call “baking an exceptional cake”—putting the icing on by helping athletes master basic movements and enhancing their physical development through training methods. However, because I understand what I need to do from an eccentric perspective at an elite level when the athletes are ready for it, I have been able to work backwards and start putting a thread of appropriate eccentric training progressions towards that in the early phases of the EPP system.

The EPP System: Building an Athletic Foundation

It is useful to understand the structure of our EPP system in order to provide some context as to where the eccentric training fits into the training puzzle. The EPP is a LTAD program both based around the Youth Physical Development (YPD) Model by Rhodri Lloyd and Jon Oliver (2012), and adapted from the Quadrennial Plan for the High School Athlete by Ian Jeffreys (2008). Within the age range of the athletes we work with, the key areas outlined for development are: strength, power, speed, and agility—indicated by the largest font
within the YPD Model below.

 

The training system begins with the Athletic Foundation phase, which is based around developing competency in fundamental movements: squat, lunge, push, pull, hinge, lift, brace, and rotate. It also includes introducing them to basic jumping and landing activities, speed play, and tag games to develop locomotive movement skills in a broad range of linear and multi-directional movements while providing a high-velocity stimulus in an engaging and challenging learning environment.

It is in the Athletic Foundation phase that we begin to introduce a small dose of eccentric training. The following diagram from my recent talk at the Exxentric Summit provides a summary of some of the progressions used within this phase of the system, and my thought processes and focus points at each stage.

 

Essentially, we establish movement competency first and then we build up the athlete’s ability to tolerate some volume using their body weight alone. From there, we begin to introduce variation in the speed of the execution of the movements, including increasing the time under tension with tempo controls. This includes slower eccentric phases and isometric holds in the base of squats and split squats.

Our next progression is to introduce jumping up onto an object, which provides us with an opportunity to check the athlete’s jumping and landing techniques for movement issues (e.g., knee valgus) when there is a reduced impact as they are landing up onto the box. Then we ask them to demonstrate the ability to perform an altitude landing from the box, absorbing a higher impact landing while still maintaining optimal landing mechanics.

When an athlete has demonstrated they can do this consistently over a number of sessions, we progress to jumping, leaping, and hopping by challenging the athletes to coordinate takeoff and “stick” landings for three seconds. The progressions go from landing on two feet in place, to one foot in place, and then move to linear, lateral, and rotational movements.

The jump training is often completed using a range of different tools to change the tasks and challenges in order to keep things interesting. This includes jumping between hoops, spots, hurdles, and boxes. When athletes can successfully perform the jumps and landings in place, they then begin to travel over increased distances or up onto higher objects.

At this stage, we also include activities such as skipping and playing old-fashioned games like hopscotch. These provide exposure to faster ground contacts in jumping tasks in preparation for higher intensity, fast SSC plyometrics in the later phases of the system.

While working through the jump progressions, I regularly spoke to the young athletes. Some indicated they were a bit bored with the basic jump tasks. I think it’s really important for us to understand their perspective on the training.

Connect training and game movements to keep younger athletes from being bored by basic tasks. Share on X

A highly structured and controlled session may allow us to achieve our objectives, but if it’s really boring, we aren’t going to be able to keep the athletes in the program for the long term. To combat this, I have structured the sessions to incorporate a number of different elements (including the tag games) to keep the lessons going at a good pace. The various elements also provide great opportunities to connect the dots between the training and game movements, which can help athletes understand WHY they need to train through the basic movements. This helps increase their buy in.

The image below outlines a typical structure, showing where the eccentric component fits into the bigger picture of the whole session. This is based around the concept of training “all things, all the time”—where the “things” are the four key areas outlined in the YPD Model: strength, power, speed, and agility. Varying amounts of emphasis are placed on each component throughout the academic year, in order to provide a well-rounded physical development. You can see that eccentric training doesn’t have a huge part at this point, but I see it as a very important thread to keep consistently in the program because of the benefits mentioned earlier and to ensure that they can tolerate the advanced methods in the long term.

 

The last stage of our introduction to jumping and landing is to increase the skill, challenge, and enjoyment by allowing freedom and creativity through the introduction of Parkour/Free Running. These sessions do break away from the above structure, but the variation has provided a fantastic boost to engagement and motivation. In these sessions, the athletes can explore and combine jumping, leaping, and hopping movements with different vaults and challenges under more random conditions. In the last few months, we’ve even built a ninja warrior course using old school gym equipment—wall bars, monkey bars, balance beams, benches, and ropes—and this has been a massive hit with the athletes (and teachers).

Transitioning Into Athletic Development

An athlete will progress into the Athletic Development phase after they’ve met the major objectives within the previous phase relating to the four critical areas.

Once they’ve moved up into the Athletic Development phase, the program increases in intensity and becomes more recognizable as structured strength and conditioning sessions. We also get more time with the athletes within the school day as part of their normal timetable, in addition to their core physical education lessons.

We stick with the philosophy of training “all things, all the time,” providing a range of stimuli for strength, power, speed, and agility. However, the primary objective now is to develop relative strength and power levels through general strength exercises (squat, deadlift, bench, pull up, split squat, RDL) using higher volume set and rep schemes to start with (i.e. 3×10 reps). Then we move down the rep ranges, gradually increasing the intensity of the working loads towards sets of 6 reps by the end of the year, provided that the technique is conducive to this happening. Along with this, the speed and agility work increases in structure, complexity, and intensity.

Training “all things, all the time” means providing stimuli for strength, power, speed, & agility. Share on X

The eccentric elements in the training follow suit. But, again, it progresses gradually as outlined in the diagram below, paying particular attention to any growth-related issues/changes in the way the athlete moves.

 

As in the Foundation phase, our first progression in the eccentric loading is to introduce time under tension, but under load in the general strength exercises. Then we increase the height of the altitude landings while challenging the athletes to increase the stiffness in landing by reducing the amount they yield at the ankle, knee, and hip on impact.

Throughout this process we sometimes re-visit the lower altitude landings, particularly if an athlete has grown considerably. This is because the changes in limb length can lead to changes in mechanics and their ability to execute the movements correctly.

The actual jump training within this phase moves on from controlling landings to repeating jumping, leaping, and hopping tasks, provided everything looks good in terms of control and stability.

The athletes are challenged here to control and absorb landings over greater heights and distances, and also to repeat them in a sequence (e.g., repeated broad jumps). In most cases, these would be classified as slow SSC jumps (>250ms).

The next stage is to introduce higher intensity plyometrics that incorporate things such as pogo jumps and low depth jumps that emphasize shorter ground contact times and aim to develop stiffness.

This year, when the athletes display competency in these progressions and a good level of relative strength in the general strength exercises, we’ve been introducing them to the Exxentric kBox3. It allows us to safely and effectively increase the eccentric overload with these athletes, working in a group environment that would not be logistically possible with traditional eccentric overload methods.

What is the Exxentric kBox3 flywheel training system?

For those that haven’t used the kBox3, it’s an iso-inertial flywheel training system that allows a wide spectrum of loading based on the fact it is dependent on the athlete/user driving the flywheel. In addition, you can increase or decrease the number of flywheels to get more of a strength or power stimulus respectively.

So, rather than working against gravity acting on a loaded barbell or similar implement, you are working against the inertia of the flywheel. The stronger you are or the harder you work, the more force you put into the flywheel and then the more it gives you back when the flywheel reverses and starts pulling you back down. But you can vary the way in which you decelerate the flywheel to create different types of eccentric overload.

Flywheel Training and the Younger Athlete

Thus far, we’ve cautiously introduced the kBox3 with only some of our athletes on the EPP. The athletes we’ve used it with all have met the following criteria:

1. Excellent technique in basic strength exercises.
2. Solid training history of 2+ years and aged 15-16.
3. Good level of relative strength for their age in traditional barbell training (>1.0 x BW).
4. Frequent exposure to eccentric loading in the form of jumping and landing.

The main exercises we’ve been using are squats, quarter squats (feet in a jump position), and lateral squats. The athlete executes them sub-maximally to begin with (i.e., the athlete only pushing with 70-80% effort), and then works to gradually absorb that force through the eccentric phase. From there, we have gradually increased the force they put into the flywheel in the concentric phase along with the speed at which they stop the flywheel in the eccentric phase.

At this point, the volume of work has been low. Typically, there are 2-3 sets of 3-5 repetitions of a single exercise integrated with the normal training program of speed, power, and strength.

Using the kMeter

When we combine the kBox3 with the kMeter, we are also able to gain more insight into the athlete’s concentric and eccentric power-producing capabilities. Specifically, we can identify athletes who can and cannot create an eccentric overload using a standardized 5RM squat test. The two-kMeter readings below are from two different athletes. The light brown bars on the graph indicate concentric peak power and the dark brown bars indicate eccentric peak power. We should typically see an eccentric overload of at least 15%.

You can see on the left that Athlete A struggles to create an eccentric overload on the kBox (eccentric overload = -10%), whereas Athlete B regularly creates an eccentric overload here of 15%. At times it’s even closer to 25% for this particular athlete.

 

The data from the kMeter allows us to create a better picture of what we see when they are jumping on our jump mat. Both athletes jump a similar height of ~40cm on a no-arm depth jump from a 12” box, but Athlete A is really slow off the ground. He takes ~350-450ms to get this height, while Athlete B consistently produces the jump in under 200ms.

This ability to identify the concentric to eccentric deficit has allowed us to better select our training methods for the next phases of Athlete A’s training program, incorporating a higher volume of kBox3 and plyometric work. I don’t have the data yet, but I am really interested to see how the eccentric overload figures change for Athlete A in response to this kBox and plyometric training intervention that we’ve put in place recently.

Summary: Eccentric Training Methods Need to Be Appropriate

In summary, eccentric training is not exclusively for elite athletes. However, the methods that we select need to be appropriate to the athlete and their level of training. This starts with lower eccentric loads introduced through basic jumping and landing tasks once movement competency in basic movements is established. Following this, we can gradually increase the intensity of the eccentric overloads—keeping an eye on movement quality as the young athlete grows and matures. A tool such as the kBox3 can make eccentric overload training safer and more accessible than traditional methods, but it is prudent to be selective in its application to begin with by keeping the volume relatively low.

In addition to the methods employed, we need to consider how we design our sessions to enhance motivation and engagement for the younger athletes. Parkour/Free Running and Gymnastics are great activities to develop movement skills like jumping and landing in a more random, engaging, and challenging manner.

Hopefully, by engaging athletes we can keep them training long enough that we get to the point where we have to “put the icing on the cake.” This includes the most advanced eccentric strength and power methods, which allow them to achieve our ultimate goal and reach their full athletic potential.

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

 

Remember when it was cool to insult CrossFit? Admittedly, I was a major perpetrator of crimes against the early incarnation of this fitness phenomenon.

Six or seven years ago, while training in Austin, Texas, for the summer as a mediocre and proud master’s sprinter, I would spot devotees from the CrossFit box down the street, heading to the track at Austin High to crush their WOD. I recall their workout often being a series of rounded-back tire flips, then a dodgy pull-up variation, followed by a few medium-paced 400s run with questionable posture and minimal rest.

Fast-forward to 2016, and CrossFit has come far from simply a military-influenced workout system populated exclusively by devotees who pepper their sentences with “bro” and “elite.”

The CrossFit phenomenon cuts across age and gender, and has adopted a more mature and inclusive philosophy over time. You’ve got to give credit where credit is due: In the general population fitness universe, CrossFit leaders correctly railed against the prevailing 45-minutes-on-the-treadmill-reading-InTouch-magazine crowd. They understood that the intensity of exercise trumps its duration. CrossFit put the “work” back in workout.

Kelly Starrett Emerges as a Posture-Improving, Self-Therapy Advocate

Still, the reality is that every maturing workout philosophy needs a thought leader to move it through early times. For CrossFit, Kelly Starrett emerged as that thought leader. His influence has spread far beyond the CrossFit universe.

I met Starrett at ALTIS during their apprentice program in November 2014, and his surprise visit was met with respect and more than a little excitement. (Throws coach Nick Scheuerman might have even fanboyed a little.) I remember him calling me out on my crappy tall-guy posture within two minutes of arriving. Kelly Starrett is definitely a straight shooter.

A former member of the U.S. Canoe and Kayak team and a DPT by trade, Starrett is the owner of San Francisco CrossFit, one of the earliest franchises. He has become a one-man posture-improving, self-therapy, advocating machine.

He has written two bestselling books, Becoming a Supple Leopard and Ready to Run, and both are fantastic. In addition to their high quality artwork, they feature sound and incredibly creative approaches to mobility restoration and self-therapy that put control of one’s body firmly back in the hands of the athlete.

Many of the principles contained in Becoming a Supple Leopard were introduced to athletes in our winter Florida training camp last season. The effects were amazing, and literally transformed each athlete’s approach to self-care.

Sitting Is the New Smoking

Starrett’s new book takes his previous ideas a step further. In Deskbound: Standing Up to a Sitting World, he makes a convincing argument that the lowly chair is doing much more damage than the cigarette. In the book, he also asks a very important question: What are your athletes doing the other 23 hours per day when they aren’t training? For many of them, the answer is sitting—for up 14 hours.

In his new book, Starrett convincingly argues that sitting is worse for our health than smoking. Share on X

To combat this epidemic, Starrett creates simple prescriptions that, when followed, aspire to improve virtually any athlete’s postural competence.

I “sat down” with Kelly Starrett via Skype (or, more accurately, he squatted and I sat cross-legged with my core properly braced), and we dove deep into a number of topics surrounding our current “sitting culture.” This was in anticipation of his truly entertaining presentation for World Speed Summit, the upcoming free online speed and power conference.

The Four Key Prescriptions to Counteract Postural Damage Caused by Sitting

We delved into the four key prescriptions of Deskbound, and it was fascinating for me to have a window into the mind of a thought leader in the human performance world.

1. Reduce Optional Sitting in Your Life

When you show up to practice after a night of Netflix ’n chill, it is basically the postural equivalent to showing up to train in jeans and flip-flops.

When athletes treat non-training time as something separate and disconnected from their workouts, Starrett asserts that they are basically showing up totally unprepared to train. “One of the problems is, in that short chunk of training time, we have a lot to get done. We have to warm up and cool down and talk about skills and get you more explosive, improve your athleticism, and redress your dysfunction.” Reducing optional sitting and holding the athlete accountable for their posture in everyday life allows them to train at a higher level.

2. For Every 30 Minutes You Are Deskbound, Move for Two Minutes

If you happen to be in a situation where you’re forced to sit, make a conscious decision to move. In spite of all of the best efforts of some very influential people, “we have not budged the childhood obesity epidemic.” There is still a huge problem with caloric intake and the quality of food, but what is also clear is that kids are moving much less than in past generations.

While places like Oregon have compensated by increasing the amount of physical education in schools, Starrett argues that the exact same caloric burn could be achieved passively by simply changing the type of desks in classrooms. Starrett asserts, “You can meet all [those] activity goals with a standing desk.” Early evidence suggests a 25-30% increase in daily calorie burn when students work from a standing base.

3. Optimize Position and Mechanics Whenever You Can

People ignore the fact that posture is a skill that needs to be practiced. “Posture is just a Latin word for position. Can you imagine bragging about bad position, or bad biomechanics?” asks Starrett.

“Across socioeconomic groups, kids 8-18 are spending up to 7 1/2 hours per day on [a] screen. We’re making the physiology match the technology instead of having the technology match the physiology.” Athletes need to actively resist this march in the wrong direction.

4. Perform 10 to 15 Minutes of Daily Maintenance on Your Body

Over time, therapy has somehow become something that people think only a therapist can do. According to Starrett: “Dan Pfaff has been such an important piece of this conversation. Take the unskilled care and move it beyond the paywall of for-profit medicine. In the past 20 years, we’ve put it all on the other side and divorced it from the strength and conditioning process.” Athletes should be able to manage their own muscle tone, and a corresponding increase in mindfulness around their body status will be the norm, not the exception.

Watch Starrett’s Online Presentation at the World Speed Summit Next Week

There is, of course, far more to Kelly Starrett’s Deskbound than the four core principles above, and his World Speed Summit presentation delves into a variety of areas that are deeply connected to the training of speed athletes. There are a number of great takeaways—including a simple yet ingenious way of using the very controversial Training Mask!

Spending an hour listening to Starrett present allows a window into the mind of one of the most influential thinkers in human performance today. In addition to Starrett, they’ll be presentations from more than a dozen other experts. I hope you check it out: The World Speed Summit is FREE to watch at this link starting June 27th.

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

 

Feeling good is a performance enhancer. How can you feel good without pharmaceuticals? Coach your athletes to perform as high-octane, well-rested, good-looking, fine-tuned superheroes believing in the power of faith, love, and encouragement.

Here are my five alternatives to performance enhancing drugs.

1. Living Healthy, Organic, Balanced Lives

Teach your athletes about nutrition, hydration, and sleep. Parents spend thousands of dollars on their kids. Before the age of ten, kids here are traveling the country with their baseball, basketball, soccer, and lacrosse teams. The cost of youth sports is staggering.

A parent I know spent $10,000 for one year of outside training. And, in my opinion, the training was counterproductive. The average price of the cars in the student parking lot is probably higher than the average price of cars in the teacher lot.

Nutrition is a performance enhancer. Despite the million-dollar investment in their kids, many parents invest little in nutrition. Kids eat crap every day. Take away pizza, processed foods, drinks sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup, and the dollar menu at McDonalds, many kids would starve to death.

 

Before school, kids blindly eat Pop-Tarts for breakfast. During the time between classes, kids eat fund-raiser candy sold in the hallway. At lunch, it takes them fifteen minutes to wolf down prison food. On the drive home, McDonald’s drive-through beckons.

 

I encourage everyone to watch Michael Moore’s Where to Invade Next. Some countries actually take child nutrition seriously.

We have misplaced priorities. What if we spent less on our kids and made nutrition a priority? What if moms and dads spent some time planning meals and grocery shopping to feed their kids high-octane food? My grandmother made a life preparing well-balanced meals. Food was the centerpiece of family life.

What if coaches taught kids how to eat? Sprint coaches spend 90% of their time planning less than one hour of sprint practice. We should coach the other 23 hours of a sprinter’s life. What if sprinters carried water with them? The simplicity of transitioning from carbonated beverages to water is huge. I compliment every kid I see carrying a water bottle at school.

Kids should sit down and eat a balanced breakfast. Eggs, fruit, whole grain toast, and a glass of milk. Schools should outlaw serving nachos as an entrée. Let’s offer only farm fresh foods prepared by cooks. Let’s only offer fruit, vegetables, beans, grains, and lean protein sources for school lunch. Let’s encourage parents to plan a nutritious sack lunch for their prized kids.

Ninety-nine percent of human evolution featured family dinners. Teach kids to eat fresh fruits and vegetables and to eat food off of a plate instead of out of a box. Make an investment in nutrition. We would never put our kids into dangerous cars, why do allow our kids to fuel their bodies with pizza, fries, candy bars, and sodas?

At the risk of being Captain Obvious, nutrition is not the only failure of modern families. Sleep deprivation among teenagers is a national epidemic. I estimate an alarming number of high school students get five to six hours of sleep a night. Studies show teenagers need 9.25 hours of sleep to perform at their best.

Plainfield North’s school day starts at 7:05 am. Yes, despite all research showing that kids are zombies early in the morning, many school districts structure the school day based on busing costs. Our high schools start at 7:00 am, middle schools at 8:00 am, and elementary schools at 9:00 am. This allows for a smaller fleet of buses and saves our school district more than a million dollars. With our school days beginning at 7:05 am, students would need to be asleep by 9:00 pm and wake at 6:15 am. I don’t believe any of our students are asleep by 9:00 pm.

Sprinters need sleep to reset their nervous systems and recover from high-intensity training. Sprinters are the cats of the athletic world, and cats get fifteen to twenty hours of sleep per day.

“Each night, when I go to sleep, I die. And the next morning, when I wake up, I am reborn.”–Mahatma Gandhi

Encourage parents to prioritize food, hydration, and sleep. And, as coaches, we need to spend more time coaching the other 23 hours of a sprinter’s day.

Encourage parents and athletes to prioritize food, hydration, and sleep. Share on X

2. Body Maintenance

Teach athletes about grooming and looking their best. When you look good, you feel good. I was born a coach’s kid. I’ve watched athletes through a magnifying glass all my life. Observing athletes since I was old enough to make observations, I have learned the following tips.

Showers improve performance. I have no scientific proof, but we don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows. Before we compete on a Saturday morning, I coach my athletes to take a long hot shower. No one competes well without showering. You’ll have to take my word for it.

Getting a haircut should be a precompetition ritual. NBA players look like they get eighty-two haircuts a year. No one competes well with shaggy asymmetrical hair and two-day stubble. What works for musicians fails for athletes.

I’ve heard of professional football players who get manicures and pedicures. What can we learn from these elite athletes? Clip your nails. I’ve seen male college athletes who shave their legs before a competition. Many NBA players shave their armpits.

Before your athletes compete, have them cut their hair, clip their nails, shave their faces, brush their teeth, and take showers.

 

3. Faith, Love, and Encouragement

Build a program based on the positive feelings of faith, love, and encouragement. Faith is a performance enhancer. When I speak of faith, I speak of the coach’s faith in his athlete. I speak of the faith team members have in each other. When people believe in you before you perform, you perform well.

Love is also a performance enhancer. The older I’ve become, the more comfortable I am telling my athletes I love them. Love is a powerful drug. To me, love is unconditional. When I tell my athletes I love them, I’m telling them I will love them through thick and thin, through winning and losing. This love allows athletes to race without fear of failure. Fear is also a powerful drug. Love trumps fear.

Encourage is possibly my favorite word in coaching. Share on X

Encourage is possibly my favorite word in coaching. Encourage means to give courage. Encouragement is related to faith and love but goes even further. When we combine faith, love, and encouragement, our sprinters will sprint faster.

Many kids live with the opposite of faith, love, and encouragement. Too many kids have adults in their lives who doubt them. Many kids live in the absence of unconditional love. School can be terribly discouraging. I knew of a teacher who was proud that his nickname was “soul-crusher.”

Unloved, doubted, and discouraged athletes are incapable of breakthrough performances.

 

I’ve developed some science to back up the performance enhancing effects of faith, love, and encouragement.

At Plainfield North, we run thousands of 40’s and 10m flys. We start in November. We typically have about fifty guys in a sprint group. Five years ago, I had an idea. Instead of every runner waiting patiently to run, I had them create gauntlets, forming 40-yard lines on both sides of the lane. They made lots of noise, clapped, and generally raised hell for each runner as they sprinted their 40. The results were amazing.

The average times (six weeks of data) improved from 5.21 to 5.07, a 2.6% improvement. Plus 65% of the runners ran a personal record. The average 10m fly time (automated) improved from 1.27 to 1.23, a 3.3% improvement. And 68% of the runners ran a personal record.

Overall, 96% of the runners ran faster than their average time. See the results here Gauntlet Study 2011.

Coaches have known about faith, love, and encouragement for years. My gauntlet study quantified it.

4. Buy Speed Suits

If you want your sprinters to perform like superheroes, dress them like superheroes. Speed suits matter. The suits may cost $100 each, but a 4×1 school record is priceless.

Speed suits may cost $100 each, but a 4x1 school record is priceless. Share on X

My 4×1 this year was expected to be good, but we’d lost our two all-state seniors and had to scramble to find replacements. We went with two guys who had never run a 4×1 in their lives, Hunter Houslet (soccer) and Clay Paysen (lacrosse). We ran 42.23 in April and 41.87 in early May.

I didn’t believe we were capable of running faster. When you run as fast as you can and your handoffs are perfect, how do you improve your time? Speed suits. I found a company in Texas that gave great service, great artwork, and a turnaround time of fewer than four weeks. My contact was Shane at Knockout Sportswear.

 

Our speed suits turned heads. Some said we looked like superheroes. The first time we wore them, we won the SPC conference 4×1 (pictured above). The second time we wore them, we were at Sectional and ran a school record 41.72. This time ranks 4th in Illinois for the 2016 track season.

 

5. Activation

Learn how to trigger the parasympathetic state in your athletes with activation, and learn how activation promotes explosive performances. I recently attended the Douglas Heel seminar in Minneapolis hosted by Cal Dietz, University of Minnesota, and my consortium partner, Chris Korfist. I’ve now attended four Douglas Heel level-one seminars and two level-two seminars. I’ve also spent countless hours watching Chris, the Douglas Heel of the U.S., do his magic.

 

Activation is catching on everywhere. Hundreds of Illinois athletes were activated before the state meet. I personally activated Travis Anderson (coached by my son Alec) who ran 13.59 and 13.71 in the 110 highs (video). Travis is only a junior.

At Sectional, Minooka 4×4 anchor, Matt Dlugopolski, was unsure if he could run the 4×4 due to hamstring tightness and potential injury. Coach Nick Lundin asked me to activate Matt, and he was a new man when he got off the table. Activation helped Matt split 48.2.

 

I could write a book on miraculous activation stories. I’ve lost count of the number kids unable to sprint who regained pain-free and a full range of motion after one activation session.

Yes, activation can fix a broken sprinter. More important, activation allows the body to function in an explosive way. The sympathetic state (think adrenaline) is an imploded state. The sympathetic state is a state of fear, and we don’t perform well in a state of fear. The body functions best in the parasympathetic state where movement is initiated from zone one (diaphragm, psoas, and glutes).

Last fall, I was training an athlete named Michael Papper. Michael loved how activation made him feel, and his sprint numbers reflected how his body felt. Michael’s 10m fly times (timed with Freelap) were between 1.00 and 1.02 consistently during our first four weeks of training.

In the fifth week of training, Michael ran two 10m flys in 1.04 and 1.05. Michael is obsessively analytical, and sprint numbers can make or break his day. After reassuring him that speed ebbs and flows, Michael asked to be activated again. Ten minutes later, he ran a shocking 0.97. The difference between a 1.04 and a 0.97 is the equivalent of 100m times of 11.40 and 10.70.

The skeptics will point to the lack of science in my discussion of activation, but coaches can’t wait for science. We learn from our experiences and share our findings through storytelling.

The cost for Douglas Heel’s weekend seminar was $950. The two-day event is life changing. If you ever get a chance to attend, jump at it. Here’s the good news. “Sports Activation” can be taught in a couple hours.

Activation will be taught at the Track-Football Consortium III held June 17 and 18. TFC-3 costs $150, and tickets are still available. At the time of writing this article, we have people from fifteen states signed up. The attendees will include track coaches, football coaches, strength and conditioning coaches, chiropractors, personal trainers, athletes, and parents. Oregon’s Jimmy Radcliffe is our keynote speaker.

Chris Korfist will be teaching Activation July 16 in Shelbyville in central Illinois. Click here for information.

I will teach activation three times at the Glazier Track & Field Clinic in Los Angeles Sept 30 to October 2. Glazier has put together an amazing line-up, and you can’t beat the price. Seriously, you can’t beat the price of this clinic. It’s free.

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

 

English | 中国语文

For coaches looking for a drill that impacts a runner’s form, the mini-hurdle run is the best. During my years of coaching, I’ve tried almost every running drill. Most of the time, I haven’t seen much of a change in my athletes. Not until I hit Frans Bosch’s Running DVD. His video was different because he described the purpose of the drills and explained when a drill is appropriate. I love the drills and how they focus on the timing of a sprint.

My interpretation of Bosch’s definition of sprint timing focuses on the position of the swing leg’s knee relative to the plant leg’s knee in the midstance phase. In a perfect position, the knee of the swing leg should be slightly in front of the plant leg.

In this position, the knee has a chance to raise to its highest position and allow a perfect toe off.

The position also gives the center of mass time to travel to a point where the swing leg does not land prematurely and cause deceleration. If the athlete is late in the gait, the knee will be behind, and there won’t be enough time in the cycle for the foot to land in a proper position.

This adds contact time and often forces the runner to push their run, which creates an improper hip position and a long leg in back.

Peter Weyand proved that legs have limited time to reposition. With confined time in the air and a leg that is back too far, the rear leg becomes late, and the cycle repeats. I have never seen a fast athlete, male or female, who runs late. Likewise, I’ve never seen a runner with proper timing run slow.

This is a common problem with runners. In Bosch’s DVD, he offers a drill to solve it. The mini-hurdle run. By placing mini hurdles at a set distance, we can force and drill an athlete into perfect timing.

The video below shows a running athlete I had never worked with before. As he runs, watch his trail leg. I mark the position of his knee relative to his glute. Ideally, the knee should stay underneath his glute when his toe comes off the ground. This athlete’s foot and knee extend too far back which causes his pelvis to rotate forward (look at the shape of his shirt) and his push to extend. He is late in the gait.

Video 1. An example of a runner late in the gait.

I set up a series of 8 hurdles that are 6 inches high and 1.5m apart. Without giving him any cues or coaching, I asked him to run through. In the video below, notice the immediate improvement with his timing. Suddenly, it was much better. His knee drive was improved and, more importantly at midstance, his knee was placed in a much better position. This gave him the opportunity to have proper form. I asked him not to lead with his toes on contact and told him to squish bugs when he runs.

Video 2. The runner improves form with the mini-hurdle drill.

On a side note, his Nike Free shoes were part of his problem because they have a high drop of 14mm. Athletes who wear these shoes tend to hit with their toes first, not with the midfoot. (So much for the barefoot shoe from Nike. Marketing over matter.)

The mini-hurdle run improves a runner’s form without any cues. Share on X

This is a great drill. I can change a runner’s form without any cues. With repetition, it becomes their gait. Without this relationship, an athlete can rarely run fast. The knee will never make it if the pelvis is rotated forward from the extended push. The hamstring will never have time to work if the pelvis is too busy rotating. This drill forces good form. As for other more popular drills, like all the high knee drills, they are worthwhile when the timing is off.

From here, I build variations on the mini-hurdle run. I increase the distance between hurdles and try to keep the same relationship. I have a mark for 1.7m, 1.9m, and 2.1m. If the runners keep the same form when I push them to go further, I’ll force them to increase vertical force into the ground for top end speed development.

It’s important to film from the side, so you’re not training the athlete to overstride. Most athletes drive to make the longer distance and forget the purpose of the drill. Although my faster runner can make the 2.1m without breaking form, I’ve found that the shorter distances (1.5-1.7m) at higher speed are more effective for my athletes. I am more concerned about the rate of force in a vertical scenario.

I usually use 8 to 10 hurdles made of ½-inch PVC. We do these every practice day as part of our warm-up cycle. Athletes will run through it 6 to 8 times. We tell them to go 80-90% effort and to concentrate on squishing bugs and fast repositioning of their knees.

Editors Note: Chris Korfist will be presenting at the Track & Football Consortium III at Montini High School, Lombard, IL June 17-18, 2016.

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

When thinking about sponsored athletes, do images of logos on clothing come to mind? While logo placement is definitely a part of sponsorship, it’s a very minor part. There is so much more athletes, in all sports and of any level, can offer to sponsors.

Athletes, by the very nature of what they do, are great content resources for a company’s social media and other marketing activities. Whether you’re approaching a new sponsor, or wanting to improve a current sponsorship, you will stand out from the other athletes and give true value back to your sponsors if you think outside the square.

Here are my three favorite creative ideas.

Athlete: Long distance trail runner
Sponsors: Nutrition and protein products
Creative idea: Athlete was invited to lunch at a MasterChef kitchen and challenged the chefs to create a dessert platter using his sponsored sports nutrition products. He filmed it, and the video went viral.

Athletes: Male gymnastics team
Sponsor: Watch brand
Creative idea: Team suggested the watch company run an international challenge against other elite gymnastics teams. The challenge was to hold a one-handed handstand for the longest time, using the watch to time it. Really nice, natural product placement. And a fun activity encouraging widespread engagement.

Athlete: Race car driver
Sponsor: Premium car manufacturer
Creative idea: The driver collaborated with a DJ and graffiti artist to hold a public event with live music. The artist covered the race car with graffiti using the sponsor’s colors and logo. The driver raced in this car for the year. So cool!

The key is to look at the company’s marketing activities developed to achieve their business goals and see what you can do to add value to those activities. Examine how you can enhance what they are already doing. Then consider how you can make it easier, more effective, faster, or cheaper.

Here are some great ideas from me and some of the amazing athletes and industry professionals who are part of my Athlete Hub group:

1. Collaborate. Get together with other athletes, artists, musicians, and photographers.

2. Create a challenge. Think of a creative and fun challenge that will allow your sponsors to showcase their brand, products, or services while connecting them with their current and potentially wider audience. If your sponsor is a nutrition powder company, create a challenge for people to come up with the best recipe.

3. Bring your expertise to the business. Use another skill or qualification you have. For example, maybe you’re an artist and can offer to paint a commissioned art piece for the company’s foyer.

4. Bring your expertise to the staff: yoga instructor, nutritionist, mindset coach.

5. Get the product used in a creative way. Take your nutrition sponsor’s products to your local cafe and ask them to make some cool and simple recipes using the protein powder.

6. Unique photos. Offer to do 365 days of snapshots. Place the products in unique or famous places.

7. Competition. Create a fun competition using the product. For example, Where’s Wally–hide the product in a place that’s hard to find and snap a picture. Hand out photos and have participants search for it.

8. Offer to interview the company’s other athletes or staff for their social media and internal communications.

9. Coach Fraser Cameron at Changing Stride suggests: Try a quiz night. The athlete invites their entire network, including other athletes, coaches, sports admin, friends, and family. Have some guest speakers, such has athletes, the marketing manager, and the CEO. Sell tables for the quiz. The company could provide the prizes. Questions would be topical about athletes and sponsors, fruitful and less successful relationships, and the sponsor’s products or services. Also, provide an opportunity to talk about the future. The goal is to create a community, a joint athlete and company family.

10. Run a team building workshop. Discover something the sponsor’s staff is struggling with and come up with fun activities to help the team work together to solve the problem, face a fear, or learn something new. It would be great to use elements from your sport in this session.

11. Jup Brown, Charity Runner and Brand Ambassador suggests: When planning an event or adventure (or even a training session), offer to start, go through, or finish at the sponsor’s office or shop. Adding this to your event is great for you and the sponsor. I changed the start of my Canada ride to do this. We even had a send-off party at the site the night before. It was great to meet people before I started and show that the company is getting behind many different things. I thought of this while I was sitting face to face with them, explaining my plan. They felt great and became more interested in my crazy idea. It was awesome for me because I had so many more people excited to follow me, share, and be a part of my ride before I even started.

12. Host a motivational lunchtime talk. Think about some of the ups and downs you experience as an athlete and of some of your most inspirational and emotionally charged stories. Share these in a way to motivate your audience to make some positive changes in their lives, face some fears, or even feel a little happier in their day.

13. Arrange a networking event for sponsors (yours and other athletes).

14. Offer a team building workshop or motivational talk that your sponsor can give to a client as a gift.

15. Get temporary tattoos made with your sponsor’s logo. Or a real one if you really love the company!

16. Offer to MC an event held by your sponsor. Ideas include fun runs, competitions, and community events. Be the person who lifts up everyone else. Show your expertise in the sport and throw some fun, cool facts, and statistics into the mix. It’s actually a lot of fun and a great way to be seen (and liked) by a lot of people.

17. Offer a “creative ways to give back to sponsors” workshop for their other sponsored athletes. Facilitate the workshop and get the conversation and creativity flowing.

18. Offer to support their charity of choice and raise awareness by dedicating a race or event and sharing posts on your social media.

19. Event activations. If your sponsor is planning to have an exhibit booth at a trade show or community event, think of ways you can make the day more effective for them. You could organize a social media competition that ensures people connect online and requires them to visit the booth. Or create a challenge at the booth, encouraging people to visit, such as a skills test.

20. Social media reporter. Offer your social media skills for one of your sponsor’s big events, such as a product launch. You could be the “paparazzi for a day” and capture all the fun and excitement including mini-interviews with guests and candid photos of the activities. And you can encourage guests to participate on social media.

Kirsty Starmer, Elite Volleyball Coach offers three final ideas.

21. A day in the life of the product. For example, if it’s a pair of trainers, take pictures of the shoes throughout the day.

22. A lot of people take pictures of mascots when they travel. It would be cool for the mascot to have a hat or t-shirt with the sponsor’s logo. It will take selfies to a whole new level.

23. Offer a content module for the company’s e-learning program. You could deliver your content or the sponsor’s. Or you could offer a motivation session to their staff. The options are endless.

Sponsored athletes should tie marketing ideas to their sponsors’ business objectives. Share on X

As your creative juices start flowing, always remember to tie your idea to the sponsor’s business objectives. It’s only great value to them if it actually helps them.

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

Why do we coach? This is a question I ask myself on a yearly, monthly, weekly, and sometimes even daily basis. There are times when I feel confident in my abilities, and there are times that I feel like a complete failure. Failure is ok, not learning or growing from failure is unacceptable. Following a dismal season last year, I committed to learn from my experience.

At our district championship last season, our girls’ 4×1 was DQ’d. Our boys’ 4×1 was also DQ’d. Our male jumpers, who just the week before PR’d with jumps over 20 feet, didn’t get a mark over 17-6. Both our 4×2 relays placed outside the two and therefore did not qualify to the next round. Our best female jumper set a personal best, but still didn’t qualify for the next round.

We qualified the fewest number of individuals to the next round since I began coaching track and field at Captain John L. Chapin High School in 2010. I’m responsible for writing the daily workouts for our short and long sprinters, relays, and horizontal jumpers. I felt incompetent and, at that moment, reacted like one too. After reflecting on the disastrous results, I knew I had to make changes to our training program and overall methods.

The traveling I did this summer was documented in a previous article. After returning, I felt like I still had more to do. I reached out daily to coaches of high school, collegiate, and professional athletes and all of them helped me. Coach Tony Holler from Plainfield North High School, Christopher Glaeser of Freelap USA, Coach Gabe Sanders at Stanford, Coach Ron Grigg from Jacksonville University, Coach Rueben Jones from Columbia University, Coach Anthony Veney of Ventura Community College, Coach Kenta Bell, former Olympic triple jumper, and Cody Bidlow of Athletex, a former intern at ALTIS.

All highly successful coaches with individual philosophies that helped me rethink my coaching abilities in a worthwhile manner. And, out of sheer desperation, I emailed Latif Thomas, owner and founder of Complete Track and Field, to see if he was willing to serve as a mentor.

I have been purchasing Latif’s programs since 2011 when I started writing the workouts for our program, and I’ve transformed how we coach our athletes. The majority of his programs are designed for high school athletes, and I consider him a great asset. It’s one thing to communicate with a mentor by email or direct message, but it’s another to communicate weekly by phone and be able to ask very detailed questions about specific athletes, progressions, and any topic an obsessive coach like myself can think of. Latif receives hundreds of inquiries daily, and I felt as if I won the mentorship lottery when he agreed to mentor me for the entire season.

Coaches mentoring coaches can impact one’s outlook on the entire profession. Share on X

This article is about more than the gains, marks, and personal bests we set this season. This article is about how mentoring a coach can change someone’s outlook on an entire profession. How we need to start sharing what we know as coaches for the benefit of our athletes and sport. And how we need to stop trying to hide our training secrets because of our oversized egos or any other detrimental reasons.

These are my top 10 “Latifisms” based on what I learned from Coach Thomas.

Coach the Athlete, Not Your Opinion

Our job is to make sure an athlete performs to the best of their ability, and more importantly, maintain a safe environment in which they remain mentally and physically healthy. We take great pride in knowing why we do a specific warm up, drill, workout, and stretch. We encourage kids to ask why about everything we do during practice. If we can’t give them a response that makes sense to them, they aren’t obligated to perform that activity or exercise. We want our athletes to become students of their events and to be curious about everything related to the sport.

This type of relationship builds trust and develops an athlete’s confidence. With so much information readily available in this digital age, it’s easy for an athlete to discover whether what is being asked of them in practice repeatedly is total nonsense or legit. This season, we had several kids ask why we warm up differently on certain days, why we only do voluntary yoga on Wednesday and not a full practice, and why we haven’t practiced blocks two days before the first meet. And many other questions only teenagers ask. And you know how many athletes skipped an exercise, practice, weight room session, etc. because we couldn’t answer their questions? None. Yes, we are encouraging kids to question adults and in doing so, they make us better coaches while they become better student-athletes.

This lesson extends to several outdated coaching methods. We are entitled to coach as we see fit, but don’t coach in a specific manner because that’s the way it’s always been done. I don’t mean that stuff considered old school doesn’t work anymore. I only mean that if you’re too hard headed about your opinion and research is punching you in the face telling you otherwise, do something about it.

Before this season, I believed Wednesdays were recovery days. Recovery included core work, general strength, and hurdle mobility. This year, we changed Wednesday to voluntary yoga day. Or sometimes we gave them an entire day off. Was it weird? Yes. Was it uncomfortable? Absolutely. But who am I to argue with science over the importance of rest, recovery, and time away from the track. This gave our athletes time to socialize, attend tutoring, and live the lives of high school students.

I stopped coaching my opinions and started coaching my athletes. Share on X

Last year, if someone disagreed with me about the importance of Wednesday practice, I would have said they had no clue what they were talking about. Then I stopped coaching my opinion and started coaching the athletes.

Progress the Athlete Based on Skill, Not Time of Year

At the state qualifying meet, I witnessed a female hurdler from a competing school win the 100 hurdle finals without using blocks. I commend her coach. Our top female jumper set her personal best of 37’7” this year with a 13-step approach. She never performed bounding at practice because she can’t land heel to toe during bounding. This year, she performed skips for height, skips for distance, hurdle gallops, 6-step short approaches, and a lot of speed work on the runway. She had 2 jumps over 37 feet and several 36-feet jumps, by far her most consistent year. Why? Because we only progressed based on skill.

Blocks can give an athlete an advantage if used correctly. But the majority of high school sprinters shouldn’t use blocks. If used properly, a sprinter can hit 50% of their full speed after two steps and 80% after 8 steps. But most kids pop straight up, spin their wheels, take cute tiny baby steps with no violence, bend at the waist, or do other indescribable actions out of blocks.

At the high school level, we have to work bad habits out of dozens of athletes. These include bad posture and foot strike. Yet everyone wants to use blocks, fancy bounding drills, eye-popping hurdle drills, and other elaborate social media finds. Again, these serve no purpose if done incorrectly. Whatever the skill, let athletes feel the position, watch themselves on video, receive feedback, and work toward improving skills before progressing.

Give 2, Take 2

In a recent Freelap article written by Nick Newman, “The Horizontal Jumps: Technical Training for the Long Jump,” he mentioned, “Fouling is a psychological choice,” referring to jumpers who constantly foul, even by an inch, at every level. The same can be said of relay handoffs. The “give 2, take 2 approach” is a way to develop handoffs with your relays, specifically the 4×100 relay. With this method, the incoming runner (1st/3rd leg) will only give 2 handoffs during practice, and the outgoing runner will only receive 2. (We practice 3rd to 4th exchange on a different day.) If both fail, so be it. We only get one chance at a meet.

The psychological training is extremely effective because it forces athletes to focus from the very beginning. They don’t have any reps to waste. Generally, we practice sprint relays handoffs twice a week, and each athlete knows they must get the job done within the allotted reps.
Athletes will beg, plead, and argue for an extra rep. Don’t give it to them. Halfway through the season, we changed our 1st leg to our anchor, and we handed the baton outside the zone 2x this season in competition during the final exchange. We failed. But at practice, we never changed our philosophy. Our anchor was often frustrated that we wouldn’t practice until we achieved the perfect handoff. Now, if they (3rd to 4th leg) get the exchange on the first try, there’s no need for a 2nd rep.

By season’s end, our female team ran their best times of the season, including a state qualifying time of 48.25. Were the handoffs perfect? No. But psychologically, our girls understood they had only one chance at the meet because in practice they got it right or they didn’t. These are the same four girls who dropped the baton at district last year. This year they earned our school’s first regional sprint relay title.

Our boy’s sprint relay squad earned a 2nd place at district, finishing with a season best time of 42.55. They also mishandled several handoffs during the season, but by focusing during practice, they became focused during competition and important meets. They improved their time by an entire second at the championship meet.

One final note about the “give 2, take 2” approach. We don’t perform any reps at 50% or 75% because that never occurs during a meet and because perceived efforts among athletes differ. What one athlete thinks is 50% may be faster or slower to another athlete. I would much rather work on stationary hand placement drills that transfer much more effectively to the race.

Peaking Starts on Day 1

At our first day of practice this year, a mass of kids pushed and drove themselves up a steep hill, placed themselves against a fence to feel specific body positions, and pushed sleds down a football field. We resembled a summer football training program. We were trying to develop acceleration mechanics.

In the middle of the season, some of our kids were using resistance belts to continue to feel acceleration mechanics. During our final meets, coaches filmed our remaining athletes accelerating out of blocks or during handoffs. Our practices have not changed much regarding volume and intensity during our push (acceleration) day.

I don’t know the magic workouts for peaking. We don’t have a fail-proof formula for peaking our athletes toward the end of the season. I don’t think either exists, and I’ve asked everyone including Latif. If someone knew the secret formula or workout programs for peaking, they’d be super rich by now, even in track and field.

Yet 95% of our athletes ran their fastest times this season when it mattered most, during championship season. We followed the basic principles of championship phase workouts: kept the intensity high, lowered the density, and continued with recovery as needed. For us, however, championship season starts on the first day of practice. What does this mean?

We don’t wait until the end of the season to address speed, posture, form, health, and everything related to performing. Whatever training philosophy you believe in–short to long, long to short, a mixture of both, plyos or no plyos, lifting only during the off-season or lifting all the way through the end of the season–I learned that peaking is a process. If we believe and trust the process, the end result will take care of itself.

Plan backward from your last meet toward your first meet, write down which energy systems and skills your athletes should work on during specific times of the season, and remain flexible. Latif helped me write workouts one week at a time, sometimes on the first practice day of the week. Does that make me lazy or unprepared? Of course not.

We must remain flexible, taking into account two-day meets, how athletes feel, travel, high school social lives, and unexpected circumstances. We all want the golden ticket, the perfect set of circumstances for peaking, but that doesn’t exist in track and field. The coach and the athlete must develop a process, follow it, and trust it.

Sprinting Resembles a Gymnastics Routine

Just like a gymnastics routine, sprinting has a certain tempo, rhythm, cadence, and timing. When a sprinter has a great race in the 100, 200, or 400, it’s truly a thing of beauty. Athletes need to feel the positions of sprinting and then express those movements during sprint performances. Acceleration should be violent and aggressive, but it also requires patience, timing, and synchronization. Coach Sanders describes it as a blend of aggression and extension. The beginning of every sprint event requires an effective and explosive acceleration pattern. Gymnasts wouldn’t dare skip the beginning of a rehearsed routine, and track sprinters should know how the beginning of each sprinting event should feel.

At the high school level, our coaching staff doesn’t talk about a transition phase, max velocity phase, holding speed endurance, or a decelerating at the end of a race. Each aspect of the race is addressed in training. Max velocity is addressed through fly runs, wickets, and sprint-float-sprint sessions. We focus on speed endurance by sprinting at high intensities between 15 to 30-second efforts. And we race model at practice, from the first week to the end of the season. Like gymnasts, we prepare for each aspect of a specific sprinting event. Sprinters need to become aware and feel each aspect of their event, train it, feel it, and perform it, just like a gymnast.

Don’t Chase Speed, Let Speed Come to You

This was the first season we used the Freelap timing system to help develop our sprinters. We timed accelerations and fly runs and ensured our sprinters maintained effective mechanics. High school boys, especially, love using Freelap because of the competition and the instant feedback. However, we kept having to repeat phrases like “You don’t get any medals for winning the first 10-30 meters” and “Try easy.”

The irony of using a timing system is that times are generally slower at the beginning because athletes strain so hard to run fast times that they unintentionally and haphazardly develop terrible mechanics.

Speed, like many aspects of life, is something we don’t want to chase. Let it come. At the high school level, we often use the relationship analogy. The harder you chase someone you like, the faster they will date someone else. Specifically not you; someone drastically different than you. That is the PG-13 version, of course.

Another analogy we use is the harder you chase popularity and other peoples’ approval, the faster your real self will slip away. Granted these aren’t Thoreau style quotes that will blow you away. But for high school athletes, the quotes put into perspective the concepts of patience with acceleration, floating, and relaxing at the finish. We must be able to speak our athletes’ language and help them understand how speed comes together during a race.

Don’t Marry Your Workouts to Volume

A recent conversation with a collaborating coach began with the question, “How much volume did ‘x athlete’ perform this week?” My response, as respectfully as possible: “We don’t care about volume.” This coach went into a three-minute explanation of why volume was so important, specifically in the 400-meter sprint. I honestly remember zero about his defense, not because I wasn’t listening, but because it was the same philosophy I’ve heard during clinics and presentations. His words, not mine: “If you want to be great, you have to be willing to run what the great ones run as professionals and in college. And they run a lot.” I just don’t see it.

Our long sprinters know the hardest workout they’ll face will be 5×200 with a 5-minute recovery at race pace or 4×300 with a 4-minute recovery also at race pace. We never deviated from this plan. Once we started running in track meets, we let the races take care of specific performance in all sprinting events. Our long sprinters did between 1,000 to 1,200 meters of specific work on a given day. That’s it. They didn’t have to hit x amount of meters before they were declared fit enough to continue to the next phase of training. They didn’t run x amount of meters just because “the great ones” do it.

Follow the math. Our male 4×4 had three sprinters consistently record sub 50 splits. We broke the previous school record and ran a season best of 3:20.28. Unfortunately in Texas, qualifying can be unpleasant. We placed 3rd in our own district after running 3:23.1 and were unable to advance. We live in a cruel world. The irony is, we were beaten by two teams that wholeheartedly believe in voluminous training. It was a bittersweet conclusion for our 4×4. Would I change anything about the small amount of volume our long sprinters ran? Absolutely not. Our opponents were the better teams on that day. And I know we achieved a lot without an enormous concern paid to volume.

Divorce yourself from volume requisites. Free yourself from unnecessary worry. Liberate yourself with the knowledge that sprinters can run fast times based, not on volume, but on specific event work during a season.

Speed Creates Endurance, Endurance Does Not Create Speed

We go fast on day one and, as our season concludes, we’re still training fast. We do want our athletes to have a base, but it’s a base of power and speed. All our sprinters, from 100 to 400 meters, trained fast the entire season. The only long endurance day was actually a recovery day and, even then, we used many general strength circuits to get away from endurance runs.

What kind of endurance does a 100-meter sprinter need when they sprint from 10 to 14 seconds? What kind of endurance does a 200-meter sprinter need when they are on the track from 22 to 30 seconds? They need short speed endurance and speed endurance.

What kind of endurance does a 400-meter sprinter need? The smartest coaches describe the 400 meters as a race where speed is extremely important. Kebba Tolbert, Associate Head Coach at Harvard, surmised the event like this: “The 400 is a race of controlled deceleration, where speed and strategy are of vital, yet often neglected, importance.” Vince Anderson of Texas A&M said, “The 400 is a sprint…the longest submaximal sprint contested in global track and field.” Is endurance needed in the 400-meter sprint? Absolutely. It’s a very specific endurance that can be developed with speed and not slow, agonizing, painful, pointless runs.

Our program is not short to long. Nor is it long to short. Our program is based on developing skills and improving athletes’ strengths. Unfortunately, endurance and volume-based programs often work because the program has phenomenal athletes. A phenom athlete at the high school level can hide many glaring weaknesses during an entire program. I have witnessed this year after year. I’ve been a part of it.

Asking your athletes to go out for aimless timed runs, repeating 500s, 600s, 700s, and 800s is abuse. Using the phrase recovery day to describe a speed session is absurd. And it’s too easy to coach this way. The goal of every sprinter, including long sprinters, should be to develop speed, proper sprinting mechanics, specific endurance, and an overall understanding of the race.

Little Things Add up to Big Things

This takes patience. This aspect of coaching is hard. This is where communication is key. This is where feedback and expectations matter. The ability to identify an area where an athlete will benefit the most is difficult. For example, working on feeling and expressing explosive positions during acceleration can take an entire season. It’s easy to put kids in blocks and let them do an endless amount of starts. Identifying the little things during acceleration, specifically during the first two steps, takes analysis, appropriate feedback, strength training, individualization, and patience.

Our best 100-meter male sprinter finally broke through the 11-second barrier in his final meet by going 10.95. A member our girl’s 4×1 meter relay broke through the 13-second barrier by sprinting 12.8 in her final open race. This resulted from filming and breaking down their sessions, cueing and communicating in a way that made sense to them, and performing appropriate strength and supplemental exercises that contributed directly to their success. Together, these little things added up to big things and eventually brought season and personal bests.

From the way athletes warm up to the way they cool down and everything in between, it’s vital they understand that the little things play a significant role in their overall success.

Kids Love Fair and Authentic

As a coach, my biggest struggle is to work athletes hard and still allow them to have fun. I’ve strived to develop meaningful and deep relationships with many of my athletes. I firmly believe in out-working other coaches by reading more, attending more clinics, questioning mentors, and reviewing what has worked and what hasn’t. We expect athletes in our program to attend practice, work hard, recover, eat right, and be positive. These expectations are realistic. As coaches, we should talk to an athlete about life, smile, laugh, tell stories, and be genuine.

In my second year coaching, I essentially forced by best 100-meter hurdle female athlete to run the 300 hurdles. I promised her that, if she didn’t try her best during the race at an unimportant meet, I was going to take away the 100-meter hurdles or kick her off the team. She essentially sprinted for 150 meters and then jogged her way into the finish. I was an unrealistic and terrible coach.

Throughout the years, I’ve argued with athletes in front of their teammates. I’ve suspended and kicked athletes off the team because I didn’t consider them coachable or they didn’t listen to my explicit coaching instructions. It happened this season, more than once, but then I changed.

We must communicate with athletes. We must let them know our expectations. We must constantly remind ourselves we are coaching 14- to 18-year-olds. And we must treat them how we want to be treated. Recently, Coach Sanders stated, “Walking to practice should never feel like walking to death row.” It sounds severe, but I used to make athletes feel this way.

Latif reminded me, “You must find what is important to people and use that to motivate them.” Every athlete has a trigger point, a story, a background, a circumstance. These are not excuses, they are real situations. I can’t yell at everyone. Not every athlete cares about school records, qualifying for state, winning district, and earning a bunch of medals.

Being fair and authentic requires a coach to be a good listener. Share on X

Teenagers have a great BS detector, and they can smell a fraud. Being fair and authentic requires a coach to be a good listener, patient, nurturing, understanding, honest, and most importantly, genuine.

This is, by far, the most important aspect of coaching I learned this year.

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