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A team of 30 athletes walks into the weight room. Since you last saw them 48 hours ago, each of those 30 athletes has lived a completely different life. Each one is in a different state of wellbeing, driven by the choices they made over those hours. Athletes have to decide whether they ate enough or brace themselves through another plate of dining hall food; whether they should finish their assignment or go to bed now to be ready for practice tomorrow morning.

These choices affect the readiness of the body to train the next day. Wellness questionnaires are a great tool for initially screening athletes to understand their readiness. In my previous article, I expanded on how I use focused questions to extract the most meaningful information with wellness questionnaires. In this article, I will expand on how to integrate questionnaires into an operational monitoring system that has set checkpoints for protecting athlete wellbeing.

Individual readiness is part of what makes team sports challenging to work with—a multitude of factors are at play and various stakeholders hope to control them. Each stakeholder has their methods and input into the final product:

• Sport coaches have practices, competitions, film sessions, and more.
• Athletic trainers have rehab sessions, preparticipation screening, coverage of practice, and more.
• Strength and conditioning coaches have weight room sessions, speed sessions, conditioning sessions, and more.

Individual readiness is part of what makes team sports challenging to work with—a multitude of factors are at play and various stakeholders hope to control them, says @Torinshanahan42. Share on X

Athletes are pulled in different directions. Each make their own choices and respond differently.

Varying responses lead to different degrees of wellbeing for each athlete. Asking each athlete how they feel before each training session takes time, something strength and conditioning professionals do not have a lot to spare. Wellness questionnaires are a tool that coaches can use to screen athletes and focus their attention on those in the most need of their time.

Combining subjective and objective information signals athletes who may feel something is wrong or objectively a measure is telling you something is wrong. Combined with a coach’s experience and expertise, coaches can provide the proper modifications to training and/or recovery, if necessary, to protect the health and safety of the athlete.

Questionnaires need to ask streamlined questions with unambiguous answer choices. The questionnaires I use ask about the athlete’s current level of fatigue, mood, the quality of the previous night’s sleep, and how many hours of sleep they got the night before. The first three questions—fatigue, mood, and sleep quality—are the subjective questions. These are up to the athlete based on their interpretation of their own body.

The response system for these questions removes ambiguity. They have three possible responses: below average, average, and above average. In that previous article, I argue that this system increases the signal by increasing the concreteness and relatability of the answer options. A fifth question can be added about resting heart rate for centralized data collection. With resting heart rate added, there are two objective questions.

The subjective questions signal when athletes feel something is wrong, while the objective questions signal when their body is telling them something is wrong. Once signaled, coaches can use their experience and expertise to provide the proper modifications to training and/or recovery, if necessary, to protect the health of the athlete.

Operational readiness systems create change by impacting decision-making, while non-operational systems are just for show. The following will provide steps to enact an operational readiness monitoring system.

Operational readiness systems create change by impacting decision-making, while non-operational systems are just for show, says @Torinshanahan42. Share on X

Making the System Operational

Every strength coach has the same goals: more resilient and effective athletes. Creating change means applying a stimulus as an external load that creates a responsive internal load. Training is the application of stress to athletes. Their readiness comes from the ability to recover from the previous stressors. Wellness is the athlete’s health, and readiness is defined as an athlete’s ability to perform. Both are impacted by previous training, sports competitions and practice, sleep, nutrition, and many more factors.

An operational monitoring system determines the athlete’s wellbeing through multiple measures. Coaches then utilize expertise, experience, and evidence to respond to the state of an athlete. As always in this field, context is king. When making a system operational, factors that must be accounted for are:

• The sport
• The number of athletes
• Recovery and nutrition resources
• Time of year
• Current goals

The objective of any readiness system is not to make decisions, but to provide support to conversations about those decisions around the development of more resilient and superior athletes.

Operational wellness monitoring systems:

1. Provide information

• Combine subjective and objective information
• Measure multiple systems

2. Guide discussions about training modifications
3. Enhance training outcomes by responding to an athlete’s capability to train

Measuring the Multiple Systems Involved in Readiness

The complexity of the human body offers decision-makers a high degree of uncertainty. Facts that reduce uncertainty are information. Data can become information by quantifying systems involved in the complexity that is trying to be understood. Extracting information from data revolves around the ability to simplify it to a point that can be interpreted. Enough data points must be mapped to paint a clear picture of the most impactful complements to the complex system.

Painting clear pictures requires building a battery of sources from specific systems with large effects on the wellbeing of the athlete. Wellbeing has psychological and physical roots. The psychological systems involved are the athlete’s mind and thoughts. Physical systems involved in the recovery process between training are the central nervous system, the musculoskeletal, and many more.

On the psychological side in the readiness equation are subjective questions. The human mind is incredibly powerful, and a person’s perception can drastically alter the physical outputs of the body. Understanding an athlete’s own reflection on their status with subjective questions informs the practitioner on where they feel they are at. There is commonly a link between their physical status and perception of this status, but inaccuracies here must be understood as they require a specific approach from the coach.

The human mind is incredibly powerful, and a person’s perception can drastically alter the physical outputs of the body, says @Torinshanahan42. Share on X

Objective measures cut through the ambiguity of perceptions to the true status of the body. The central nervous system (CNS) ties into every other part of the body. The CNS is highly involved in readiness due to its widespread effect. Heart rate measures like resting heart rate or heart rate variability provide information on autonomic nervous system function. Information can be gathered on the stress response and recovery drive of the nervous system. The somatic nervous system (SNS) is the branch controlling the muscles. Testing the SNS sheds light on the maximal output that the athlete is capable of, which can include (but is not limited to) counter-movement jumps, depth jumps, and isometric mid-thigh pulls.

Recovery between training is important, as insufficient recovery with constant training pushes athletes down the hole and eventually off the cliff. Sleep is the most important input to recovery. Subjective sleep quality informs coaches on the effectiveness of sleep, and the total hours of sleep informs how much recovery time has been available. Hours of sleep are not effective without sufficient quality of sleep, so understanding both components can help coaches catch problems before they start rolling downhill.

Combined, coaches have quantitative data on psychological wellbeing, autonomic status, residual fatigue of the somatic nervous system, and how well and long they slept. Putting all this information together is no easy task.

The Workflow

Being efficient with your time is important. A specific workflow helps with the effective implementation of the monitoring system. Questionnaire data informs on the possible status of the athlete while the testing allows the athletes to prove they are ok.

The first step in data collection is when athletes fill out their questionnaire in the morning and it is collected in one central location. This data then populates a dashboard and is the first checkpoint on the path to making decisions. Experience and context help with interpreting information from the data that the athletes present.

Experience and context help with interpreting information from the data that the athletes present, says @Torinshanahan42. Share on X

Athletes are pooled by their status into compromised and normal readiness groups. Both groups have different thresholds for scoring readiness tests. This provides more or less wiggle room based on their responsiveness to previous training. The criteria for grouping is the number of red flags they have, which can come from any of the four broad categories of data:

• Subjective perceptions
• Sleep
• Resting heart rate
• Extra comments

Generally, a “red flag” in any two or more of these categories changes their readiness group. One red flag with a declining history of readiness might also change their group. These are not hard rules but general guidelines. The groupings are then translated onto the readiness testing Google Sheet through dropdown boxes on the sheet.

The second phase of the workflow is testing. After the warm-up, the athletes conduct multiple trials of the readiness testing. For example, I have previously used a counter-movement jump on a Just Jump Mat. Athletes then used an iPad to input their jump height. Using an automatic analysis formula, the sheet would automatically report the next steps for the athletes. This analysis is modified by thresholds set by the group the athlete is in. The next step would be one of three options:

1. Normal results testing prompted athletes to continue with the training session as planned.
2. A significantly different readiness test result prompted athletes to check in with me.
3. An extremely different result promoted athletes to check in and automatically reduced their training volume.

This check-in is the second checkpoint where conversations can be had based on guidance from the data. From there, multiple options are available based on the information and context like modification of training, counseling on recovery practices, or prescription of additional recovery modalities.

Analysis

Analyzing the data is a way of answering questions. To get to the important questions, basic questions like who is viewing the report and when they view it must be answered first. Second, specific questions like what information is needed in their decision-making process must be answered next. The analysis needs to be as streamlined as possible. Creating reports and workflows that allow for near-immediate communication of the impactful information is important to give you more time coaching and not analyzing.

Context

Reports should be built specifically for the person making decisions and the decisions they have to make. Sport coaches and strength and conditioning coaches have different jobs and need different information. Different time-periods have different objectives requiring different decisions to be made; the two big time-periods are in-season and off-season.

Reports should be built specifically for the person making decisions and the decisions they have to make, says @Torinshanahan42. Share on X

In the off-season: Off-season readiness boils down to the question, “Is the athlete recovering enough to keep building?” The goal of the off-season is building up better athletes. Building requires time to build, which the body does during sleep.

Questionnaires provide the checkpoint to counsel athletes on their sleep. Athletes who more frequently have better quality sleep and/or sleep more hours in total have higher responses to training. During training, stress is applied to athletes and heart rate measures inform of the stress response. Resting heart rate changes acutely and over the last week can help you catch someone who is struggling to keep up, getting sick, or is highly stressed. Whatever the reason, these are great points to check in with that athlete. Remember, it’s the off-season—they will be sore and tired, but training must go on.

During in-season periods: Readiness becomes a daily checkpoint in-season. Are the athletes going to be prepared to perform at their best given the training program between now and the competition? After the competition, central fatigue can manifest for 72 hours afterward. Readiness motioning and testing allows for verification that the athletes have recovered or are in the process of recovering in time for the next competition.

Athletes can only help us win if they are healthy. You can help keep them healthy by fine-tuning training to meet them where they are at. In-season all metrics have value. A comment from the athlete or a flagged score in any of the categories of sleep, resting heart rate, or subjective wellbeing will place them on a list. Everyone on the list gets an initial check-in prior to training with two or more flags adapting their readiness testing thresholds.

This modification increases the chances they have to check in again and that modifications will be put in place. This is all done because sport practice is the most important component for preparing athletes for competitions. While weight room training might not be the root of the problem, modifications reduce the total stress on compromised athletes while allowing them to practice fully.

Sport practice is the most important component for preparing athletes for competitions, says @Torinshanahan42. Share on X

Reports for sport coaches: When reporting to sport coaches, they need to know one thing: can their athletes practice. Understanding that coaches do not have a background in exercise science is critical. Adapting metrics to be intuitive is important for your success. Sport coaches understand one thing—the game. Presenting metrics as percentages of their max or normal value is more intuitive for coaches to understand.

Additionally, coaches do not need all the metrics. They need the one, maybe two, metrics that best summarize the status of the athlete. Reports should be in formats coaches understand best. Some like graphs and charts, while some like numbers. Get to know your coach and report your data in the way they can best receive the key information they need for their job.

Reports for S&C: An S&C coach’s combined expertise in physiology, knowledge of the context, and understanding of training allows them to interpret meaning from the data. More data points can be digested, and data should be reported in raw value form and with context using z-scores. For each athlete, you should be able to see what their resting heart rate is (72 bpm) and the z-score of that heart rate for that athlete (1.21).

For each athlete, you should be able to see what their resting heart rate is and the z-score of that heart rate for that athlete, says @Torinshanahan42. Share on X

This gives the context of what is their norm and how different is this data point. This provides the information for discussions. Questioning athletes on why their heart rate was 1.21 standard deviations above normal will not resonate, but explaining, “Hey, I saw your heart rate was 72 this morning, how is everything going?” will go over much better. On the other hand, only reporting the raw data does not provide the context to know this is not normal for this athlete. Reports can use tables and graphs for the quick analysis of trends over time, while conditional formatting gives visual cues of what needs to be examined further. In short, reports for S&C coaches need to provide them with the information to do their jobs.

Simplicity

Unless you are a sport scientist, chances are you did not get into this field to stare at spreadsheets all day. Simple and automatic workflows will reduce the amount of time spent staring at spreadsheets. With a budget, Athlete Management Systems and other software options make things very simple for coaches. Without a budget, learning how to get the most out of Excel is needed to make things simple. Straightforward workflows are possible with Excel. Connections between spreadsheets, power queries, and different formulas will allow for the building of dashboards that report with the click of the refresh button.

Connections between spreadsheets, power queries, and different formulas will allow for the building of dashboards that report with the click of the refresh button, says @Torinshanahan42. Share on X

Creating an operational monitoring system starts with the goal of enhancing athlete health to further increase the effectiveness of training. Using objective and subjective information, along with readiness testing results, provides the information that improves the understanding of an athlete’s status. Using data points over various physiological systems improves the signal from the very complex interactions in the body. Understanding the context of the situation allows the development of very specific questions that need to be answered with the data.

Automatic workflows with helpful visualization techniques improve the simplicity of analyzing data. Together, the hope is that coaches can better modify training to the individual athlete’s ability to handle the load at that given moment. Healthier athletes will have a better chance of helping to win games, the ultimate goal of team sports.

Lead Photo by Bradley Rex/Icon Sportswire

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

The project was to take 19 high-level sprinters and investigate the association between varying data points that could be collected utilizing the Plantiga and VueMotion software.

The sprinters were tested over 20 meters from a block start position. Data was collected on their takeoff and landing accelerations out of the blocks and the first three strides, and additionally on the time taken to run 20 meters in nine of the athletes.

The hypothesis was that there would be a high correlation between sprinting time over 20 meters and peak acceleration, ground contact time, time to first step, and total takeoff acceleration amongst the athletes. The investigation was also set up to test whether other correlations existed between takeoff and landing force, as well as landing forces and peak acceleration and time to 20 meters.

The Equipment

The Plantiga device was used across all 19 athletes, and VueMotion only over nine. I have written about Plantiga in two previous articles for SimpliFaster, which can be found here and here, where we demonstrate the technology’s utility for determining acceleration outputs in the sprinting stride.

VueMotion is an automated software tool that uses video capture uploaded from your mobile phone. It then automatically breaks down the data into usable visual and objective metrics.

In this article, I only utilize the VueMotion to obtain the time to 20 meters, though there is so much more you can use VueMotion for in athletics. Find out more on the VueMotion website.

The Athletes

The athletes, aged 16–26, were all specialist 100m sprinters who compete at the national level. Their legal wind personal bests ranged from 10.23 to 11.1, putting them in the top echelon of their age group nationally.

The Data Collected

The table below summarizes the data collected from the Plantiga for the 20-meter acceleration across the 19 athletes. Due to extenuating circumstances, the VueMotion was only captured in nine of these 19 athletes, and we were able to achieve further correlations using this data.

With only 19 athletes tested, we must consider the analysis with a grain of salt. However, with the publication of this as a start, and support from Plantiga, I hope this can be collected into a better example of normative ranges that coaches and athletes can utilize in the future to gain inferences on their starting technique compared to other athletes.

What Does the Data Show?

We utilized a Pearson’s correlation coefficient calculation across multiple pairs of data collected from the table in figure 2. The first table below (figure 3) displays the significant correlation values with peak acceleration.

Figure 4 displays the significant correlation values with time to 20m.

Looking at the data, there are many things obvious to the coach and a number of interesting items as well.

The data we gathered shows many obvious things to a coach, but also a number of interesting items. Share on X

The ground contact time of the first step out of the blocks, total push accelerations out of the blocks and first three strides, push acceleration out of the blocks only, and push acceleration from rear block only first and third steps only were all highly correlated with peak acceleration and time to 20m.

This makes sense: the better push out of the blocks and push acceleration of the first three strides led to a better time over 20 meters and acceleration.

What was interesting was what was not correlated…

What Does the Data Not Show?

The table below outlines a number of correlations that did not reach significance but theoretically may have been expected to.

Front Foot Push Out of the Blocks

While the rear foot takeoff acceleration out of the blocks was significantly correlated with 20-meter time and peak acceleration, the front foot takeoff acceleration was not.

Second Step Takeoff Push Acceleration

While the rear foot takeoff acceleration out of the blocks, along with the push acceleration of the first and third steps, was significantly correlated with 20-meter time and peak acceleration, the second step was not.

Interestingly, the front foot and second step measure the same leg, whereas the rear, first, and third steps also measure the same (opposite) leg.

This leads to a number of questions:

• Could this be an area for training focus?
• Could an improved Reactive Strength Index (RSI) of the front foot improve outcomes, or is that leg not as important as the rear leg in block starts?
• If a coach wants to be the most efficient in their intervention, should they focus mainly on developing the takeoff acceleration capability of the rear block leg, as this has a better predictive outcome of yielding better 20-meter start times?

With only 19 athletes, the data is presented to promote discussion, not conclusions—but the art of coaching will find these variables interesting to manipulate to get the best results.

Total Landing and Pushing Accelerations

Total landing accelerations showed no correlation with any of the data sets. The instruction often given to athletes is to hit the ground to push back up—but certainly, in the first few steps, there is no need for that instruction, as there is no correlation. That is not to say there is no correlation in other phases of the sprint cycle, but this warrants more investigation.

Out of the Blocks

Takeoff acceleration from the blocks (front and rear) was significantly correlated to time to 20 meters, yet the push accelerations of the first three steps were not. This demonstrates the importance of pushing out of the blocks in the first 20 meters, particularly from the rear foot, as mentioned earlier.

Ground contact time on the first step and time to first step (TTFS) were moderately correlated, though not significant. This data set would be worth monitoring with more athletes tested to determine conclusions.

Time to first step did not correlate with peak acceleration or takeoff push accelerations from blocks, all three steps, or a combination of both. This suggests that the limb velocity required for a rapid TTFS is a separate skill from the acceleration-dependent skills of the takeoff accelerations that are highly correlated with peak acceleration and time to 20 meters.

Project Summary and Surprises

This study set out to determine which sprint metrics within the first three strides correlated highest with sprint performance to 20 meters. Not surprisingly, the takeoff (push) accelerations correlated the most, but significantly, this was with the leg starting in the rear block position, not the front position, when considering the block start and the first three strides.

Coaches have long placed the stronger leg on the front block due to its longer contact time at takeoff out of the blocks. This study suggests rear leg takeoff acceleration should instead be the focus. Share on X

It has long been the rule among coaches to place the stronger leg on the front block due to its longer contact time at takeoff out of the blocks. However, this study suggests a low correlation to performance for this limb position compared to the rear leg takeoff acceleration.

Perhaps greater emphasis needs to be placed upon which limb has the greater ability to create horizontal force from a position of more hip extension, as this has the highest correlation with sprint performance to 20 meters.

Finally, the ability to have a short ground contact time at first step was predictive of better 20-meter times and peak acceleration than the technical skill of time to first step. In fact, TTFS had no correlation with sprint performance or takeoff accelerations, leading us to question its importance as a metric in this study. However, a short TTFS is usually associated with a more acute shin angle (angle made by the tibia to the track), which aids the horizontal direction of force application. Perhaps when Plantiga is able to differentiate the horizontal force application on its own (currently in development), this metric may find significance.

Coaches can use these findings to make their block sessions more efficient by focusing on the variables that have the highest correlation with performance: ground contact time of the first step, rear block push-off, and developing takeoff (push) acceleration from that leg.

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

Although athletes are the ones who stand in the arena, we know that the influence of their coach on their performance is massive. Coaches are responsible for guiding athletes toward their maximum potential—often for much less recognition—which has led to coaches being viewed as “performers in their own right.”

This suggests that, like the athletes they’re developing, coaches need to consider their own performance:

• Can they make effective decisions under pressure?
• Are they providing sufficiently effective feedback?
• How does their body language influence the athletes?

By taking a high-performance view of how their coaching is “performed,” coaches can better develop their athletes. High performance, however, can also be difficult and stressful. Research has demonstrated that sports coaches are at a high risk of burnout due to various factors: physical demands, time away from family and friends, long hours, fear of negative athlete performance, often a lack of job stability, and managing conflict with others. Similarly, rates of mental health issues in elite coaches are not low.

This is somewhat of a paradox. Coaches know how to deliver high levels of performance in elite athletes: they know the influence of injury and illness on performance and the importance of a good diet, adequate sleep, and rest. They understand the principle of periodization, whereby the overall volume and intensity of the athletes’ workloads are varied across the training year. They know the importance of recovery to allow athletes to realize their potential. And yet, for a variety of complex reasons—personal, social, organizational—they often don’t apply the same principles to themselves.

If the coach is a performer in their own right, can we actually say with confidence that they are a high performer if they are stressed, burned out, and tired, asks @craig100m. Share on X

If the coach is a performer in their own right, can we actually say with confidence that they are a high performer if they are stressed, burned out, and tired? Can we rely on them to make good decisions under pressure? Can we rely on them to handle the physical loads of a long season or a high-pressure championship?

Job Performance and the Performance Pyramid

The above questions percolated through my brain as I read “The Making of a Corporate Athlete,” a 2001 article published in The Harvard Business Review and authored by Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz. Earlier this year, I was the team leader for an important competition. I was ultimately responsible for the health, safety, well-being, and performance of more than 80 athletes and staff. I was aware of the need for me to be able to make good decisions under pressure, so I made an effort to ensure my lifestyle—both while away and in the lead-up to traveling—was set up to allow that. Even though their article was aimed more at those with traditional office jobs, the advice from Loehr and Schwartz was helpful to me as I prepared for my team leader role, and I think it is beneficial for all coaches.

Loehr and Schwartz highlight that the majority of organizational and occupational performance research is primarily psychological in nature; it focuses on the neck up and, in their opinion, omits the role played by physical capacities. To overcome this, Loehr and Schwartz developed the performance pyramid, in which each level influences the other, and failure to address one level compromises overall performance.

Similarly, coaches tend to focus on the long term when working with their athletes, aiming to maintain high levels of performance over a career. The career of a coach can, in many cases, be much longer than that of an athlete, meaning that coaches need to consider how they can achieve sustainable personal high performance over a 20-, 30-, 40-, or even 50-year career.

The purpose of the performance pyramid is to support coaches (or “corporate athletes”) to achieve the ideal performance state. Much like there is a zone of optimal functioning for athletes in the arena, Loehr and Schwartz maintain that a similar construct exists for coaches. The foundation of the ideal performance state is the ability to effectively manage energy, whereby we oscillate between stress (energy expenditure) and recovery (energy renewal). While we might consider stress to be a negative thing, it actually isn’t; stress allows us to grow, develop, and adapt. Instead, the bigger issue is a lack of recovery—a concept familiar to athletes.

Stress actually isn’t a negative thing; stress allows us to grow, develop, and adapt. Instead, the bigger issue is a lack of recovery—a concept familiar to athletes, says @craig100m. Share on X

From a physical standpoint, Loehr and Schwartz highlight that coaches need to be able to perform at a high level in the conditions in which they find themselves. In track and field, coaching at a major championship can include a lot of walking, often in high temperatures and/or across long days; as a coach, are you physically prepared to handle this?

On a personal note, I have a very dodgy back resulting from a chronic injury that eventually led to my retirement from sports. To ensure I could perform optimally in my role as team leader, I knew I had to be in a position where my back wasn’t a limiting factor. As such, I had a rehabilitation plan in place for months before traveling and an emergency management plan should I have a flare-up. Similarly, a coach I know prepares for major championships by upping their walking loads for the 12 weeks before the competition, ensuring they can tolerate the loads they will experience once there.

In short, being able to match the physical demands of the environment means that you are likely to be a more effective coach and are better able to buffer the effects of fatigue to make good decisions. Finally, physical training is actually a really good way to support mental health and well-being, making it an important part of the high-performance coach’s toolkit.

Staying with the theme of physical capacity, Loehr and Schwartz highlight the importance of sleep and good nutritional habits in optimizing the performance of coaches. Just as we ask athletes to get plenty of sleep each night and optimize their diet, coaches should do the same. We know that burning the candle at both ends and having a diet high in fat and processed foods won’t support high-performance athletes, so why should it work for coaches? This is an area in which researchers and practitioners alike are becoming increasingly interested, as evidenced by a recent paper.

The Emotional, Mental, and Spiritual Layers

Next, Loehr and Schwartz look at emotional capacity, which they define as the internal climate that supports peak performance. This is a really useful way of presenting it, and it highlights the importance of strong, healthy foundations, which in turn allow for high-performance actions to be built on top in support of performance. According to Loehr and Schwartz, the key to this is to maximize the experience of positive emotions (e.g., calm, challenged, engaged, focused)—which provide energy—while avoiding the energy-draining effects of negative emotions (e.g., frustration, resentment, anger). A potential key to this is having and maintaining positive relationships outside of sports; having clear boundaries between work and home can optimize satisfaction in both areas.

The third level of the pyramid focuses on mental capacity; here, Loehr and Schwartz focus on enhancing the cognitive capacities of those they work with. This includes developing their time management abilities, critical thinking skills, and ability to focus. A research paper from 2010 highlights how a mental skills training program—comprised of six workshops aimed at providing coaches with the skills to operate effectively under pressure—assisted coaches in their own performance.

Athletes often work with sports and performance psychologists to develop their ability to perform under pressure by utilizing skills such as goal setting, imagery, and relaxation…why can’t coaches? Throughout my sporting career, I’ve seen a number of coaches sabotage—completely unintentionally—the performance of their athletes by not being able to control and manage their emotions when under pressure. It seems counterintuitive to spend time developing your athletes and getting them to the biggest stage only to undermine your own time and efforts (and those of the athlete) by harming performance at the last minute.

Finally, Loehr and Schwartz’s last pyramid layer is spiritual capacity, which they define as “the energy that is unleashed by tapping into one’s deepest values and defining a strong sense of purpose.” To me, this is about knowing what you stand for and staying true to that.

As an example, in early 2014, in the lead-in to the Winter Olympics, I was the fifth man in a four-person bobsleigh team. It was clear that, by my competing for a place on the sled, the team’s performance was suffering, and rightly or wrongly, I felt blamed by some team members for that. Ultimately, I wasn’t having a good time—I didn’t feel comfortable, and there was no fun involved.

In the end, I requested to be moved from that team onto the second team in a bid to try and get them to qualify for the Olympics—something that we ultimately achieved. I made that decision because I wanted to be someplace where I was having fun, felt comfortable, and had a strong sense of purpose—things that were missing on my previous team. Being able to identify your values, and aligning your behavior and environment in support of them, will provide you with the energy required to deliver your best work—making you the most effective coach you can be.

By supporting their own performance, coaches can increase their effectiveness and, in turn, better serve the athletes they work with—the goal of all high-performing coaches, says @craig100m. Share on X

All of this serves to demonstrate that, like athletes, coaches should think of themselves as high performers and develop their ability to deliver high performance effectively. Coaches are uniquely positioned to do this well, given their knowledge of developing high performance and frequent interactions with performance support practitioners, all of whom have their own areas of expertise. By supporting their own performance, coaches can increase their effectiveness and, in turn, better serve the athletes they work with—the goal of all high-performing coaches.

Six Key Habits

How can coaches optimize their performance?

1. While periods of intensification (e.g., major championships) are unavoidable, the key aspect is for coaches to manage their energy—both acutely and across the performance year. This requires systems and processes to be in place to support recovery, much like the planning processes coaches go through with athletes. Being able to periodize your energy across the performance year should assist you in being a more effective coach.
2. Have a physical training plan aimed at optimizing readiness to meet the demanding conditions in which they perform, just like their athletes. Being in good physical health can buffer the effects of fatigue and stress and ensure the coach can make good decisions under pressure.
3. Aim for sufficient sleep each night to support recovery, and ensure a nutrient-rich diet.
4. Develop and maintain clear boundaries between “work” and “home,” allowing time for adequate recovery and a focus on developing relationships with family members.
5. Consider working with a sports or performance psychologist to develop your mental skills and capabilities, enabling you to perform better under pressure.
6. Identify your core values, and ensure that your behaviors and environment align with these.

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

Strength coaches are familiar with bands when it comes to strength development. Bands are hooked on a bar to increase tension at the top of the range of motion for a squat or bench press. They can also be used as assistance for pull-ups, as well as drills specifically targeting the hips and shoulders. For the purpose of this article, I won’t get into the use of bands for strength development; instead, I’ll go over how to use bands specifically for speed and power development.

There are other tools available for adding or removing resistance, such as the 1080 Sprint, but most coaches do not have access to that type of tool. Even if you do have one, it can be difficult to cycle groups of athletes through any one piece of equipment. Bands provide a relatively cheap and effective way to improve speed and power for individuals or groups of athletes.

Bands are great for adding resistance, but they can also be a fantastic tool for removing resistance when necessary. Share on X

Any piece of training equipment is only as good as the manner in which the coach applies it. For the most part, bands are an underutilized piece of training equipment. They are great for adding resistance, but they can also be a fantastic tool for removing resistance when necessary. I always look for ways to minimize verbal cueing to get my athletes to move how I want them to move, and bands allow me to do just that. For example, if I need an athlete to create a more powerful initial push, I can have them perform a drill where they have to overcome band resistance at the outset of the movement.

Using Bands for Speed Training

There are two main uses I have for training with bands:

1. To try to teach the athlete to be quicker off the ground—this happens when an athlete is being assisted in accelerating out of a cut.
2. To try to improve stability and power when the band is pulling an athlete into a change of direction.

When deciding how to progress or regress exercises, always begin with the end goal in mind. In a previous article, I spoke about the importance of unilateral power development—that is the end goal with all of my athletes. Effective change of direction happens when an athlete can plant a foot into the ground and rapidly stop and redirect force in the direction they want to move. This rapid deceleration and subsequent reacceleration only happen with a quick and powerful foot plant. I want my athletes to learn to be quick and then transfer that quickness into more and more power. This particular aspect of changing direction can be significantly improved through training with bands.

Video 1.Moving toward or away from the anchor changes the intent of the drill.

The above clip demonstrates how using band resistance can assist with change of direction, as seen in the first portion of the video. In that case, initiating the movement away from the anchor point increases band tension, which helps the athlete get in and out of the change of direction. Initiating movement toward the anchor has the opposite effect and adds more speed to the movement. This challenges the athlete’s ability to rapidly stabilize and produce force quickly.

As coaches, we should never stop looking for ways to help our athletes improve. I view every speed drill as an assessment. I need my athletes to develop quickness and then learn how to transfer that quickness into power. Easily, the number one cue I use with my athletes is “move faster.” Athletes may think they are moving fast, but there’s usually a little more they can give in terms of speed and power in training. They need to understand what it feels like to truly move fast.

That’s where a drill like a band-resisted shuffle (the first drill in video 1) is such a great movement—the athlete will shuffle away from the anchor point and immediately shuffle back to where they started. As they shuffle away from the anchor, the resistance of the band increases. This increased band resistance unweights the athlete and helps them be quicker when initiating the change of direction to shuffle back toward the start of the drill.

Now that the athlete has the feeling of being quicker, you can progress them by performing the shuffle from the opposite direction (the second drill in video 1). This is an example of the second way I like to use bands in my training. In this case, I’m accelerating an athlete toward the anchor point of the band. Accelerating into a cut forces more stability and power when getting in and out of that cut quickly.

In a drill like this, you don’t need much resistance to get the desired effect. If an athlete is able to perform the drill well by maintaining a good position and quickness off the ground, then I have them slightly increase the resistance at the start of the drill. I want my athletes on the edge of working really hard to be quick off the ground but not give them too much resistance where it looks like they get stuck in the cut.

Progressing Speed Drills with Bands

Progressing speed drills using bands is as simple as increasing the distance you cover within the drill. More tension on the band equals a greater distance to overcome if you are moving away from the anchor point. If you are moving toward the anchor point, the more stretch you have on the band, the more you will increase your acceleration toward the anchor. When performing a drill where you are continuously moving out and back, a greater acceleration toward the anchor will make the change of direction much more difficult.

Progressing speed drills using bands is as simple as increasing the distance you cover within the drill. Share on X

Video 2. Train deceleration with bands by using them to accelerate the athlete into an abrupt stop. Then progress that drill by adding in a sprint out of the change of direction. 

One of the methods I like to use prior to performing a drill where an athlete moves out and back is just to have the athlete sprint toward the anchor and perform an offset stop with a high amount of acceleration from the band (the first drill in video 2). This allows the athlete to get used to handling higher amounts of force over shorter distances. If you are in a gym with minimal running space, this is a great way to simulate running at slightly higher speeds. Once the athlete performs that drill a few times, you can progress it by having them sprint toward the anchor, slam on the brakes, and sprint back out in the same direction they came from.

Getting in and out of a change of direction quickly like this requires high amounts of power, strength, and stability in this position. The bands provide a great tool for athletes to demonstrate this type of positional strength.

Video 3. Bands are an effective tool for adding or removing resistance when changing vectors. 

Another reason for using bands for speed and power development is the ease at which you can change vectors while adding resistance or accelerating yourself into a cut. Most sports are not primarily linear or lateral—athletes move forward and backward at a variety of angles. Bands allow you to train these particular angles easily.

Another reason for using bands for speed and power development is the ease at which you can change vectors while adding resistance or accelerating yourself into a cut. Share on X

Video 4. Bands can be useful for training starting acceleration.

Although I have primarily focused on change-of-direction training with bands, they are also great tools for training linear speed. In most sports, athletes don’t reach top speed in competition. They often need to slow down or change direction. It’s rare to have an opportunity to run in a straight line for 40 yards without decelerating or changing course. This fact makes acceleration even more important in terms of athlete development.

I particularly like to use band-resisted three-step bursts with my athletes. Starting with a little bit of resistance encourages my athletes to stay low and create a good angle of projection. With each step, the resistance from the band increases a little bit, which continues to encourage my athletes to stay low and push hard to maintain horizontal projection.

Using Bands for Power Development

Repeating jumps continuously, jumping with weights, and jumping off higher boxes are the most familiar ways to progress plyometrics. You can also use bands to improve your athlete’s ability to produce high amounts of force over a short period of time.

The same principles that apply to using bands with speed training can also apply to using bands for power development. You can use bands for power development in all directions by employing lateral, anterior, posterior, and vertical forms of resistance.

Video 5. This is a great drill to use at the beginning of a plyometric program. It helps develop tissue quality while allowing the athlete to take advantage of the stretch-shortening cycle. 

Bands can be particularly effective for training young athletes. Progressing younger athletes from countermovement jumps to depth jumps over the course of a single off-season is not a smart progression in terms of long-term athletic development. Going right into pogo jumps can be a little too difficult for younger athletes to execute effectively because they lack the elasticity to take advantage of the stretch-shortening cycle and get off the ground quickly.

This is where band-assisted drills can be beneficial. Performing a drill like a band-assisted pogo jump is a great place to start in terms of getting athletes to develop a sense of using the stretch reflex. Drills like this are also great for larger athletes, such as American football offensive and defensive linemen. Larger athletes are known for being able to produce a lot of force, which is great, but their tendon strength may not be developed enough for jumping right into an intense plyometric training program.

A general consensus for progressing plyometric training is to either add load to the jumps or increase the eccentric force on the landing of a jump. This is often done by stepping down off a box and performing a jump vertically. While this is great for improving force vertically into the ground, it does not account for much of the horizontal nature of power in field sports.

I previously mentioned how rare it is for an athlete to run in a straight line for an extended period. Therefore, it is imperative that athletes improve their ability to develop force horizontally in all directions. Effective change of direction happens when an athlete plants their foot into the ground away from their center of mass. By doing this, the athlete creates a better angle for projecting out of a cut. Striking closer to their center of mass will lead to a more vertical shin angle and less effective acceleration.

Video 6. A drill like this is effective for mimicking the higher speeds an athlete may have when getting in and out of a cut.

An athlete performing a drill like the one you see in video 6 should focus on getting as much distance as possible horizontally while spending as little time on the ground as possible. That same concept leads to better deceleration and acceleration when changing direction.

Video 7. Using band resistance with a side-to-side pogo jump allows you to add more force horizontally. 

Additional Benefits of Training with Bands

A further benefit of using bands is that you can easily increase or decrease the resistance by simply moving closer to or further away from the anchor point. It is important to note that too much resistance is not a good thing. Are you training speed or strength? Think of a sled. If the sled is so heavy that you have to march with it, are you really improving your speed?

Put just enough tension on the band to challenge the athlete, but not so much that it greatly affects how they move. Share on X

The same concept applies to training with bands. If you put too much tension on the band, you may notice that the speed drill you are trying to perform begins to look a little sloppy. Put just enough tension on the band to challenge the athlete, but not so much that it greatly affects how they move. Begin each drill with a model of the movement you want to see performed. Adjust the band accordingly to challenge the athlete while still performing the model of movement you want to see.

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By Joey Guarascio and Chad Herring

Information is money! The more info coaches have, the more better-informed decisions they can make. Coaches, like everyone, are living in an information-saturated era, which can be overwhelming at times. It’s hard to have tunnel vision on any specific topic when there are 10 new tabs of research articles open on your computer, a podcast of the next guru on pause, and the book you just ordered on your desk—not to mention Twitter, which has more opinions than any one coach can sift through. I have been that coach who feels the anxiety of the learning process because, at the end of the day, we coaches only have enough room to mentally digest a certain amount of info.

The current surge in sports technology has afforded strength and conditioning coaches many positive breakthroughs in training and has also given us a concrete way to validate that the prescribed training is working. Prior to this explosion of technology, S&C coaches were handcuffed to qualitative assessments such as how “tough” a team was with really no way to judge this outside of competition results.

The growth of technology, though, has also brought with it an abundance of data, leaving many S&C programs without a concrete plan on what to do with all these numbers. Enter the sport scientist. While many S&C programs simply assign sport science responsibilities to one of their staff members, a true “sport scientist” is educated and dedicated to “the study of sport using scientific methods of inquiry in the fields of human performance, athletic endeavor, and sporting competition”¹ (p. 36). The sport scientist does this by collecting, organizing, and analyzing data in order to make better-informed decisions, with the ultimate goal of maximizing performance in competition.

The effectiveness of an S&C program can now be evaluated through the ability of the sport scientist to supply actual data-driven feedback. Using real analysis, the sport scientist can determine the impact of the strength and conditioning coach’s programming on performance metrics and injury resiliency. No longer are S&C coaches writing programs and guessing that what they prescribed is working—this recent tidal wave of data leads to more accurate and progressive training regimens.

Time is our most critical asset, and data saturation can waste crucial time if coaches collect data purely for data’s sake. The information that we collect must be actionable and usable. Share on X

Although there are many benefits to this new flood of technology and information, it’s not all positive. The strength and conditioning profession, at least from my viewpoint, is seeing a rise in unskilled and uncharismatic coaches on the floor. At the end of the day, it is a person-to-person profession, so soft skills like personality, relatability, likability, and integrity are necessary. Understanding how to create macros in Excel is a valuable skill, but it will not increase the ability to coach a sprint or connect with a player and should always remain secondary to the purpose of the job. Time is our most critical asset, and data saturation can waste crucial time if coaches collect data purely for data’s sake. The information that we collect must be actionable and usable.

This article is a case study of my tenures as Head Strength and Conditioning Coach at Colorado State (CSU) and Florida Atlantic (FAU) and how in both positions we used technology and the accumulation of data to create action plans—and how, in many cases, we wasted a bunch of time. Everything written in this article was either a breakthrough or more frequently a great idea on paper that turned into a mistake made entirely by me. From claiming that we had four guys over 23 mph to showing my coach fancy graphs, I have made every mistake with data that you can imagine.

Using these successes—and in many cases, glaring failures—I can share these experiences to provide wisdom as it pertains to using data with more success in the Division 1 football environment. This is a dual-authored article, as my Director of Sports Science, Dr. Chad Herring, contributed to these “do’s and don’ts” of data collection and GPS usage.

Do Not Claim and Post Football Players Running Over 23 MPH

Every strength and conditioning coach wants to have a player who is elite in some performance metric, whether it is the 600-pound squat, the 400-pound clean, or the player that runs 21+ mph. The problem with this is threefold:

1. It only satisfies the coach’s desires.
2. Accuracy or technique most often gets thrown out the window.
3. A lot of times it does not have much significance for the win/loss column.

Speaking from experience as the coach who has posted, for a lack of a better term, bullshit numbers early in my career without validation or filtering out inaccuracies, it only backfires when your 24-mph guy runs 4.6 at Pro Day.

The fastest guys at the highest level of football rarely run over 21 mph. Not to discredit all players out there, but hitting 23 mph in a game with the ball is a “once-in-a-season” event for the entire nation. There is a rise in speed training at the college level, but having 20+ players over the 22-mph mark would be insane.

When all else fails, use common sense…if the movie Terminator taught us anything, it’s not to blindly trust the machines, says @CoachJoeyG. Share on X

GPS is not always accurate, as we have seen fluctuations at times due to the earth’s orbit or plane interference. Video overlap and analysis of acceleration graphs should paint a better picture. When all else fails, use common sense: if a player hits 23 in a game and runs a 1.03 fly 10, well, as much as we would love to state that player super-comped in the game, it’s probably just an error. If the movie Terminator taught us anything, it’s not to blindly trust the machines.

Do Use MPH to Drive Effort and Competition

There are few things more effective for motivation and producing higher levels of effort than challenging a group of football players to see who’s the fastest. Coaches relentlessly strive to create motivation and garner better efforts from players—personally, the most effective way I’ve seen to motivate players is with Tony Holler’s Record, Rank, and Publish method.

Being at the bottom of the rankings, no matter what the metric, always produces higher effort out of that bottom group. As a competitor, something about seeing your name last just burns a hole in you. For our skill players, one way to rank and compare them is by listing the top mph of the day and rewarding the top guys with distinction at the next team meeting.

The beauty of having data and technology is that you can give quantitative reinforcement to training enhancements and make sure that the retention of these new abilities is kept. We know when a player breaks an mph record in practice or hits a peak deceleration personal record. The ability to reassure that what we train is improving is one of the best motivators and drastically increases buy-in.

The beauty of having data and technology is that you can give quantitative reinforcement to training enhancements and make sure that the retention of these new abilities is kept, says @CoachJoeyG. Share on X

We use a blowhorn at practice for 20-mph runs, and when the horn goes off, the entire strength staff drops down and does 20 push-ups. This entices the players to give better effort, and they seek that reward of being acknowledged for superior effort on the field; plus, it’s a great way to give your strength staff a pump—especially during kick-off period.

Do Not Claim That You Prevent Injuries

Stop claiming that your data prevents injuries—just stop! No one can prevent an injury. We can build robust and strong athletes who can tolerate stress and load. We can increase the technical proficiency of the position. We can make extremely informed decisions about training that provide safe load prescriptions and yardages. But even with all that, athletes will still get hurt—it’s part of the sport.

Strength and conditioning coaches, alongside sport scientists, have been able to help sport coaches mitigate many potential scenarios where athletes can get hurt, but it is impossible to erase the danger of injury. This is the reason every athlete signs liability waivers: injuries happen. Good training, paired with sound progressions for practice, can make an enormous difference in how long that injury report is. The advantage of modernizing practices and training methods is we have seen a sharp decrease in “self-inflicted” injuries, meaning injuries related to overuse.

The entire high-performance unit, including the S&C, sport science, and sports medicine departments, has a duty to reduce the risk of athlete injuries as best as they can. However, as mentioned above, the only way to truly eliminate the risk of injury is to have athletes stay in bed all day and never train or compete in their sport (still risking bed sores in this scenario).

On top of training, following the basic principles of specificity, overload, and progression, there are various ways in which the S&C coach and sport scientist can reduce the risk of injury. While the list of methods to mitigate injury is extensive, examples include:

1. An in-depth needs analysis of the sport, position, competition level, etc. to ensure athletes are training with the proper intensities and volumes.
2. Staying on top of the latest literature surrounding various movements and injury mechanisms in the respective sport.
3. Performing injury and training program audits.
4. Workload monitoring (a term that’s gotten a bad rep but can be effective when utilized properly).

Do Check Your Data and Information for Accuracy

Although we have certain technologies that upload data directly into the cloud, we also have several assessments that we record manually, such as vertical jumps and various sprint/decel/change-of-direction drills.

An easy accuracy check to begin with is sorting the data from high to low. A vertical jump of 28 inches can easily be input as 82 inches. While we obviously try to avoid these errors, this is not uncommon and can be easily corrected by referencing our data collection sheets. We also follow the sorting method using our GPS data. I’ve seen max velocity values over 25, 30, and even 100 mph. Although I’d love to claim how effective our speed training is in improving an athlete to more than 100 mph and call myself Dr. Speed, any max velocity over 24 mph is immediately removed from the report.

Where checking for data accuracy starts to get more difficult is for values that are not outside the realm of possibility. For instance, while I don’t doubt that several practitioners have seen vertical jump improvements of multiple inches when assessments are performed several weeks apart, an improvement of this magnitude in our setting in which we jump multiple times a week is unlikely. An easy accuracy check to combat this issue is to create recording sheets with previous personal bests to immediately compare values. If an athlete’s previous personal best was 31 inches, and he jumped a 37 out of nowhere, a simple “accuracy” check is to ask the athlete to jump again. If he jumps 30 or 31 inches on this re-jump, there’s a high likelihood of inaccuracy for whatever reason, and so we’d simply disregard the 37 inches.

Where checking for data accuracy starts to get more difficult is for values that are not outside the realm of possibility, says @CoachJoeyG. Share on X

This may be due to the technology, or it may be due to an inaccurate jumping technique. For instance, using Just Jump mats, I’ve seen my fair share of athletes pike in the air or bend their knees upon landing to increase flight time, and consequently, jump height. Although there’s a level of subjectivity here, practitioners should do their best to follow strict protocols in order to collect accurate data.

Regarding GPS data, our first check when an athlete hits over 20 mph is to see who that athlete is. As athletic as some of our offensive linemen are, I doubt the accuracy of any of them running more than 20 mph during practice or in a game, and I would consequently flag this data point.

In situations where there is a possibility of the athlete running that fast, we go back and look at prior assessments. Has this athlete run over 20 mph before on multiple occasions using the same GPS technology? If so, I can be fairly confident that this velocity is accurate.

In situations in which an athlete is new to wearing GPS technology, we can go back and look at prior assessments. Did this athlete run a fly 10 of 0.93 seconds this past summer? If so, a max velocity of over 20 mph in pads seems likely. A fly 10 of 1.15 seconds without pads on? That’s not so likely.

Another accuracy check using GPS is to use video overlap. By accurately tracking periods, quarters, halves, etc., we can check when a spike in max velocity occurred. With the help of our Video Coordinator, we can obtain a clip of this play, overlap this video with the graph of the athlete’s velocity, and determine with a high level of confidence if the athlete hit that max velocity or not. Did the 21 mph occur when the athlete was jogging to the numbers during a media timeout? Likely an inaccuracy. Did the 21 mph occur fractions of a second after an interception as the athlete was trying to outrun the pursuit angle of the quarterback? High level of confidence that this was an accurate max velocity.

Furthermore, an accuracy check I’ve personally begun using this semester has been to measure max velocity alongside max acceleration and max deceleration. Did we see a max velocity of 22 mph at the same instantaneous time we saw a 9.05 m/s max acceleration and a -9.63 m/s max deceleration? If so, there’s a high likelihood of an inaccuracy somewhere along the data-signaling pathway, consequently causing me to flag the data.

Do Not Give Coaches Complicated Material

In 2014, I landed an assistant spot at the University of Mississippi under Paul Jackson. Up until this position, I had only worked at small schools with limited resources. The fanciest piece of equipment I had worked with was Pandora Plus (seriously).

Coach Jackson has an extremely organized outline of each assistant’s specific responsibilities that aid the department, giving autonomy and ownership outside of on-the-floor or on-field coaching. I was in search of my specific responsibility when, one day, I was appointed to the role of Tech Guy. Mind you, I had never in my young career used any tech nor did I have any knowledge of the technology afforded to us.

For young coaches, the lesson in this story is this: Whatever role you are given, dive in headfirst and don’t be timid. Find the leading experts in the field and beg them for time and wisdom. Become an expert after thoroughly experimenting and researching whatever niche is afforded you.

We ended up purchasing Zephyr accelerometers and GPS units. I was so excited the first time we strapped them on, but then came the realization…what now? I was so happy that I could turn the systems on that I didn’t even think of the most important part, which is interpreting the data and recommending interventions.

I figured out how to print out a report, which was about 30 metrics on an Excel sheet in chart form, and I handed it to Coach Jackson. He looked at me and asked what it meant. Immediately, I understood that I had a steep mountain to climb. Thankfully, I found great mentors like Ted Lambrinides and then tracked down the work of Tim Gabbett and Fergus Connelly.

Eight years later, I’m still no expert, but I can use the data for actionable interventions. I can also interpret it for our coaches to aid in athletic performance. Complexity and an impatient world do not mix.

Sport coaches are experts in their sport, not in sport science. They need information that matters. They don’t need how many times the running back turned left or their average acceleration. They need to know how their guys or girls are doing. Not only do they want to know how these athletes are doing, but if they aren’t doing great, what are some recommendations to fix the problem?

The coaches I have worked for have never asked for fancy graphs or predictive Excel sheets; they need actionable information, and they need it ASAP, says @CoachJoeyG. Share on X

The coaches I have worked for have never asked for fancy graphs or predictive Excel sheets; they need actionable information, and they need it ASAP. The reports I have made in the past took many hours to create and had fancy functions but didn’t inform the coaches in a way that affected planning. I felt like I was rewriting Supertraining with how intelligent I would be perceived by the coaches, but they couldn’t understand it and became deaf to the information.

To date, the most effective system we’ve managed to steal is a labeling model using simple green, yellow, and red colors. Pick the five most important metrics that apply to your circumstances. For us here at FAU, when analyzing practice, our five are:

1. High-Speed Distance (skill—WR/DB/RB/TE)/Collisions (bigs—OL/DL/LB)
2. Total Distance
3. High-Intensity Accelerations/Decels
4. Body Weight
5. RPE (Rate of Perceived Exertion)

If the athletes are one standard deviation above their average in more than three metrics, they are categorized in the red. This means that the athlete is being chronically or acutely stressed past their average load tolerance to where they run the risk of being injured. If the athlete is close to their average, they are in the green category, meaning we are in the sweet spot for that specific training period. If an athlete is below by one standard deviation, we categorize them as yellow, which means that they are detraining and need an appropriate stimulus once we start to reach the end of the residual period of that capacity.

Coaches get a list of guys that are in each category, with a brief explanation of why and solutions to the existing problems, and that’s it! The main questions to ask are: Is it efficient and Does it work in aiding change?

Do Run Real Statistics on Your Testing Data

Every S&C coach wants their program to work. We want kids bigger, stronger, and faster. For a lot of coaches, this is their driving force and passion. Their self-worth hinges upon positive results. Sometimes, the program written does not yield the results that coaches want, or even causes maladaptation and negative results from training.

The human body is extremely complex. It is made up of many different biological systems that all respond differently, with different recovery rates. Add in the daily stressors of life, and that makes it extremely hard to guarantee an outcome of all positive results. No one wants to be wrong, especially in the ego-driven world of coaching, but it’s not about how you feel—it’s about how to make the athlete better.

Every coach should audit their program systematically throughout the training calendar. Coaches need insight into the rate and significance of positive and negative in the performance metrics. Trends always emerge, and it’s on the coaches to spot these trends to either provide alterations if they are negative or continue on the path provided if they are positive.

Do Not Just Use Player Load and Yardage to Determine Load

While we track both player load and yardage during training, practices, and games, practitioners should understand that these metrics are volume metrics. Because intensity is the driver for adaptations in the body, we place an equal, if not slightly greater, emphasis on intensity metrics, such as:

• High-speed yardage
• Hard acceleration and deceleration efforts
• Inertial movement analysis (IMA)
• Impacts

Since the ultimate goal is to adequately prepare athletes for competition, practitioners should work backward from the game to perform a needs analysis for their athletes. By doing so, the performance staff can adequately track both volume and intensity over time, ensuring there is a balance between the two and flagging athletes who exceed specific thresholds.

While we flag both volume and intensity metrics in our program, the majority of our athletes are affected to a greater degree by intensity metrics as compared to volume metrics, both subjectively using RPEs and objectively using vertical jumps. For instance, we have some skill athletes who can regularly exceed 7,000 yards in a practice without much detriment to their central or peripheral nervous systems, while the same athletes struggle following a day with 300 high-speed yards and/or a player load of greater than 600.

Density is a metric that GPS technology can easily track or calculate, and it should be included in regular athlete monitoring, says @CoachJoeyG. Share on X

Furthermore, density is a metric that GPS technology can easily track or calculate, and it should be included in regular athlete monitoring. For instance, a metric like player load/minute is one that we track and report on daily. While the team can have an average player load of 300 on different days, the day that has a player load/minute of 3.5 will be much denser, and therefore more intense, than the day with a player load/minute of 2.5.

While tracking the automatically calculated density metrics from the GPS software is the most straightforward approach, practitioners can also simply divide any of the chosen GPS metrics by the time of the activity to get the density. Additionally, without performing any other calculations (for those who are not math-inclined), practitioners can easily look at density from week to week if practice start and end times are similar enough. For example, last Tuesday’s practice and this Tuesday’s practice had the exact same duration, with last Tuesday’s practice totaling 400 hard acceleration efforts and this Tuesday’s totaling 300; therefore, last Tuesday’s practice was denser.

Do Track and Monitor Decelerations

For years, practitioners and researchers alike have noted the importance of horizontal acceleration in multidirectional athletes. Recent research—specifically articles published by Damian Harper—has highlighted the importance of horizontal deceleration. As noted by Harper et al.,³ horizontal deceleration ability underpins rapid change-of-direction maneuvers, with a higher deceleration ability potentially enabling an athlete to create and/or close down space to a higher degree. Furthermore, intense decelerations create greater mechanical load than both intense accelerations and high-speed running and may increase the risk of time-loss injury if not managed appropriately.³ Consequently, we’ve placed a heavy emphasis on deceleration training, both during our fieldwork and in the weight room, and have assessed and monitored various deceleration metrics.

Our primary methods of monitoring and assessing deceleration are a deceleration-specific field test and max deceleration and hard deceleration efforts using our GPS technology. The former consists of the athlete sprinting with maximal intent to a specific marker (cone, yard line, etc.). Immediately upon reaching the marker, the athlete decelerates in as short of a distance as possible (e.g., 3.5 yards). Although we also assess deceleration capabilities subjectively using our coaching eyes, this is an easy and effective way to objectively measure horizontal deceleration capabilities.

We typically use this specific field test during the off-season, and we assess bilateral, left-leg, and right-leg capabilities to ensure there are no glaring asymmetries. While there are various ways to adjust this field test—increasing/decreasing the sprint-in distance, decelerating to a lateral stance position, etc.—coaches should ensure maximal intent is given during the sprint-in to the marker. We’re currently exploring using timing gates during the build-in to ensure the athlete hits a certain threshold of their acceleration capabilities, such as 90% of their 10-yard sprint start.

Using GPS, we track both max deceleration and hard deceleration efforts (quantity of decelerations above 4.0 m/s²threshold) during the off-season and in-season. Monitoring these metrics is vital due to the high mechanical stress that occurs during decelerations. As noted by Harper et al.³, there are almost three times the amount of ground reaction forces (GRFs) that occur during a max horizontal deceleration as during a max horizontal acceleration. Anecdotally, we’ve seen a positive correlation between subjective measures of training using RPEs and hard deceleration efforts.

Furthermore, although we’re still analyzing the data, we’ve seen a reduction in max deceleration capabilities during a training block placing a heavy emphasis on eccentrics, including supramaximal eccentric loading and accentuated eccentric loading. Practitioners can expect to see a dip in max deceleration during an eccentric training block before super-compensation occurs.

Do Not Just Buy Into One Model

Just as practitioners can get stuck in the mindset that one and only one approach is best for enhancing sports performance (e.g., block vs. linear periodization, parallel vs. sequential vs. emphasis training models, etc.), practitioners can also view their model of collecting, organizing, and analyzing data as the only way.

Although there are certain basic principles that should be followed regarding different facets of data integrity, practitioners should choose the methods that best fit their environment. Share on X

Although there are certain basic principles that should be followed regarding different facets of data integrity—such as the standardization of data collection, choosing assessments/technologies that are both valid and reliable, and the avoidance of p-value hacking—practitioners should choose the methods that best fit their environment. For example, while one performance staff may strongly believe in the use of the acute:chronic workload ratio and Tim Gabbett’s “sweet spots” and “danger zones” for injury risk⁴, others may view this as an “inaccurate metric” with no evidence to support its alleged ability to reduce injury risk⁵.

Furthermore, the constantly evolving world of sports performance requires coaches to continue learning, growing, and developing—if an individual buys into only one model or mode of thinking, they risk being left behind.

The constantly evolving world of sports performance requires coaches to continue learning, growing, and developing—if you buy into only one model or mode of thinking, you risk being left behind. Share on X

The same can be said for everything surrounding data in the sports performance world. While some technologies have been around for decades, others explode onto the scene and then just as quickly disappear. For example, if you’re known as the “force plate man/woman,” and your entire performance model is built around this technology, what happens if a newer and better technology comes along? What happens if you move into an environment that doesn’t have a force plate?

While members of the high-performance unit, and specifically the sport scientist, should absolutely know and stand by what they believe in, they should also constantly explore and perform unbiased research on other models and be prepared to make minor adjustments along the way.

Lead Photo by Jason Mowry/Icon Sportswire

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. French D and Torres Ronda L (Eds.). (2021). NSCA’s Essentials of Sport Science. Human Kinetics.

2. Bahr R and Krosshaug T. “Understanding injury mechanisms: a key component of preventing injuries in sport.” British Journal of Sports Medicine. 2005;39:324–329.

3. Harper DJ, McBurnie AJ, Santos, TD, et al. “Biomechanical and neuromuscular performance requirements of horizontal deceleration: a review with implications for random intermittent multi-directional sports.” Sports Medicine. 2022;1–34.

4. Gabbett TJ. “The training-injury prevention paradox: should athletes be training smarter and harder?” British Journal of Sports Medicine. 2016;50(5):273–280.

5. Impellizzeri FM, Tenan MS, Kempton T, Novak A, and Coutts AJ. “Acute: chronic workload ratio: conceptual issues and fundamental pitfalls. International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance. 2020;15(6):907–913.

Dr. Chad Herring joined the Florida Atlantic University Football program in May 2022 as the Director of Sports Science. Prior roles include serving as the Director of Performance for DIA Sports Performance (private sector), Head Strength and Conditioning Coach at Angelo State University (NCAA Div. II), and a seasonal Strength and Conditioning Coach for the Tri-City ValleyCats (Houston Astros minor league affiliate). Chad earned his B.S. from Ithaca College, M.Ed. from Angelo State University, and Ph.D. from the University of Central Florida (UCF). While at UCF, he worked on various sport science projects with the Men’s Soccer, Women’s Rowing, and Women’s Volleyball teams. Additionally, his dissertation was completed with the UCF Softball team, titled “Utility of novel rotational load-velocity profiling methods in collegiate softball players.”

As technology continues to evolve, it’s only natural that innovation makes its way into the health, fitness, and performance arenas. However, in an age of noise, many unnecessary wearables, overly deterministic data, and gimmicks, it can be challenging to parse through which innovations really have something and which are superfluous poppycock.

A new performance innovation I’ll be reviewing today is the Speede resistance training machine. Please note that as a practitioner, like many of you, I encounter countless gadgets, pieces of equipment, and fit tech. I have other practitioners ask my opinions on different pieces of gear, and sometimes I write my opinion about something if I get asked about it enough.

This review will be equal parts me painting a picture of what the technology can do and showing you how I program Speede into my workflow. If you’re a personal trainer, strength coach, athletic trainer, rehab specialist, or athlete, Speede is a unique training tool absolutely worth looking into to determine if it’s a good fit for you.

What Does Speede Do?

Speede is a computer-driven training station that essentially combines a myriad of movement pattern capabilities with a multimodal stimulus.

The setup looks similar to Tonal, with a computer screen, personalized tracking software, and various setups for its cable arms and attachments, including a barbell, handles, and a hex bar.

Video 1. Bench press using maximal strength isokinetic mode. The machine adapts to the athlete’s force output at every moment, in real time.

Speede offers a Swiss Army knife of movement patterns, load/resistance/speed options, attachments, exercise, data collected, and guided training for those working out on their own, says @coopwiretap. Share on X

That’s essentially where the similarities end, as Speede offers a Swiss Army knife of movement patterns, load/resistance/speed options, attachments, exercises, data collected, and guided training for those working out on their own. As one example of the differences, Tonal’s weight capacity is 200 pounds, whereas Speede’s resistance capabilities go up to 2,000 pounds. I would say Tonal is aimed at very entry-level gen pop, whereas Speede is designed for coaches, teams, and athletes (though it does serve the full spectrum all the way to gen pop/rehab).

Key Modes

Speede offers multiple modes, each offering truly unique benefits.

1. Standard Isotonic Mode

This is the typical resistance you’d feel from a cable machine or free weight that enables you to go smooth and fast, like a Keiser Functional Trainer had a baby with a Concept 2 Rower. This mode is awesome and immediately renders typical and air-resisted cable machines obsolete by consolidating this feature into Speede’s offerings. 

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Video 2. Trunk integration work with Speede on isotonic mode.

Now that you know what it does, I’d say this is my most commonly used mode. That’s just me personally, as in my own practice, I bridge the gap from rehab to performance, so we spend a lot of time training up both the kinetic (load, velocity, force, strength, power) and the kinematic sides (how the kinetics is executed or the biomechanical/movement piece). Video 2 is an example of me doing trunk integration work (or an example of our “core” training) on foot to better link the kinetic chain. Here, the main emphasis is connecting the lateral line to the opposite glute/leg. If you’re familiar with the myofascial systems, ala Anatomy Trains, you may program similar things to innervate tissues (muscles and fascia) meant to cooperate in real time.

It’s also nice in that I’ve been able to consolidate some of my selectorized equipment (e.g., a hamstring curl machine) to free up space in the facility.

In terms of data, Speede features velocity-based metrics, which are helpful to have consolidated in one machine for a lot of movements. Before, I would have had to use separate modalities (like a Push Strength band) to get the job done. I’ll be honest—I wasn’t doing a lot of VBT monitoring recently because it was a pain to manage different data sets and set up different technology. I still rely on the eye test for some more obvious things, but now that this metric (and others) has been made much more convenient/automatic, it’s easier to include.

2. Isokinetic Mode

This features maximal strength isokinetic resistance and will no doubt be the go-to for filling the needs of maximal strength deficits and body composition. The gist is that the machine literally adapts to your own force output in real time, matches your force output, and then stimulates you through the entire range of motion. This means that the entire movement can be performed at max effort instead of one joint angle being the point of maximal stimulus (e.g., the sticking point or reversal on a bench press). The resultant effect is more positive tissue and metabolic stress in maybe a tenth of the time.

This is what they have coined “Nemesis” mode, and it is the main mode being promoted. Although isotonic is my favorite mode, I have to say Nemesis is quite helpful for being able to consolidate a lot of maximal strength work into less time due to the added intensity. Ratcheting up the intensity means I can turn down the volume a bit in this area, which enables more time for other adaptations, be it mobility, agility, or speed development.

I also appreciate being able to load athletes in-season in less time to keep them strong, resilient, and durable while avoiding overtraining. That wasn’t always easy before with time demands.

An underrated benefit here is that filling these strength deficits with Speede—specifically having less volume—means fewer potential negative adaptations, says @coopwiretap. Share on X

Lastly, an underrated benefit here is that filling these strength deficits with Speede—specifically having less volume—means fewer potential negative adaptations. Those familiar with some biomechanics concepts ala PRI (Postural Restoration Institute) are probably hip to the idea that too much maximal strength work in certain positions may lead to unfavorably repositioning a joint (e.g., the excess extension and hip external rotation you see in the posture and gait of many powerlifters).

Although it’s early, my experience so far has been that Speede has helped me capture the benefits of maximal strength work without some of the consequences—or getting taxed 80 cents on the dollar—that can potentially come from excess time spent here (S.A.I.D. principle). All of that is to say there may be something to more time spent doing more exercises that are kinematically (biomechanically) relevant and less time spent developing qualities that may be needed (but not always biomechanically transferrable) ala the work of Frans Bosch and Thomas Myers.

3. Eccentric-Only Mode

This essentially serves as Speede’s eccentric overload mode. Because we can tolerate more load on the negative portion of the movement, some may want to overload this action (as is commonly seen in rehab settings). This can be particularly useful because research shows we’re at least 40% stronger (if not far more) in the eccentric portion of movements.

Most of you reading this will already be familiar with eccentric overload work and understand how to program this into your own unique system. For me, this is the mode (and training theory on the whole) that needs a lot of context. I use it to overload certain joint angles for added neuromuscular and neuromyofascial recruitment in a rehab and/or prevention context. It’s definitely ultra-helpful for any potential hypertrophy needs, too.

I tend to use it a lot for accessory isolation work (e.g., a hamstring curl) and non-specific work. When I’m loading movements that look similar to ones I’m going to see in sport (e.g., a squat), I tend to have my guys intentionally yield into the movement ala Jay Schroeder or PRI theories versus fight going into it. However, that goes for any type of eccentric-only training and is not exclusive to Speede. I love and use the mode, but I wanted to throw out the context that I may program eccentric work differently than your average coach.

I’ve found it to be super helpful for rehab and the reconditioning phase of training. I think this may very well be a favorite of most coaches, and being able to overload the eccentric portion of the movement without traditional spotting is very helpful in group training settings (the same goes for spotting with isokinetic mode).

4. Recovery Mode

Although this may help guide an individual athlete away from a trainer, at the same time, many coaches could still find it fruitful. Many coaches (me included) like to do specific things when it comes to decompression, movement prep, sensory preparation, and dynamic warm-ups.

I still do these things that don’t include the machine, but I can say having high-level sensory preparation (vestibular system) and being able to lead athletes through a gentle stimulus that helps them find tensegrity (optimal length/tension relationships) in various positions/ranges of motion is very useful. For the former, think of certain ocular drills; for the latter, think of biasing certain tissues in certain positions athletes may need to absorb and convert force in.

This mode provides a gentle stimulus that helps athletes do something close to PNF/FRC (proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation/functional range conditioning) concepts that combine mobility with some level of tension for effectiveness. I think if you’re coaching in a group format, being able to direct athletes to the machine for both some aspects of dynamic warm-up and/or offloading can better help you manage athletes that may need more cueing and attention for safety and effectiveness.

Notable Features

I have a particular way I coach (as do we all), so I’m going to do my best to highlight both a general overview and how I program the machine in my own system. This is because I understand that not everyone may coach the way I do, and I want to be inclusive of other training systems, uses, etc.

Excellent Variability for Exercise Options

Because of the adjustable angles of resistance, you can perform movements dominant in both vertical and horizontal planes of motion. Are standard-issue squats, deadlifts, or bicep curls more your thing? Speede can do it. Maybe you’re more into movements like front foot elevated split squats, horizontal pressing, cable chops, and beyond? Problem solved.

The wide variety of accessories they have and plan to add—such as handles, barbells, a trap bar, and much more—means we’re likely never to get bored of the same old movements, says @coopwiretap. Share on X

One thing that impressed me about Speede was the company’s commitment to versatility across the board, and exercise selection is an extension of that. The wide variety of accessories they have and plan to add—such as handles, barbells, a trap bar, and much more—means we’re likely never to get bored of the same old movements.

For use cases, cost-effectiveness, and space efficiency, I appreciate the exercise versatility.

Convenience Factor and Small Footprint

As I mentioned above, Speede has a relatively small footprint similar to that of a standard cable or a Tonal-type machine (much smaller than a squat rack). Athletes looking to build out home setups away from teams in the off-season should absolutely give Speede a look for this reason. As a professional with a facility, I believe it’s also highly attractive from the standpoint of being able to consolidate a few things into one. I don’t have to have many isolated, selectorized equipment, cable machines, or squat racks.

If you’re a personal trainer looking to adequately serve your clients while lean-scaling your business from a space perspective—I can see it being great for that. The same goes for some facilities and group settings looking to have multiple people work on one piece of equipment. Thanks to the customized resistance aspect, group training is even more efficient. The adaptable resistance and the personalized profiles saved in the cloud mean that various physical fitness levels (e.g., a healthy athlete and an injured one) can work out together without having to re-rack a ton of weight.

Personalization and Data Tracking

Speede’s proprietary software allows users to track a lot of metrics, including strength output, power development, velocity (for VBT needs), time under tension/duration of mechanical stress to the tissues, and other similar KPIs. This is something their engineering team has gone above and beyond with, guiding their process with feedback from practitioners and coaches like us. I can appreciate this because it essentially means that professionals in the trenches are guiding these metrics, so they’re meaningful.

Speede’s engineering team has gone above and beyond with its metric-tracking software, guiding their process with feedback from practitioners and coaches like us, says @coopwiretap. Share on X

I think I can speak for most of us in that this is refreshingly different from most fitness data out there. Because most performance data these days tends to be white noise coming from tech people trying to disrupt training without understanding it, this is a positive in my book. I’m used to having to talk people out of most wearables and similar things that result in majoring in the minors and/or simply aren’t accurate. Users’ progress is stored for in-person or remote head-to-head tracking for fun, ensuring a team is on track when away from the team staff and simply allowing your athletes to be more motivated by seeing their progress over time.

GTS Guided Training System 

Speaking of the software capabilities, Speede also offers built-in training guidance for safety, form instruction, and results. Speede has a force plate-lite technology that tells users if their center of mass is too offset. This also couples with motion capture technology so users can adjust their form in real time. Although this is probably most helpful for gen pop clients, I think it can be beneficial for coaches, too. From a professional perspective, this will also empower me to program for my remote clients, eventually, as Speede gains wider adoption.

Benefits, Considerations, and How I Personally Program Speede

Pros and cons aren’t really the right words, so I went with benefits and considerations. After all, what may be a no-brainer for some may simply not be the right tool in the shed for others. That’s how I’ve come to view most equipment…context is key. It’s all about what you need out of something, the situational constraints (e.g., space, finances), and how well those align with what value a tool can provide.

This is more for athletes investing in one for home use, but the first consideration would be having the space for it. Although Speede is much smaller than your average squat rack and similar in size to a cable or Bowflex machine, you’ll still need to find a little room. That said, its flat platform and stealth design mean you can easily add it to your average room without taking up as much of a footprint as other things. This goes double when you compare its versatility and what you get out of it.

Speede’s flat platform and stealth design mean you can easily add it to your average room without taking up as much of a footprint as other things, says @coopwiretap. Share on X

From a professional standpoint, this becomes less of an issue for almost every situation I can think of, as any gym space should be able to house one. As I mentioned before, you’ll be able to consolidate at least a handful of equipment pieces, if not more, into what Speede brings. I can see athletic training facilities opting for fewer squat racks, being able to mostly drop air resistance cable machines, and reducing the amount of selectorized equipment noticeably. This should offer nice cost savings in addition to the space consolidation.

On the financial side, Speede has done a great job of making this technology affordable for everyone. Priced at around one-fifth the cost of competitors on the market (who generally only have one or two of the multiple modes and less exercise variability), this is very affordable for your average gym, training facility, school, and professional team—and that’s even before factoring in the above ability to consolidate other pieces of equipment.

It’s also worth noting that there are other pieces of adaptable resistance isokinetic machines on the market that cost upward of $30,000 to $60,000, with ongoing fees for a fraction of the features. As someone who’s vetted this space quite a bit, Speede’s relative price stacks up quite well.

Still, it DOES cost more than your average rack setup (though less than some) or Bowflex, cable, or Tonal machine. I looked at it as an investment for the long run and a value-add for the ability to better serve my clients. Being able to sell off a few pieces of equipment that became unnecessary after picking this up also helped me pay off most of the machine.

General overview aside, programming Speede into my system, I personally get the most out of the following:

• Isokinetic mode enables me to microdose my athletes in-season.
• Adaptable resistance with isokinetic/eccentric mode auto-adjusts to where my rehabbing athletes’ current levels are—this means I can get them safer, more targeted strength progressions.
• Isotonic mode takes the place of your average cable and/or pneumatic resistance work. We do a ton of cable work, so as I mentioned before, I’m using isotonic mode more than anything else.
• Isokinetic mode helps me consolidate maximal strength work/filling some “strength deficits” so athletes have more time to recover and/or spend on other adaptations we’re chasing.
• The progress tracking is quite handy.
• Motor unit recruitment and strength/power/tissue recruitment with isokinetic mode.
• Targeting isolated muscle groups/consolidating some selectorized equipment.

There you have it. That’s how I use Speede and the benefits I get the most out of in my own practice. You may have other use cases or get more out of other aspects.

The Team

I mentioned the team before, and I personally feel that’s important. An Omegawave review by Coach Drew Cooper really highlighted who was behind the tech, and that always stuck with me…if they’re trying to solve a coach’s problems, they should have some folks who still coach in the trenches on board.

I can say the team behind Speede is what really drew me to reach out to get involved in some capacity. I think I can speak for most coaches when I say that we’re used to techies trying to cash in on fitness and “disrupt” what we do while not understanding it.

From day one, they’ve kept their ears open and relied on input from trainers, rehab professionals, athletes, fitness enthusiasts, researchers, and coaches to drive everything., says @coopwiretap. Share on X

Speede is the exact opposite. From day one, they’ve kept their ears open and relied on input from trainers, rehab professionals, athletes, fitness enthusiasts, researchers, and coaches to drive everything. This includes price point, features, versatility, data tracking, and user experience.

I feel this is the fundamental difference between companies that make quality equipment that over-delivers on serving its purpose (such as Keiser and Omegawave) and your typical fly-by-night outsider trying to “disrupt” the fitness industry.

**Disclaimer & Relationship Disclosure: I have reached out to Speede to become involved with the team in some capacity. That said, you don’t have to rely on my testimony—I highly encourage everyone to simply try a free Speede demo for themselves and experience the benefits firsthand.

**Please note that this review was conducted with prototype technology that *may* look or function differently than what you see here. That said, any potential differences would be around the edges vs. wholesale.**

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