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When I played college football, we did a LOT of resisted sprints via sled pushes, but they were always used as a conditioning tool in the circuits at the end of our workouts. We did not push sleds as a “main lift” or with the goal of improving sprint performance or overall power.

We probably left some performance gains on the table as a result.

In fairness, my college days were nearly a decade ago, before JB Morin and the group he leads published their research surrounding resisted sprints. JB and the gang did what scientists do and made a science out of resisted sprints. Their research elucidated the underpinning mechanisms of performance improvement and highlighted nontraditional methods of utilizing resisted sprints. They also popularized a common language by which to discuss resisted sprints and addressed common flaws in programming them, leading us to understand how and why they induce specific adaptations when specific loads are used.

I discuss four unique uses of resisted sprints in this article, each with a different purpose and different adaptation(s). Before diving in, however, let’s briefly overview the language of resisted sprints so we’re on the same page moving forward.

Performance Variables

I won’t belabor each of the variables measured in the research. Instead, I’ll provide definitions for the ones discussed in this article.

For a more complete list, see this article.¹

P_max (W/kg): maximum mechanical power output. In this article, I use the term to describe the maximum power achieved while sprinting.

V0 (m/s): theoretical maximal running velocity as extrapolated from the force-velocity relationship. Basically, the predicted max speed of an athlete based on their force-velocity profile. Note this figure is slightly higher than an athlete’s actual maximum running velocity.

F0 (N/kg): theoretical maximal horizontal force production as extrapolated from the force-velocity relationship. Liken this to low-velocity or maximum strength. F0 corresponds well with starting speed and early acceleration, as these aspects of a sprint are heavily dependent on raw force production capacity. It is also of note for collision sports in which athletes need to exert force onto one another, such as American football or rugby.

RF (%): Ratio of force, computed as the ratio of the step-averaged horizontal component of the ground-reaction force to the corresponding resultant force. Put simply, this measures how effectively an athlete is able to orient their forces horizontally versus vertically during acceleration. Of course, the more horizontal (forward) forces are oriented, the faster and more efficiently an athlete accelerates.

RF_max (%): Maximal value of RF. Practically speaking, this describes an athlete’s effectiveness in orienting forces horizontally during the first step, assuming they have a basic technical competency of acceleration, and the first step is when the projection angle is steepest.

D_rf : Rate of decrease in RF as speed increases. As athletes rise during acceleration, forces inevitably become more and more vertical until, by definition, at maximum speed net horizontal forces are zero (meaning horizontal propulsive and braking forces are equal), and the resultant GRF is completely vertical. Effective acceleration involves elongating the unavoidable shift toward vertically oriented forces. This metric measures that shift.

V_dec (%): Decrement in sprint velocity (thanks to resistance) as a percentage of maximum velocity. A V_dec of 25% means an athlete is towing a resistance that decreases their max speed by 25%, for instance.

Prescribing Load: V_dec vs. % Body Weight

Much of the research on resisted sprints has involved load prescription based on a percentage of the athlete’s body weight. While this may make sense at first glance, when you take a deeper look, the pitfalls become blatant.

Much of the research on resisted sprints has involved load prescription based on a % of athlete body weight. This makes sense at first glance, but when you look deeper, the pitfalls become blatant. Share on X

What surface was the sled on? Turf, carpet, and hardwood all feel very different.

What material was on the feet of the sled? The facility I trained at in college put carpet on the feet because the surface was an old basketball court. While we’re on the topic—does the sled have feet or wheels?

What if athletes are super lean or overweight? If using a percentage of body weight, that affects the training load significantly.

Likewise, what if athletes of the same body weight have very different strength levels? The training stimulus will be very different between them.

And the list goes on.

The bottom line is the percentage method doesn’t account for friction or control for the intensity of the exercise. It is not a good way to prescribe load for resisted sprints.

The bottom line is the percentage method doesn’t account for friction or control for the intensity of the exercise. It’s not a good way to prescribe load for resisted sprints, says @KD_KyleDavey. Share on X

That’s where V_dec comes in to save the day. V_dec controls for friction and intensity.

Say you prescribe a back squat load that limits the concentric portion to 5% of the athlete’s max unweighted squat speed. Said opposite, the weight slows them down by 95%. This will be a near maximal effort for all athletes.

But if you instead had every athlete put 120% of their body weight on the bar, some athletes may be maxing out while others are warming up. By the same reasoning, it doesn’t make any sense to prescribe resisted sprint load based on body weight. V_dec makes it proportional to your ability and is not affected by outside factors like surface, type of sled, etc.

To determine the load required for each desired V_dec percentage you have to run a load-velocity profiling. This takes seconds to do on the 1080 Sprint, thanks to the handy software that comes with the unit. Otherwise, you have to have accurate timing or speed measurement tools, the ability to extract the data, and some data analysis skills.

Now that we’ve got the basics out of the way, let’s move on to the good stuff: application.

Post-Activation Potentiation

Post-activation potentiation (PAP) describes a phenomenon by which maximal or near maximal efforts (in terms of intensity) improve performance in submaximal efforts (again in terms of intensity).

French contrast training has popularized PAP in the gym. Put simply, the idea is that doing a few reps of a heavy lift gives a little boost to your explosive ability. A typical weight room combo is a heavy back squat followed by a plyo, like a box jump. With greater jump performance comes a greater training stimulus, and thus a greater cumulative training result.

On the track (or turf), we can use resisted sprints to apply the PAP principle to potentiate the nervous system for the upcoming speed workout. It makes sense in my mind to use this method on acceleration-based days, but potentiating the nervous system on a max velocity day doesn’t sound like a bad idea either. Not that I need to explain why faster sprints are important, but…whether it’s a testing day or a training day, running faster is a good thing.

The jury is out on the best resistance to use. The classic understanding would dictate that you implement very heavy resistance, but in practice I know many coaches prefer a lighter one. My advice? Run your own case study. Try both and see which works best for your athletes (and for you).

The classic understanding would dictate that you implement very heavy resistance, but in practice I know many coaches prefer a lighter one, says @KD_KyleDavey. Share on X

A simple method to accomplish this is to use the same training protocol but a different PAP stimulus over two training sessions. Begin each session with a timed free sprint, introduce the PAP stimulus, and time athletes’ subsequent sprints to see which stimulus elicits a greater performance. On day one a higher V_dec can be used, say 60-70%, and on day two a lower one, like 20-30%.

You may find some athletes respond better to one method versus another. Be sure to note which stimulus is most effective for each individual athlete so you know what load to give them on future training days.

Further, use your coach’s intellect and intuition. If an athlete comes in particularly tired, maybe going nuts with a super heavy resisted sprint isn’t a wise move. Instead, you can use a 10% or 20% V_dec to elicit a response without crushing the athlete, or maybe you switch gears and go to a plan B workout, skipping the resisted sprints altogether.

However, if it is a good day and PAP is a go, there are several ways to work it into the session. You can simply begin the workout with a few 10-meter resisted sprints, or you can integrate them into your rep/set scheme.

Below are three examples of workouts utilizing the PAP principle.

Workout 1: Frontloaded PAP

• Dynamic warm-up + sprint drills
• Three 10-meter resisted sprints, 2-3 minutes of rest between reps
• Three sets of:
  • Three 10s, 60 seconds of rest between reps
  • Two 20s, 90 seconds of rest between reps
  • One 30
  • Four minutes of rest between sets

Workout 2: Integrated PAP

• Dynamic warm-up + sprint drills
• Five sets of:
  • One 10-meter resisted sprint, two minutes of rest
  • One 20-meter sprint, 90 seconds of rest
  • One 30-meter sprint
  • Four minutes of rest between sets

Workout 3: 1080 Sprint Variable Resistance Accelerations

• Dynamic warm-up + sprint drills
• Six sets of:
  • One 30-meter variable resistance sprint, 15 kilograms to 3 kilograms, 3 minutes of rest
  • One unresisted 30-meter sprint
  • Three minutes of rest between sets

The 1080 Sprint’s variable resistance setting provides both a unique sensation and method of harnessing PAP within the rep itself. The setting allows you to select the resistances you’d like at the start of the sprint and when the athlete reaches a velocity of your choice, and it adjusts linearly as velocity changes.

In plain English: As the athlete speeds up, the resistance decreases (or increases, if you want, but in this case, we’re setting it to decrease). That way, athletes start the sprint against a lot of resistance, and as they accelerate there is less and less weight to tow until they are towing nearly nothing at all (if you set it that low). This is great because it prompts athletes to be forceful in the start and early acceleration, which is exactly what we want during free sprints.

Video 1. Athlete sprints with variable resistance from the 1080 Sprint.

As an aside, unless it is a test day, I usually prefer integrating resisted sprints into the set (workouts 2 and 3) rather than using them as a primer in the beginning of the workout. My bias is that there is likely better transference of force application when alternating between resisted and unresisted sprints. However, this statement comes from a place of developing physical qualities more so than preparing technically and tactically for an actual race, so take it with a grain of salt.

In terms of technique, however, I have noticed many athletes stumble on their first free sprint after a resisted sprint because they’ve just become accustomed to projecting at an exaggerated angle, knowing the resistance (the belt from the 1080 Sprint, in my case) will hold them up.

I use this as an opportunity to teach athletes to find the boundary of how steep they can attack before falling on their face. Once they find the boundary, they can toe it to have the best starting angle possible, resulting in an increased RF_max and more time spent orienting forces horizontally during the acceleration. Hopefully the combination of becoming comfortable in a horizontal position and increasing raw power will also allow for a lower D_rf, meaning more time spent orienting forces horizontally down the track or field. That is conjecture at this point.

For a more detailed review of PAP and resisted sprints, I highly encourage you to check out George Petrakos’ article “Resisted Sprints and Post-Activation Potentiation.”

Strength Training: Increased Force Production

I considered titling this section “Improving Starting Speed and Early Acceleration: Very Heavy Resistance.” However, I’m aware that heavy resisted sprints have been a point of contention for years, and I’d prefer your eyes remain on the screen rather than rolling in the back of your head. Hear me out.

The main criticism of very heavy resisted sprints—I’m talking V_dec of 60% and above—is that they screw up unresisted sprint kinematics. To my knowledge this has been assessed only once in the literature, and there were no kinematic changes on free sprints following a training protocol of very heavy sled pulls.² Yes, mechanics change slightly during the resisted sprint itself, but who cares if it doesn’t affect unresisted sprint mechanics?

Furthermore, variability in movement patterns/strategies is likely a good thing for athletes, not a bad one.

With that said, allow me to add a caveat. It is my belief that free sprint mechanics are not negatively affected by very heavy resisted sprints so long as the basic principles of acceleration are maintained during the resisted sprints.

It is my belief that free sprint mechanics are not negatively affected by very heavy resisted sprints so long as the basic principles of acceleration are maintained during the resisted sprints. Share on X

Very heavy resistance can cause athletes to make some critical technical errors, like letting the heel hit the ground upon contact and relying on a frequency-based strategy instead of a strategy based in long ground contacts that allow for a strong push.

In other words, athletes can revert to poor ankle/foot stiffness and spinning the wheels. A good coach will catch this and train athletes out of these patterns. Under these circumstances, I believe there is no negative transference to free sprints, and in fact there may be mechanical benefits, discussed later in this article.

Videos 2a & 2b. Video 2a shows an athlete relying on a “spin the wheels” strategy, followed by an appropriate sprint pattern with very heavy resistance in Video 2b.

Video 3. Heavy resisted marches, shown here, is a drill that helps teach athletes how to push rather than spin the wheels. Athletes may take one step at a time or two, both shown above. I found the two-step method easier on the 1080 than the sled, but it can be done on either.

In any case, I view very heavy resisted sprints NOT as sprint training, but as STRENGTH training. I’m a fan of Anatoliy Bondarchuk’s exercise classification hierarchy.

A very heavy resisted sprint is both a specific development exercise, meaning similar to but not the same as free sprinting, and a specific preparatory exercise, meaning it develops the same physiological systems required by and used during free sprinting. Shifting your perception opens your mind here.

While not the only factor that contributes to speed, force production is of course a key component. Specifically, starting speed and early acceleration are heavily influenced by an athlete’s maximal force production capacity, F0. Very heavy resisted sprints increase F0. What’s more, and perhaps surprising, is that very heavy resisted sprints have also been shown to increase V0.³

Yes, you read that correctly: Very heavy sled training (V_dec of 75-85% in the referenced study) can increase max velocity. But, in general, I consider very heavy resisted sprints most applicable to starting speed and early acceleration.

When talking with athletes, I speak their language. Rather than saying “your 5- and 10-meter time will decrease,” I go with “your explosive speed will get upgraded.” Every athlete knows what explosiveness is, but not all have an emotional attachment to a 5-meter split time.

If you’ve got the means to perform force-velocity profiles on your athletes, heavy resisted sprints could be a game changer for you, says @KD_KyleDavey. Share on X

If you’ve got the means to perform force-velocity profiles on your athletes, heavy resisted sprints could be a game changer for you. The works of JB Morin, Pierre Samozino, and the rest of the gang have brought to light that force-deficient athletes—those whose speed would benefit most from gaining absolute strength (improving F0)—particularly benefit from very heavy resisted sprints. No surprise there. If you can identify which athletes in your group need this particular type of training, the specificity of training you administer jumps up a notch, and so do your results.

Maximum Power Development

In my mind, it is power, not strength, that is an athlete’s engine. Recall the formulas:

Work = force * displacement

Power = work/time OR force * velocity

Power basically measures how fast an athlete can get from point A to point B with a given weight. In terms of sprinting, the weight is your body weight. Assuming body weight stays constant, the faster you are, the more powerful you are.

Said backward: The more powerful you are, the faster you are.

Yes, I understand there is more to speed than JUST being powerful, and it is not always the most powerful athlete who wins the race. But it would be foolish not to recognize the tremendous influence power has toward acceleration and maximum speed. Accordingly, developing power should be of high interest for the strength and conditioning coach and athlete alike.

During a free sprint, athletes typically achieve maximum power (P_max) within one second, and the rest of the sprint occurs at velocities too high to generate maximum power. This is where resisted sprints come in.

A 2016 paper by Matt Cross et al. titled “Optimal Loading for Maximizing Power During Sled-Resisted Sprinting”³changed the game. The paper defined, for the first time, how to prescribe resisted sprints such that the athlete is at P_max throughout the sprint. Rather than only achieving P_max for one step during a free sprint, athletes can achieve P_max with every step, significantly changing the training stimulus.

What’s the secret? The resistance has to induce a V_dec of 48-52%. In practice, I run a load-velocity profiling (which takes seconds with the 1080 Sprint) and choose the resistance that cuts the athlete’s max speed in half, a 50% V_dec. This resistance is known as the “optimal load.”

Video 4. An athlete sprinting against a load that induces a 50% Vdec, the prescription for sprinting at Pmax.

What are the benefits of training at max power? Well…improving max power. This is not the only method of doing so, but it is a good one, and certainly the most specific for sprinting.

The 1080 Sprint displays the power of each rep immediately upon completion. (I swear I’m not a 1080 salesman, I just love the product. However, Peter—if you’re reading—I will accept a royalty!) To drive competition and motivation, my athletes write their individual power record—the “most powerful sprint” in the table below—on a giant mirror in the training space and make that the number to beat, knowing the only way to do so is for them to improve their sprint time against the optimal load. Athletes LOVE chasing their number and breaking their record, and I always post a celebratory picture on our social media account when they do so.

In the training summary above, notice that average power increases with each session (despite reps also increasing), and the most powerful sprint as well as peak power trend upward as well. Comparing session six to session one, average sprint power increased 6.9%, the most powerful sprint showed a 5.1% in power, and peak power increased 11.8%. This athlete’s 30-meter sprint time also dropped 0.11 seconds over the three and half months we trained. Granted, his training consisted of more than resisted sprints, but I believe they were an important piece of the puzzle.

A few words of caution.

While resisted sprints can be a great medium for teaching an athlete to project at a strong angle, they do not allow an athlete to experience the rise in posture associated with a free sprint. Due to the resistance limiting speed, and the need to orient forces horizontally to move against the weight, the athlete is essentially stuck in an acceleration posture and does not reach a transition or max speed phase. As such, you may need to take extra time to teach the gradual rise to a proper, upright, max velocity posture.

While sprinting against resistance will not look exactly the same as sprinting without it, you should apply and maintain the same technical model, says @KD_KyleDavey. Share on X

Further, if you use this protocol with enough athletes, you will notice all kinds of deviations from ideal acceleration posture: exaggerated lateral movements of the head, arms, hips, and feet; excessive rounding of the upper back (particularly if a belt is used versus a harness); poor knee drive, resulting in a “spinning the wheels” action and poor ankle and foot stiffness, as discussed above; excessive cervical flexion or extension; and likely others I’m either forgetting or haven’t seen yet. It could be that resistance amplifies existing technical errors, making them easier to spot, but that’s pure conjecture. Either way, while sprinting against resistance will not look exactly the same as sprinting without it, you should apply and maintain the same technical model.

Don’t let your athletes look like dog crap just because they’re towing weight.

For another look at sprint training at max power, I highly recommend a brilliant piece by Cam Josse, “Maximum Power Sled Sprinting for American Football.”

Max Speed Development

Most of the talk around resisted sprints is about acceleration. Rightfully so, as they certainly improve acceleration abilities. But I believe there is also application toward improving maximum velocity.

Not disregarding the importance of vertical force production, what doesn’t get discussed as much is horizontal force as a contributor to max velocity. By definition, maximum velocity is reached when net horizontal forces are zero, meaning braking and propulsion are equal. Hence, propulsive horizontal force is a driver of maximum velocity. Indeed, elite sprinters produce more net horizontal force and impulse at any given velocity than sub-elite sprinters^4-6, which allows them to attain higher maximum velocities.⁷

Not disregarding the importance of vertical force production, what doesn’t get discussed as much is horizontal force as a contributor to max velocity, says @KD_KyleDavey. Share on X

Maybe I’m reading the vibe wrong, but it seems like discussing horizontal forces at top speed is akin to promoting backside mechanics, and is thus taboo. Even if some folks indeed do lump those two concepts together, of course we can discuss horizontal forces without simultaneously promoting backside mechanics.

Here’s what I’m getting at: Very light resistance, say a V_dec of 5-10%, allows an athlete to reach near maximal velocity (90-95% of max speed, by definition) while prompting them to produce more horizontal forces at those speeds. You can see how such a stimulus could induce greater force production at those near maximal speeds. I don’t have a systematic review to cite here, but my brain tells me that if training adaptations include more force production at a near max velocity, then the athlete’s max velocity will increase.

Video 5. An athlete sprinting against a resistance that induces a Vdec of roughly 5%.

In weightlifting terms, if what used to be my 2RM is now my 5RM, my 1RM has likely increased. If X velocity used to require 90% of my force production capacity and now only requires 80%, maximum speed has surely increased as well.

I’m doing nothing more than channeling an old training concept here. One way to increase performance at a given weight is to train slightly above and slightly below that weight. Very light resistance takes one side of that equation and overspeed training takes the other.

Returning to the backside mechanics discussion—to prove I’m not promoting witchcraft and blasphemy—it’s helpful to compare film of a free run versus a run with very light resistance to ensure kinematics indeed are not shifting out of the desired bandwidth. Unlike very heavy and max power sprints, where I’m more comfortable fudging archetypal kinematics in order to achieve an adaption, this training modality is best used to train force production while using pristine kinematics. Accordingly, I don’t want technique to change much at all when towing a very light resistance.

As with PAP, I think there are a few ways to integrate this into your training sessions. Pairing a very light resisted fly run with an unresisted one is a good way of doing so.

If you’ve been following along closely, you’ll note that aside from the PAP discussion, we’ve analyzed the use and efficacy of resisted sprints at descending intensities: very heavy, moderately heavy, and light resistance. Each provides a very unique training stimulus—just like very heavy, moderately heavy, and light squats do—and these stimuli need to be understood and implemented carefully to achieve a targeted outcome.

Is your athlete force-deficient? Very heavy sleds will help.

Is it a power training block? Max power sprints are the way to go.

And if your goal is to improve max speed, very light resistance may be helpful.

Resisted sprints are not magical, nor are they the holy grail. They are like every other training modality: a stimulus.

Know the goal and implement training methods accordingly.

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. Morin, J. B. and Samozino, P. “Interpreting power-force-velocity profiles for individualized and specific training.” International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance. 2016;11(2):267-272.

2. Lahti, J., Huuhka, T., Romero, V., Bezodis, I. N., Morin, J., and Hakkinen, K. “Changes in sprint performance and sagittal plane kinematics after heavy resisted 20 sprint training in professional soccer players.” Pre-print, 2019.

3. Cross, M. R., Brughelli, M., Samozino, P., Brown, S. R., and Morin, J. B. “Optimal loading for maximizing power during sled-resisted sprinting.”International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance. 2017;12(8):1069-1077.

4. Morin, J. B., Bourdin, M., Edouard, P., Peyrot, N., Samozino, P., and Lacour, J. R. “Mechanical determinants of 100-m sprint running performance.”European Journal of Applied Physiology. 2012;112(11):3921-3930.

5. Morin, J. B., Edouard, P., and Samozino, P. “Technical ability of force application as a determinant factor of sprint performance.”Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise. 2011;43(9):1680-1688.

6. Rabita, G., Dorel, S., Slawinski, J., Sàez‐de‐Villarreal, E., Couturier, A., Samozino, P., and Morin, J. B. “Sprint mechanics in world‐class athletes: a new insight into the limits of human locomotion.”Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports. 2015;25(5):583-594.

7. Hicks, D. S., Schuster, J. G., Samozino, P., and Morin, J. B. “Improving Mechanical Effectiveness During Sprint Acceleration: Practical Recommendations and Guidelines.”Strength & Conditioning Journal. 2020;42(2):45-62.

I want to begin this article with a pretty clear disclaimer: I am not the foremost expert on Dr. Michael Yessis’ “1×20 system.” In fact, I was once a giant skeptic of the program. How could this be a thing that people took seriously? One set of 20 reps? I pictured our football players doing hang cleans with 15-pound dumbbells. It didn’t make much sense to me, and it certainly had very little transfer to sport.

Despite my best efforts to ignore the talk and promotion of this program, I could never seem to escape it. Eventually my professional curiosity led me to stumble upon an opportunity to hear about this 1×20 thing when North Scott (Iowa) High School’s strength and conditioning coach, Tony Stewart, presented at the 2018 NHSSCA National Conference on the subject. I figured I was there, why not hear what he had to say?

I ended up realizing that the 1x20 program weaponized our layering system by adding a depth and width to it that I had never imagined possible, says @YorkStrength17. Share on X

Again, in the interest of full disclosure, I didn’t pay as close attention as I should have. It did, however, spark a small interest—enough of an interest that I began to do some digging. The further I dug into this dynamic program of athletic development, the more I knew this program was far from being just a few sets of 20 reps. In fact, I ended up realizing that the 1×20 program weaponized our layering system by adding a depth and a width to it that I had never imagined possible. Some love it, others hate it. One thing is for sure though: If you can’t at least see value in its potential, you definitely need to dig a little deeper.

Peeling Back the Onion

Most programs have some sort of developmental-based layering system within them, and ours is no different. I have written several articles outlining our particular version, with the primary theme being to slow-cook the athlete. I am a proponent of making our system of progression as detailed as possible in order to ensure our athletes get the most out of each level of adaptation before moving on to the next level.

When I am programming, my base goal is to squeeze out every drop of training adaptation possible and then move forward. Moving slower will extend the developmental process and leave somewhere to go as the athlete gains more experience and training age. If I see an item selling for $1,000, does it make much sense to walk up and hand the person selling it $2,000? Obviously, it doesn’t because that’s significantly more than is required to attain the desired item.

Why give away that extra money when I didn’t need to in order to get what I wanted? Maybe I can even get the item for less if I tried? Either way, we know that the asking price is the maximum needed resource to spend to achieve success. So instead of depleting my resources at a level above what I require to achieve my goal, why not use the bare minimum and have the unspent resources available to use at a later time?

Along the same lines, why would I jump an athlete to a higher intensity level or more advanced protocol when they still experience the desired adaptations at lower intensity and more basic protocols? Now, you absolutely can achieve the acute desired result, and $2,000 would most definitely get me the item desired. That decision lacks foresight at every level possible. In fact, some may call it, at the least, inefficient and maybe even foolish.

Jumping athletes with lower training ages (particularly those whose main focus is outside of either competitive powerlifting or Olympic weightlifting) into higher intensity loads or more advanced protocols falls into the exact same category. Doing so will (most likely) achieve the acute goals we desire. But it will also deplete resources that you could have used later in the athlete’s training life to extend the desired strength adaptations.

Simply stated, if you hop over lower-intensity programming in the early years of an athlete’s training before those intensities stop producing strength adaptations, you are allowing your ego to take away from the chronic development of the athlete. I’d rather squeeze every ounce of strength possible from each step of intensity before moving on. This means a longer period in lower intensity and less-advanced modes but leaving the athlete with room to grow later in their development process.

It’s most definitely a sticky situation for some. Coaches often hang their hat on the fact they can produce incredible strength gains in younger athletes. Sport coaches, parents, and administrators that have less of a background in evidence-based athletic development—or no background in it at all—often judge us based on absolute strength numbers. There is little doubt that this is a fact.

The reality is that making a human stronger is by far the easiest aspect in athletic development. Yes, the athlete must put in the effort. However, the process of progressive overload is not a complicated one. I’ve said before that you could send a child into the woods for a month with a group of athletes. Give the child instructions to have the athletes pick up a big rock and carry it as far as possible, then every day grab a heavier rock and repeat.

The athletes will come out the woods stronger. It’s not really a chest-pounding event to make a 15-year-old stronger. The question is, rather, what road do you take to help that 15-year-old become the most powerful, strong, and fast 18- or 21-year old that they can be?

Being willing and growth-minded enough to step back and see the big picture…that’s the chest-pounding moment. I believe that when I began to embrace that philosophy, it made me better at providing our athletes with what they needed, as opposed to what I thought they should have. It’s also what made me begin to take a serious look at what this crazy 20-rep program was all about.

Move Toward 1×20

All layering or “block” systems are built on progressions, whether in movement, volume intensity, proficiency, etc. Every coach who utilizes a layered program can attest that it helps produce the results we desire with greater efficiency and safety. What led me to finally take a deep dive into 1×20 was a statement on a podcast I happened to listen to a while back, where Yosef Johnson was discussing the system and his mentorship under Dr. Yessis.

The trigger moment for me was when Yosef described the Dr. Yessis program by saying (something along the lines of): “The difference between Doc’s programming and most others is he has a depth of progression and movements that is second to none. It’s almost obsessive.” That statement stopped me in my tracks. That was the moment I decided to find out what it was all about. That is what I wanted for my athletes.

If studied and utilized as the creators of the program intended, the 1x20 is a powerful tool, says @YorkStrength17. Share on X

Immediately you realize that “1×20” is just the catchy name they gave the program. If studied and utilized as the creators of the program intended, it’s a powerful tool.

Laying a Foundation

The basis of our layering system is to develop the strength and full-body movement proficiency to be able to prepare our athletes for the heavier loads, increased volumes, and more-advanced training protocols that their training age and adaptation process demand. Our top priority is to always keep in mind that anything we do that doesn’t help make them better at sport probably needs to be re-examined.

As my lens began to widen on the sports first, weight room second philosophy, I truly began to recognize how the 1×20 system could take our process to a new level. The way I saw the basic principles of how to use the 1×20 was that we could add not only great depth to our athletic development model, but great width as well. We could use this program to reverse engineer every important aspect, every movement that our athletes would need to be the best at sport they could possibly be, and develop it slowly over a long period of time.

It’s universally recognized that we want our athletes to get stronger, faster, and more explosive. Many see the key to that in the performance of movements such as the back squat, bench press, power clean, etc. The big rock lifts done for multiple sets of 3-5 reps will no doubt build strength, but in addition to strength they can lead to compensation patterns that could eventually result in injury.

Jumping ahead in the development process also misses crucial development of the smaller muscles that will become the weak link if not addressed. Using the traditional barbell movements with higher intensity can be compared to putting a high-performance race car engine in my daughter’s 2007 VW Bug. That engine can be as strong as you want it to be, but if the tires, frame, shocks, etc. are not compatible, it will break down. The athlete is no different.

That breakdown may come when they are in high school, or it may not. One thing is for sure, if they don’t develop proper balance at some point, they will break. Even if it’s when they are in college or beyond, that blame can often be placed directly on the training they received as a young athlete. That being said, there is no perfect program and no way to prevent injuries. All we can do is provide the most complete program possible to build resilience.

Why the 1×20 for Us

Using the 1×20 system allows us to design a path that adds depth to our progression system and gives our athletes a base of holistic strength that I believe will make them much more resilient than programs we have used before the 1×20. If we follow the program as designed, it is true general preparation from head to toe. It helps us with a smooth transition from Block 0 to our Block 1 and then transition to Block 2. As we advance in our Block 2, we eventually get to the point where the athlete uses a standard and dependable 5×5 program for those big rock movements with auxiliary movements working from 1×20 to 1×14, to 2×8, and eventually to 3×6.

Over 2-3 years, our athletes move from bodyweight movements through multiple levels of movements and movement variations that have all been reverse engineered from those we determine we will use at the top of our layering program based on transfer to sport. When the athlete is ready to move to our more advanced Block 3 program (wave periodization), each step has built on the next with multiple layers of progression and regression (when needed). It creates a fluid flow for our athletes year to year. Most of all, it provides the athlete with thousands of reps of developmental movements for every joint angle and muscle in a progressive manner in both movement proficiency and intensity. No other program I have found gives the athlete an opportunity to groove 18-25 movements a session, up to three times a week.

The 1×20 also gave us a unified developmental process that allows us to provide quality programming for all athletes, from those who show up daily to those we may only see a handful of times per year. Young athletes who I don’t see year-round and those we refer to as “drop-in athletes” were often a real conundrum for us. Using the 1×20 plan allows these athletes to jump in and out of the program without falling behind. Even if the movement variation is slightly different, every athlete in that layer will perform the same basic movements.

The 1x20 gave us a unified developmental process that allows us to provide quality programming for all athletes, from those who show up daily to those we may only see a few times per year. Share on X

The athlete who has done the workout 25 times will have advanced a great deal in load used, but the length of time spent on each layer ensures that the athlete who has only done the workout 4-5 times in that period can still step right in and train. It quickly becomes an athlete-led program that is very self-progressing. The learning curve is not as steep, and the rules of how we progress from a load perspective are very simple. Athletes master movements by repetition and begin to add great amounts of strength as they progress. The off-and-on athlete can still train with their peers who have trained consistently because the basic movement will be the same even if the mode/load or rep range changes over time.

The results I have seen while using this program have been remarkable, particularly with our female athletes. As I wrote in another piece discussing the unique experience of working with female athletes, in my experience, progressing load and intensity is often a challenge. This program gives clear directions on what rep range achieved will dictate adding weight.

This has been remarkable in practice. The rep range makes it comfortable for the athlete from a load perspective. It also builds confidence in adding weight and progressing. Going from 20 pounds for 20 reps to 40 pounds for the same number in just a few weeks (for example) is an increase in strength. It also puts the athlete in a state that helps take some of the fear out of progressing to 50 pounds for 20 reps or maybe 65+ pounds for eight reps later on. Those types of gains are very common with this program.

From a male athlete perspective, it has helped break the “daily max out” thought process that so many young male athletes bring into the weight room (which I have no doubt can limit progress). They now take pride in the weight they can get for 14-20 reps. When it comes time for them to drop to sets of eight and six, they will be proficient and strong. The gains in strength and, frankly, the hypertrophy that comes from this program with young males (in my experience) are remarkable.

From a velocity-based perspective, there are clear connections to why coaches who use this program experience such remarkable results. Athletes are exposed to the entire range of the force-velocity curve in each set. The lower load initially allows the athlete to move the first few reps with close to max velocity, particularly in the early parts of the program. As they progress through the set, they will hit reps for speed-strength, strength-speed, and eventually max strength, all in the same set but with 18-25 different movements.

I believe one aspect of the program that many aren’t aware of is that all assigned repetitions are meant to be a range. The athlete is taught that if it says “20 reps” that really means shoot for 20, but if you can do more, then keep going. Athletes will naturally force hypertrophy adaptation with the volume and the pace at which they are able to add load following this protocol.

I believe one aspect of the 1x20 program that many aren’t aware of is that all assigned repetitions are meant to be a range, says @YorkStrength17. Share on X

In our program, APRE is a major tool. We use the 1×20 protocols as a way to teach and progress our athletes to our APRE program (and eventually to our VBT level, which uses an APRE-like protocol). Using the APRE philosophy, we have set a range of reps above and below the target and tied that to a process that clearly lays out how and when the athlete should progress the load. This process mirrors our APRE3 and APRE5 protocols used in later layers. If you would like to know more details on this aspect of our modification of the 1×20, feel free to reach out to me.

We also use an “intensity” protocol (see figure 4) that helps us progress our athletes to the “reps left in the tank” version of RPE that we use in later levels. Again, the sheer volume of practice they get with these ranges helps progress them to the “feel” of what we look for from a relative intensity aspect. Obviously, this can help us adjust individually or as a group, as our athlete monitoring system protocol dictates.

A Worthy, Evidence-Based Program

What you take away from this article isn’t that you should immediately stop what you are doing and switch to the 1×20 program. My real hope is that, even if you never use the program, you at least recognize it as less of a novelty and more of a viable way to develop an athlete. I feel at this point that the 1×20 is a kind of counterculture. I say this because I see a small group of coaches dedicated to the program having great success and touting its value.

You could take to social media right now, type in “1×20,” and see how many mainstream coaches attack and ridicule it. The thing is, I was once one of those attackers! I made the same mistake that the vast majority of the anti-1×20 crowd makes. They see “1×20” and don’t take the time to really look into the program to understand that a catchy name doesn’t define the program. In fact, the real magic is in the depth of progression you can add to any program.

The real magic of the 1x20 program is in the depth of progression you can add to any program, says @YorkStrength17. Share on X

There is no doubt that I am not an expert. In fact, I use a fairly modified version of the program. Our program uses the 1×20 protocol to build a deep base of total body strength and movement skill over a relatively long period. We use it to reverse engineer where we want our athletes to be and develop a road map that ensures we don’t waste an ounce of fuel on our trip to our advanced program. We also use it as a GPP for all our athletes for the four- to six-week period following the end of a sports season to reboot their system in preparation for the coming off-season.

I could point you to coaches from all levels, from high school to collegiate to private sector, who use the 1×20 program as more than a building block or GPP. The real secret sauce to this or any other program is knowing the WHY. If you understand the needs of your athletes and are willing to step back and take in that view from 30,000 feet, this program just may become for you what it has become for me. At the very least, I urge you to listen to the guys who are the experts, from Dr. Yessis to Yosef Johnson to Jay DeMayo, Jeff Moyer, and more. I will almost guarantee you this: You may not end up using the 1×20 program with your athletes, but you will see that it is a well-built, evidence-based program that deserves respect.

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

Punching is an indispensable ability for winning a fight, and probably the most sought-after skill. It makes sense: Since the hands are closer to the brain, they are therefore instinctively easier to use and train. But a complete fighter must also be able to kick hard. The legs pack a lot of muscle and have greater reach, and experience has repeatedly shown that a devastating kick can end a fight pretty fast. So, developing strong kicks should be a top priority for anyone training for combat sports or self-defense.

Developing strong kicks should be a top priority for anyone training for combat sports or self-defense. Share on X

In order to bring that about, here are some movements to help you build unstoppable kicks that will instill fear into the heart of your opponent. The movements are divided into two categories: general and style-specific.

General Exercises

These basic exercises will help in a more general, all-around way.

1. The Sumo Deadlift

The sumo deadlift should be the primary deadlift variation for fighters because the wide stance develops strength and stability that specifically transfers to the fighting stance, where the legs are split apart. Needless to say, the deadlift is unparalleled in its ability to develop a strong core and legs, which are a must for any athlete.

In order to perform the sumo deadlift:

• Assume the sumo stance.
• Position your legs about as wide as the rings on the barbell. A little narrower than that should also be fine if you are not very tall.
• Hinge your hips, always keeping them higher than the knees but lower than the shoulders, and reach for the bar.
• I prefer the double overhand grip, and if it becomes the weak link of your lift, use straps. The mixed grip tends to cause imbalances over time.
• Engage your lats and core, maintain a neutral spine, and pull.

During the lift, keep the bar as close to your body as possible and actively try to spread the ground apart with your legs so that you enhance your ability to produce lateral force. Also think about penetrating the bar with your hips as you rise. Do not overextend at the top, just stand tall and lower the weight again in a slow, controlled manner.

Video 1. Perform the sumo deadlift during the strength portion of your workout, which should be before any isolation/accessory exercises, among your other compound lifts. Do 3-4 sets of 2-5 reps.

2. The Jumping Back Squat

The jumping back squat is one of the best exercises for developing power production, which obviously translates to stronger kicks. In order to perform it:

• Unrack the weight and rest the bar on your traps (high bar position).
• Place your legs in a comfortable width and squat until just below parallel.
• Explode upward, jumping as violently as humanly possible, making sure your body is fully extended throughout the jump.

Returning to the ground with proper mechanics is crucial now that you’re holding extra weight on your back, so ensure that during the landing your knees track over your feet and don’t cave in or fall outward. Land on the balls of your feet first and then evenly distribute your weight from the toes to the heels to cushion the impact.

Video 2. Use the jumping back squat to develop power, but do not overload the movement.

You can insert the movement into your program in two ways:

1. You can simply do it as a single exercise among other plyometrics, right after a good warm-up and before your strength and/or isolation work. In that case, do three sets of five reps at 20-30% of your 1RM.
2. You can do it as part of a post-tetanic potentiation (PTP) set, utilizing the so-called complex method. Do 2-3 reps of heavy back squats at 80-90% of your 1RM and immediately (no rest at all) perform five jumping back squats at 20-30% of your 1RM. Rest and repeat for a total of three sets.

Beginning with the heavy work will fire up the nervous system, setting it to a more “combat ready” state, actually making the following explosive set even more efficient. A word of caution though: Keep the loading parameters as described and resist the urge to overload the jumping squats. The idea here is maximum force production, not lifting as much weight as possible.

3. The Jumping Split Squat

This is another awesome exercise along the same lines. Your program should include unilateral training in the first place, and even more so if you are a fighter, since kicking means you will find yourself standing on one leg quite often. Use only your body weight for this one.

Your program should include unilateral training in the first place, and even more so if you are a fighter. Share on X

Take a big step forward and a little bit to the outside. Do not make the rookie mistake of placing your legs in front of one another, because you will have terrible balance. Keep your torso straight and lower your hips vertically to prepare for the jump. Swing your arms to create momentum and launch explosively toward the sky. Land in the same staggered stance if possible, but if you have trouble, switch your legs to shoulder width while in the air so that it becomes easier.

Video 3. Perform the jumping split squat before the strength and/or isolation portion of your workout by doing 3-4 sets of 5-6 reps on each side.

As with the jumping back squat, you can also choose to merge strength with plyometrics in PTP sets, in which case you should perform three heavy split squats (80-90% of 1RM), then immediately perform 5-6 bodyweight jumping split squats on the same leg. Take 30 seconds of rest and repeat on the other side. This is one set. Repeat for a total of three sets.

Style-Specific Exercises

These specific exercises have a bigger effect on certain kicks, based on your style as a fighter.

1. The Kneeling to Broad Jump

This one is designed to enhance the “hip snap” required when delivering roundhouse kicks, often used by kickboxing and Muay Thai athletes.

• Drop on your knees and keep your feet flat on the ground, all the way to the toes.
• Bring your hips back and sit on your heels.
• Build momentum with your hands by bringing them back and rapidly swinging them forward.
• As they continue to travel toward the sky, extend the hips explosively so the entire body is thrown upward.
• Swiftly bring the legs forward in about shoulder width and land in a forefoot position. (Be mindful to not let your knees cave in.)
• Immediately switch to a broad jump and propel yourself as far as you can, again using your hands for drive during the transition.

Make your final landing on all three points of contact of your feet (heel, first metatarsal, and fifth metatarsal). Stick in this position for a moment, again making sure there’s no knee valgus, then stand up. Repeat as needed.

Video 4. As mentioned before, it’s best to perform plyometric exercises when your nervous system is fresh, so right after the warm-up is a great choice. Do three or four sets of five reps at the most, with plenty of rest between each set.

2. The Staggered-Stance Pallof Press

The Pallof press is a wonderful exercise in regard to creating a rigid core, giving you control over rotational movements. This is exactly what we try to achieve here, only this time we use the same stance we have when fighting, thus building a strong foundation for circular/roundhouse kicks.

Tie a band to a stable object, like a rack at chest height. Stand side-on to the rack, grab the band with both hands, and hold it against your chest. Stand at such a distance that the band already provides solid resistance. Assume the staggered stance, placing the inside leg to the back. Engage your core and press out with your hands. Resist the pull of the band by not letting your torso rotate toward it. Then pull back in slowly and repeat. (As an alternative, you can use a cable with a standard handle.)

Video 5. Leave the staggered stance Pallof press for the last portion of your workout. Do 3-4 sets of 10-12 reps on each side.

3. The Band Lift

Now that you’ve established rotational control, it’s time to increase rotational power. The band lift is a great way to achieve this.

Tie your band very low, close to the ground. Grab it with both hands, turn sideways, and let your arms align with it. Step away until you feel tension and position your feet shoulder-width apart. Brace your core and glutes and pull the band toward a straight diagonal line across your rotating torso, until your arms reach a fully extended position above your head. You can also perform this movement using a cable tower.

Video 6. Leave the band lift for after you finish with your big lifts. Do 3-4 sets of 10 reps on each side.

4. The Pallof Walkout

This one will fire up your core, glutes, adductor, and abductor muscles at the same time. The movement will also strengthen the obliques and transverse abdominis, all while maintaining the anti-rotation component.

In particular, the Pallof walkout will help Tae Kwon Do kickers remain highly mobile for longer, since their style includes continuous lateral movement. Set up the band (or cable) exactly like in the staggered stance Pallof press. Then:

• Place your legs about as wide as you would in a squat.
• Lower your center of gravity by bending your knees and press out with your hands.
• Take three steps sideways, resisting the pull of the band.
• Return with another three steps in the opposite direction.

That is one repetition.

Video 7. Pallof Walkouts: Perform three sets of 4-5 reps max on each side, at the end of your workout.

5. The Cossack Squat

The Cossack squat places a lot of emphasis on the adductors—therefore, it’s once again great for fighters with a lot of lateral movement or in and out tactics, as used in Tae Kwon Do or karate.

• Start by placing your feet at least double the distance of your shoulders and flare your toes out just a little.
• Hold a kettlebell or dumbbell against your chest.
• Shift your weight to one foot by bending your knee and hips downward, until you reach as deep as your mobility allows. The opposite leg should turn to rest on the heel, so that the toes point to the sky.

Try to keep an upright torso during the whole movement. In order to maintain balance, gradually push the weight away from your body as you go lower. Once the end range is achieved, push the floor with your working leg and stand up again, pulling the weight back in. Repeat on the other side.

Video 8. Do three sets of 10 reps. The Cossack squat is an accessory multi-joint exercise, so you’d best place it after your compound lifts but before the isolation/core part of your workout.

 6. Hanging Corkscrew Knee Raises

The last exercise will torch your obliques, but at the same time cultivate powerful front and side kicks. These types of kicks are performed by first lifting the knee high, so being able to do that easily while maintaining strength through the range of motion is very important.

Pinch a med/slam ball with your legs and hang from a bar. Raise your knees like you would in a standard hanging knee raise, only this time twist them to the side in a corkscrew motion as well. Return to the starting position by reversing the process and repeat on the other side.

Try to always keep your torso facing forward and be sure to initiate every repetition by contracting the obliques. If the exercise is too hard, drop the extra weight. If it’s still hard, try bending your arms a little when raising your legs, which will take some stress off the core and make it a tad easier.

Video 9. Perform three sets of 12-15 reps. Leave the hanging corkscrew knee raises for the last part of your workout. If you have more core work programmed, it’s best that you do the hanging corkscrew knee raises first, since I can assure you, they are a pretty demanding exercise.

Powerful Kicking Tools

Before we call it a day, let’s get some things out of the way. Yes, technique is obviously very important. Being strong is one thing and being able to deliver a blow in the optimal way is another.

Being strong is one thing and being able to deliver a blow in the optimal way is another. Share on X

Technical proficiency, however, is not the subject being discussed here. This article is about giving you some tools to make what you—supposedly—already know how to do more powerful. Try these movements out, and you will hopefully see the results!

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

I grew up in an idyllic coastal town in New England, playing football and lacrosse at a high school known for its academic and athletic excellence. I then played lacrosse in college and had a wonderful athletic experience filled with meaningful connections and great coaches. I remember powerful, defining moments that I cherish to this day. Throughout that time, however, what I don’t remember—ever—is any specific training designed to enhance my speed. One time, out on a rainy grass field, I remember running while a coach held a stopwatch in hand.

I never knew my time.

After college, I immediately began coaching high school football and lacrosse. I conditioned my teams hard. Running was usually long, slow, and submaximal. I often ran with the players. Our running was largely an attempt to build toughness, togetherness, and conditioning.

Our running was largely an attempt to build toughness, togetherness, and conditioning… We were never focused on developing speed, says @ErikBecker42. Share on X

We timed 40s once at the beginning of each season. I used the data to form position groupings and did not share it with the athletes. I viewed speed as something God-given rather than something that I had any influence over. I was very blessed to spend 15 years coaching at one of the best athletic programs in New England with a great tradition of excellence. Our teams were usually quite successful, but we were never focused on developing speed.

Man Makers for Making Men

In the fall of 2003, I read an influential article in Men’s Health magazine about sprint training. The article quoted noted speed coach Tom Shaw on the powerful benefits of sprint training and introduced me to a challenging workout that I began to do religiously on Sunday mornings. The workout, dubbed “Man Makers” in the article, was ten 100s, eight 80s, six 60s, and four 40s:

• • The 100s were run in 15-18 seconds with 45 seconds of rest.

 

• • The 80s were run in 12-15 seconds with 45 seconds of rest.

 

• • The 60s were run in 6-8 seconds with 30 seconds of recovery.

 

• The 40s were run in 4-6 seconds with 15 seconds of recovery.

This entire workout took 23 minutes to complete. It was awesome: It left me gasping for breath, dog-tired, and at my absolute limit. Even in my early 20s, it took me days to recover.

I have always loved hard work. I loved pushing myself to my limit. I did the Man Maker workout every Sunday, year-round. In rain, in sleet, in sun, and in snow. In blistering heat and in frigid cold. During football season, I had my teams join me. I believed that if we could endure it together, we could endure anything. My deal with my players was that if a player beat me for all 28 sprints, I would buy them lunch.

It never happened.

I realize now that we never worked on our absolute speed. Our 40s came at the end of the workout, when our tanks were near empty. For our teams, Man Makers were a rite of passage designed to bond us through the endurance of mutual suffering. Completion of the workout was more about toughness and grit than maximum speed—we were not getting faster.

Interestingly, one of my first hints that the workout may have been making us slower came after attending the Tony Franklin System Seminar in 2007. He was teaching a high-tempo spread offense to high school coaches, and he said to do away with conditioning. Notably, in my next two seasons, we stopped doing Man Makers on Saturdays and went 19-1—the change in approach definitely made us fresher.

Over the years, I did Man Makers with various friends, in several different states, and in at least one other country. I always ran with a stopwatch and had a fairly good sense of what my times should be. I commonly ran on field turf, but occasionally ran on grass or beach sand when the field was covered in snow. When possible, I preferred to run barefoot and shirtless in the sun.

Peak 8 en Route to Feed the Cats

After about 10 years of running Man Makers every Sunday at 10 a.m., I shifted to a workout called “Peak 8.” This consisted of eight 30-second max effort sprints, followed by a 90-second walking recovery. The idea is to peak your heart rate eight times. The workout has a three-minute jog warm-up and cooldown.

Similarly, for almost 10 years, I did Peak 8 with religious regularity each and every Sunday morning at 10 a.m. No matter the weather, time of year, or location, I got it done. Occasionally, I was joined by friends, former players, or the teams I was coaching. I had a general sense of how far I should travel on each 30-second interval. Like Man Makers, I loved Peak 8 for bringing me right to my physical and mental edge in about 20 minutes.

When weather permitted, I preferred to run barefoot and shirtless in the sun. When snow covered our turf in the winter, I ran on the exposed sand at the beach.

Now, at this point I had taken over as the head coach of a struggling program. I was two years into building a program like the one I had come from. During our first two seasons, we were successful, but we had not reached the elite level of athleticism I was striving for.

Looking back, I realize that my training methods needed a serious update. We did not focus on speed. We ran the heck out of the athletes in summer and during the pre-season, all submaximal “old school conditioning.” What it did was reinforce poor running habits, tax their CNS, and wear out their legs. It did not benefit their speed at all.

Looking back, this hurt us, for sure. For example, during our mandated “Conditioning Week,” I took them through Man Makers and Peak 8 on consecutive days. Then we had a full speed, two-hour practice afterward. Talk about burning the steak!

This all changed two summers ago. I was happily mowing my lawn and listening to the “Run the Power” podcast. The guest was a chemistry teacher from Illinois: Tony Holler. He had a deep, gritty voice that sounded like he’d been around the block more than once. He sounded like he had earned his wisdom. He spoke like he knew what he was talking about and didn’t care if you believed him or not. He spoke with authenticity and ease. He was talking about the difference between the sprints I did at the end of high school football practice and real sprinting. He was talking about the value of absolute speed. He was talking about Feeding the Cats.

I liked him right away, and I was hooked.

Speaking like a heretic with nothing to prove, Holler said that conditioning makes you slow. He said that any fool could get another fool tired, and that tired is the enemy and not the goal. He challenged me, as a football coach, to wake up to what I didn’t know.

For the first time, I realized that I had never actually been trained on how to run with maximum speed and effort. Consequently, I never trained my teams in a way that increased their speed. Share on X

For the first time, I realized that I had never actually been trained on how to run with maximum speed and effort. Consequently, I never trained my teams in a way that increased their speed. In fact, I actually had trained them in ways that made them slower. (As I learned from Holler, speed is improved in 4- to 6-second max speed sprints with a full recovery.)

Over the next few weeks, I sought out every article Holler had written and listened to every podcast he appeared on. Through Holler and Feed the Cats, I became immersed in the work of Brian Kula, Cal Dietz, Brad Dixon, Jimmy Radcliffe, Chris Korfist, JL Holdsworth, JT Ayers, Douglas Heel, Barry Ross, Charlie Francis, and others. I took a deep dive into self-activation, reflexive performance reset (RPR), and mass specific force.

Video 1. Coach Becker sprinting on the track.

U of O’s Fast Break Tempo and Record, Rank, Publish

At this point, I began incorporating my new learning into training with my high school football team and in my own personal weekly sprint workouts. I got rid of anything that “made us slow” and started using a weekly practice model based on the collaboration between Chip Kelly and Jimmy Radcliffe at the University of Oregon. I began testing our players in max speed 40-yard sprints. Per Holler’s instructions, I recorded, ranked, and published the data.

It worked.

During the first summer, we led our passing league in scoring and had great showings at 7v7 tournaments. People commented on how fast our team looked. During the season, we continued to use a practice plan based on the Radcliffe/Kelly method of sprint days and non-sprint days. We tried to find the minimum effective dose and sent the players home with gas in the tank. Tired is the enemy and not the goal.

For the first time in my tenure at my new school, students looked fast and fresh at practice. They were more motivated and focused. We got our work done faster and got off the field when we reached our objective. Our players were happier and healthier. We moved to a “less, but better” philosophy based on the book Essentialism. Kids always left practice with gas in the tank and there was a joy to the work that I had not seen in my first two seasons at this program.

We incorporated RPR before games. On a team with only three seniors, we won seven games (our best season in almost a decade) while starting nine sophomores. Our players were visibly faster and fresher. Best of all, I have data to prove it. I have two seasons full of data showing improving speed numbers. This correlated to more wins, more points scored, and fewer points allowed.

The speed on the field was evident in person and on film. This past season, we did not play games due to COVID-19, but we worked hard on speed. We tested 40s every Monday, and we recorded, ranked, and published all data. We had 24 players run faster than five seconds on the 40-yard dash.

On film, our guys just looked quicker, more explosive, and faster in action. Their legs looked fresher. They were sharper. Holler says that if they train at 100%, then playing at 80% feels comfortable. However, if you train at 60%, 80% feels unbearable. I attribute this totally to our Radcliffe/Kelly practice plan and our commitment to low-dose, max speed sprinting two days during the week leading up to game day (our third sprint day).

As far as toughness goes, after using physical conditioning to develop it earlier in my career, I now believe it is mostly a mental skill. I try to instill mental resilience more verbally now than situationally—we talk a lot about focus, determination, and perseverance. Coaching mindset has become a huge focus, and I believe that mental training is a safer way to help build toughness in young players.

As far as toughness goes, after using physical conditioning to develop it earlier in my career, I now believe it is mostly a mental skill, says @ErikBecker42. Share on X

All the while, our speed numbers continued to improve over the course of the season two years in a row. And, our injury rates were very low (we had one concussion, a sprained thumb, and a broken collarbone). 

N of 1

On the personal side, my weekend sprints are still ongoing. I am approaching 900 consecutive weeks. Currently, my Sunday sprint workout looks like this:

• • RPR and a short dynamic warm-up.

 

• • Plyometrics to enhance my running form.

 

• • One 40-yard build-up where I come slow off the line, hit max speed around the 20-yard mark, and decelerate to the 40-yard mark.

 

• • Then I do one flying 10.

 

• I follow that with 3-5 max effort 40-yard sprints.

I run in track spikes on a rubber track. When possible, I run with the wind. I sit down for a full five-minute recovery between sprints. Usually, I run 3-5 40s. Occasionally, I add a 100 or 200.

Fascinatingly, and just like Holler has said, my 200 time after running my max speed 40s is as good as it was on my first interval of Peak 8. Raise the ceiling to raise the floor. I always try to low dose my speed workout and never burn the steak. Tired is the enemy not the goal. Everything is hand timed. (I am saving up for a Freelap.) Though I am not setting any speed records, recently a longtime Ivy League running back coach timed me at 4.7.

I supplement my sprinting during the week with low-dose, concentric-only hex bar deadlifts at 85% or more of my max to build mass-specific force. I add plyometrics and light power cleans or snatches. I prioritize sleep, rest, and recovery. I live clean and make my wellness a priority.

I have learned that speed is the ultimate difference-maker on any athletic field. It is the most prized commodity. Speed benefits every player, no matter the position or sport. It can be coached. It can be trained. It can be increased. It has become my passion. I will continue to work hard to learn everything I can about building the fastest teams possible. For the rest of my coaching career, I will prioritize the speed of my athletes above all else.

For the rest of my coaching career, I will prioritize the speed of my athletes above all else, says @ErikBecker42. Share on X

As I write this, I am looking ahead to my 894th consecutive Sunday morning sprint workout, and I am excited to run fast.

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

For decades, we have seen a wide variety of methods employed to improve speed and conditioning in team sports such as football, basketball, baseball, volleyball, lacrosse, and soccer. These methods often include the 300-yard shuttle, pole runs, 10×110-yard runs, gassers, down and backs, jogging laps, and more. Recently, it has come to the attention of many coaches that these methods are neither appropriate for developing true speed nor specific enough to qualify as relevant conditioning. I would say that, on the surface, this position is relatively fair, as it is difficult to imagine how these training methods relate to the sports at hand.

For example, a single play of football is referred to as “six seconds of hell” by many coaches across the country. This is then followed by a rest interval of roughly 30 seconds, so the work-to-rest ratio is about 1:5. There was a graphic floating around social media from Kurt Hester that approximated roughly 6.3 plays per drive with about 3 minutes and 26 seconds between drives. If we revisit the 300-yard shuttle or gassers, how do those compare to the actual demands of the game? Are we training milers or football players? What is concerning is that many coaches believe these slow, monotonous running modalities contribute to speed development.

What is concerning is that many coaches believe these slow, monotonous running modalities contribute to speed development, says @BrendanThompsn. Share on X

I want to start by saying that I am not here to condemn anybody. Everybody has their own methods and strategies for athletic development, and they do what they truly believe is best for their program. What I want is to provide some information to hopefully give extra tools for coaches to think critically and make calculated decisions regarding speed and conditioning programming for their respective sports.

Speed Kills

It is no secret that speed is one of the most highly regarded traits in all of sports and performance. Fast athletes tend to jump the highest, hit the hardest, and redirect and make game-changing plays more often than their slower counterparts. Because of this, speed is often at the forefront of athletic development, as it should be. However, it tends to be pursued in ways that are not conducive to speed development and may actually take away from the ability to produce and utilize the force needed to achieve top speed.

Speed Development

As mentioned above, the average miler development program of repeat gassers at painfully slow paces may not be the best way to improve speed. Increasing weight room maxes, while there is some correlation to strength capacity and speed outputs, is not the end-all, be-all for speed development.

Within team sports, we often see athletes working on various aspects of their game to improve. Trouble catching the ball? Go play catch. Trouble dribbling? Grab a ball and practice. Free throw issues? Get on the line and start shooting. It is intuitive that working on a specific task with the task is the best way to improve upon it.

So, if I want to get my athletes really fast, what should I do? Should I jog them around for 10-20 minutes in long repeat efforts? Personally, I prefer to sprint them. How some people have developed the idea that slow jogging develops speed is beyond my comprehension. Luckily, it’s not too late to right the ship!

What Is Sprinting?

Sprinting is a running effort that is at or near maximum capacity for each individual. Athletes ideally perform these efforts at distances that allow them to sustain speed for most or all of the rep duration. Additionally, recovery intervals are important in making sure that each rep is of the highest quality while also ensuring that the speed workout does not shift toward slow endurance work due to fatigue. This fatigued state of training is what some refer to as “the death march.”

If quality falls off during the workout, you can either find a way to restore it or cut off the workout completely. Examples of potential remedies are longer rest intervals, shorter sprint distances, or both. If your adjustments are not impactful, it is a sign the athlete is spent for that workout, and it is time to shut it down for the day. This is not to say that you should aim to sprint your athletes until they cannot reproduce high-quality repetitions, but to simply arm you with tools to use in the event that the quality drops.

You can’t expect an athlete to repeatedly sprint at maximal intensity when they are tired, as there will come a point of diminishing returns and possibly an ever-increasing risk of injury with each additional rep. Sprinting doesn’t have to be done in high volumes or long distances. Even max accelerations for just 10 or 20 yards are sufficient to stimulate the central nervous system and get a positive adaptation effect. However, to really work top speed, you will likely need to experiment with repetitions going into the 40- to 60-yard range depending on the athlete and their ability to accelerate to their maximum velocity. Just ensure that your rest intervals line up with the distances being run so that you stay ahead of the looming fatigue.

Speed Monitoring

There are a few ways to monitor the quality of a given workout, the most obvious of which is timing. If you can develop a baseline level for speed work and time each repetition, you can objectively identify when the times start to trend in the wrong direction. In this event, you can refer to the above to attempt to rectify the situation. If this doesn’t work, you can individually start to cut the workout for athletes who are beginning to fall apart.

Using the eye test to monitor body language and mechanical efficiency for signs of fatigue is critical in making these decisions. As the body fights through an energy deficit, the muscles may accumulate several waste products that compromise coordination, speed, power, and movement economy, as the muscles are no longer firing in an optimal physiological environment. I believe these are some of the main reasons that maximal sprinting while fatigued may jeopardize performance and the athlete’s health.

While sprinting is not the only way to enhance speed, it is the most effective training method to do so. It also doubles as an extremely robust exercise that benefits other explosive athletic qualities that are difficult to emulate in other types of training. Plyometrics, biomechanics, and a well-designed weightlifting program (among other things) are also great for developing qualities related to speed to complement the sprint work. As always, find the mixture that fits best with your program and use it well! There are many ingredients involved in the speed equation for any given team or individual, so the way each aspect affects your athletes is an important problem to figure out and manage appropriately.

Prescribing Speed Work

Once we understand what we need to do to improve speed, the big question always becomes: “How do we do it?” This is a fair question, and the answer that you may not be looking for is that it largely depends on the context surrounding your athletes and development. I’m not referring to weight training; I’m specifically referencing high-intensity sprint work. Where does it fit in and how?

• Are you able to incorporate speed by practicing with more intent in the sport?
• Do the demands of the sport contradict speed, and therefore you need to set time aside to build it into your programming?
• How often should you implement speed work?
• Will it be bodyweight speed, resisted speed, assisted speed, controlled speed, or all of the above?
• How deeply will you dive into speed?
• Are you equipped to coach the technical aspects of it?
• Are you comfortable with long rest durations?
• Do you know where to begin and how to progress it?

These are all important questions to ask yourself before going all in. Have a sound plan, put it into action, monitor progress, and adjust accordingly.

Without getting too wordy, do what you’re comfortable with. Short-duration sprinting is likely a stimulus the athletes get in their sport, so maybe this is a good starting point from a safety and familiarity perspective. A rule of thumb I’ve heard many use is to give one minute of rest for every 10 yards sprinted. This isn’t always feasible, and it isn’t a make-or-break rule, but be aware that if you cut your rest durations too short, you will begin shifting to an aerobic conditioning model.

Erring on the side of less overall volume and more overall rest intervals will likely be beneficial in your pursuit of speed development, says @BrendanThompsn. Share on X

Many would say this is the opposite of speed, and I would largely agree. Speed that has been ill-prescribed turns into monotonous conditioning, which has plagued programs for far too long, so let’s be tactful. You don’t need a ton of sprint efforts to improve the central nervous system, so erring on the side of less overall volume and more overall rest intervals will likely be beneficial in your pursuit of speed development.

Conditioning

What is conditioning? Many coaches believe it is the ability to arbitrarily run forever without getting tired; hence, the methods I mentioned above that many incorrectly utilize for relevant conditioning. I would counter this misconception and say that being conditioned means you are able to perform sport-specific tasks repetitively throughout the duration of the game while minimizing the impact fatigue has on performance. Conditioning being related to slow, monotonous running is the reason many sport coaches have pursued this as a means to condition their athletes to endure the demands of the game.

However, running long distances is not what makes an athlete resilient to the detriments of fatigue as a game or competition wears on. What it will do is make them more able to sustain their running paces for longer durations, but simply running for conditioning misses the boat. There needs to be a level of specificity that is gradually incorporated in order for the conditioning work to carry over appropriately.

Principles of motor learning say that task specificity with regard to the activity, the environment, and predictability lead to optimal carryover. If they’re performing the activity at suboptimal levels while under the influence of fatigue, you can count on the athletes learning how to perform low-quality movements. Conditioning does not need to be low-quality, mindless jogging, however; it should reflect what you want to see from your athletes as the game wears on.

As mentioned before, coaches are great at addressing other gaps in performance by practicing those specific aspects of performance. Somewhere along the way, conditioning became simplified to training milers. Just as this training will not improve speed, it also will not make your athlete magically fresh for the fourth quarter of a game. So, what will?

Prescribing Conditioning

By structuring the demands of practice to simulate what will happen in the game, we can build athletes with a greater work capacity and general resilience to game-related fatigue. If it is unrealistic to do so, then finding a way to bridge the gap through other means is your next best bet. This would include keeping similar work-to-rest ratios as the game would require as well as sustaining a given intensity for these durations.

As referenced before, in order to condition specifically, you need to be familiar with how the game tends to unfold in a multitude of ways. For example:

• How long is the average play?
• How many plays per drive or per game?
• How much time is spent in the fast break versus the half court setup?
• How many offensive and defensive possessions per game?
• How much rest between possessions?
• How many players play the entire game?
• Can you simulate timeouts when athletes break down?
• How frequently are you substituting?
• Are there points in the game where the athlete can conserve energy and choose their windows to be aggressive?

Conditioning is not only a physiological resilience but the ability for the athlete to gauge and understand what level of intensity is required for the task at hand. If sustaining high-quality performance throughout the duration of the game is important, these are things that must be addressed. Not everything must be a dead sprint every single play or down.

Conditioning should reflect what you want to see from your athletes as the game wears on, says @BrendanThompsn. Share on X

This is not to say that every practice needs to be structured exactly like a game, as it is important to find time to teach athletes the plays and correct mistakes. However, you can begin to challenge how well they retain your coaching material by starting the game simulation for conditioning purposes. Stopping the flow of this portion of practice after every single play to micromanage the players won’t be conducive to your goal of conditioning, so be sure that they’re at a somewhat proficient level of comprehension prior to throwing them in the fire. Athletes make mistakes. If they mess up on a play, sequence, or decision, you can sub them out for someone who knows what they are doing so that you can coach the player without disrupting your overarching goals of this portion of the practice plan.

As the simulation wears on, you’ll notice athletes begin to get lazy in their pursuit, execution, coordination, and overall performance of the sport demands. This is a great indication that they are gassed. Just as you manage your players in the game, you can practice making substitutions in practice as well. If you’ve got a few players who you rely on, you’ll need to manage the time they play and rest the most. The main reason for this is because you are asking them to perform at a high level and be an ironman at the same time. Unfortunately, you can’t always have both.

Pitfalls of Conditioning

At first glance, conditioning may appear as a pretty simple thing to incorporate into practice. Issues tend to arise as we try to progress these means of conditioning by increasing intensity, frequency, and duration and decreasing rest periods. Coaches begin to buy into the idea that they need the most resilient players in order to endure the demands of the game, and in going all in on this idea, they forget that they are training for a game and not the presidential fitness test.

Coaches often get so infatuated with conditioning, they ignore that the main goal of practice throughout the week is to prepare for the game or events that are to come. Every day of the week becomes a conditioning session, and the ever-increasing volumes take a toll on the body that it needs time to recover from. Not time as in minutes, but days and sometimes weeks. You cannot continue to take everything from these athletes daily without eventually paying a price. That price may come in the form of diminished performances, burnout, or injury.

Additionally, the entire team has been through an extremely demanding week of practice and is also expected to go out and perform at a high level when it matters at the end of the week. Well, looking back at the practice plan, they’ve essentially had three full games’ worth of reps over the last four days, and now they’re being asked to go out and be at their best. To be straightforward, this is an unreasonable expectation, and ultimately both parties may leave the field empty-handed.

The coach will feel like the athletes aren’t tough enough and will punish the athletes with more conditioning. The athletes give their all on the field, but no matter how hard they try, they simply can’t put together a string of meaningful performances while in this diminished state. It is a frustrating and disappointing reality that many coaches and athletes face in team sports every day.

Athletes don’t pour their hearts into practice every day while simultaneously choosing to give lackluster efforts when it matters in the game. Coaches don’t spend the majority of their time with a group of athletes with the intention to sap their performance capacity. A simple way to know when to draw the line on your conditioning: If the athlete isn’t moving the way you’d like for them to move in the game, it might be time to sub them out or end that portion of practice. You’re not in the business of creating bad habits, and running slow may be the least desirable trait you want to reinforce in your athletes.

Use Context as Your Guide

Speed is the most highly desired ability in the sports performance world, yet it is historically trained catastrophically wrong. We know that practicing a given task makes us better at the task, but somehow, we have forgotten that this also applies to speed development. If you want your athletes to get faster, they need to sprint frequently.

Traditional conditioning workouts such as gassers, 300-yard shuttles, down and backs, poles, and laps will not serve as an even remotely valuable substitute when it comes to building the capacity to create and sustain speed. The lack of acceptance for proper work-to-rest ratios can turn speed workouts into mindless conditioning very quickly. It is okay to rest longer than 30 seconds in practice, and the athlete is not wasting time by resting. In fact, they are recharging for more high-quality efforts. Normalize rest, and it will pay dividends across the board.

The lack of acceptance for proper work-to-rest ratios can turn speed workouts into mindless conditioning very quickly… Normalize rest, and it will pay dividends across the board. Share on X

Conditioning is also highly sought after in sports due to the idea that it builds athletes who can weather the storm and retain the ability to perform longer than their unconditioned counterparts. Long-duration jogging does not look like high-flying performances play after play, so it is unrealistic to expect this is what it will translate to when training athletes this way. While it may help them achieve presidential physical fitness in their PE class, it will not enable them to retain their valuable sport-specific skills and execution late into games the way that many may believe.

Use aspects of the game repetitively or simulate the game itself to build a bigger gas tank for the athletes to perform. Once the athlete begins to fall off, it is time to either let them rest or call it a day. We don’t want to create bad habits, particularly those that reinforce athletes moving slowly and losing the ability to make plays.

This is not to say that these are the only ways to develop speed or condition your athletes. It is simply to encourage program reflection and deep thought. Ask yourself:

• Does it make sense?
• Is it high quality?
• Does it look athletic?
• Does it match the demands of the game?
• Does it prepare my athletes for what is ahead?
• Is it safe and reasonable?
• Is it sustainable?

Allowing context to guide your training enables you to be more precise in your programming and help you reason out one training approach versus another. Not all training approaches make sense for all circumstances, so it is important for you to arm yourself not only with relevant contextual information, but various training methods as well. Pick what makes the most sense for your program to develop your athletes as efficiently and effectively as possible.

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

I have had the MuscleLab Contact Grid for nearly one year. Unfortunately, the timing has not been ideal, with the many restrictions in place since mid-March. My intent was to publish this months ago, but better late than never!

This article has a simple purpose: to show how you can use the contact grid, and what data it can capture. This will be a visual-rich resource with minimal explanation. I think seeing is believing when it comes to the contact grid (which I am willing to do live for anyone who lives in the Chicagoland area), but this is the next best thing that I can offer to a wider audience.

Carl Valle has written before about the contact grid and contact times (here, here, and here), and I would encourage you to read those articles either before or after this one to fill in the gaps. A few quick items to address prior to showcasing the different tasks:

• • The grid uses MuscleLab software on a Windows-based machine. I use a Surface Pro (not included in the purchase of the grid).

 

• • One portion of the grid connects directly to the Windows-based machine, while the other section is a “floater.”

 

• • Assuming you are on flat, unobstructed ground, you should be able to set up the grid in minutes. Notice the use of the word “flat” and not “level.” The grid would work fine on an inclined surface with a consistent slope, such as a parking garage ramp (perfect for acceleration work!). Tile, carpet, AstroTurf, concrete, hardwood, multipurpose flooring, and track surface all work well.

 

• • If you want to use it on grass or field turf, you will likely have to slightly raise the grid. This, of course, would decrease its accuracy, but it would still allow a coach to see trends to make the necessary adjustments to programming. For those looking for precision on obstructed or undulating surfaces, IMUs make sense.

 

• • I want to emphasize the importance of a flat surface. There is usually no problem when the sections of the grid are placed relatively close together, but when you move out to the maximum possible distance of 40 meters, interference is more likely. Keep in mind that while it is frustrating, it is a fault of the facility, not the fault of the grid. I have had minimal issues with extended distance indoors, but our outdoor facility has presented a challenge. The use of a laser level can allow coaches to quickly learn which areas of their playing surface are actually flat!

 

• At the end of the day, the possible 40-meter grid length with just two pieces of hardware, combined with the cost, is a huge strength for this product. A similar length of force plates or Optojump would cost well into six figures or more! Also, while not capturing everything Optojump or force plates collect, the Muscle Lab allows users to attain key metrics that were previously impossible to gather due to hardware cost, or too tedious in terms of time (using video to capture GCT).

At the end of the day, the possible 40-meter grid length with just two pieces of hardware, combined with the cost, is a huge strength for the MuscleLab Contact Grid, says @HFJumps. Share on X

Vertical Jump Tests

Video 1. Squat jump, countermovement jump without arms, and countermovement jump with arms.

In all in-place jump tests, it is important to ensure the test is valid. Excessive drift (landing far away from takeoff) or excessive flexion upon landing leads to false scores. You will note that there are examples shown in this article which would be invalid. We were on a time crunch! I have found the use of chalk to create a “zone” that the athlete attempts to stay in can help with minimizing drift.

In the test above, I had an athlete perform a squat jump, a countermovement jump without arms, and then a countermovement jump with arms. These can be done as individual tests, but I like having the data in one place. It makes it easy to determine if an athlete favors strength or elasticity as a movement strategy.

Reactive Strength Index (RSI) Tests

RSI can be a helpful metric to assist in guiding programming. I show three RSI tests below. Each has its own strengths and weaknesses, and I encourage readers to look at this series of articles by Eamonn Flanagan for further details. In each of the tests addressed, I utilize the RSI metric given by the grid for immediate feedback for the athlete (this is calculated by (jump height/contact time) x 1,000). After the session, I look at the ratio of flight time to contact time. As with any grid or mat system, jump height is an approximation of center of mass displacement. I prefer flight time because it is not an approximation, and it creates an apples-to-apples comparison (time/time).

I have the arms in use during each of these, as I am interested in how the athletes synchronize upper and lower body movement. If I was after a true RSI metric, the athletes would have their hands on their hips.

It is also important to remember that improving RSI is not the endgame. For me, the purpose of collecting it is to raise intent and use it to assist in decision-making, which will ideally lead to improvement in actual sport.

Drop Jump RSI

Video 2. Drop jump RSI.

Attaining a peak RSI using this method is not friendly for large groups, as it takes a highly adjustable set of boxes to achieve a true mark. I prefer using this method to overload an athlete from a height that is slightly higher than what you will see in the tests below. This challenges the athlete’s eccentric ability, which allows them to become better energy recyclers.

Rebound Jump RSI

Video 3. Rebound jump RSI.

The advantage to this test is it takes much less time to assess a big group. You could argue that it is not as accurate because the athlete self-selects the height of the initial jump. Another alternative would be to jump off both legs initially, and then land and jump off either the right or left leg for the second jump. This would allow a coach to see imbalance (especially useful in return to play) or identify athletes who could excel in the triple jump.

Scandinavian Rebound Jump Test (SJRT) RSI

Video 4. Scandinavian rebound jump test RSI.

Of all the RSI tests, the SJRT is my favorite because it teaches an athlete how to bounce. In the words of Carl Valle, it is “both a skill and a test.” I have found it to be a low-risk, high-reward activity, as it teaches athletes to synchronize their upper and lower body, interact with the ground more effectively, and assess their nervous system readiness. More than the other two tests, video adds an important layer to this test because a coach can identify energy leaks and review if a rep is valid. (It is a greater challenge to keep track of this due to multiple jumps.)

Sprinting Tests

In each of the sprint tests, the metric I look at is contact time. While timing sprints is a wonderful metric for both coach and athlete, contact time is an additional layer that is more useful for coaches. If an athlete showcases inefficient ground contact on one leg, the grid provides an objective measure to determine if the interventions are working.

While timing sprints is a wonderful metric for both coach and athlete, contact time is an additional layer that is more useful for coaches, says @HFJumps. Share on X

Acceleration

Video 5. Acceleration

Notice the decrease in contact time as the athlete progresses. Combining the contact grid and a timing system (Freelap data shown below) paints a more complete picture.

Note: For those with a larger budget, MuscleLab has additional hardware (timing gates, IMUs, laser, and a resisted/assisted device) that integrate with one another, providing a full sprint profile.

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Resisted Acceleration

Video 6. Resisted Acceleration

Here the athlete is attached to an Exer-Genie to provide resistance. Unfortunately, the device was sticking a bit, which led to a slight stumble. This can be seen in the data below (contact time of 1,060 milliseconds). Using a contact grid, timing system, force sensor, and resistance device can create a setup somewhat similar to a 1080 Sprint or DynaSpeed, for a fraction of the cost.

Possibly the most important component of the contact grid is that it allows for coaches to build a robust set of data specific to their population. Here, utilizing different resistances to achieve various sprint times, and the contact times associated with them, can help a coach build a complete acceleration profile.

Maximum Velocity

Video 7. Flying sprint.

Are there commonalities in right/left contact times between maximum velocity and acceleration? Once again, the contact grid can give objective answers.

 

Bounding Tests

Utilizing a contract grid with bounding is my favorite application of it. My previous article on bounding covers the exercise itself thoroughly, but here I will go deeper into how I use the data the grid gives. 

Speed Bounds

I tend to look at two metrics with speed bounding: contact time and power. The chart below (generated by MuscleLab software) shows the data from eight different athletes completing a single repetition of 20-meter speed bounds with a 10-meter run-in. There is a qualitative evaluation that must be taken into account here.

If you look at Athlete 5, you can clearly see a much higher power value (22.28 W/kg), which also corresponds with higher average flight time (344.25 milliseconds), and higher average contact time (206.5 milliseconds) when compared to the other seven athletes. Despite receiving the same instructions as the other athletes, Athlete 5 did not perform what I would consider a speed bound. In a small pool of data thus far, our fastest high school males have average contact times less than 140 milliseconds for this drill and average power levels approaching or exceeding 9 W/kg.

Please note that the eight athletes below are all upperclassmen and pass the eye test for speed bounds. Many high school athletes do not, and they would be better served with remedial exercises to assist their progression.

Video 8. I really like watching foot contacts during bounds. Here, you will notice a forefoot biased contact more similar to sprinting (heel is slightly elevated). This minimizes GCT. In the upcoming power bound videos, you will see a heel-toe contact. This increases GCT but allows the athlete to be more powerful.

During the next two videos, please pay attention to the arm action of each athlete.

Video 9. A 10.5-second 100m athlete speed bounds.

Video 10. A 11.0-second 100m athlete speed bounds. 

The first athlete is a 10.5-second 100m athlete. The second is an 11.0-second 100m athlete. The 10.5-second athlete produces better metrics (GCT and power) in this drill. His arm action is much more compact. Would a more compact style for the second athlete lead to better metrics in this drill? Could that transfer to faster sprinting? This is a way in which the contact grid can assist in technical considerations.

Power Bounds

As a jumps coach, I am a huge fan of power bounds. Ironically, I called them power bounds prior to having the contact grid, and it just so happens that the power metric is much higher than other forms of bounding. This drill is one of our go-to tests because of the similarities in ground contact found in the final steps in the jumps in track and field (and during triple jump). It serves as both event preparation and a unique performance measure. Our athletes get excited when we bound for power. Our best athletes have contact times around 200 milliseconds, and power outputs approaching 30 W/kg.

Video 11. Notice the heel-toe or rolling ground contacts in this power bound.

Video 12. If the athlete starts within the contact grid, it will capture the first contact. If the athlete starts outside the grid, it will not. In this case, the first contact is a signal to the grid to begin capturing data.

Bound Bleeds

Video 13. An example of a bound to sprint bleed. 

In this example, the athlete was instructed to begin the time within the contact grid with three power bounds, followed by three speed bounds, followed by a sprint. Like the SJRT, it is a skill and a test, and I like the coordination demand it places on the athlete. Similar to the first test in the article (SJ, CMJ, CMJ + arms), I find value in three different tests being present on the live screen. I can foresee using this test to assist with athlete event placement.

 

Miscellaneous Jump/Hop Tests

The following tests are ones with which I have not done too much, but I include them to answer possible questions and spark new ideas.

Horizontal Rebound Jumps

Video 14. This is a way to utilize the grid to handle standard hurdle jumps. You could use a similar setup (with wide-based homemade PVC hurdles) for actual hurdling.

Box Jumps/Hops

Video 15. I would look not only at contact time here, but also the frequency between contacts, or the amount of time it would take to reach a certain number of contacts. This can be a unilateral or bilateral exercise. While there is no substitute for sprinting, this exercise is a solid option in the winter months if you have limited or off-limits indoor space.

Hops

Video 16. The purpose of showing this is to choose the option for which foot contacts the ground in the live screen. This is a nice feature for reviewing data after a session is over. These can be done in place or with horizontal translation. 

 

Sport-Specific Tests

Here, the coach is only limited by their creativity. I have provided a couple of options, but once again, the contact grid can provide valuable data itself or provide another layer coupled with additional data to help drive programming decisions.

Short Approach Long Jump

Video 17. I am still in the infant stage of using this type of test, but I know it will be one we use often once we are back in season. I plan to combine the data obtained and compare it to the IAAF Biomechanical Reports. Elite women show a strong correspondence to elite high school males. Short approaches of the pole vault and other jumps are certainly doable.

Change of Direction

Video 18. You could implement any change of direction test (such as a 5-10-5) here, assuming the athlete stays within the grid. I would advise chalk lines, tape, or field/court/track lines on the ground to assist the athlete with steering. Note: It is necessary for the athlete to have no interference with the grid in order for it to register the next contact. Because the feet may stay close to the ground (such as a shuffle) or there may be minimal flight time (the left foot contacts the ground while the right is still on the ground), the contact grid may not capture every contact during these types of tests.

Too Much Tech?

I think the 15 tests shown, combined with the extra layer of data provided, make a contact grid the next logical purchase after a timing system, says @HFJumps. Share on X

I have engaged in numerous conversations with colleagues who coach at the high school level regarding technology and whether it provides signal or noise. Many own a timing system that costs in the low four figures. Assuming accuracy and workflow are not an issue, the question that we would need to answer is: Does the value of the contact grid exceed its cost? I think the 15 tests shown, combined with the additional layer of data provided (which can assist in programming decisions and technical adjustments), make a contact grid the next logical purchase after a timing system.

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

One thing all athletic development professionals can agree on is we want our athletes to get the highest-quality adaptation possible to whatever training stimulus we program for them to do day in and day out. The largest obstacle to that is the individual readiness of each athlete and how much it can vary from day to day based on factors out of our control. We must also look at team data to understand the big fatigue/readiness picture.

Doing our part to ensure our athletes are able to maximize performance and mitigate injury is a very important job. While intuition and observation can often give us insights into how an athlete’s performance may be affected by such influences as sleep quality, nutrition quality, and other lifestyle factors, its accuracy can be low. Often an athlete may look fatigued and perform well, or the opposite. The more insight we can gain into the true readiness of each athlete, the more ability we have to provide an optimal effective dose in our performance programming.

The reality is if you have the budget, you can invest in a very expensive athlete monitoring system (AMS). However, most of us don’t have the resources for many top-of-the-line AMS options. So, should we give up on providing our athletes with this advantage? Speaking from experience, I say absolutely not.

Regardless of your budget or technological prowess, using an AMS in your program is within your grasp, says @YorkStrength17. Share on X

I’ve used some sort of AMS for almost 10 years. During that time, it has evolved from a free, homemade version of a wellness questionnaire combined with some simple bar charts in our weight room to a multi-pronged approach featuring a complete sports science suite that includes not only a wellness survey with a body chart but daily use of a Just Jump mat and GPS. Regardless of your budget or technological prowess, using an AMS in your program is within your grasp. Adding the title of “fatigue manager” to your job responsibilities can be critical to making sure your athletes have a chance to thrive. If you have the willingness to pay the price in time, you can achieve this goal regardless of budget.

My First Experience: No Budget, No Problem

I first stumbled upon the idea of subjective monitoring of our athletes at a coaching clinic at AC Flora High School in Columbia, South Carolina. To be honest, I’d never really thought about the concept. I programmed a session for our athletes and expected them to perform. If I noticed an athlete was not feeling well or underperforming, it typically led to a conversation. Occasionally, this would result in an athlete stopping their workout and sitting out. Most of the time I made sure they pushed through.

The problem was the extent of my “if-then” questions. If they looked like they were struggling, then either they quit the workout or survived it. Neither of those choices are viable options when seeking to maximize performance.

My first look at an AMS was during a presentation in which a coach showed us a wellness survey they used that was within an expensive sports science platform. I immediately recognized that this could be a powerful tool in our program’s toolbox. The major roadblock was budget. At that moment, even a base package cost well over $1,000. There was just no way we could swing that cost.

However, a conversation with another coach at that very clinic provided me with the solution. I was introduced to Google Forms. This was a way to create a homemade survey with questions that I designed. We could weigh the answers to reflect the particular aspects of the questionnaire we felt carried the most importance (sleep and nutrition questions have a higher numerical value toward overall readiness than mood, for example). We also had the ability to mass email it to our student-athletes.

When completed, we could compile the answers in Google Sheets (similar to Excel) to give us a readiness score. Below is an example of how the original readiness survey and the team response looked. It had a total of 10 questions. We dumped the individual responses into Sheets, and I received a report that looked like this.

I also decided to add a special focus on hydration and sleep. I set up two bar-graph leaderboards in the weight room. When the athletes entered the room, the first thing they did was fill in a box on the graph next to their name if they got 8+ hours of sleep and drank 8+ glasses of water in the previous 24 hours. We used it as a type of wellness leaderboard. This not only gave the athlete a second level of accountability, but it also tapped into their competitiveness.

We used this system for just over a year. It worked well, and if faced with a budgetary shortage ever again, I would not hesitate to use it again.

Better Budget, Better Tech

As time went on, and we began to rely more and more on the data we collected to drive decision-making, the desire to improve our abilities to collect and store information drove us to look at a Web-based AMS. I reached out to the coaches I had originally heard presenting on the topic, and they directed me to a company that fit my needs. I was pleased to find that the price point was closer to the budgetary realities I was working within.

The product we chose to go with provided us with an editable wellness survey that could be sent directly to the athlete on a daily basis via a text message. I was responsible for sending the group text each day through an app on my phone. The program enabled us to produce reports and keep historical data that improved our record-keeping abilities.

However, what we were getting for the money was not that much of an upgrade from a cost-efficiency standpoint. We stuck with this platform for two years. While we continued to monitor and adjust, I still was not completely satisfied with our overall program of athlete monitoring. We needed more than a survey to help us drive important individual daily decisions.

Dialing In Our Process: Overview

In November 2017, I began my tenure in my current position at York Comprehensive High School. While it was an established sports performance program (I was the second full-time strength and conditioning coordinator at the school), the process of installing my program took precedence the first year or so. During that time, I actually stopped using any formal AMS.

After the first year, it was time to begin to work it back in. We began at the beginning, with the wellness survey. For a short time, we used Google Forms again. Shortly after that, the online strength and conditioning software we used at the time added the option of a survey. In December 2019, I switched our sports performance platform to CoachMePlus. I could go into the reasons for the switch, but this is not that article.

The AMS aspect of CoachMePlus is absolutely outstanding and takes the wellness survey to a new level with the addition of body charts, says @YorkStrength17. Share on X

CMP provided us with a sports science platform to go along with a workout distribution feature that fit our needs. The AMS aspect of CMP is absolutely outstanding and takes the wellness survey to a new level with the addition of body charts. Not only can we get a subjective survey, but now our athletes can alert us to soreness and injury with a numerical level of severity through a click of the mouse.

I am aware of any soreness or potential injury issues before our athletes walk into our room. This is obviously a huge advantage in the decision-making process for each individual athlete. We are also able to monitor multi-day patterns that can lead to conversations with our sports medicine staff early in the process. If we can pre-empt just one injury to one athlete, this is worth the effort.

The “if-then” scenario of a low or high score on the readiness survey or indication of soreness and/or injury on the body chart all begin with a coach-athlete conversation. Empowering the athlete to be part of the decision-making process is a step that can help foster trust and build a relationship with the coach and athlete that will help both to flourish. It will also often clear up any concerns.

At times, this will lead to modifications that will ensure the athlete gets what they NEED that day and not just what the coaches want. More importantly, it can alert the coaching staff to any potential injury situation that could be worsened without this knowledge. The readiness survey and body chart can be seen as a subjective pre-screening that gives us more information to make sound decisions.

While subjective data is helpful to the process, I knew I needed some way to also collect objective data to best drive the decision-making process. We have one piece of technology at YCHS that I had never had before, and it became our test of choice. This was the Just Jump mat. The mat allows us to vertical jump test a large group of athletes in a very short time.

We began with a weekly test but soon expanded to a daily, cold vertical jump. I keep a very simple spreadsheet where I record each day’s cold vertical taken from each athlete as we walk into the facility. They do no warm-up or preparation for this jump. If we happen to have done any type of activity before we jump, I will not collect data that day for that group. My thought process is that this will give us a less variable-driven score.

This is much like weighing yourself when you first rise in the morning before you eat or drink any water. I’m looking for the truest baseline score I can get each day. In the score sheet we keep an average of all jumps in a given period or training cycle. We also keep track of the best jump of the cycle. Each of those data points plays a role in any potential programming adjustment that we may make.

While monitoring team averages and trends is important, the most important aspect of any AMS is the individual athlete and the process of maximizing individual performance. The other aspect of the individual is they are part of the team. If enough of our individuals are not recovering, that will lead us to a team solution. On the other hand, optimal dosage is our goal. If a majority of individual athletes show a high level of performance, it indicates that we can increase the intensity and shoot for a higher level of training on that day.

While monitoring team averages and trends is important, the most important aspect of any AMS is the individual athlete and the process of maximizing individual performance, says @YorkStrength17. Share on X

From an individual athlete perspective, we use one major KPI as our driving data. The initial KPI that our athletes take part in, which I mentioned above, is our cold countermovement vertical jump using our Just Jump mat. Individually, we look for outlying results that may indicate the athlete’s ability to perform at peak power output for the day.

Before the athlete jumps, we already know from their readiness survey how they think they feel that day. We use the jump to confirm that subjective data using a rolling average of all jumps during the training period. Often, we have a low readiness score followed up by a conversation that gets us thinking we potentially need to adjust the athlete’s program. Then the athlete jumps and hits above their average or even a new personal record, which will most often lead to no adjustment.

Most athletes on most days fall within the range we look for on the jump. On any given day, we may have a small handful who don’t. We repeat the jump to confirm. This is an example of how we keep this data.

Two jumps below 90% of their rolling average will result in further investigation and often a modified program for the day. As mentioned above, we also occasionally have an athlete with a great readiness score followed by a jump 100% plus of their average. This can also lead to a modification, with a slightly increased intensity level.

Coaches familiar with APRE will recognize this protocol. We are an APRE program, and this particular process is driven by that philosophy. Below is the chart we use as a guide for modification. Conversation in this instance means a brief chat with the athlete to gauge their feeling of readiness and what they would individually feel they need that day.

It’s important to note that this entire process usually takes less than five minutes. It’s imperative that you have daily modifications prepared in advance. Often, it’s as simple as lowering the intensity of the movement or the assigned load for the day. In some cases where we feel the athlete is unprepared from a fatigue or CNS perspective, we assign the individual an alternate program inside of the CoachMePlus system, which we can do from any device in seconds. Here is an example:

Our focus with these athletes is recovery. As much as we would like to utilize every minute to push strength and power adaptations, the reality is the goal is performance in the sport. To drive a fatigued athlete further into fatigue would be putting that goal in jeopardy. If both our subjective and objective data suggest the athlete needs a recovery session to maximize on-field performance, that is the direction we will go.

GPS

The latest tool in our toolbox is GPS. GPS allows us to do a deep dive into what level of stress our athletes are experiencing within their sports practice. The units give us the ability to track sprint volume, effort, and speed zones (among other things). Before we get any farther into the process, I must give any coach thinking about adding GPS to their program one word of advice. Make sure your sport coaches are on board and willing to develop a plan and stick with it.

Part of the challenge for most North American strength and conditioning coaches (particularly at the high school level) is that while we can most often control the volume and intensity, etc. in our weight rooms or our speed programs, once the athlete is at practice, we are at the mercy of the sports coaches. Unless you work with coaches who will adjust what they want to do based on what the data may say needs to be done, I’d suggest investing in other areas besides GPS. That being said, if you have coaches with a growth mindset and a willingness to work within the data, GPS can be a very powerful tool.

If you have coaches with a growth mindset and a willingness to work within the data, GPS can be a very powerful tool, says @YorkStrength17. Share on X

A second word of advice is to select a small number of data categories that will give you the best possible picture and stay focused. Too much data can become noisy fast and lead to frustration. The last thing you want is the coaches you work with to not have the time or the willingness to sift through long reports. Be precise and stick to the data that gives a clear picture of what is important to the sport.

I selected our categories to track based on a series of conversations with a high school coach who has been using GPS and my education in the process of using our units. We narrowed it to 11 categories to draw from on a daily basis. However, we draw our main monitoring data from an individual session score (a comparison of work done as compared to other players), sprint volume in yards (which was a combination of two other categories: zones of 80-89% and 90+% of previous max velocity), and top speed in mph. In addition to individual athlete data, we also keep a team average for each. This allows us to not only get an individual picture for each athlete but also one of the team overall.

Team Data: A High-Performance Practice Plan

Our football program is currently the one that utilizes our GPS units most effectively. Our head football coach is actually the reason we have GPS units, as he wrote a grant for our first four units. He is highly invested in the process, and that has led to our ability to use the GPS and all aspects of our overall AMS to develop a practice plan that’s designed to have our athletes in position to perform at their highest level on game nights. We call this our high-performance practice plan. This plan is built and monitored entirely on the team averages for each category. While there are many ways of practicing, we decided to go with the plan seen in figure 7.

On Monday, our goal is to have our highest volume and workload of the week. Traditionally, Monday is not always that type of day in high school football. We must remember that this is not necessarily tied into the sports-specific aspects of practice. It just means we want the highest volume of 80%+ sprinting for the week on this day.

Our session score, which is a comparative workload, is the second factor, and it is actually in contrast to our sprint volume. So, while we want the highest volume of sprints, we also want to see the lowest average session score. This lends itself to a slower learning pace at practice with our sprints coming from drills or post practice speed work. If you have the luxury of having the athletes in class during the day (as we do), you can also utilize that time to get some high-quality sprinting to ensure you get to your goals for the day.

Tuesday for our team is a higher intensity day from a physical contact perspective. We want to make sure that this is the day we have the lowest high-speed volume. Our goal is to keep our athletes in position to be as fully recovered as possible each day. To help that process, we keep our heaviest contact day our lowest sprint volume day.

Wednesday is a combo day. Contact is not as heavy as on Tuesday, allowing for the recovery process to begin for Friday. Sprint volume will not be as high as Monday because we have recovered more from less work done on Tuesday.

Thursday is low and low. We want to see high top velocity and acceleration data, but overall volume should be at its lowest point of the week.

Figure 8 shows an example of the data I select and download from our GPS pods for a day of practice.

We use GPS particularly with our football athletes as a lagging key performance indicator (KPI). What I mean by this is we do not monitor our GPS in real time. Instead, we collect this data and reviewed it the next morning.

The main purpose of our GPS data collection is to drive the High-Performance Practice Plan from a team perspective. This, however, does not mean we don’t also look at individual data. We monitor our individual sprint volume and session scores, looking for consecutive days of greater-than-average numbers.

We also monitor the athletes’ max velocity. We want our skill athletes to hit 90%+ of max velocity at least twice a week in practice. Our belief is that if we look at our athletes as high-performance race cars, we don’t want their first dosages of max velocity to be on race day. We believed in this philosophy even before we had GPS capabilities. Prior to GPS, we took one day a week and ran 2-4 full-speed 40- to 60-yard sprints in our athletic development class. GPS allows us to see if they hit that speed in practice, and we only sprint in class now if the data indicates the need.

From a team GPS perspective, it’s fairly simple. I give our head coach a daily report IF there is an outlying issue. This could be too much or too little volume or session score based on the plan. This could also be because of the lack of max velocity over 90% by our skilled athletes. In this instance, that is where my scope of influence ends.

The sport coaches make the adjustments based on my recommendations. Normally, they do this by modifying post-practice speed work or building in modifications to the individual sessions of practice. If an individual athlete needs modifications, the position coaches, again, handle this. As you can imagine (and as I mentioned earlier), this is 100% sport coach cooperation driven. If you don’t have a staff that has this type of growth mindset, you will become frustrated quickly.

The Best Ability Is Availability

I can sum up the driving force behind my desire to include a fatigue management program with our athletes in one clichéd phrase: “The best ability is availability.” I mean this not just for having a program in which your athletes are able to dress and participate in games and practices. My goal is for our athletes to thrive in those situations.

Using a multilevel AMS that gives us insight into both individual and team readiness allows us to put our athletes in position to be the best version of themselves while playing their sport. Share on X

Using a multilevel athlete monitoring system that gives us insight into both individual and team readiness allows us to put our athletes in position to be the best version of themselves while playing their sport. Whatever your budget is, as long as the desire to monitor your athletes is present, there is a way to do it.

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 link between sport and business is well-established, so much so that it risks becoming a bit of a tired cliché. If you follow sports coaches on Twitter, it won’t be long before you notice them sharing their recent reads, which often include any number of business books. In turn, this has led to a bit of a backlash against both this genre of books and the application of business principles to sport (or vice versa).

This pushback, however, may come at the expense of some important development and thinking opportunities for sports coaches, as there is significant potential for coaches to pick up key insights from business literature. In Prepared, the latest book from Paul Gamble (which is both excellent and highly recommended), he explores key pillars of sports coaching excellence, including creating an environment for excellence, leading and coaching others, and managing ourselves. Gamble identifies that coaching is not domain-specific; instead, it relates to being able to support and develop humans toward fulfilling their potential—be that in sport, business, or life. If we take out technical and contextual knowledge—which for sports coaches, is specific to their sport and/or event—then there are indeed commonalities in approach (which is why the skills and approach of a coach can be applicable across a variety of domains, as identified by the Harvard Business Review).

It’s not only Gamble who sees the value in “borrowing” from the business world; the Australian Institute of Sport, for example, has a partnership with Melbourne Business School to deliver professional development for coaches and performance directors. There is also an ever-increasing body of research discussing the bidirectional link between business and sport. In 2010, Robert Weinberg and Matthew McDermott explored the common factors for success in sports and business organizations, identifying key themes such as leadership, group (or team) cohesion, and communication as crucial across both domains.

Other researchers have explored organizational psychology—a discipline typically utilized within the business realm—within sport. One such study, published in the Journal of Applied Sports Psychology in 2012, identified conflict management, along with emotional control and expression, as crucial factors in optimizing performance within sporting organizations. Leadership within sport is also well-examined, with a body of research stretching back more than 30 years, and again drawing parallels to—and borrowing heavily from—business domains. Finally, management is an important part of sporting success, with performance management—the process by which athlete, coach, and support team drive success—an important part of athlete outcomes; increasingly, coaches have to manage more than just the athlete in this process.

Master of Business Administration

It’s not just sport that borrows from business; business also borrows from sport. Graham Jones, a sports psychologist, wrote about his transition to business consulting in 2002, identifying key similarities between the two domains. Dr. Sandy Gordon built on this in a 2014 paper, writing that evidence suggested that business coaches and sports coaches had a lot to learn from each other. The research base here is broad and well-established; Ievleva and Terry, in a 2008 article, wrote about applying sports psychology to business, while Graham Jones (along with colleague Kirsty Spooner) identified key similarities between coaching high achievers in sport and business. Finally, the business literature has long drawn from the sporting research, perhaps best exemplified by a 2001 Harvard Business Review article titled “The Making of a Corporate Athlete.”

This brings us to The Personal MBA by Josh Kaufman. In the book, Kaufman aims to provide a high-level business education—similar to that found in formal Master of Business Administration (MBA) courses—but without the hefty price tag. To do this, Kaufman aims to use mental models, which he defines as concepts that represent our understanding of how things work.

I want to focus on how we use business principles to enhance athlete development as opposed to making more money, says @craig100m. Share on X

I find mental models really useful, as they allow us to develop mental shortcuts (often termed “heuristics”) and also serve as a way for teams to view things in a similar manner and work toward a common goal. Kaufman’s book is split into three main sections:

1. 1. How Businesses Work, which explains how businesses operate and how we can improve their effectiveness. This part of the book is of the least interest to us in coaching terms, because I want to focus on how we use business principles to enhance athlete development as opposed to making more money; consequently, I’ll largely skip over this section.

 

1. 1. How People Work, which is highly applicable. Kaufman writes that “to understand how businesses work, you need a firm understanding of how people make decisions, act on those decisions, and communicate with others.” This is also true within the sports coaching domain; we need to understand why both coaches and athletes act in the ways they do, and how best to communicate to create influence. Having the best training program in the world is not that useful if your athletes don’t listen to you, and this section explores the importance of communication.

 

1. How Systems Work, which introduces the concept of complex systems, as well as making systemic changes. Again, this is an area of ever-increasing interest in sport, with systems thinking and design becoming increasingly well-studied across sporting contexts.

1. How Businesses Work

A key insight from this section of the book, directly applicable to coaching, is the iteration cycle. This is the process by which businesses improve their offerings (products, services, etc.) over time, and it is comprised of six key steps. While used within business, it is also highly applicable to how coaches may update their coaching practice by changing their overarching coaching philosophy or training program. Let’s take a look at the six key steps of the iteration cycle from a coaching perspective:

1. 1. Watch – Understand what works, what doesn’t, and how your athletes respond to the program.

 

1. 1. Ideate – What could you improve, and how? What innovations and recent changes, in research, technology, or facility access, can you make the most of to improve how you develop athletes?

 

1. 1. Guess – Make an informed decision. Based on what you see and what you know, which of the potential changes you could make will have the greatest positive effect?

 

1. 1. Which – Decide which change(s) to make.

 

1. 1. Act – Make the change.

 

1. Measure – Determine whether the change had any measurable effect. Should you continue down this path or reject the idea?

This cycle is always occurring, such that once we have measured the outcome of a change, we return to the watch phase…which we then use to inform our next change, and so on. By using the iteration cycle, we can constantly look to move toward best practice, while analyzing what is and isn’t effective. A related model is incremental augmentation, where the iteration cycle is used to continuously make small improvements on the training plan in an ongoing manner.

Another important mental model introduced in this section of the book is that of relative importance testing, used in business to understand what features customers want in a product. This model suggests that customers won’t accept trade-offs unless they’re forced to make a decision, at which point they will select the next best alternative. As an example, we can take the early-model iPhone camera: It wasn’t a great camera, but customers accepted it—and the trade-off—because it reduced the number of items they were required to carry and allowed them to store and access their pictures instantly and upload and share them efficiently.

Developing training programs and plans is all about making trade-offs; it’s difficult to develop numerous physical qualities at once, for example, or have a competition schedule that is absolutely perfect. Instead, we have to look for the next best alternative, the plan or program that satisfies most of our key requirements without too many negative trade-offs.

We have to look for the ‘next best alternative,’ the plan or program that satisfies most of our key requirements without too many negative trade-offs, says @craig100m. Share on X

Finally, another useful mental model is that of the minimally economically viable offer, or MEVO. This represents a prototype that can be sold to a customer, from which feedback can be collected to either determine that the product isn’t worth developing further or kick-start the iteration cycle. Applying this to coaching, we often look to put together the “perfect” training program—I know I do. Instead, perhaps we might start with a MEVO-inspired plan: What are the absolutely minimally necessary aspects I need in my plan?

You can then refine this simple framework, either in advance by adding more sessions/sections based on what the athlete has done previously, or on a daily iteration basis informed by how the athlete is responding. A MEVO-approach highlights simplicity and necessity first, before adding the extra bits later. Related to this is opportunity cost: because we can’t do everything, anything we choose to do prevents us from doing something else. So, the things we choose to do must be effective and better than what we’re leaving out.

2. How People Work

The first key mental model introduced here is that of a guiding structure; essentially, the structure of your environment (or that of the athletes you coach) is the largest determinant of behavior. As a result, if you seek to produce a specific behavior—either in yourself or in those you coach—setting up the environment to best support and drive that behavior is crucial.

Elite coaches often highlight the importance of environment; for example, in a study from Australia on serial winning coaches, the participants identified the environment that they created for their athletes—and in which they worked themselves—as a key part of their success. The study spoke in detail about developing sufficient challenges and setting high expectations. Alongside this, Kaufman writes that we should aim to remove tension within environments to enable the behaviors we want. If we want our athletes to do a specific strength exercise after a running session, they are far more likely to do it if the equipment is close by rather than a 10-minute walk away.

Similarly, behavioral rules in the environment can reinforce positive behaviors and reduce negative ones. The example used in the book is that of the sterile cockpit, borrowed from aviation; here, pilots are required to avoid any nonessential conversation when below 10,000 feet, so that they can focus on the key processes and steps associated with landing the plane. An example from sport might be a rule that does not allow negative language (or moaning) about decisions that the athlete cannot affect or alter—focusing instead on what they can control.

This section of Kaufman’s book also introduces a variety of cognitive biases and thinking traps we need to be aware of:

• • Pattern matching – Our brains search for patterns in everything, so they can develop mental shortcuts. This is negative when it comes to thinking, because we might be over-interpreting and spotting a pattern when one isn’t actually there. It is therefore important to continually question whether an identified pattern is actually present.

 

• • Pattern interpretation – Similar to the previous example, our brain uses previous information and experiences to make quick decisions. This is most obvious when we first meet someone; we often decide whether we like someone or not in the first few seconds. In sport, we might have a gut feeling that a plan or decision is wrong, but we need to question whether this is just our brains making a split-second judgment based on limited information.

 

• • Loss aversion – This thinking trap states that we respond to threats of loss more readily than the possibility of gain. For example, if we are consistently selected for national teams, we might be less willing to take a different approach in training in case we lose our place on the team; ignoring the fact that we might actually perform better as a result. The key question here is “Am I avoiding this behavior because I am overly concerned with what I might lose?”

 

• • Absence blindness – Here, we can’t identify what we can’t see. A great sporting example of this is that we might have a training program that has a high risk of injury, but because of a variety of factors (including luck), we haven’t had an injury yet. This does not mean, however, that the training program is either effective or safe.

 

• Locus of control – This thinking trap is really useful for athletes who suffer with anxiety around competition; focus on what you can control and influence, and not the rest. You can’t influence or control your competitors, so don’t waste valuable time and mental energy worrying about them. I once read a book by one of the Navy SEALs on the Bin Laden mission, and he wrote about focusing on his “three-foot box”—essentially, anything he could touch. If it was outside of that, he couldn’t influence it, so he didn’t worry about it.

The latter part of this section focuses on working with others. As a coach, your aim is to improve the performance of the athletes you work with; as a result, you put together a training and performance plan, and you need them to follow the plan. This requires you to wield power, which Kaufman defines as the ability to influence the actions of other people.

Compulsion is a poor strategy. Instead, developing the ability to positively influence others represents a crucial part of coaching development, says @craig100m. Share on X

There are two fundamental forms of power: influence and compulsion. Influence is encouraging someone to follow your suggestion, while compulsion is forcing someone to do something. For reasons completely lost on me, many coaches utilize compulsion, with punishments handed out when athletes don’t follow what the coach wants. The problem here is that people—athletes included—typically resist being forced to do something, making compulsion a poor strategy. Instead, developing the ability to positively influence others represents a crucial part of coaching development. One way of being influential is by having a strong reputation, something that can be cultivated over time. Messengers, a book I examined earlier in this series, also explores how to convey information with influence.

Another important concept raised by Kaufman is that of safety. Psychological safety is viewed as one of the key components of a functional team; which, in our case, might be the athlete and coach pair or training group, or in team sports the full squad. Psychological safety is defined as the belief that you won’t be punished for making a mistake, and it has been linked to increased creativity and enhanced communication. Kaufman refers to Crucial Conversations, a seminal book on the topic, and its STATE model for developing psychological safety:

1. 1. Share facts – Facts are less controversial, more persuasive, and less insulting than conclusions.

 

1. 1. Tell your story – Explain the situation from your perspective, taking care to use neutral language and avoid blame.

 

1. 1. Ask for other’s perspectives – How do they see things?

 

1. 1. Talk tentatively – Avoid judgments and ultimatums, allow the person you’re communicating with to “buy in” to your suggestions on their own time.

 

1. Encourage testing – Explore what data you would need to determine whether your proposed course of action would be effective and suggest training interventions that you can test the effectiveness of quickly.

Wrapping up this section, Kaufman discusses the Pygmalion Effect. This model states that individuals tend to rise to the level of people’s expectations of them. Leaning on this rule, we can see the value of having challenging (but still realistic) goals and of setting high expectations in terms of behavior and performance. By setting such a high bar, the athletes we work with are more likely to reach higher levels of performance.

3. How Systems Work

Businesses are complex systems that exist within even more complex systems, such as markets and economies. Sport is no different: the athlete represents a complex system themselves, being the integration of neuromuscular, cardiovascular, and many other systems that influence performance. The athlete may then form part of a team—another complex system—and this team then has to interact with opponents, further increasing the complexity present.

Designing a training program requires some form of systems thinking. Complex systems are full of different variables and interdependencies that need to be considered and arranged in the right order to deliver success. Complexity is further increased by uncertainty, which dictates that we are unable to anticipate all the interdependences in advance. As a result, the best approach to developing a complex system, such as a training and performance plan, is to start off with a simple system that is good enough and then consistently iterate over time (as per the iteration cycle and MEVO method).

The best way to develop a complex system, such as a training plan, is to start off with a simple system that is good enough and then consistently iterate over time, says @craig100m. Share on X

Systems have flow, defined as movements of resources into and out of the system. This can be national governing body support, sponsorship, facility access, other support staff, and assistant coaches—these all represent assets that can move into and out of the process. The extent to which we are reliant on these factors influences the fragility of the system; for example, a training process that requires a particular staff member will fall down if/when that staff member is unavailable. The goal with any system, therefore, is to limit its fragility, which ensures it can continue to operate effectively irrespective of the current state of flow.

Systems also have slack. From a business perspective, slack refers to the amount of resources present, most typically as stock. A business with a big warehouse full of products, therefore, has plenty of slack in case of a current upsurge in orders; businesses that don’t hold much inventory, however, have less slack and are sensitive to surges in demand—as highlighted by the issues with toilet paper during lockdown. From a sporting perspective, slack can be related to injury prevention; here, we want to increase the various resiliencies of an athlete so that they can tolerate more damage before injury occurs. This might include ensuring they get sufficient sleep and are optimizing their nutrition. Conversely, slack can be removed from the system; the athlete who sleeps poorly and doesn’t have good nutritional habits is, as a result, more susceptible to injury.

Systems are also in a constant state of flux, largely due to the high levels of uncertainty they encounter. Uncertainty is defined as an unknown unknown; something that could not be predicted—and hence planned for—in advance (the opposite, a known unknown, is risk). While we can’t plan for specific uncertainties, we can plan for uncertainties in general. As a result, any plan we have must be easily modifiable, and we must make modifications frequently based on new information.

From a training perspective, this includes the use of monitoring: Is the athlete adapting to the load or are they overly fatigued? Do you need to modify training because of an injury? Have they improved as much as they can in this area, or should you repeat the block? (For those interested, I tangentially discussed this concept in a paper I wrote back in 2019.) Because of pattern matching, it’s easy for us to over-interpret what we see, so the collection of unbiased data to support decisions is crucial.

Businesses also need to focus on systems optimization, and again there are important lessons we can take from this into sport. In business, optimization takes place around a set of key performance indicators (KPIs), which businesses use to measure how they are performing. In sport, we also have KPIs.

Taking the example of a 100-meter runner, the most obvious KPI is their season best: Are they faster this year than last year? The problem with this KPI is the lag time—by the time you know they’re underperforming, it is too late to make any changes, given the short time frame of the competitive season and the longer time frame required for physical adaptations. Instead, we need to develop proxy markers of success, and use these as KPIs. The challenges here are:

1. 1. You need to find tests that correlate strongly with actual performance.

 

1. You need to avoid training to become good at the test at the expense of improving competition performance.

Systems optimization also includes maximization and minimization. The latter suggests that we aim to reduce aspects that harm us from hitting our KPIs. From a training and performance standpoint, in my opinion the big two are training too hard too often (and the associated fatigue and underperformance) and injury/illness. To optimize a training system, we need to minimize factors that can cause those two main issues.

One way we can do this is by refactoring, which is the removal of factors in the pursuit of efficiency. Within a training system, this would include removing sessions and/or exercises that don’t improve the athlete’s chances of meeting their KPIs—so-called empty training. Key to this process is asking the question, “What can I get rid of without harming performance?” Kaufman refers to those exercises/sessions that we keep as the critical few—the small minority of inputs that drive the greatest output.

A subdiscipline of systems science deals with safety, and there is a concept within systems theory of normal accidents. Here, it is believed that failures and accidents, while unexpected and undesired, are the result of complexity and interactions; basically, an accident is not typically one thing going well, but numerous things going wrong at the same time.

As it is difficult to forecast these events, accidents are viewed as “expected” and, hence, normal. This means two things:

1. 1. We must design systems that prevent single failures from becoming an accident.

 

1. We must also design systems that are able to tolerate some form of failure.

The latter is termed resilience; for the former, we need to develop fail-safes, which can act as an early warning system of an impending accident. In sport, the most common “accidents” are injury or error during competition, both of which lead to underperformance.

A fail-safe from an injury prevention perspective might be improving musculoskeletal robustness through general conditioning or load monitoring; from a performance in competition perspective, it might include stress testing. Here, the athlete (or team) is subjected to realistic competition scenarios to assess how they perform, with their performance used to guide subsequent training interventions. This points to the importance of representative design in training sessions, which I wrote about for SimpliFaster in 2019. This stress testing allows for early identification of issues, which can then be rectified before the major competition.

Course Eval

By looking through the lens of systems theory, we can stimulate new thoughts and approaches to support us in developing athletes, says @craig100m. Share on X

While sports coaches reading business books is a cliché, The Personal MBA has clear lessons and mental models that apply to better coaching. For me, the best part of the book was “How Systems Work”—by approaching athlete development from the lens of systems theory, we can stimulate new thoughts and approaches to support us in developing athletes. Often, we focus on enhancing our technical knowledge; instead, if we think about how we approach problems, we might be able to better stand out from the crowd.

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