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Athletes’ performance on the day of competition is the apex of their preparation process, with outcomes that can influence their overall career satisfaction. For example, I have a World Championships medal in the 4x100m relay, an achievement that is arguably the pinnacle of my career. Winning that medal was a combination of many things, including plenty of preparation and training—but all that would have been for nothing if, on the day of competition, my teammates and I were unable to perform to the best of our abilities.

Conversely, I don’t have an Olympic medal. On our day of competition in the games, I performed poorly and caused our relay team to be disqualified as a result of leaving early in a changeover. The line between success and failure in sport is a fine one, and failing to adequately prepare for peak performance on the day of competition can have significant repercussions.

The line between success and failure in sport is a fine one, and failing to adequately prepare for peak performance on the day of competition can have significant repercussions, says @craig100m. Share on X

Over the last two decades, athletes and coaches have become increasingly aware of the importance of sports psychology, with many now understanding that elite performance is underpinned by a multitude of psychological factors and skills. Some research suggests that elite athletes achieve a zone of optimal functioning—or a flow state—during performance. It’s clear that on the day of competition, athletes must achieve an optimal psychological state to support performance; what is less clear, however, are the factors that contribute to this state.

Investigating the Optimal State for Peak Performance

A paper by this name published in 2014 provides interesting insights into this area and has the potential to help coaches and athletes optimize their performance in competition.

For the study, the authors Ruth Anderson, Stephanie J. Hanrahan, and Clifford J. Mallett recruited 17 elite athletes and six coaches from Australia who specialized in three Olympic sports: rowing, swimming, and diving. Between them, the athletes had 14 Olympic and 29 World Championships medals. The researchers conducted interviews with all participants, aiming to understand the psychological state that was required for peak performance and the key factors that contributed to reaching such a state.

The participants defined peak performance as “an episode of superior functioning resulting in optimal performance outcomes that exceeded prior standards of performance.” All interviewed athletes confirmed they experienced this during competition, and all of the athletes and coaches rated this psychological state as being crucial in driving elite performance. The participants identified the execution of this peak performance as automatic and unconscious; many athletes struggled to remember specific incidences from the competitions where peak psychological performance occurred, instead only remembering small snapshots.

This matches my personal experience. While I only have one or two snippets of memory from many of my best races, I can remember much more of my worst ones. Given that this peak performance is considered to be largely automatic, and not something that athletes can force themselves into, it’s important to understand some of the underlying contributing factors so that we can support its future occurrence.

Getting to Flow

In the study, athletes and coaches identified a multitude of underlying factors that contribute to peak performance. The most common of these factors were a strong physical and psychological preparation process paired with high levels of self-confidence. These factors are likely related, with self-confidence coming from having good levels of physical and psychological preparation. Other key themes included:

• The athlete’s mindset
• The ability to focus and control thoughts and emotions
• A rehearsal of the optimal psychological state in training

Athletes and coaches utilized a variety of psychological strategies to develop high levels of self-confidence and the performance mindset, including building a routine around competition, focusing on the task at hand, managing anxiety and stress, focusing on themselves as opposed to competitors, and having clear communication between the athlete and the coach.

Interestingly, the athletes identified that the peak psychological state occurred in the presence of nerves, demonstrating that elite athletes get nervous, too. They use these nerves to support performance.

Elite athletes get nervous, too. They use these nerves to support performance, says @craig100m. Share on X

In addition, just under half of the athletes and coaches stated that they were unable to recognize when they (or their athletes) were in the optimal psychological state, but that it often was recognizable after the fact. I think this is important to keep in mind; just because you might not “feel” in the optimal state doesn’t mean that you aren’t in it.

Recognizing the Obstacles

The authors also identified a number of key barriers to achieving the optimal psychological state, as identified by the athletes and coaches in this study. These barriers included poor preparation leading up to competition, with injury during this phase a contributing factor to not achieving the optimal psychological state. Other common factors included being distracted by the competition environment or being unable to adapt to it.

Within the competition itself, high levels of anxiety, overthinking, and a focus on competitors as opposed to the athlete themselves all served as barriers to optimized performance. This focusing aspect was further highlighted when it came to regaining the optimized psychological state if it was lost in competition; the ability to switch focus back to the present was rated as a crucial part of this process, as was letting go of what had happened previously in the competition.

Putting it into Practice

Overall, I think this study is really useful, giving us psychological insight into how elite athletes regulate their performance as well as an understanding of the factors that contribute to this state. There are also clear conclusions from this important paper that may be valuable for athletes and coaches when it comes to optimizing performance within competition:

1. Have an established competition routine. In my career, I had a well-established competition-day routine that included a set playlist to listen to during warm-up and a well-rehearsed competition day nutritional strategy. A routine can be positive in a number of ways: it reduces the number of decisions that have to be made, which can reduce stress, anxiety, and psychological fatigue; the routine can provide confidence, because the athlete knows it has worked before; and, by being recognizable, the routine can assist in switching the athlete into “competition mode,” which includes the psychological state of optimized functioning.
2. Recognize that everyone gets nervous. Pre-competition nerves are a good thing, because they allow for a physiological and psychological state that supports elite performance. Reframing pre-competition nerves as positive, and then harnessing them, is crucial for elite athletes.
3. Control nerves and anxiety, and focus on ourselves instead of our competitors. Athletes should attempt to develop anxiety- and distraction-control techniques in training and low-level competitions ahead of major events.
4. Live in the present. Support athletes being in-the-moment during competitions, allowing them to let go of what has gone before—positive or negative—and focus on the present. This skill becomes increasingly important if the optimal psychological state is lost for any reason during the course of the competition itself.

By supporting athletes in developing their skills and literacy in the above areas, we can better prepare them to perform to their best on the day of competition—a goal for all coaches to strive towards.

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What is the quality every coach asks for and every team is wary of? “Speed kills.” We’ve all heard the pithy statement, but I’d never heard it put as succinctly as this before:

“Speed is an apex measurement for athleticism.”

I like the imagery that this analogy produces, as apex predators include lions, tigers, great white sharks, and birds of prey. Imagine a golden eagle swooping down upon its prey to strike. It is the apex predators of the sporting arena, with lightning speed, that get fans out of their seat in excitement. The striker in football (soccer), the winger in rugby union or league, the wide receiver in American football—these are the apex predators of the sports field.

An attacking player with lightning speed terrifies the opposing defense. Similarly, a defensive player who is fleet of foot can nullify the opposition’s attack. Even if they have the trickery to wrong foot you once, your recovery speed can allow you to get back for a second bite at the tackle. This is why so many of us are interested in developing speed in athletes.

In the opening addresses of their Need for Speed course, Stuart McMillan and the staff at ALTIS openly caution, as is the case with their earlier courses, that it is not simply about rote learning a plug-and-play system that you can insert into your program. This is a challenging and highly involved learning experience. It will require you to think deeply about what you read, watch, and learn, considering how the information and ideas translate into your specific context. ALTIS encourages you to not only review and learn from the materials they provide but contemplate how you can blend them into your existing practice.

While the ALTIS Need for Speed course is a comprehensive resource, the course in essence aims to answer three fundamental questions:

1. What is speed?
2. Why is it important?
3. How do we develop it?

This succinct series of specific questions helps guide the overall direction of this course, because—as progression through the course reveals—this is a highly complex and multifaceted topic. For example, even the first and most basic question, “what is speed?” is not so easy to answer. As ALTIS highlights early in their modules, speed means slightly different things to each of us working in different realms of sport. While the core ideas and principles remain the same, there are contextual differences.

As ALTIS highlights early in their modules for ‘Need for Speed,’ speed means slightly different things to each of us working in different realms of sport. Share on X

Speed of movement, speed of thought, speed of the object, speed of the counterattack—the transition from defense to attack. An excellent recent example of this speed of transition comes from Crystal Palace in the Premier League, an unfancied side who typically finish in the bottom half of the league—closer to relegation than fighting for the title. When they play the bigger names of English football, despite ceding the lion’s share of possession, they have shown an almost unbelievable knack for leaving their opponent’s home stadium with a victory. Soaking up pressure and hitting with devastating counterattacks, they highlight how speed of attack, in transitioning from defense to attack in the blink of an eye, can allow supposedly inferior teams to snatch victory from their more expensively assembled counterparts. September’s 1-3 win at Old Trafford versus Manchester United was their eighth away win against an established “top six” side since August 2015.

Speed is not then merely about running fast in a straight line. Nor, in fact, is it merely a physical ability. We can probably all immediately bring to mind examples of outstanding players from our team sport of choice who would not win any medals in a 40-yard dash but whose ability to quickly read and analyze the play means they are rarely exposed for a lack of pace.

Common protestations of team sports coaches and staff regarding why the integration of track-and-field-style philosophies and training methods would not translate to the team sport environment include the constraints of the ball or other implements, opposition defenders, the need to scan the field of play, and more. Yet, in Need for Speed, ALTIS demonstrates that they understand the nuance of manipulating pure sprinting to the team sport context. While they introduce the “rules” of faster straight-line speed, they also draw together an enviable cast of experts to translate these principles to the field.

ALTIS leverages not just their own impressive knowledge and experience of developing speed (experience derived from producing more than 100 Olympians and 60 medals) and team sports athletes (many decades of experience across many different sports), but they also lean upon their network of industry experts with whom they have developed mutually beneficial relationships. This includes Nick Winkelman (Irish rugby, author of Language of Coaching), Ian Jeffreys (author of Game Speed and Soccer Speed), Fergus Connolly, and more, who collectively bring an unparalleled breadth and depth of knowledge and experience of developing speed across a vast range of sports.

This course has also introduced me to some new high-level practitioners, such as Steffan Jones, a cricket fast bowling performance specialist working in the Indian Premier League with the Rajastan Royals, owner of PaceLab Ltd, and co-owner of Cricket Strength.

Need for Speed provides something for everyone, with industry-leading experts from American football, “soccer,” various rugby codes, and cricket, and eminent researchers of sprinting biomechanics. There are contributions from expert and experienced coaches, elite athletes, academics, and pracademics. The depth and breadth of knowledge brought to bear in this course (from a multitude of sports, backgrounds, experiences, lenses, and philosophies) is unparalleled. However, the course coordinators are not arrogant enough to think they have all the answers or that they have the answers to every unique situation. You have your own experiences, perspectives, and challenges that may result in different or additional answers to the problems examined.

One of the problems in discussing how to develop speed is the different perspective, background, and terminology that different people bring to the conversation. Share on X

One of the problems in discussing how to develop speed is the different perspective, background, and terminology that different people bring to the conversation. This course tries to resolve all the different training terminology already out there, with many different terms used to describe the same thing by different coaches and sports, or the same term used to describe different constructs. With the Need for Speed course and the Gamespeed model, ALTIS aim to create a common language that may facilitate more effective conversations.

“Speed,” as it relates to the realm of team sports, is not merely about the physical act of running faster in a straight line than your opponent. As ALTIS asserts, speed is “a highly complex ability with numerous influencing factors.” “Gamespeed” requires the development and complementary interaction of a number of diverse physical and cognitive qualities. Enroll in the course to study the components of this model in greater detail.

The course is structured with terminology the ALTIS coaches use to organize their athlete’s training and the progression of their career. Each book, much like each training session, is bookended by a session brief and session debrief to facilitate enhanced learning.

Intense blocks of learning within the course are termed training camps. The first of these is a real in-depth examination of the principles and biomechanics underpinning elite sprinting. Ken Clark delivers a series of 11 mini-lectures on acceleration and max velocity sprinting. For those familiar with contemporary research on these topics, it is a real strength of the course to have Ken deliver this material personally. A second training camp is hosted by Shawn Myszka. If Ken is the guy who helps you understand the rules of sprinting, Shawn is perhaps the guy who helps you understand how to adapt them to the chaotic world of team sports.

Coaches considering enrolling in this course should understand the commitment they are making. This is not an easy box-ticking class that you sign up for, read a few articles or watch a few presentations, and collect the CEUs to maintain a coaching accreditation. (ALTIS does advertise that it encompasses “45 hours of guided learning.”) This course requires real thought and input from the student, and you shouldn’t undertake it lightly. There are active elements to the course—you are not merely attending to receive information and wisdom imparted by speed gurus.

This course challenges you to build out your own ideas and understanding of speed for your team, athletes, and environment—it’s not as simple as adopting someone else’s philosophy. Share on X

The course challenges you throughout to build out your own ideas and understanding of speed for your team, your athletes, and your environment—it is not as simple as adopting someone else’s philosophy and ideas. Most modules finish with a practical or mental task of some kind: answering questions, creating PowerPoints on your own personal philosophies on speed, questioning how the information contained in the latest module changed or meshed with your existing philosophies, and sometimes providing practical coaching tasks to experiment with in your next session. Each of the three books is quite substantial. There is a lot of information to absorb, and the review sections at the end of each chapter, along with the quizzes, help to reinforce what you have learned.

Because of the comprehensive, all-encompassing nature of the course—tackling the biomechanics of elite sprinters and team sports players, motor-learning theory, cognitive-perceptual aspects of speed, physiology, and more—there is a ton of reading involved. However, the course delivers a nice blend of graphics, charts, and images, listening to and watching videos, and practical and theoretical tasks to break up the writing and help keep you engaged. Before embarking on each new module, an estimate of the anticipated time investment required is provided, allowing you to study at your own pace and fit the work into your schedule.

ALTIS has explained the course is a living document; they will update it as new ideas and information emerge. Examples of this have been demonstrated even in the first month it has been live, with Stu McMillan adding new and updated content already. Furthermore, their programs director, Nick Ward, provides ongoing support throughout your studying via their Facebook pages. So, the value of the course continues to grow beyond the initial investment.

A Comprehensive Educational Resource

The ALTIS Need for Speed course is a comprehensive and intensive learning resource on all things speed in team sport. ALTIS introduces what speed means to them, what the rules are for devastating straight-line running speed, and how you adapt these concepts to the field or court for the team sport athlete.

Any prospective student needs to enter into this course with their eyes open, as it will be a major commitment. But the workload is broken down into manageable bite-size chunks of between 20 and 40 minutes, in most cases, so you can tackle the course at your own pace and based on how it fits into your schedule.

There is something for everyone, whether you prefer to learn by reading, listening, watching, or writing. The information is presented across a wide range of mediums from an extraordinarily diverse range of practitioners from different cultures, environments, and perspectives.

It would be difficult to summarize the entirety of such a comprehensive educational resource in just one blog post—I have rambled on too much already. If you are keen to read and learn more, enroll in the Need for Speed course.

I have spent a significant amount of time via a variety of mediums addressing the importance of sprinting in training. One driving force behind this has been to sway coaches away from coaching as they were coached. In many of those cases, the driving force behind training was volume, with intensity being neglected.

While trying to persuade coaches away from 8 x 200-meters or gassers multiple times a week is a needed conversation, I think it is important to ensure that the conversation for those who incorporate sprinting in their training programs moves forward. Whether you are a track coach or a field/court sport coach who programs sprints, I hope you consider embarking on this journey with me. Before we approach top end speed together, however, we must identify the elephant in the room—some coaches who believe in the power of sprinting are cannibalizing all who believe in it by unintentionally devaluing sprinting.

Some coaches who believe in the power of sprinting are cannibalizing all who believe in it by unintentionally devaluing sprinting, says @HFJumps. Share on X

One benefit of social media is it increases the amount of interaction among coaches. Novice coaches can gain insight not only from others like themselves at the base of the pyramid, but also from those at the apex. Accessibility has never been greater: a true gift in most cases, but a curse in others. It seems to be a weekly occurrence that I come across social media conversations on the best way to train sprinters—amongst people who believe sprinting is a quality training stimulus. The disconnect between those in the conversation and those witnessing it is often the context of who is being trained. The danger is that the conversation among coaches of elite athletes and their beliefs within their population can be read and applied by coaches of novice athletes. This can be a big problem.

Although progress has been made with there being more true sprinting sessions in youth through high school sports, it is still in the minority. Much of the training that occurs is still predicated on a conditioning model, not a performance model. When coaches of the elite comment that the athletes they coach do not need to sprint at 100% intensity in a training session to get faster, I am sure they have their reasons and data to back them up. The potential danger I see is coaches of novice athletes (particularly those who follow a conditioning model) seeing this and believing their young male athlete who runs a 40-yard dash in 5.82 does not need any sprinting at 100% intensity to realize maximum gains. This feeds confirmation bias, and often ends up with athletes experiencing “tempo hemlock.”

While I may appear to throw stones here, that truly is not my intent. By nature, I hate conflict, and the remainder of this article will focus on how I feel the worlds of maximal and submaximal sprinting can coexist. I’ve gone into detail as to what I feel is maximal sprinting in previous work, but a short synopsis for my context is anything that reduces speed from an athlete being spiked up on a track is submaximal. This leaves towing, running with the wind, and competition as the only possibilities for supramaximal training. For a field/court coach, being spiked up on a track could be considered to be supramaximal because athletes have a great chance of hitting higher velocities than they would on the field/court.

Before moving forward, I will offer the disclaimer that I am far from a one-size-fits-all coach. Within my context I do the best I can to address individual needs, and I have coached athletes who do not fall cleanly into a bucket. Do not view this as gospel, but rather options to consider as you continue to carve your own path.

Targeted Training

My own weekly programming for high school track and field athletes has included an acceleration-themed day and maximum-velocity-themed day for longer than I can remember. I think having a focused day for each is a logical approach. Simply put, acceleration sets the table for an athlete attaining their true maximum velocity. Too much focus on maximum velocity can create what Jake Cohen refers to as “frequency monsters”—sprinters who hit a false top speed too early because they shortchange acceleration. Having a day dedicated to its rehearsal with sprints 30 meters or less and performing various drills daily to get athletes comfortable with positions attained in the early part of a race goes a long way in laying the foundation for a complete sprinter.

In the past I have said training at maximum velocity is the best two-for-one deal in training because in order to attain maximum velocity, athletes must work through acceleration. While I still feel this is true, there are limitations. First and foremost, reps where the target is maximum velocity tend to be longer, and therefore pose more fatigue to the nervous system, thereby limiting volume. Second, if an athlete begins the repetition from a three- or four-point start, the angles found in accelerating from these positions pose a greater demand on the musculoskeletal system, which can also limit volume.

Stimulate, don’t annihilate, says @HFJumps. Share on X

With these limitations in mind, we must dig deeper and discuss how maximum velocity is being attained. One way is to blast 100% from the get-go (max velocity blast), as if it were a competition. A strength of training in this manner is the athlete working through a race-like acceleration prior to reaching top speed. The other method would be an acceleration bleed, where the athlete accelerates submaximally over a longer distance prior to attaining top speed (max velocity bleed). While the athlete is not experiencing a race-like acceleration in this situation, what I have noticed is that many athletes end up with faster fly times. Due to the benefits found in both methods, my current philosophy is to include both within a training week.

Video 1. Here the athlete accelerates maximally (as if the rep was a race), and a 10-meter fly time is captured. Although not done in this example, you could capture a full rep and a fly time with this method.

Video 2. This shows the athlete accelerating submaximally, with the target being as fast as possible between the timing gates. The full rep time is irrelevant—the athlete focuses solely on monitoring his speed to be as fast as possible between the gates.

When in doubt, a coach should think about what the target is for the day’s training. If the sole purpose is to attain the highest velocity possible, the beauty is that you can use either method (blast or bleed), depending on with which method each athlete tends to hit a higher velocity. Coaches can also work in competitive reps periodically to keep things fresh or help athletes bust through plateaus.

Training Arrangement

Having discussed three different options for training sessions (acceleration, max velocity blast, max velocity bleed), the next logical item that I must address is how to arrange them within a training week. The table below shows possibilities for a five-day training structure for high school track and field. Field/court sport coaches obviously have different demands and may only be able to fit in one of the aforementioned sessions within a week.

In each of the sequences above, the focus was on how to make it feasible to place three high-intensity training sessions in a five-day structure. Here are some key points that would be necessary for this to work:

• Most coaches put an acceleration and maximum velocity (blast or bleed) day back-to-back. The thought behind this is for the acceleration session to “wake up” the athlete’s nervous system coming off of a weekend and lead them to hit top end speed the following day. Many would say you need 48 hours between neuro days, but if the volume is low enough on the first day to where it stimulates but doesn’t crush the nervous system, back-to-back placement is doable (especially with young athletes). Tony Holler’s mantra, “Don’t let today ruin tomorrow,” is sound advice here, and would also apply in the weight room. If you would like to lift on the first day of the back-to-back, I would advise upper body only, lower body with no eccentric component, or light Olympics. However, my general advice would be to save the weight room for the second day because of the recovery that follows.

I personally prefer placing the max velocity bleed after the acceleration day because I feel their differences make them a sound pairing, says @HFJumps. Share on X

• I personally prefer placing the max velocity bleed after the acceleration day because I feel their differences make them a sound pairing. On the acceleration day, the athlete will be pushing from deeper angles at ground contact, while the max velocity bleed style can be shallow angles throughout. With that being said, I have placed a maximum velocity blast after an acceleration day and have not had any issues.

• If you would like to dive into deeper volume with acceleration and have a heavier lifting session, which may include lower body lifts with the eccentric portion, you could follow a traditional high-low model as in option 6.

• In regard to a weight room session later in the week, I would recommend the following:

• Lift on day 5 as long as it is not a competition or speed endurance day. I’ve had athletes lift on speed endurance days, and I’ve realized I was an idiot for two reasons. First, it is just a cruel thing to do. If you ask an athlete to sell out during long sprints, do not put anything on the back end that will take away from the effort on the sprints. Second, a major purpose of the long sprints is to teach athletes how to tolerate being acidic. Henk Kraaijenhof points out that activity after the sprints assists the body in clearing acid, and that we should not provide the assistance. Make the body learn how to clear it more efficiently on its own!

• If day 5 is speed endurance or a competition, you can prescribe a lifting session on day 4 that will not render the athlete useless the following day. The stipulations made earlier for lifting on the acceleration day would be wise to follow here as well. Stimulate, don’t annihilate.

• Many track programs operate on a six-day calendar. Here are a few possibilities:

What About Sub-Max Intensity?

The initial premise of this article was to showcase how the worlds of maximal and submaximal sprinting could coexist, and I’ve spent nearly 2,500 words describing how to structure maximal sessions. This is by design, as I think it has the largest impact on improving performance, and everything else can fall into place once the high-intensity days are set. Most of the weekly options presented above include a regeneration day and a potentiation day, and in 8 of the 13, they are back to back.

I think maximal sprinting has the largest impact on improving performance, and everything else can fall into place once the high-intensity days are set, says @HFJumps. Share on X

With the throttle being revved up early in the week, there needs to be a period where it is brought back down. The regeneration day is the primary spot where this would happen. The activities that can occur on these days are endless. Some options are: low-intensity bodyweight/medball circuits, auxiliary weight room exercises, pool workouts, submaximal sprinting, or instructing an athlete to find a nice place in nature to take a 30- to 60-minute walk.

When a potentiation day follows a regeneration day, its typical purpose is to bring the throttle back up so the athlete can perform their best following the potentiation day. The prescription for the potentiation day is truly an n=1 situation. The exploration of options that fit each individual athlete is where the art and science of coaching meet. I’ve had athletes whose most effective potentiation days were a day off, ones who favored a low-volume/high-intensity day of sprinting/plyometrics/lifting, and others who liked something in between.

While the high-intensity sessions are the most important for athlete progress, mismanagement of the regeneration and potentiation days very well could be the most common cause for athletes failing to improve. Activities that are too difficult to be restorative or not intense enough to potentiate probably occur more often than we care to admit. Target the mean initially, but don’t be afraid to experiment in the middle of the season to get an idea of what will work best when all the chips are on the table.

Tempo

There is certainly an overlap between restorative and potentiation days. One activity that could occur within either is tempo running (extensive or intensive). If you use tempo running on a restorative day, you must remember that you are using it to aid recovery. I personally have found this to be a challenge to manage, so I have decreased my use of tempo quite a bit. If I use it, it is usually in conjunction with a circuit of exercises to help avoid repetitive stress on the body. Here are some guidelines that I find helpful:

• Even though the intensity may be submaximal, reps should still look like sprinting. If it doesn’t look like sprinting, athletes are just rehearsing bad habits. I was guilty of putting athletes through reps that ended in a death march on regeneration days in the past. Regeneration’s purpose is to assist recovery, not result in requiring additional recovery.

• I used to prescribe percentages and target times, but I have found that to be almost comical at the novice level. Does a high school athlete really know the difference between 70% and 80%? Furthermore, perceived percentages vary day to day, so today’s 70% may produce a 28-second 200-meter, but next week may require 80% to hit the same time.

• I have stolen one of the sprint words from ALTIS and instruct athletes to “be at peace” during repetitions. I find this usually does the trick in getting the shapes to look like sprinting, while also allowing the athlete to focus on the execution of a technical item during a rep.

• Besides the recovery component, the increased ability to control movement at a lower velocity is another reason why tempo sessions can be effective. I expect there to be an argument as to whether submaximal sprinting technique translates to enhanced maximal sprinting technique, but I offer the following to ponder: In the long and triple jumps, the only full approach jumping we do is in competition. Athletes jump in practice with short approaches (usually a max of 75% of the competition approach). Even though athletes only do the highest-intensity version of the event in competition, their technique improves. Joel Smith often cites the Rewzon long jump study, and for good reason. In my experience, athletes are better developed with a spectrum of intensity.

• When using tempo for recovery, I have found that we don’t usually need timed recoveries. Just telling the athlete to begin the next rep when they are ready tends to work. If possible, a better solution is to monitor heart rate by ensuring it is hanging in the aerobic zone (120-150 beats per minute) and not getting into anaerobic threshold (170+ beats per minute). If an athlete cannot speak in complete sentences, they are working the reps too hard and/or not resting enough.

• Two of my go-to tempo recovery workouts are diagonals and segment runs. Diagonals have the athlete run the diagonal of a football or soccer field and walk either the length or width of the field for recovery based on rep intensity. They then run the other diagonal and repeat. Segment runs find the athlete running “at peace” for a prescribed time. For example, the athlete will run the first rep at 20 seconds. A mark can be placed for reference. Then the athlete will rest and repeat. The coach and athlete can make note of where the athlete finishes each rep to adjust rep intensity and recovery time.

• In general, I am a bigger fan of monitoring time as opposed to distance because it is a better way to monitor workload with large groups. I can walk away knowing they all ran for the same amount of time, which is not the case if distance is the tool to measure rep length.

• With track and field athletes, I prefer tempo sessions to be done on turf or grass. It is easier on the body and exposes the athlete to a different stimulus. Another option is to toggle back and forth between grass/turf and the track for a potentiating effect.

• Tempo on a regeneration day is not the best option for many athletes, so other options should be used. A portion of this group, however, does respond well to tempo work for potentiation the following day. Follow the guidelines listed above.

• Yes, you can also use tempo to get the athlete into anaerobic threshold. I am not a huge fan of voluming athletes at 80-85% to get there, but I have had athletes who feel the need to do that type of work. This would occur on a speed endurance day in the tables above, and I would have the athletes go through a circuit of varied activities prior to completing the tempo workout. Lactate levels would rise during the circuit, which would allow running volume to be lower, while still hitting the desired acidity. You can also use multidirectional work to get lactate levels to rise in both the field/court sport and track settings.

Wickets

Vince Anderson and Ron Grigg have put out invaluable information regarding the use of wickets. They are prescribed as a maximum-velocity drill, and what I have found nice is I can use them on any training day. This includes acceleration sessions. I do not see any issue with closing an acceleration-themed workout with a couple wicket runs to springboard an athlete into a maximum-velocity session the following day.

I mentioned earlier that anything that causes speed to be reduced is considered submaximal, and for the vast majority of the high school athletes I coach, wickets cause speed to be reduced. In my experience, it takes a long history with wicket runs to be comfortable enough to roll through them at true maximum velocity. For many athletes, the forebrain is involved due to the threat of hitting a hurdle and stumbling.

You can use wood slats or tape/chalk for those who are tentative because of this. Another option that minimizes the risk associated with using actual hurdles is the use of the Power Systems Versa Hurdle. Although they are more expensive than a traditional banana hurdle, they stack/store nicely and do not get tangled up in an athlete’s gait if they nick or step on a hurdle. I haven’t lost an athlete to injury using banana hurdles, but it makes sense to try to eliminate the possibility.

Chris Korfist has had the biggest influence on my use of wickets. My main takeaways are manipulating surface, spacing, arm position, and external resistance to achieve desired results for an individual. The beauty is you can match various combinations of these variables to fit the training. Utilizing Chris’s methods has paid huge dividends in improving our athletes’ sprint techniques for years, and I strongly recommend investing in his many resources on the topic.

To the Runway

I spent the first 12 years of my coaching career focused on the sprints and hurdles. Shifting over to working primarily with jumpers over the past six years has helped me develop a better understanding of speed. When I first started coaching the jumps, my lone goal was to get jumpers to buy into the reality that if they became better sprinters, better jumps would follow. Jumpers always want to spend time at the pit (and I do not blame them), but my go-to phrase with them continues to be “crap on the runway does not turn into diamonds in the air.” Although there were some growing pains, our jumpers improved rapidly, and buy-in was sealed.

Since our goal was to make them better sprinters, one of the items we chased was infinite speed, and our athletes would undergo timed sprints in training once or twice per week. The thought was “faster times, better jumps.” Again, while I think that is true in many cases, it was not a cure-all. One, if an athlete moved faster, but with the same errors in sprinting technique, better jumps did not always occur. Once an athlete leaves the ground, the errors they have in sprinting are compounded, and a faster take-off velocity may not be able to mask those errors. The athletes who found the most improvement were those with simultaneous sprint technique and velocity improvement.

I have found that jumpers tend to have a better ‘feel’ of speed than pure sprinters. I think this is because of the time they spend on the runway, says @HFJumps. Share on X

I have found over the past few years that jumpers tend to have a better “feel” of speed than pure sprinters. I think this is because of the time they spend on the runway. When completing full approaches, most are operating between 80% and 90% of their maximum velocity at takeoff. I think the rehearsal at this speed gives them a better feel for toggling throttle, which is beneficial in any race more than 60 meters. It also allows them to execute the quintessential throttle control workout of sprint-float-sprints with a higher degree of proficiency than their peers.

Sprint-Float-Sprints

Sprint-float-sprints (or ins and outs) involve a period of acceleration followed by toggling segments of maximal and slightly submaximal sprinting. In my approach, the acceleration portion can be a bleed or blast, and can range from 20-50 meters depending on the method used. I like to capture the times of each of the sprint-float-sprint (SFS) segments when possible to use as a teaching tool for athletes.

What I have found with 10-meter segments of SFSs is the float segment ends up being the fastest for around half of the athletes when they are new to the workout. This is a marriage of the subjective and objective. Coaches can often see athletes having excessive tension in their races/sprints and instruct athletes to “relax.” The SFS shows them that when they “try less,” their mechanical timing improves, and they run faster.

My favorite SFS segment lengths are 10-20-10. The 20-meter float gives the athlete a nice period of grace before attacking the next sprint. Experienced athletes can progress into longer sprint segments or another set of float-sprint.

For jumpers, I like to cue “accelerate-sprint-runway speed-sprint” to describe the rep. For sprinters who have run the 400, “backstretch speed” can be substituted for “runway speed.” Both provide a nice union of practice and competition. For those having difficulty transitioning between the sprint and float, cueing arm action can be helpful. As they enter the float zone, instruct them to limit their arm action, and then when they enter the sprint zone, instruct them to expand arm action.

Placement of SFS sessions would be in max-velocity sessions or possibly speed-endurance sessions. They are neurologically demanding and may require additional recovery time. Novice athletes should have a foundation of fly work and competition experience before using SFS. You can also tier sessions: Young athletes in the program can just complete an acceleration and sprint, while seasoned athletes can complete the full SFS.

The Home Stretch

“Be curious, not judgmental” is a Walt Whitman quote that I was reminded of while watching the television show Ted Lasso. It is one of my favorites, and one I need to revisit often. I think I excel in the first part of the quote, but I am a work in progress with the second. (My opening to this article could have been viewed as casting stones.)

There is room for debate among those of us who believe in sprinting as a quality stimulus. We must not let judgment get in the way of our curiosity, says @HFJumps. Share on X

There is room for debate among those of us who believe in sprinting as a quality stimulus. We must not let judgment get in the way of our curiosity, so we can serve the athletes in front of us in the best manner 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

While many people may see golf as a sport for former athletes and retirees, golf at the professional and amateur ranks requires high levels of skill and very high levels of speed. The latest comprehensive data shows that the average swing speed on the PGA Tour with a driver is 113 mph, and 94 mph for the LPGA. The speeds in golf are trending seriously upward, with many of the top young competitors on the PGA and Korn Ferry Tours reaching 120-mph club head speed and the women of the LPGA and Symetra Tours creeping closer to 110 mph. Our in-house data at Par4Success, which spans five years and has more than 1,100 data points, shows that the average competitive male golfer in their 50s is not terribly far off, swinging close to 100 mph.

To reach these speeds, golfers need a combination of technical abilities and physical qualities, which is precisely where we come in. Data by biomechanics researchers looking at kinematics show that elite golfers use their hips more consistently and at higher speeds than recreational golfers in what is called the “kinematic sequence.”^1,2 A proper kinematic sequence involves not only driving the downswing motion with the large, powerful muscles of the hips, but also stabilizing into impact by decelerating the hips first before slowing down adjacent segments and whipping the club through the ball.

As we can expect with a high-velocity, multi-planar sport, golfers are not immune to numerous injuries. It is estimated that about 34% of golfers will experience low back pain during their golf career, and as physical therapy research comes more into the modern age, physios as well as strength coaches are understanding the need for better hip hinging technique and strength³. At Par4Success, where we almost exclusively work with golfers, our data collection over the past five years has started to show interesting links between hip hinging strength, club speed, and injury risk.

We have found that the hip hinge is one of the most important weight room exercises when it comes to strength training in golfers, says @bprengle. Share on X

Through our work, we have found that the hip hinge is one of the most important weight room exercises when it comes to strength training in golfers. Later in this article I will discuss the early relationship that we are seeing between hinging strength, injury, and swing speed very specifically.

The goal of this article will be to look at different options for assessing the hip hinge, explain the important impact it has on performance and injury, and provide early data findings relative to body weight and speed, as well as assessments to help you determine which type of hinge is most beneficial for the golfer in front of you. While almost all of my own experience is in the field of golf rehab and performance, any athlete who rotates and extends in their sport will benefit from these assessments.

What Is a Hinge?

Let’s begin with defining the hinge. Ask 10 strength coaches and physios what a hinge is, and you will probably get at least five different answers. Personally, I like Dan John’s approach the most, as it encompasses the biggest differences between a squat and a hinge with few words. A squat involves both maximal knee and hip movement, while a hinge involves maximal hip movement and minimal knee movement. Notice there’s no mention of bar placement (are we even using a bar?), foot position, torso position, or where the weight starts. Trying to define a hinge or a squat using any of these modifiable variables is what gets people into arguments over which lift is what.

My philosophy, especially when it comes to explaining this to my athletes, is to keep it simple. Again, a hinge is maximal hip movement and minimal knee movement, and a squat is maximal knee and maximal hip movement. Thus, the hinge puts more strain on the posterior leg musculature, such as the glutes and hamstrings, while the squat puts more emphasis on the anterior leg musculature, specifically the quadriceps.

Goals of the Hinge

We are not training powerlifters at Par4Success; we are training athletes to be elite-level golfers. Our goals are to first, create a stronger and more powerful athlete, and second, help with the amount of sport-specific practice that is necessary to play golf at a high level. Therefore, we want to have maximal strain on the targeted muscles in order to build strength, and then power, and take extraneous load off of areas that the particular golfer already heavily utilizes in their golf swing, particularly in-season.

There are also two major concepts that drive programming when it comes to blending the worlds of physical therapy and performance: movement variance and movement threshold.

Movement Variance

In his Human Matrix Foundations course, physio Zac Cupples explains movement variance as “the ability to put the body actively and passively into all physiologically possible options.” This concept is in contrast to movement variability, which he defines as “differences in body strategy among similar actions, or repetition without repetition.”

In a sport such as golf, movement variability is an awful thing. No one wants to stand on the tee box and have even three possible outcomes for where their ball will end up, let alone an infinite amount. Thus, precision and structured repeatability are absolutely critical on the course. For competitive purposes, removing movement variability is very important.

However, for general life and physical training, such rigidity is not only impractical, it is harmful, which is why we need movement variance. Imagine that you are changing apartments and have to get 40 or so boxes of various shapes, sizes, and weights from your old apartment into your new apartment. You would want to have at least a few different ways of picking up those boxes available to you so that you don’t get too tired in any particular area.

Similarly, you would not want to approach the box filled with 10 rolls of toilet paper the same way you would approach the box of 10 50-pound kettlebells you keep in your apartment to stay in shape at all times. Approaching the box of toilet paper with maximal intensity and heavy bracing would waste a significant amount of energy and might cause the box to go flying out of your hands, while approaching the 500-pound box of kettlebells with a rounded back and loose grip would most likely not even make the box budge.

In short, we need to balance eliminating excessive movement (minimize movement variability) while enhancing the ability to use the full capabilities our bodies possess (maximize movement variance).

Threshold Strategies

Just as we want to have various physiological positions available to us when we move, we also want different bracing and energy taxing systems so that we can conquer a variety of tasks in our day-to-day lives. Continuing with the analogy of moving boxes, we want to only use high-threshold strategies (think heavy bracing, strong grip, maximal effort) when the situation requires it, while we want to conserve as much energy as possible and use a low-threshold strategy (very relaxed breathing, calm neck and core musculature, loose grip) when appropriate as well.

Golf requires simultaneously high- and low-threshold strategies. Instructors preach the benefits of a relaxed grip (low threshold) while also exploding and driving into the ball (high threshold). Share on X

Golf is an interesting sport in that it requires simultaneously high- and low-threshold strategies. A golfer must exert high levels of muscular effort while remaining fluid in their movements and allowing for proximal to distal energy transfer. Golf instructors preach the benefits of a relaxed grip (low threshold) while also exploding and driving into the golf ball (high threshold!). Thus, with our training programs we need to make sure golfers not only have the capacity to access multiple energy systems and thresholds, but for their general health they should maintain at least some semblance of movement variance so as not to overload one area of the body to the point of breakage.

Video 1. High vs low threshold strategy. Performed correctly, this movement should be very simple and easy.

Basic Assessment Protocols

Most golfers spend hours and years of practice perfecting technique, while only a few are introduced to regular strength training from an early age. As part of our basic assessment, we evaluate each golfer’s club head speed, general flexibility, sport-specific mobility, and total body power and strength. In an effort to focus on the hip hinge in this article, I’ll look specifically at those assessments that relate to the hip hinge.

First, we perform an assessment of general spine movement using two main tests: a toe touch and a back bend. Golf is a very extension- and rotation-based sport, as the follow-through of aggressive swings can put an athlete in end-range extension and rotation in the cervical, thoracic, and lumbar spines, as well as the hips. For the purposes of this article, we want to understand how these movements affect a hip hinge pattern.

Most high-level golfers are what many physios would call “extension biased,” in that they prefer lumbar extension as an optimal bracing strategy for movement. This is advantageous for their sport because of the extension demands the swing places on the body. However, the goals of our physical performance program are to 1) increase performance and 2) not get in the way of sport-specific practice.

What we have seen countless times is an overuse of lumbar extension during sport-specific practice that becomes problematic if it follows the athlete into the gym. For general population trainees and other team sport athletes, the concern with a loaded hinge is that the athlete will fault into excessive lumbar and thoracic flexion. Thus, the deadlift is frequently classified as an “anti-flexion” movement—we try to get the athlete stronger at resisting the flexion moment created by the bar. In my experience with golfers, however, they much more frequently utilize excessive lumbar extension to lift the weight.

Golfers playing at a high level have hit thousands of golf balls yet may have performed no more than a few dozen hinges. Thus, their bracing and motor patterns are much more accustomed to lumbar extension than maintaining a neutral spine, which for them will often feel like flexion. If we allow golfers to use their preferred sport-specific bracing strategy in the weight room, we excessively load these tissues even more, and we fail to work the posterior chain in a way that increases performance and allows them to practice as needed. In the following tests, we most commonly see an inability to get away from lumbar extension and hip flexion, and into lumbar flexion and hip extension.

To loop back to our previous discussion on threshold strategies, it is important to note the tension—or complete lack thereof—the athlete feels while they perform these movement assessments. Many of our young athletes are very flexible and come to us with lower swing speeds and absolutely no strength training background. Many of these athletes struggle to tap into their high threshold reserves, or these qualities are so undertrained that they have none to tap into in the first place!

Similarly, many of our professional and older players are very tense and exert maximum amounts of energy in an attempt to touch their toes. I usually jokingly ask if they are attempting to pick up 500 pounds or tie their shoes! In both cases, proper loading of a hip hinge pattern becomes even more necessary to restore more appropriate energy uses both in their sport and in their daily activities.

The toe touch can expose an athlete’s tendency to rest in an anterior pelvic tilt. Almost all of these athletes complain of hamstring tightness and years of failed attempts to stretch the hamstrings. Share on X

The toe touch can expose the issue of an athlete having a tendency to rest in an anterior pelvic tilt, as golfers of all ages either cannot come close to touching their toes or report a significant pull in their lumbar erectors when attempting a toe touch pattern. Almost all of these athletes complain of hamstring tightness and years of failed attempts stretching the hamstrings. Ultimately, we find that their limitation simply comes from an inability to control their lumbopelvic flexion and posterior tilting.

Often this is due to “weakness,” as the muscles of the posterior chain have never been trained; hence the importance of a strong hinge movement. We can all argue about how strong is “strong enough,” but I think we can all agree that an athlete who cannot pick up a 25-pound kettlebell using predominantly their hips is a problem! Again, these athletes have hit countless golf balls over the course of their careers by the time they reach our facility, and the first hip hinge we assess is more often than not the first hip hinge they have ever thoughtfully performed.

There are many specific isolation tests you can perform following the toe touch to create a better idea of where this athlete’s limitations are. The most common are the supine straight leg raise, the supine knees to chest, and even a glute bridge test to check active hip extension capabilities. At Par4Success, our staff of physical therapists performs these tests in order to determine local structural or tissue limitations that we need to address via soft tissue work or specific mobility and stability drills. This also medically clears our athletes for performance training.

The back bend can expose sensitivity to extension in the lumbar and thoracic spines—these athletes often lack hip extension, which is crucial for their golf swing, says @bprengle. Share on X

The back bend can expose sensitivity to extension in the lumbar and thoracic spines. Often, we see limitations in these movements because our extension-biased athletes have no more range of motion to achieve! This is not an issue with the back bend itself, but another sign that this athlete does not have proper lumbopelvic control. Similarly, for these athletes it is often an assessment of their ability to extend their hips rather than their lumbar spines—pay close attention to the angle between the greater trochanter, the ASIS, and the navel. More often than not, these athletes lack hip extension, which is absolutely crucial for their golf swing.

Video 2. Back bend assessment. Assessing the athlete from a side view, we can take note of their resting postural position.

Conventional Deadlifting for Golf and Implement Modifications

Circling back to our definition of a hinge, the “conventional” stance deadlift with a straight barbell is the most commonly taught technique when it comes to increasing hinge strength. Specific to the golf population, grip width and foot width should be assessed. Many golfers are used to expressing maximum power in the stance they take with a driver; thus, that is often a good starting point for these athletes to learn from. This is not to say our training needs to look like the golf swing, but rather a good starting place for many of our young athletes to further develop stability is where they are used to expressing power.

Video 3. The conventional stance, straight bar deadlift is probably the most commonly taught straight hinge exercise.

The use of dumbbells or a kettlebell is an easy modification for the conventional stance deadlift, but employ the same stance and “bar path” to be consistent across implements. Don’t allow the athlete to move the dumbbells laterally outside the thighs, as this will change the lever arm between the athlete’s center of mass and the weight. Also, don’t allow them to assume a sumo stance with a kettlebell, which may be difficult with heavier kettlebells unless you are trying to simulate a sumo stance deadlift or a hex bar variation.

If the athlete can maintain a neutral low back but struggles to get proper hip flexion all the way to the ground with a straight bar, another easy modification is simply putting plates or blocks under the weights to eliminate range of motion. However, if elevating the lift still causes compensation in the lumbar or thoracic spines or the hips, that’s a good indicator that the straight bar conventional stance deadlift is not optimal for that athlete.

Again, we are attempting to create elite level golfers, not powerlifters. There is no need to pull from the floor for all athletes. Countless athletes have successfully learned and implemented the straight bar conventional stance deadlift, but it is important to know when to “cut bait” and move on to another style, implement, or pattern that still works as a hinge.

Style Modifications

A few questions arise when an athlete consistently has issues with the conventional deadlift. First, can they pass the general mobility tests? If they cannot pass on a consistent basis, then we need to look for other styles of hinging that are more appropriate.

Are they consistently reporting strain in the low back? This can be a sign, especially in golfers, that they use too much lumbar extension during the lift and, combined with their sport-specific practice, that puts too much strain on the lumbar extension.

While many powerlifters may consider the sumo stance ‘cheating,’ there are instance when this is the preferred stance in golfers, says @bprengle. Share on X

While many powerlifters may consider the sumo stance “cheating,” there are instances when this is the preferred stance in golfers. Again, our goal with the deadlift is to strengthen the hip hinge pattern (maximize hip movement and minimize knee movement) in order to strain the posterior chain, but in this case with an athlete who has low back concerns, we want to reduce shear and torsional forces on the low back. With the sumo stance we can keep a much more upright chest and sink lower than a conventional stance in many cases, reducing the lever arm between the center of mass of the athlete and the bar. This has been very successful for us in a number of cases.

Video 4. Another great modification to move the center of mass of the object closer to the center of mass of the athlete is by using a sumo stance deadlift (or a wide stance deadlift).

Another option is to utilize a hex or trap bar, as this again shifts the center of mass of the implement closer to the center of mass of the athlete and reduces shear and potentially torsional forces on the low back.

Video 5. The hex bar deadlift (or trap bar deadlift) is a useful alternative if your athlete struggles to maintain good lumbar position with a straight bar.

Explosive Exercises

This is not simply a deadlift article—this is an article on the hinge. Thus, it is important to work on explosive hinge strength, since golf is a speed-dominant sport. Power and strength are only useful so far as they increase speed and reduce injury concern in our athletes.

We frequently utilize complex training methods for our golfers not just to make training more efficient, but because a recent meta-analysis showed this type of training potentially leads to greater power outputs than separating power and strength work in a contrast training style.⁴ Complex training utilizes a heavy strength exercise followed closely by a light-load power exercise targeting similar muscle groups. I will expand upon a few examples here without going into too much detail, with a focus on how it helps our golfers hinge and become more explosive.

The kettlebell swing is probably the exercise that first comes to mind. However, this movement so closely mirrors a deadlift that it is important to monitor load in those athletes who are sensitive to high deadlift volumes and prone to lumbar hyperextension already. We like using a band to reduce arm swing and provide an eccentric control component to the exercise. These are a good option for athletes who are on the road for tournament play, since most hotel gyms will have a dumbbell that they can substitute, and bands, even with high tension levels, are very easy to travel with.

Video 6. An explosive exercise we frequently use to train the hip hinge pattern is a banded kettlebell swing.

Caveman throws are a great low-impact option for our adult golfers who we don’t necessarily want box jumping due to age or significant previous surgeries. For example, we work with a number of golfers who have had knee replacements and who we don’t want jumping onto boxes, regardless of the box height. We can emphasize translating a hip hinge into driving vertical power versus a more upright vertical throw to be even more specific.

For those athletes with natural, operation-free knees, there are almost endless options when it comes to jumps, such as depth jumps, regular jumps, adding assistance, or adding resistance. These are outside the scope of this article, but we regularly use them as well. What is in this scope is determining whether you want to emphasize a more knee- or hip-driven jump.

Working on multi-planar lower body explosiveness is of major concern, since all golf swings use all three ground reaction forces to varying but high degrees, says @bprengle. Share on X

P3 in Santa Barbara, California, and other facilities have looked at explosive athletes to determine if some are more knee-dominant or hip-dominant jumpers. While we can endlessly debate this research and other studies looking at whether hinge strength or squat strength translates more to jumping, we take a simplistic approach—why not work on both? Our athletes don’t jump during their contests (unlike the NBA and MLB players working at P3); thus, specifically working on the skill of jumping is of minimal importance once they achieve a certain level of competence. However, working on multi-planar lower body explosiveness is of major concern, since all golf swings use all three ground reaction forces (vertical, horizontal, and torsional) to varying but high degrees.

Strength and Speed Matching Up in Elite Female Golfers

At this time, our team at Par4Success has collected data on more than 1,100 athletes, with more added to our database each day. Two of our most important metrics to drive training decisions for our athletes are club head speed (or swing speed) and, if appropriate, estimated 1RMs, which are generally tested each three months. In our database, we have seven female athletes who swing over 100 mph, which is 6 mph faster than the latest averages presented by the LPGA.

These athletes range in age from 17-27 years old and compete at the highest level possible for their age group. All except one of these athletes can deadlift more than 200 pounds for reps and have, on average, a relative estimated hinge strength of 1.5x body weight. None of these ladies came to us with “elite” speed—over the average of 3.5 years that we have worked with this group, they have gained (again, on average) 8.5 mph of club speed, which equates to at least 30 extra yards of distance on drives for good ball-strikers (which these athletes very much are). Interestingly, we only have one woman who can deadlift 200 pounds for reps and has yet to overtake the 100-mph swing speed barrier.

Three interesting points of note arise from this group of athletes. Four of the seven have a relative deadlift strength above 1.5x body weight, while three are below this level (hence the average). The three below this level have all dealt with lower back issues over the course of their careers. Taking things a step farther, the athlete with the lowest relative deadlift strength in this group of females had the most significant injury, and she had to take multiple months off of competitive golf before beginning a comprehensive soft tissue and hinge-focused strength program. Not only has this program gotten her back on the competitive circuit, but her strength also has increased to 1.25x body weight on the deadlift.

Having had a moderate amount of statistical education in my graduate work, I know that these cases and correlations do not equal causation. The golf swing is a multiplanar explosive movement, and one sagittal plane strength exercise will never explain the entirety of an athlete’s swing. However, these numbers should cause us to pause and think, and we will certainly continue to track them as many of our younger athletes begin to mature and approach these thresholds.

An Ongoing Investigation for Better Performance

Hinging strength and power are almost universally recognized as important pieces of the performance and injury-reduction puzzle in golf. At Par4Success, we are seeing the connection to actual performance metrics and injury prevention starting to take a very tangible form. Special considerations should be taken for explosive, rotational sport athletes such as golfers to make the exercise more specific and less detrimental to an athlete’s practice and performance schedule.

Returning to our cases for a moment, we very much look forward to tracking the development of these athletes and our younger athletes as they continue to grow and develop longitudinally. Two of the five “100-mph swing – 200-pound deadlift club” (commemorative T-shirts are currently being ordered) started with us during their early high school years and now compete at high D1 level programs. As speed and distance become an even greater focus in the competitive golf landscape, we are obviously interested to see just how fast hinging strength can help our junior athletes swing faster safely.

As strength training becomes more accepted in the world of golf, it is important to maximize results and remove risky exercises that have little to no performance benefit, says @bprengle. Share on X

There is a group of about six young female golfers who are all approaching the 100-mph barrier with hinge strength around the 1.3x body weight mark, and since we test our athletes every three months on average, it will be even more interesting to see how their speeds, and low back health, correspond to changes in their hinge strength.

As strength training becomes more accepted in the world of golf, it is important to maximize results and remove risky exercises that have little to no performance benefit. At Par4Success, we are waging war against time-consuming and results-empty “golf-ish” exercises. Over the next 12 months, we will keep sharing new findings as we continue to investigate the early relationships between physical performance metrics and the golf swing, all in an effort to help golfers swing faster than they ever thought possible, play better than ever before, and hurt less while doing it all.

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. Cheetham, P., Rose, G.R., and Hinrichs, R.N. “Comparison of kinematic sequence parameters between amateur and professional golfers. Science and Golf V,” in Crews D, Lutz R (eds): Proceedings of the world scientific congress of golf. Energy in Motion, Mesa, AZ (2008).

2. Lynn, S.K., et al. “Rotational kinematics of the pelvis during the golf swing: skill level differences and relationship to club and ball impact conditions.” International Journal of Golf Science. 2013; 2(2):116-125.

3. McHardy, A., Pollard, H., and Luo, K. “Golf injuries.” Sports Medicine. 2006;36(2):171-187.

4. Cormier, P., et al. “Complex and Contrast Training: Does Strength and Power Training Sequence Affect Performance-Based Adaptations in Team Sports? A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.” Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research. 2020;34(5):1461.

What I’m about to say now may turn many readers away. However, here goes. You may never be as good as you want to be or think you should be. That’s not to put a limiter on drive and ambition; it’s just a sprinkling of reality. Your body and mind may not have the capacity to do so.

However, you can always be better than you are now by adhering to the principles governing the dynamics of performance and respecting the fact we are complex biological systems. We are, in fact, biotensegrity units and not restricted by mechanical Newtonian laws, but more on that later. We are not built solely in the gym!

“Body is a structure made up of muscles, bones, fascia, ligaments and tendons that are made strong by the unison of tensioned and compressed parts, its one interconnected system where the muscles and connective tissue provide continuous pull and the bones present discontinuous compression.” –Eugene Bleecker

We are born with a genetic floor and everyone arrives on a different level. However, with careful intervention, a throwing athlete can move up the floors until they hit their genetic ceiling. Share on X

My intention isn’t to write a strength and conditioning article but to shed light on why, when, and how all throwing athletes can push up their genetic ceiling. We are born with a genetic floor, and everyone arrives on a different level. However, with careful intervention, a throwing athlete can move up the floors until they hit their genetic ceiling.

Strength phenotypes are 49-56% genetically predetermined. Muscle fiber type is, in fact, 45% genetically predetermined. You are born to be a truly world-class athlete.

Yes, we are back to the nature versus nurture debate: The ability to produce genuine world-class performances is in your DNA (Gene ACNT 3 RR). Fundamentally, an athlete can only increase their genetic ceiling by improving their biomotor, biodynamic, and bioenergetic qualities. No one capacity exists in isolation. For guaranteed progression and transfer of training, they all need to be respected and trained together.

“The number of fibers in a muscle is what’s genetically determined, it is established at the moment of conception by the respective genomes received from both parents.” –Henk Kraaijenhof¹ 

Strength, speed, and power training in a synergistic partnership with technical and tactical work are key to the future of all throwing athletes and the understanding of all factors that govern performance. Individuality also needs to be catered to, taking into account an athlete’s DNA, learning type, personality, neurotype, and anthropometry. Careful appreciation and manipulation of these five traits will determine the success of the program and, ultimately, the future of the athlete.

In this article I will explain the similarities and the differences between my three throwing interests: fast bowling, baseball pitching, and javelin throwing. Similarities exist between the three; however, understanding the differences is what will truly determine performance. It may be radical in its theories, methodology, and application, but my work will always be determined by science-based and research-driven knowledge, along with the less important playing experience (admittedly, only in fast bowling).

I aim to share my findings on testing and profiling fast bowlers in cricket in this article and also give you insight into the way I coach athletes. It will certainly have a bias toward fast bowling, but I will endeavor to provide context in pitching and javelin, too.

So, What Are We Actually Looking for? What Do the Best Do?

Like most athletic actions, it’s not about building robots who perform the same way in a rigid model; it’s about making sure the “attractors”—the key basic, essential, fixed movements—are stable in the technical completion of the action. The individuality and idiosyncratic elements are the “fluctuators,” changeable components that have degrees of freedom that do not negatively impact bowling performance. When the system’s attractors are stable, it becomes more “robust” (resistant to perturbations) and more “resilient” (resistant to state change/tissue failure).

Fluctuators help us adapt to the environment but are specific to individual bowlers. It’s their own method of organizing and adapting to the environment (self-organizing). Coaches need a careful balance to ensure the fluctuators don’t become too rigid, as is evident in the younger generation of athletes. This serves only to develop a generation of “anti-fragile” athletes for whom any variability causes a dramatic decrease in performance.

I base my approach to coaching throwing athletes, in particular fast bowlers and skill acquisition, on a mathematical model known as the dynamical systems theory (DST).

“DST is grounded in differential calculus and has emerged from the science of behavioral psychology as a useful tool in predicting the behavior of complex systems like ecological environments, economies, and political systems.” –Randy Sullivan, Florida Baseball Ranch

Attractors and fluctuators can also be called the “hard skills” and “soft skills.” The hard skills are the optimum mechanics in an ideal situation and the foundations of fast bowling. They are the general laws of physics and biomechanics as they pertain to fast bowling. These need to be perfect, as they determine the completion of the full sequence. These are the skills that need perfect practice and are hard to ingrain but are essential.

The soft skills are the fluctuations that happen based on task and environmental situations. These are the variable and idiosyncratic skills and unique to every individual athlete. It is essential that both skills are not misunderstood by coaches.

The two layers of attractors are:

Layer 1: Muscles Used – Intra muscle coordination (contractions)

Layer 2: Sequence – Inter muscle sequencing (the technical model)

The key to hitting the “intermuscular technical attractors” is the ability to co-contract and pre-tense around key positions. The ability to pre-tense the muscle around the joint and reduce muscle slack before performing a dynamic action is what separates the top athletes from others.

The ability to pre-tense the muscle around the joint and reduce muscle slack before performing a dynamic action is what separates the top athletes from others, says @SteffanJones105. Share on X

In the three sports, in particular fast bowling and javelin, ground contact times limit the capacity of the stretch-shortening cycle (SSC) to impact performance. Intramuscular actions affect each technical attractor and ultimately dictate their effectiveness. The key to any overhead throwing efficiency is to make your attractors stable (but not too stable) and to have some fluctuations available for adjustability, but not too many.

Fix the technical positions by contracting (co-contracting) the muscles around the node, which then acts like a straitjacket for the technique. This is why the Pacelab Skill Stability model is built around isometric training.

There are similarities between all three events—fast bowling, javelin throwing, and baseball pitching—due to the common value placed on:

1. 1. Orientation: Horizontal force vector; body mass and implement

 

1. 1. Separation: Switching of limbs and separation of trunk and lower body to create torque

 

These two govern everything.

“The key to technical coaching is identifying the balance between enough separation and orientation.” –Jonas Dodoo, Speedworks

We need to understand and respect three general concepts that underpin any coach’s knowledge for all speed and power sports: athletic posture, sequencing, and rotation.

Everything about rotational sport is about generating, storing, and utilizing kinetic energy up the kinetic sequence in a strong, stable, technical model. This is from the floor all the way into the implement, from proximal to distal, and the largest segments generating torque into the smaller segments. It is called “sequential acceleration.”

Issues arise when blockages/leakages occur up and down the chain, which in my view is born out of an over-reliance on heavy strength training. Current strength and conditioning programs place more emphasis on muscles or movement in one plane than respecting the natural force multiplier we have in our body—the fascial system.

There is a natural fascia system in the body that’s key to any rotational sports. Knee-dominant bowlers, in particular, will need careful understanding of this system and how to train it.

The body searches for efficiency: the stiffness and tension we create in some areas will lend themselves to doing more efficient work with less effort. The kinetic chain in overarm throwing/bowling is initiated by the heavy proximal segments (the trunk), followed by the lighter distal segments (the arm segments), resulting in the distal segments rotating faster than the proximal segments.²

“…the athletic development world, unfortunately, has likened movement to a series of pretty lines and angles in the sagittal ‘front to back’ plane of movement. The principle of torque, a common trait of the world’s fastest athletes, flips the linear, ‘pretty-angle’ mentality on its head. Joints work using adduction and abduction in the frontal plane, along with twisting in the transverse plane to get a more powerful loading (and unloading) of the fascial systems of the body, and muscles react to that positioning.” –Joel Smith³

The fascial system dictates that we move in a tri-planar pattern. Respect torque. We are torque beings:

“Humans are torque beings; and torque is rotation or twisting. We are more efficient moving with rotation than we are linearly. Muscle fibers run at angles, not linearly. We have joints that allow us to move the endpoints of the muscles farther away from each other via rotation. Linear movements keep the distance between endpoints fixed which makes it difficult to elongate a muscle.” –Adarian Barr

Kinematic Intermuscular Attractors: The Technical Model

I think it’s important that I reiterate at this point the difference between style and technique. Everyone has their own style based on how they organize themselves in relation to environment, task, and organismic constraints. Truly elite performers, however, have the same technique but individualize their movement and coordination based on the following seven broad categories. These are based on the work of Joel Smith of Just Fly Sports, with the addition of my observations from my 13 years of coaching and 20 years as a professional player.

 

1. 1. Neurochemical type

 

1. 1. Pacelab hip or knee dominance

 

1. 1. Training tolerance

 

1. 1. Muscle-driven versus fascia-driven athletes

 

1. 1. Ratio of force transfer

 

1. 1. Explosion- or implosion-based neuromuscular patterning

 

1. 1. Training and chronological age

 

These seven differences will also impact hitting the kinetic attractors. While it’s beyond the scope of this article to cover each aspect, the key message is simple: Everyone has a different journey toward the end results but will always have the same intention and end position.

“If we are to teach correct movements, understanding the biomechanical principles underpinning what ‘correct’ looks like is critical. Think about technique versus style—correct technical practice in sport is governed by inarguable biomechanical principles whereas stylistic differences are often an adaptation of techniques, based upon individual variation, nuance, or faults. People often confuse the two.” –ALTIS: Foundation Course

I’ll begin with my specialization and passion: fast bowling.

The following are based on the Pacelab profiling system, which utilizes the 1080 Sprint, Muscle Lab contact grid, Stalker Pro speed gun, and ForceDecks for isometric testing. These four testing tools make up the “Pacelab Velocity Matrix”—they provide the key performance indicators (KPIs). These are my findings based on hundreds of bowlers, from 60–95 mph bowlers, both boys and girls, assessed over the last three years.

There are four key aspects that determine elite performance in fast bowling. These are the kinematic attractors:

 

1. 1. Approach velocity

 

1. 1. Collision control in the impact zone

 

1. 1. Maintaining momentum throughout the impact zone into the delivery zone

 

1. 1. Sequential acceleration from proximal to distal

 

I split fast bowling into three main zones, as seen in figure 6.

1. Approach speed and maintaining momentum through the sequence: The faster bowlers run in at higher velocities measured in meters/second and decelerate less onto front foot contact.

The fastest bowlers in the world run in quicker. That’s it, simple. There are clear outliers, but based on 1080 Sprint data, when bowlers are guided into running in more quickly, ball velocity increases. Issues arise when the athlete doesn’t have the force management capabilities to maintain stability and control in the delivery.

The fastest bowlers in the world run in quicker… Based on 1080 Sprint data, when bowlers are guided into running in more quickly, ball velocity increases, says @SteffanJones105. Share on X

Differences exist between hip- and knee-dominant bowlers. Knee-dominant bowlers need more time for rotation on back foot contact (BFC), so they need more control at the impact zone. However, the key factor is the need for momentum, which is why strength training is more essential for a knee-dominant bowler.

Below is the profile of a knee-dominant fast bowler who relies on time on BFC but is still able to maintain momentum due to high biomotor qualities. The key is the peak velocity is hit into the impulse stride at more than 7 m/s and then he is able to maintain a large percentage into front foot contact (FFC) with a strong, braced front leg.

However, this was not always the case. On initial profiling, the data showed energy leakage and a lack of momentum into the impulse stride and inefficient force management on the BFC. Spending too long on rear-side mechanics will negatively impact front-side mechanics, which ultimately is a key determinant of ball velocity. Front side is a consequence of rear-side mechanics, and the back foot is merely a pivot/fulcrum for the bowling action. Poor ability at this node impacts greatly on the front foot contact and stabilization of the lever of the front leg.

The intervention method to change these numbers involved 1080 Sprint resisted heavy walks with an added Lila Movement Exogen Suit, skill stability isometric training, flywheel training, and extensive jumping (pogo jumps/hoping). These were all performed in a two-week period. Ball velocity increased by 3 mph.

The above data is for a bowler who bowls early 80 mph. These are the numbers for 12 bowlers in terms of approach velocity and the maintenance of force and power into the FFC. It’s essential to note these are the ball velocities on the Stalker Pro speed gun, and they are 3-5 mph slower than TV measurements (who said speed doesn’t sell?).

I place a premium on sprint training. The key message for me is simple: Attack the impact zone, control the collision, maintain momentum from the impulse stride into BFC, and transfer the momentum into FFC, which causes a kinetic collision up the sequence into the implement. Note on the above figure that the fastest bowlers have the higher approach number; however, there are outliers.

Three years of in-house research has demonstrated that improving the velocity bowlers run in at will have a positive correlation with ball velocity. Fast bowlers and javelin throwers need to be better sprinters. Hitting FFC faster with more force will help you bowl faster and throw further. However, this increases the dynamic complexity of the sequence and places a higher premium on eccentric strength.

Hitting front foot contact faster with more force will help you bowl faster and throw further, says @SteffanJones105. Share on X

Control of the collision requires the ability to avoid deformation on ground contact. Flexing/compliance on contact increases ground contact time, which is not favorable to bowling or sprinting quickly. However, don’t rush to stand under the barbell to squat until you drop. That won’t help you if your ground contact time is less than 0.20 seconds, and if it isn’t, then you definitely won’t be bowling quickly!

You have limited time to make a difference. Long ground contacts and system compliance lead to a dissipation of energy. A collision is how the body absorbs and redirects energy. The knee being bent extends the collision time. This can happen in two different ways:

 

1. 1. The knee bends prior to impact.

 

1. 1. The knee bends after the collision or the foot coming in contact with the ground.

 

Understanding the impact forces have on the body is key. Do they flex on contact due to anthropometry or do they fail to control the collision due to poor eccentric capabilities? Hip-dominant bowlers, who, due in part to fascia stress lines built over time and myelinated patterns, stay “rigid” on back foot contact may not necessarily have the biomotor qualities to utilize this capability.

A good fast bowlers’ knee, whether hip- or knee-dominant, is bent prior to ground contact and maintains that angle throughout the ground contact phase—whatever that angle is. They don’t lose energy; they use energy. A weaker bowler’s knee will bend after ground contact occurs, whether hip- or knee-dominant. The main difference between hip-dominant bowlers and knee-dominant bowlers is system stiffness that leads to eliminating muscle slack quicker.

Stiffness can be identified as the extent to which an object resists deformation in response to applied force. It can be measured by applied force divided by change of length in newtons/meters (n/m).

The opposite of stiffness is compliance, and it requires less force to cause deformation. The forces involved in fast bowling are unmatched in most sports skills: 4-5 times body weight on BFC and 8-10 times on FFC. This is why compliance is not conducive to fast bowling. Compliance leads to increased time for segments/nodes to move, which we haven’t got during bowling; a lowering of COM on contact, and therefore a reduction in gravitational momentum into FFC; an increase in “contact patch” during the approach, increasing GCT during running; and more flexion on BFC, leading to increased GCT.

According to Max Schmarzo and Paul J. Fabritz, there are four types of stiffness that impact any locomotive skill like fast bowling:

 

1. 1. Body system – leg stiffness

 

1. 1. Individual joint – ankle stiffness

 

1. 1. Active stiffness – muscle and CNS

 

1. 1. Passive stiffness – tendon and fascia

 

When we hit the ground, our aim as fast bowlers is to impart as much ground reaction force (GRF) as possible relative to our mass (MSF) in as little time as possible (GCT). When sequenced correctly, we create unified TENSION throughout the system via the fascial system and COMPRESSION via the contractile elements of the muscle. That allows us to eliminate muscle slack and use the body as a unit to complete the delivery.

When running, the energy comes from an isometric contraction of the agonist muscles, allowing connective tissue tension, both at the tendons and the fascia, and muscular relaxation in the agonist muscles. Having the ability to co-contract and pre-tense prior to impact and relax post impact is the difference between the true elite and the also-rans. The law of reciprocal inhibition is something the best adhere to!

The data on 1080 is for fast bowling, but based on it, there is a positive correlation between the approach in javelin and release speed, which directly impacts spear distance.

Above is the data for various javelin throwers in the last five years. Once again, it is evident that the faster the approach, the farther the throw. The interesting data here is the fact two different throwers, Rohler and Vetter—one being knee-dominant and the other hip-dominant—both place an emphasis on creating momentum into the delivery. How they then organize themselves into completing the throw is unique to them. However, the constant is approach velocity. One relies on the stretch shortening cycle and torque while the other relies on back foot stiffness and maintaining the momentum of the center of mass into front foot block. The key is energy transfer.

With regard to approach velocity in both javelin and fast bowling, when the numbers were higher on the run-up speed in m/s and power highest in watts, the ball velocity was always higher. Share on X

In summary, with regard to approach velocity in both javelin and fast bowling using the 1080 Sprint for fast bowling, when the numbers were higher on the run-up speed in m/s and power highest in watts, the ball velocity was always higher.

2. Switch legs/reposition the back-foot contact leg faster and land with a stiff back foot contact whether hip- or knee-dominant. Knee-dominant throwers will spend longer due to accessing the SSC to create hip internal rotation and subsequent torque, but still need to remain stiff and avoid deformation.

The aim of a fast bowler and a javelin thrower should be to generate as much momentum into the impulse stride, then maintain that into BFC and onto FFC. Javelin throwers turn earlier into position during a crossover phase so they will lose more momentum, but like fast bowlers, ankle stiffness and short GCT are integral to their success.

The shorter the ground contact time on impulse stride (LFS) and back foot contact (RFS), the farther the distance.

This is the same with fast bowlers. The fastest bowlers in comparison to their peers have a shorter ground contact time(GCT).

Contact times impact flight times. This is why it’s integral to train ankle stiffness, as it determines the quality of the flight time. Sprinting and fast bowling are reflexive actions. Energy is maintained through every stride via the crossed extensor reflex, which is dictated by the quality of the previous ground contact. The more force imparted into the ground, the better the projection. The stiffer the contact, the more the reflexive system aids in performance.

In my opinion, there should not be a definite deceleration at the impact zone. It’s a continuation of the sprint itself. This is different than other opinions, but based on data, the bowlers who keep running through the crease (area where they bowl) and don’t consciously try and “jump and twist” into their delivery bowl faster.

The fastest hip-dominant bowlers have the shorter GCT on back foot contact, while knee-dominant bowlers need longer to store energy.

The differences in time required to achieve each of the muscle action phases play a role in time spent on BFC. The knee-dominant/muscle-driven bowler requires extensive time spent on BFC when compared to the spring/fascia-driven bowler. More time spent on BFC will lead to poor kinematic and kinetic sequencing that inhibits the ability to complete hip-shoulder separation, which is one of the key kinematic attractors of fast bowling. However, increasing the time in the upper extremities will allow correct synchronization of the upper and lower half. This is called the “long-arm pull,” and it characterizes the “slingers.”

Credit: Max Schmarzo and Matt Van Dyke.

On BFC, the bowler begins traveling downward (green arrow–gravitational momentum), then begins to “ramp up” the force placed into the ground to begin decelerating their downward force (red arrow–eccentric contraction). They eventually (hopefully) produce enough force to come to a complete, although brief, halt at their bottom position (blue arrow–isometric contraction), before immediately beginning their propulsion upward (black arrow–concentric contraction) through to front foot contact (spring mass model).

Credit: Max Schmarzo and Matt Van Dyke.

The differences between the lower-level/knee-dominant, and higher-level/hip-dominant fast bowler quickly becomes clear in these two examples. The knee-dominant bowler who lacks stiffness in their tendon is not able to create as much “negative” force as rapidly, as their body understands they will not be capable of overcoming this produced force in an efficient manner. On the other hand, the hip-dominant bowler, relative to the lower-level bowler, is much more capable of rapidly “pulling down” into the optimal back leg/knee-flexed position due to their tendon stiffness and isometric strength. This can be achieved as the athlete is able to “ramp up” their force rapidly, even when this large negative force is applied.

The fastest sprinters and the more athletic fast bowlers and throwers in the world switch their limbs in the air while running (remove-replace action), maintain a stable trunk with a high center of mass (COM), and claw back and under as foot contacts the ground on the outside edge of the foot. This comes from stiffness at the ankles, power at the hips, and stability at the trunk. Due to these three factors, they maintain momentum with every stride.

We know 70% of top velocity sprinting occurs after seven strides, and the remainder is about maintaining momentum and avoiding decelerating on ground contact due to poor technique. This is the same from impulse stride to BFC. As mentioned on numerous occasions, fast bowlers should aim to become better sprinters while becoming strong enough to manage the collision. Spend more time getting your sprinting technique effective and efficient.

Changing the body’s direction of movement at high speeds requires a tremendous amount of eccentric strength to minimize the time of the amortization phase and increase the ability to transfer the horizontal kinetic energy developed in the approach to slight vertical lift in the impulse stride and large gravitational momentum into the front foot contact. However, as previously stated, this is not entirely built in the gym, as specific strength based on the intra and inter-coordination of muscles is the key to technique in a high-octane skill like javelin throwing, fast bowling, and pitching.

Fast bowling relies on the reflexive system more than the muscular system. However, the quality of the reflex is determined by stability and control on impact, which can be enhanced via improved biomotor capacities from training such as shock method and isometric training. I place a lower value and need on concentric-focused training.

Propulsion is a consequential action, not a determining action. The quality of moving forward relies on the quality of initial contact. The delivery stride is determined by the quality of the back-foot contact. Research shows that the delivery stride should be approximately 70% of the athlete’s height. This provides a strong base, allowing the kinetic sequencing to occur more efficiently.

Based on Verkhoshansky’s work, it’s evident that the CNS stimulation received via the contact portion leads to a higher rate of stretch—myotatic reflex. This rate of stretch can be increased via:

 

• • Height of jump into contact – How high you jump into the gather from the impulse stride, which is the flight phase between the penultimate step ground contact and back foot contact. This has consequences.

 

• • Mass of body into contact – How much body weight you carry. This has consequences.

 

• • Velocity of body into contact – How fast you hit BFC. This also has consequences.

 

The magnitude and the rate of stretch will determine the quality of the propulsion phase. Due to the short GCT on the BFC, I discourage bowlers from jumping high to create the CNS stimulation. My advice is that they manage velocity by hitting the contact at max velocity in the approach.

In summary, stiff back foot contact is essential to bowl quickly and, in fact, throw far. It allows a stable pivot point but also impacts the front side/swing leg/front leg mechanics.

3. Brace their front leg on contact and take less time to bring their front foot down from above after back foot contacts.

As a general rule, but respecting athletes with different styles, the fastest bowlers and javelin throwers who throw further brace their front leg. On ground collision they maintain the straight leg, which enables one fulcrum at the hip and a pivot point where first hip rotation, then torso rotation and shoulder rotation, and finally wrist rotation can produce torque and create sequential acceleration.

Due to the ground contact times and the high angular and linear momentum produced, muscles do not have time to have a dominant effect on the completion of the skill. Athletes need to be ready to withstand the impact before it happens. In effect, they need the ability to pre-tense (brace) their muscles before impact. This will be aided by an effective crossed extensor reflexive action from a stiff back foot contact. This co-contraction is integral to the success of bracing on front foot contact. It can be highlighted by full extension of the swing leg/leading leg before impact.

The most important direction for a fast bowler isn’t the vertical but rather the anterior/posterior direction, says @SteffanJones105. Share on X

The most important direction for a fast bowler isn’t the vertical but rather the anterior/posterior direction. The foot comes down from above and doesn’t slide in. A foot plant from above allows the athlete to maintain momentum and limits the decelerative impact on the initial ground contact. Every stride pulls the athlete forward. This is the ideal motion in the approach and on FFC. This is also relevant to pitchers, as the following study highlighted.

According to a recent study, “force imparted by the stride leg against the direction of the throw appears to contribute strongly to achieve maximum throwing velocity.”⁴

The fact that the stride leg applies force against the direction of the delivery means that this force is being applied in a posterior direction. High velocity is maintained toward the target by applying force in the opposite direction.

In order for our fast bowlers to produce high velocities, they must first provide the technique to create a large impulse. The greater the impulse, the greater the velocity created. Not to be confused with the “impulse stride,” impulse is the amount of accumulated force throughout a movement (force x change in time). The faster bowlers spend longer on FFC and create a larger impulse. Due to the limited time to produce force on FFC, it’s not just about how much force a bowler can generate over a given period of time, but also the instantaneous force the bowler can produce.

Impulse has tremendous applications in fast bowling, as the aim is to maximize force production in specific moments (i.e., force produced at the joint angle during each key node in fast bowling). The goal outcome for a fast bowler is to increase the velocity of the ball. To do this, we must either increase the time over which the force is applied or the amount of force produced in a given time. Developing a larger impulse or generating greater force over a set period of time improves RFD, which can increase the likelihood of success. This is why I place a premium on various jumping methods in specific positions and skill stability isometric training, isometrically holding positions and contrasting with a ballistic exercise from those positions.

4. Correct timing, sequencing, and separation of trunk rotation and arm rotation:

It’s the timing of the separation in relation to peak ground reaction forces, not the separation speeds themselves, that differentiate the genuine fast bowlers from others. Faster bowlers experience the separation later, but the greatest stress is experienced closer to or even after front foot contact. As with most skills that are performed at a high level, there is a fine balance between risk and reward. The genuine fast bowler always walks a tightrope between the exceptional and the dangerous. The human body can only tolerate so much force.

There are four main rotational nodes in fast bowling and javelin throwing:

 

1. 1. Pivot turn on BFC, allowing extension of the front leg—more for a knee-dominant fast bowler

 

1. 1. Hip shoulder separation prior to FFC

 

1. 1. Trunk rotation on delivery

 

1. 1. Shoulder rotation on delivery and follow-through

 

For all rotational sports/transverse plane skills like fast bowling, javelin throwing, and pitching, the understanding of sequencing from proximal to distal can be the difference between success and failure. In actual fact, it has to be a priority in your training program. The lack of kinetic sequencing, starting with a pivot/pre-turn at the back foot via an outside edge contact and into hip internal rotation and slightly delayed trunk rotation, accounts for a large amount of exit/ball speed/distance deficiency.

For all rotational sport skills like fast bowling, javelin throwing, and pitching, the understanding of sequencing from proximal to distal can be the difference between success and failure. Share on X

The best throwing athletes use the natural “catapult/sling” effect of the fascial system in the body. The anterior oblique subsystem (AOS) is key to rotational movements in sport. What is it?

“The muscles that comprise the AOS are the global movers of the anterior trunk and the adductors. This subsystem plays a significant role in stabilizing the thoracic and lumbar spine, sacroiliac joint (SIJ), pubic symphysis and hip, as well as transferring force between lower and upper extremities. The AOS plays an active role in all pushing and rotational movement patterns (especially turning in), multi-segmental flexion, and eccentrically decelerating spinal extension and rotation, as well as hip extension, abduction and external rotation (knees bow in and excessive forward lean). The AOS is the functional antagonist of the Posterior Oblique Subsystems (POS)” –Brookbush Institute

The kinetic chain in overarm throwing/bowling is initiated by the heavy proximal segments (the trunk) followed by the lighter distal segments (the arm segments), resulting in the distal segments rotating faster than the proximal segments.³

Based on data taken from Catapult GPS and rotational 1080 Sprint exercises, the majority of fast bowlers have similar trunk rotation speed. Most are above 1,600-2,000 rpm, which is around 6,000-7,800 degrees per second. Converted to linear momentum, this is around 20-30 m/s. This also highlights my belief that nothing in the confines of a gym will ever replicate the skill on the sports field. Specific preparation exercise like a rotational medicine ball throw may reach 5-7 m/s. This why you need to perform the skill itself in variety of ways, underloaded or overloaded, to guarantee a true transfer of training.

However large these speeds are, most bowlers achieve them, within reason. I believe if it’s more than 1,000 rpm, then rotational power is not your limiting factor. If it isn’t, then you need to focus on improving it.

The figure below is based on a study of javelin throwers that identified the distance of the throw correlated with the more distal segments of the sequence. Approach speed, momentum in front foot block, technique, and trunk rotational speeds were similar on all throws.

Toyoshima et al., in a study published in Biomechanics IV, demonstrated that 46.9% of the velocity of the overhand throw could be attributed to the stride and body rotation, with 53.1% due to arm action. So, it’s essential we isolate the upper body and train it explosively, as well as trunk rotation and hip shoulder separation.

Arm speed/release speed is key.

“Inspection of the table shows that the major differences in techniques between throwers occur in the more distal segments. For instance, the peak right shoulder joint linear speeds vary within a range of 1.8 ms. For the right elbow and wrist joints this range increases to 2.0 ms and 3.4 ms respectively. It would seem to be in the latter stages of the deliver)’ that the biggest distinction in the techniques of these throwers are evident. This is not surprising when one considers that over 60% of the javelin release speed generated by the gold medallist was achieved in the 60 ms immediately before release.” –Morris and Bartle

Based on recent research, I firmly believe that ball velocity correlates with “finger release speed.” This is a new measurement from Motus Global, and I think it’s a key performance indicator.

Arm speed has a positive correlation with ball velocity. As you grow, arm speed will decrease due to longer levers. However, the key is maintaining arm speed, as Dr. Fleisig’s study highlighted. Arm speed may be less, but torque (rotational force) is higher. The older you grow, the bigger the segments!

The key is to highlight whether the thrower needs more strength or more speed. Do they need to bowl more lighter balls/spears or heavier balls/spears? Take them to the other end of the continuum to improve their weakness while respecting their strengths.

Performance Relies on Good Biodynamics

I’ve hopefully provided a validation for my theories and methodology in coaching throwing athletes. In particular, fast bowlers in cricket. The key message is that good biodynamics underpin performance, which is determined by the stabilization, separation, and orientation of key attractors sites in the sequence. Both technique and physicality are essential for throwing athletes, so focusing on one over the other will ultimately lead to suboptimal performance and failure.

Both technique and physicality are essential for throwing athletes, so focusing on one over the other will ultimately lead to suboptimal performance and failure, says @SteffanJones105. Share on X

This is why I adhere to what James Smith refers to as the “governing dynamics of coaching.” You need the knowledge of all aspects of human performance to truly have a positive impact on the ultimate aim of transfer of training.

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…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. Kraaijenhof, H. Methodology of Training in the 22nd Century: An Updated Approach to Training and Coaching the Elite Athlete. 2019. Ultimate Athlete Concepts.

2. Chu, S.K., Jayabalan, P., Kibler, W.B., and Press, J. “The Kinetic Chain Revisited: New Concepts on Throwing Mechanics and Injury.” PM&R. 2016;8(3):S69-S77.

3. Smith, J. Speed Strength: A Comprehensive Guide to the Biomechanics and Training Methodology of Linear Speed. 2019.

4. McNally, M.P., Borstad, J.D., Oñate, J.A., and Chaudhari, A.M.W. “Stride Leg Ground Reaction Forces Predict Throwing Velocity in Adult Recreational Baseball Pitchers.” The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research. 2015;29(10):2708-2715.

While I spend a large proportion of time advising organizations, teams, and individuals on decisions around performance training and return to sports, I periodically receive requests for consultations on other topics. Although I have never been formally trained in human resources, professional development, or career planning, it is not uncommon for individuals to schedule a consult with me on how to guide their careers in sports, fitness, and/or rehabilitation medicine. In the last two months, however, I have received more requests regarding career advice than in the previous five years.

The list of clients includes students deciding what direction they should take in college, young adults recently graduated from college looking for prospects, individuals who have just started a job in a sports-and fitness-related field, and seasoned veterans who have spent as much as 20 years or more in the sports and fitness industry. It does not matter how old you are or how much experience you have, change is looming its daunting head and staying ahead of the curve has become a common and essential theme. And let’s not kid ourselves: Fear and anxiety are extremely motivating forces regardless of our age, previous successes, or current net worth.

It is apparent to me that many individuals are seriously thinking about their future more than ever before. The events of the past six months have essentially accelerated and amplified the need to take a closer look at our current situation, while also making plans for our future. COVID-19 has given people a moment of pause to reconsider their past choices around their education and career and motivated them to perhaps find a better direction for their careers and lifestyles. This is not simply a sports-related trend but is happening throughout the economy in all parts of the world. The reasons behind such a premeditated pivot are numerous and complex. Some of the primary reasons people have voiced to me over the last few months include:

• Job dissatisfaction – Some people just hate their job or the place they currently work. This is nothing new. However, perhaps being forced to work at home or furloughed for several months has given us the extra time to evaluate our quality of life at work, as well as motivated some of us to look for opportunities elsewhere. Any comprehensive review of our current job situation will require an examination of opportunity costs. Is the time spent at work taking me away from something I would much rather be doing?

If something is really bothering you about your job or workplace, perhaps now is the best time to implement a change and start fresh. Many individuals who were required to travel frequently as part of their job are now finding out that they didn’t really need to travel that much. They also realize the travel was exhausting and relatively unhealthy, impacting their ability to exercise regularly, eat healthy, and get enough consistent high-quality sleep. But this realization wouldn’t have occurred without the global pandemic. The cure for unhappiness almost always involves a significant transformation that could very well be accompanied by some short-term pain and anxiety, but ultimately will lead you to a better place over the long term.

• Job security and career stability – Sport has always been a bit of a precarious career path in terms of job security, particularly as you move further up the performance ladder. Pile on top of that fact the possibility that your job could be at risk due to budget cuts and organizational restructuring as a result of declining revenues, and you have a lot of anxious coaches and staff working for professional teams or universities. 

While sports will always be around and likely won’t go the route of Blockbuster Video, the abundance of jobs and associated pension plans and benefits that have been enjoyed in the past may not be part of a new reality moving forward. And, as we have found, circumstances can change at the drop of a hat, with “non-essential” positions being deemed expendable. If you want to continue in sports, how can you future-proof your career to minimize uncertainty and maximize stability, while also having an adequate quality of life away from work? This is a big question for many in the sports world.

How can you future-proof your career to minimize uncertainty and maximize stability, while also having an adequate quality of life away from work?, asks @DerekMHansen. Share on X

• Financial concerns – There is no question that a global pandemic can keep you up at night thinking about your health and well-being, but if you also happen to be in a sector that is significantly impacted by lockdowns and social gathering restrictions and prohibitions, not much sleep is being had. People who have had the luxury of a good-paying job and have saved and invested their money wisely are not taking as big of a hit during this time.

However, there are also lots of people working in sports and fitness who did not bring home large paychecks prior to COVID-19, with many carrying tremendous student debt that was very difficult to pay down even at the best of times. As such, the anxiety around financial security and future prospects is reaching an all-time high. While many people considered working in high-performance sports—at any cost—a dream job, pragmatism has taken hold during this time and forced people to rethink their future.

• Family life and time commitments – One of the more significant factors in people re-thinking their careers is that COVID-19 has given them more time with family. Spending time with immediate family over dinner, playing board games, or watching Netflix shows late into the evening is something most people have never had time to do. If you don’t have a family close by, maybe you’ve had more time to do things you truly enjoy on your own schedule and by your own rules.

Many of my friends have used the free time to explore the outdoors, sign up for online courses, brew their own beer, learn a musical instrument, or crush new video games. Almost everyone has acquired an enhanced awareness of personal time over the last six months, and this fact will most definitely influence future decisions around job selection and how they value time spent outside of their jobs. While some people will still consider 14-hour days and full weekends at work a badge of honor, others are carefully rethinking how they spend their time during and away from work.

It is important to note that most of the inquiries I received over the past few months were from individuals who wanted to stay within sports and fitness, and not flee to another industry or field. The joy and satisfaction that many people derive from these fields are apparent. While this disposition narrows their options considerably, there are still opportunities to reshape their careers in ways that accomplish all of their goals around time, family, finances, and security.

This article represents a synopsis of the advice that I have provided to clients over the past few months. The same themes and prescriptions are universal when advising individuals on creating opportunities for themselves and bolstering their chances of being successful in any pursuit they choose.

1. Develop One or Two Distinct Areas of Expertise That Differentiate You from the Competition

Nobody likes a know-it-all. So why are we all trying to be experts in everything? Having a good general knowledge of many things is useful if you want to be socially functional at parties and in engaging Zoom chats with strangers. But in the world of job hunting and career development, having a well-defined specialization is going to attract much more attention and push you to the top of the pile when it comes to persuading potential employers or clients. Niche development is critical in a world where everyone is trying to become an influencer or cyber-celebrity and the ways to connect with an audience or potential market grow every week. The age of the Renaissance man or woman has gone the way of the cassette tape, and specific expertise and skill sets garner far more attention, particularly on social media.

In the sports performance world, I have spent more than 20 years developing my reputation as a sprint and speed expert in working with some key sports. I sought out the best mentors to guide my development and put myself in situations where I was constantly tested. When it came time to promote my expertise, much of the heavy lifting had already been done. And even within the area of speed development, I am known to provide a very specific approach to achieving gains with athletes of all ages and abilities.

As an offshoot of that pursuit, I gradually became more involved in using my sprint-based approach for rehabilitation clients and return-to-sports applications. Hamstring injuries were an early area of focus, but that approach also quickly evolved into dealing with all types of injuries in a timely and effective manner. As such, I am often sought out to address any injuries related to sprinting, running, general locomotion, and biomechanical interventions. I am not just a “coach” or “rehabilitation professional” but seen as a highly specialized professional who has earned a proven record of achieving results when my distinct services are called upon. But simply being known as a “speed expert” will not result in much demand for my services these days, especially when more and more individuals now adopt that title, whether it is gained through merit or not.

It is still immensely important to have a well-rounded base of knowledge, though, giving you the ability to problem-solve on a broad scale. These skills will not only provide you with the ability to speak intelligently on numerous subjects but also afford you advanced administrative abilities to hire the right specialists to fill any gaps in a team or organization. Because I am in the midst of some significant home renovations, this concept has been staring me straight in the face the past few months. While I have some general carpentry and plumbing skills, and I can change a light bulb with extreme efficiency, nothing beats bringing in a trained expert to get the job done right and on schedule. The downside is that my wife, after watching the tradespeople whip through projects, now knows that I am extremely average and horribly slow at most things related to home improvement.

2. Find a Situation Where Your Expertise and Contributions Are Truly Valued

We have all been hired for a job where over the first few weeks everyone showers us with compliments and tells us how great it is to have us on board. “We are so lucky to have you on the team and we can’t wait to start working together with you!” Unfortunately, all good streams of bullshit come to an end and reality kicks in. The honeymoon is over, and you are just another working stiff like the rest of them.

When someone in a leadership position tells you that they value your involvement and contributions, be sure to take a deep breath and wait. This type of lip service should make no impact on your trust, confidence, and commitment until you actually experience the administration supporting you with clear intent, actions, and results.

I have had many instances—more than I can count on two hands—when administrators have told me that I am a valuable member of the team, while in the next breath telling me that my budget has been cut, wages for assistant coaches and interns were not available, and my facilities would not be upgraded anytime soon (i.e., in this century). Then they’d hire a new coach who woud ask me why our weight room is so crappy, insinuating that it was my fault. If this is your current situation, plan an exit strategy as soon as possible. It will not improve anytime soon.

If you find a situation where your expertise, opinions, and ideas matter, it will be clear from day one and continue through your entire journey with that organization. If they give you promises and compliments, and the actions that ensue do not reflect those sentiments, you should expect it to continue unabated. Just as you do with your athletes and clients, you should do the same with your superiors and colleagues. You assess their actions from second-to-second, minute-to-minute, session-to-session, and year-to-year. Their actions give you more than adequate information regarding their intentions and their commitment. If they truly value you, they will treat you accordingly regardless of any events taking place outside of your control.

3. Create and Cultivate a Credible and Professional Social Media Presence

Believe it or not, I still have people tell me, “I don’t do social media. I just can’t bring myself to do that stuff. It’s so superficial!” Nobody is asking you to post stories about your pet rock collection, your high school dance moves, or clips from your spur-of-the-moment trip to Thailand with your old college buddies. But if you want to build a reputation around the good work that you do, social media is not a bad place to showcase your talents and get the word out.

If you told me five years ago that Instagram would be one of the best ways to connect with people in the industry and create a positive impression of my work, I would have said you were crazy. But, like it or not, social media content is currency these days. It is your billboard, your neighborhood flyer, your resume, and even your background check. Plus, it is relatively inexpensive to effectively connect with potential employers, customers, or clients. It just takes a commitment and a very basic knowledge of how it works.

Like it or not, social media is currency these days. It is your billboard, your neighborhood flyer, your resume, and even your background check, says @DerekMHansen. Share on X

The other side of the coin is that you must treat social media like “The Force” and use it wisely. When I use the words “credible” and “professional,” I refer to the quality, merit, and precision of your content, as well as the clarity and persuasiveness of your delivery. You do not want to come across as a used car salesman, a snake-oil peddler, or an eccentric, outrageous lunatic, regardless of how many likes and followers you derive from that approach.

In many cases, the quality of your content and your character will be on full display and may take the form of your initial “virtual” job interview before you actually get a real job interview. Accordingly, you have to treat your social media presence as a long-term investment in your reputation and personal brand. The more consistent quality information you provide, the more you will add value to your overall reputation. Social media is not going away, and more and more people are finding it an efficient means of doing their research and gathering information.

4. Do Not Undervalue Your Services and Contributions

“Will work for food” and other memes will not help you in the long run. While we all understand that paying your dues is all part of the career-building process, there has to be a point where an individual draws the line and puts themselves in a better situation. As soon as you begin to buy into the hype that you must sacrifice your earning potential for a long period of time to get a sniff at a career in high-level sports, you have devalued your personal worth and wasted a lot of time.

Unpaid internships or living expense stipends might be acceptable for a brief period of time when you are trying to accumulate some minimal volume of experience and learn your trade. We have all volunteered for a brief period of time to earn work experience and get our feet wet. But once you have completed your education, earned your certification, and amassed adequate work hour totals, it is time to find a job that at least pays you an acceptable entry-level wage and start building your life. At some point in your career, you have to establish a value for your time and effort that you will not compromise, regardless of how enticing the job or project may appear.

We see it all the time when professional athletes and their representatives negotiate their contracts. They often comment that they only want to be paid what they are worth compared to others at their position in the league with similar statistics. We can all take a page out of their book by researching what others earn in similar positions with similar qualifications and skills. Doing your homework and learning what others are being paid is critical in any compensation negotiation. Precedents are set in professional sports all the time, and your earning potential should be no different. Build a case for your request and make sure to check all the boxes.

In some cases, you may have to take a short-term pay cut in order to get a chance to demonstrate your abilities. It would be no different than Cam Newton signing a contract with the New England Patriots for a base salary of $1.05 million ($550,000 fully guaranteed) when he had previously made an average of $13.5 million per year in his previous nine-year contract with the Carolina Panthers. He experienced some injury issues in the past, and this is now his chance to get another shot with a good team to show his worth, albeit at a significantly lower salary.

This year, he may demonstrate his worth once again and sign a future contract worth more than $20 million per year if all goes well. But make no mistake about it, playing for $1 million per year—with incentives to make as much as $7.5 million for the season—is not working for food. It is a calculated strategy that could work out well for both parties. Please think about this example when calculating your own worth in wage negotiations and considering a position for employment, keeping in mind how it will set you up for the future. If there is no reasonable plan or progression outlined, then stop and press the reset button.

5. Write Frequently on Your Areas of Interest, Experience, and Expertise

In a world where video is taking over a larger and larger chunk of people’s attention spans, do not underestimate the power of the written word. People who occupy positions of influence and power within organizations tend to be the ones that take the time to read, and putting something down on paper always helps to consolidate your credibility, knowledge, and influence.

Sometimes you can assemble an article on your anecdotal experience and draw conclusions from those cases. Other times, you may want to cite other experts or provide references to research studies that support your assertions. If you are also able to provide charts, infographics, or other visuals to clarify and support your positions, you will only make your articles more attractive and enjoyable to read. It also adds a degree of professionalism and polish to your work that others can recognize and attach to your brand.

Forcing yourself to write articles also hones your general communication, planning, and organizational skills in a way that crosses over to other tasks. Putting down your ideas on paper and finding the right words to get your points across is helpful for everything from presentation preparation to writing proposals for clients, as well as preparing you for larger projects such as book chapters and even an entire book.

My own forays into article and book writing haven’t been incredibly lucrative by any means, but the experiences have improved my overall concentration and focus around communication and presenting my ideas. There is also an intrinsic satisfaction that comes with publishing an article or book that has a more lasting impact than any other media production that I have been involved with. It is also important to remember that an innovative, well-written article will be on the internet forever for everyone to see and associate with your name.

Don’t wait for someone to ask you to write an article. Take the initiative and start a simple blog to get your ideas out to the public. Publish regularly but take your time in formulating your topics and assembling your composition. Treat the writing process as you do your physical exercise program and understand that improvement can only be accomplished with deliberate planning and consistent implementation of good form. And just like exercise, there will be days when everything comes easy with the sentences flowing out of you like a waterfall, but also days when it feels like you are trying to draw blood from a stone.

6. Get in Front of an Audience and Communicate Your Thoughts on a Consistent Basis

While it has been much more difficult as of late to do any in-person presentations or seminars, the exceptional value of putting yourself in front of an audience has not diminished. Video conferencing has allowed us to put ourselves in front of many more people from all parts of the world from the comfort of our own homes. Despite the fact there is an awkwardness to video conferencing that makes the experience somewhat artificial and fragmented, it still requires you to perform on demand and captivate your audience. Because there is no requirement to travel, there should be far fewer obstacles to interacting in real time with individuals.

Any live interactions, regardless of the medium, can be beneficial for your professional development, particularly when you are tasked with leading the discussion. The objective of any event is to sharpen your presentation skills and effectively communicate your ideas to others. Just like any other skill, repetition helps lead to mastery. Public speaking and presentation skills are no different. Practice makes permanent, and if you have the discipline and motivation to hone these skills, practice will gradually approach perfect.

The COVID-19 pandemic hasn’t forced us to replace our means of communication and interaction as much as it has accelerated the inevitable trend to expand and proliferate digital communication and presentation technologies. These methods of communicating, teaching, and sharing information will not go away. The future has arrived abruptly, and it is your responsibility to embrace these new mediums and use them to your advantage as part of a pivoting strategy.

7. Become Extremely Competent with Technology, but Don’t Rely on It

Very recently, I converted all of my in-person Running Mechanics Professional courses to an online platform. While it was a fascinating journey of learning the potential and functionality of the platform, most of my time went into improving the composition, organization, clarity, and delivery of the content. Regardless of the fact that everything will be delivered via a virtual platform for the time being, I found myself spending the majority of my time and energy enhancing the product itself. When the time comes to provide a hybrid of in-person and virtual delivery, the course itself will provide much more value for the participant regardless of the instruction medium.

Learning how to use technology efficiently and effectively is much more important than learning about the technology itself. As a lover of cameras for photo and video applications, it is very easy for me to get caught up in the new technologies arriving on the market every few months. More robust specifications and technological innovations are always sexy at first. However, a greater understanding of light, composition, editing, and storytelling will always produce far better results than hardware. Technique is always more important than tech, no matter how you slice it. People were doing great things well before advanced technology was available, in the creation of fine food, music, movies, and even sports.

Technique is always more important than tech, says @DerekMHansen. Share on X

When it comes to working in sports, there is a fascination for everything from wearables to data collection and visualization systems to apps that are intended to optimize all aspects of your life. The combination of hardware and software products available to professionals in the sports, fitness, and rehabilitation fields is absolutely dizzying. But I always fall back to the same question when discussing new technology with clients: How is this going to make you better?

Answering that question requires not only that you know how the technology works, but more importantly, that you already understand how to make people better without the technology. Most of the time, the technology will help you to capture a performance, speed up the evaluation process, manage the data or communicate faster, and target to a broader audience. If you are able to effectively merge the precision of your technique with the efficiency of tech, it is a good bet that you will get better and enhance your overall marketability in whatever field you choose.

8. Seek Consultation with Someone Who Has Been There

There is a lot of buzz around mentorship these days. Every young professional has been encouraged to seek out and connect with a wise guru to guide all aspects of their personal and professional development. While everyone else tries to find their own personal Yoda to complete their training, my advice would be to seek the counsel of one or more experienced individuals who have lived through a difficult career decision or life change successfully and listen to their perspective. They need not be a longtime mentor or a guru, but simply a real person with their own story of challenge and choice. Some of these people should be from your industry, while others should be from completely different ones. Increasing your sample size will enhance your chances of identifying an appropriate solution for yourself.

I have been lucky to have true professionals and gentlemen such as Al Vermeil, Rob Panariello, and Donald Chu to consult regarding the hard decisions they’ve had to make in their careers. None of them has ever told me what to do or provided me a specific prescription. That’s not how this works. Taking time to listen and hear their stories about occasions when they had to make a critical decision that carried significant risk is an extremely valuable process. In each case, these wise individuals shared how they carefully weighed the pros and cons of their decisions before taking a precarious leap. These types of sincere interactions can boost your confidence around your own decisions, reinforcing the fact that we all have to endure some degree of anxiety around difficult decisions and life changes.

Having a network of experienced individuals who you can lean on once in a while is invaluable, but it also takes time to develop and gain a level of trust between parties. While I have always respected the process of trial and error in many aspects of my career, I can also attest to the fact that many of my current approaches are the result of guidance from people who have walked many more miles in the shoes of life.

9. Don’t Wait for Someone Else to Save You

I still believe there is a prevailing attitude out there by many who truly believe the right situation will just fall in their lap. I even see this with many of my friends and the way they conduct their businesses and careers. They truly believe that one client, organization, or institution will throw money at them or give them a dream position that will last them through to retirement because of a few great ideas they have or a handful of successes they’ve managed to achieve. I’m not going to say that never happens, as we have all witnessed the private trainer working with a star athlete rise to prominence as the star wins more championships. But coat-tail riding is an extreme sport and doesn’t always result in sustainable employment and happiness.

Waiting for someone to save you is not a viable strategy. As soon as you rely on others for your well-being and success, you create a massive vulnerability in your career plan. The more self-sufficiency you weave into your personal development plan, the more resiliency and agility you will build into your overall character and approach. There are some people out there who will sincerely be concerned about your well-being. Of those people, maybe a few will actually be able to help you. But most will not. Most people really don’t care about whether you succeed or not, as they are much too busy worrying about their own situation. This is the reality that you must factor into your overall strategy if you truly wish to future-proof your career.

Develop an Effective Pivot

One of the common threads of these points is the concept of time. It takes time to get to a place where all or most of these recommendations align and put you in a place of greater opportunity and broader adaptability. A lot of people use the term “pivot” as if it were an instantaneous decision and reactionary move, as if a light bulb was switched on allowing you to pivot quickly to avoid hardship and place yourself in a more advantageous situation.

Like any agile movement in sports, you must develop an effective pivot over time through careful planning and precise repetition. When an effective pivot is required due to a change in circumstances, the abilities simply appear on demand, almost reflexively, and the transition is smooth, easy, and successful. This is why, in hard times, the people most equipped to pivot are those who are already successful, possessing all the prerequisites for adaptability. This is not about creating what many people refer to as a “side hustle” or “moonlighting.” It is about cultivating diversity and adaptability with your skills in an effort to create a sustainable and enjoyable career.

No one can plan for a sudden calamity (or in this case, a global pandemic) in a manner that completely protects them from harm or setback. However, just as you would do everything in your power to minimize the risk of injury for an athlete through comprehensive preparation, you are making arrangements well in advance over time to buffer yourself from any potential harm. Careful and meticulous preparation makes pivoting much easier when called upon. And guess what? Sometimes we get injured regardless of the hard work and preparation. But that accumulation of both physical and mental work will help us to climb out of any hole that we find ourselves in. “Career injuries” are no different than sports injuries. They both require a positive mindset and an effective plan to get you back on the field of play.

Career injuries are no different than sports injuries. They both require a positive mindset and an effective plan to get you back on the field of play, says @DerekMHansen. Share on X

Even though sports are considered non-essential services when compared with healthcare workers, law enforcement officers, and grocery store staff, there is some stability in knowing that civilization simply cannot go without sports and entertainment for an extended period of time. We have seen this phenomenon take place as we sit back and enjoy playoff basketball and hockey and marvel at the playmaking ability of NFL stars. Ensuring that people consider you indispensable may take some time and effort, but it is certainly possible.

I remember, straight out of college, one of my first bosses and mentors discussing the concept of “job security” with me during a job interview. At the age of 25, I told him I was interested in finding a place of employment with good job security. His reply was simple and direct. “If you are very good at what you do, you will never have to worry about this fleeting concept of job security or your career.” These are words to live by regardless of your age or your field, even in the presence of a global pandemic.

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I am a big believer in the concept of the “growth mindset.” That doesn’t mean jumping on every new idea or piece of sports performance technology that comes along, but I believe that it means to be in constant search for best practice.

I heard a coach say recently, “If your ‘why’ is because that’s the way you were taught by your coaches to do it, or you did it that way in college, it’s probably not currently the best way.” I believe in that philosophy. Do I believe that just because it was done in the past, it’s not effective? Not even a little bit. That is obviously not the truth. It’s not about what was done, in many cases. For me, it’s about the why. Why is how we do things the best way for our athletes or our program?

That question, combined with a drive to stay on the cutting edge of our profession, has led to a daily pursuit of professional growth. I can assure you that after I retire and am asked, “Did you coach for 40 years, or coach one year, 40 times?” I know what my answer will be. My journey will not have allowed me to learn everything about this wonderful field we work in. My goal, however, is to learn as much as possible and continue to grow and adapt.

The best way we know how to do things is (hopefully) how we do them today. That doesn’t mean what we do today will be the best way forever, says @YorkStrength17. Share on X

The best way we know how to do things is (hopefully) how we do them today. That doesn’t mean what we do today will be the best way forever! What if we were wrong? What if there is a better “why” out there? The growth-minded coach will ask those questions every single day.

“Meathead Football Coach” Beginnings

In the “era” I began coaching in (1990s), there was no real thought process about a strength coach or any evidence-based approach to sports performance at the high school level. I was given the responsibility for our football weightlifting program because I was the biggest, strongest guy in the group. Looking back, I can tell you without a doubt that looking the part does not equate to being qualified.

I was in the phase of my career where the only reason I knew something was “because that’s what I was taught.” I was in the parrot phase. What did I know? A solid canned program in Bigger Faster Stronger. It was effective in the fact that our athletes increased their strength. We broke records in the weight room every day. Looking back on those days, though, I have absolutely no way to know if what we did actually improved our athletes. I know we got stronger, and at that point in my journey, that was good enough.

In 1999 I became a graduate assistant football coach at a D2 school. Much like when I played small college football, we did not have a dedicated strength and conditioning coach. Instead, we had a staff member whose job included the role. While I didn’t have anything to do with it (other than observation), it was at this point I was first introduced to the idea of a more holistic approach to development. We had a well-thought-out speed program, we timed, and we had a plan for yearly development in most aspects. While the “why” of what we did still escaped me, I was beginning to understand that there was more to the process than getting as strong as possible and hoping it worked out.

I continued down that path for the next few years. While I was learning, I was still holding on to a lot of the ideas I’d learned as an athlete and early in my journey. I chased max strength and viewed a number my athlete could hang on a record board as a successful job with athletic development. Today, that seems archaic and shortsighted.

Video 1. Young athletes who are prone to common faults with lifting will rapidly benefit from bar path feedback. The Vmaxpro system is perfect for visual learners.

My margins of knowledge limited my ability to see past those ideas. Most people fail when they travel outside their margins of knowledge. I was failing my athletes because I stayed inside those margins for too long. I never stopped and asked, “What if what I’m doing isn’t the best way to do it?”.

I believe I had a growth mindset at that point. My issue was that the growth I chased was as a football coach. I was comfortable with what I knew about the weight room. I was bigger and stronger than most people I knew. At that point, that was enough for me. I learned a great deal about technique and the “how” of athletic development during this time period, but I still was not chasing the “why.”

Expanding Margins of Knowledge

That all changed in 2008 when I was fortunate enough to begin to work with a coach who wanted wider margins when it came to athletic development. Luckily for me, he wanted those wider margins for his program, but he personally didn’t want to take the time to pursue them. Instead, he turned to the guy who was already running the weight room. Our head coach called me in and said, “You do a great job in the weight room. I want us to do the best job. I want you to make this your thing. I want us to be doing the best possible job we can be doing. I want you to be our strength coach, not just a football coach who runs the weight room.”

I was pumped! I’d already been dabbling in reading and expanding my margins of knowledge. Now I was being asked to make it my mission to blow those margins wide open. It was time to pursue the “why.” I won’t tell the story again here because I’ve written and talked on multiple podcasts about it, but the next week I was introduced to Ethan Reeve at Wake Forest University. My journey quickly shifted. I can point to that day as a life-changing moment that brought me to where I am today. I began chasing the “why” and asking every day, “Is what I do the best way to do it for my athletes?”.

The VBT Journey

This leads me to the motivation behind this article. My journey has led me to a new and exciting “why.”

I have been very happy, for the most part, with the VBT device I have used over the last few years. The PUSH 1.0 was frustrating, for sure. The arm sleeve really caused us slowdowns. Connections were often inconsistent. Our athletes never really bought into the meter being attached to their body.

The 2.0 was a huge upgrade. It was attached to the bar and stayed connected. It was user-friendly and didn’t miss reps. I was very comfortable with the device. In fact, I was not necessarily seeking out a new VBT device any more than I was seeking out a new career path the day I walked into Ethan Reeve’s office. In reality, that is often how change begins: not with a loud bang, but with a conversation with someone who owns knowledge that you realize you desire.

That is often how change begins: not with a loud bang, but with a conversation with someone who owns knowledge that you realize you desire, says @YorkStrength17. Share on X

As I said, I was satisfied with the VBT device I had been using for several years. The PUSH band gave me velocity and power output data. It allowed me to test jumps. As a coach who prides himself on the “growth mindset,” I try to ask myself often, “Am I sure what I am doing for my athletes is the best way of doing it?”. Of course, the caveat to that is “that fits my budget.”

I’d tried the FORM collars when I was told how great they were. They never worked right for me, and now I have two sets of the most expensive bar collars known to man. Of course, I would have loved to try GymAware or Tendo, but those units are well out of my budget. So, I moved forward with a product I was quite happy with.

One day, a colleague and friend called me out of the blue and asked, “Why would anybody knowingly use a VBT device that didn’t give bar path data if that was an option within the same price point?”. This was not the first time he had asked me questions like this. In fact, calls like this have become a welcome part of my growth as a coach. Comfort is the enemy of growth, but I was very comfortable with PUSH, even if I refused to say that out loud. Was it the bar path feature that would get me past that comfort level?

Bar path was something I understood to be important. I coached it and was coached about it within the realm of the Olympic lifts. It’s obviously important in other lifts as well. The shortest path is a straight line, and when pushing a heavy weight off your chest or up from a squat, the short path is important. However, when I heard “bar path,” all I could think of was trying to use a video app on my phone to record a lift and review it. This is fine when you train a single athlete but impossible when coaching in a large team setting.

I had no idea just how impactful a metric this could be. Then I began to hear about Vmaxpro, a company out of Germany that would soon release a device in the U.S. And I heard about it and heard about it. The anticipation was building.

In the meantime, I was provided with the resources to compare other platforms in the same price range. All of them left me feeling pretty disappointed and, frankly, underwhelmed. Missed reps and long pauses. Connection issues. Exercise limitations. I just didn’t see anything that would get me out of my comfort zone at the price point I could shop in.

The True Impact of Bar Path Technology

The power of the bar path tool became clear when I began looking at the media coming out as coaches around the country started to use the Vmaxpro. This wasn’t a recording of the movement that got reviewed after the lift; this was instant feedback that allowed for adjustments within the set. The video component and reviewing abilities are there, but they are combined with live data.

It was with great anticipation that I finally received my device. The more I played with it, used it, and tested it, the more the realization of what I’d been hearing hit home. The Vmaxpro is not just a VBT device—it’s a digital assistant coach. In a team setting, this tool will not only “coach” your athletes, it will empower them with knowledge.

The Vmaxpro is not just a VBT device—it’s a digital assistant coach. In a team setting, this tool will not only “coach” your athletes, it will empower them with knowledge, says @YorkStrength17. Share on X

Yes, I can explain how the better the bar path, the more load the athlete can lift. As the coach, I could preach about how the better the path, the more power the athlete can develop. However, this device allows us to show the athlete these truths LIVE, in real time. Impactful and meaningful modalities are rare finds.

I could see very quickly the potential here to make every athlete I coach better. When my athletes began to understand velocity and power output data, we got better because it improved the intent due to the competitive nature of athletes. It also led me to have to explain how sacrificing technique for speed was counterproductive. What about the bar path data was going to be that for us?

My first thought when I saw the power of live bar path data was that that issue would be eliminated by athletes understanding the process, not just by being told how it worked. They understand velocity and power because they can see the results in front of them. Now they would also understand technique matters just as much because those results will be combined with the bar path, proving to them how much better those numbers are with correct technique. The athlete will see the data from each range of the concentric movement, color coded to give them instant feedback on sticking points to focus on.

Squat depth could no longer be debated! Think about that one for a minute. How many times have most of us said to our athletes, “You didn’t get to parallel,” only to have them argue or not believe us? During my first year at YCHS, I had to have a football player REMOVED from my class because he became so irate with me for refusing to accept his half front squats! That goes away with this device.

If you use hang cleans (as I do with my upper level athletes), you can attest that the #1 reason our kids miss a lift is they let the bar get too far out in front, can’t pull themselves under the bar, and then can’t get it racked. Explaining that over and over has proven ineffective. So, we use video within set feedback, which is time-consuming and usually not instant. With this device, it is. I’ve already seen it in action.

Video 2. The Vmaxpro can be used for nearly any barbell lift and works with both iOS and Andriod environments. CoachMePlus was the first company to integrate with the device.

We all understand the power of educated and motivated athletes. The idea of “gradual release” of control that leads from a coach-directed and -led room to an athlete-led room is an educational standard most teachers strive for. Just as in any classroom, when the students run the process and the teacher is just the guide, there will be greater levels of impactful learning and growth. Instant visual feedback on bar path, in addition to visual and audible feedback on power output, velocity drop, and many other data points, is a giant step toward that athlete-led culture we seek.

Instant visual feedback on bar path, in addition to visual & audible feedback on power output, velocity drop, and many other data points, is a giant step toward the athlete-led culture we seek. Share on X

Picture that first time one of your athletes says to their buddy, “Man, you might have had me. It looked decent but look at that bar path? You slow.” That will make an instant impact on the athlete’s focus and attention to technique. And that, in turn, will make them better.

What’s Next?

My journey through the ever-changing and often complex world of velocity-based training is far from complete. I can tell you that, at this moment, the use of Vmaxpro as our device of choice for VBT is our best practice. The potential for expanding the use of VBT within our program has grown exponentially.

My thoughts as I am here remotely working with our athletes have turned to what our VBT protocol may be when we get back together. Those thoughts include how having this device will help even my younger athletes become movement efficient and proficient after a historically long layoff. In fact, technique proficiency is one of the big hurdles my athletes have had to get over to earn their way in our VBT program.

Here we go again, but I have to ask myself WHY I would have a device that can give live feedback to an athlete that will take them down the path to proficiency and beyond but choose to limit its use? VBT is not “speed” work. Sprinting is speed work. Velocity-based training is a modality for strength and power development.

If I could have my younger athletes, whose main focus is developing strength, also being given impactful feedback on appropriate intensity based on their actual readiness to train each day, I’d be crazy to not take advantage. Those same athletes are being taught intent and maximum bar speed with each intensity in preparation for the use of VBT as juniors and seniors. If bar path feedback builds their technique faster, imagine what velocity data will do for intent.

One battle we have with our young athletes is they don’t understand that missed reps and adding too much weight to the bar will actually stunt their adaptation. Now we can give them a visual to follow. Don’t say a word about “displacement.” Just show them the chart on the device and say, “Keep the bar as close as you can to that line.” When they ask, “Can I add weight?” I can say “Absolutely! You can add as much weight as you like. Until that voice tells you that you’ve dropped below .35 m/s.”

One battle we have with our young athletes is they don’t understand that missed reps and adding too much weight to the bar will stunt their adaptation. Now we can give them a visual to follow. Share on X

Now we have INSTANT focus on technique and intent. They will try to move as much weight as they can at .35 m/s, but they will also begin to grasp the idea of “too heavy.” An added bonus? They will always work in the correct zone of intensity based on their actual readiness for that day. This is impactful data on a rep-to-rep, day-to-day, and week-to-week basis.

I was told once that I was “just a high school coach” and not a sports scientist. Although it was meant (I’m pretty sure) as a slight, it’s true. I am just a high school coach and not a scientist. I have a level of experience and understanding of the use of velocity-based training with a high school team population. I understand and am comfortable with the correlation of intensity and average velocity. I understand how power output affects transfer. I also never want to stop learning. Comfort is the enemy of adaptation.

Vmaxpro has opened a whole new Pandora’s box of possibilities for learning and growth. That won’t make me a scientist, but it will make me a better coach and allow me to grow and adapt. This, in turn, will make the athletes who count on me and trust me the best they can be. And that is really the destination for this journey after all.

What the person who said this missed was that “just a coach” describes a whole lot of us. In fact, I’d guess that a large chunk of the future affordable-range VBT market will be filled with coaches just like me, especially at the high school level. Most of us are companions on that journey to best practices.

Velocity-based training is something that has moved well past the “fad” stage and into the best practices range of doing things. I write for SimpliFaster because I embrace being a voice for us “just a coach” coaches. I enjoy being the bridge between sport coaches who may not have a deep background in sports performance and the guys who are coaches AND sports scientists. I enjoy being able to just say what I feel about a topic, and I even like the healthy debate that it sometimes leads to.

I can also say with absolute certainty that Vmaxpro will make me “just a better coach” going forward, says @YorkStrength17. Share on X

I was inspired to write this article because I have had countless conversations about the “why” behind my move to Vmaxpro. I hope I have given you insight into the journey that led me to where I am today with VBT. I can also say with absolute certainty that Vmaxpro will make me “just a BETTER coach” going forward.

It’s not that I don’t feel PUSH is a quality product—I used it and enjoyed it for several years. If Vmaxpro had not come along, I’d probably still be using it. The “why” behind my change in direction is simply that Vmaxpro is a better fit for our program.

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With the recent boom in technological advances, it is becoming increasingly common practice to use equipment that measures various aspects of athletic performance to follow progressions from baseline throughout the training process. Some of these metrics include velocity, timing, vertical jump height, distance, power output, bar path and bar speed, ground contact times, and much more.

The presence of these devices has been shown to increase intent and motivation, which positively affects performances in training, as athletes are in a perpetual state of chasing personal records in each measurable statistic. Many of these personal bests are then championed on social media by coaches and athletes from all over the world, whether in an attempt to advertise the effectiveness of their program, demonstrate principles of different programs sweeping social media, or in some cases, for trainers or coaches to “flex” their superiority over other coaches posting similar metrics for all to see.

While chasing personal bests has a great positive effect on performance, there are unintended and often undetected consequences of this approach to training, says @BrendanThompsn. Share on X

All personal bests deserve to be celebrated, and I applaud all of the coaches that do, regardless of their motive. What I will say, however, is that while chasing personal bests has a great positive effect on performance, there are unintended and often undetected consequences of this approach to training.

PR or Bust

How many practices have large numbers of athletes who do not hit personal bests at all? How many whoo-hoos and hoorahs are distributed among those athletes? Must an athlete run a personal best to get that response from their coach? What about the athletes who follow their coaches on social media and never see their name mentioned because they don’t run personal bests at practice? Are these athletes now feeling undervalued in their respective programs because they aren’t good enough to earn celebrations either in practice or on social media? There may be personal bests for some athletes, but for the vast majority, running a personal best every day is not a sustainable reality.

The PR-or-bust mentality polarizes athlete responses to training and affects subsequent reps within the session as well as after. It also sets these athletes up to revolve their self-worth around this idea of absolute success or absolute failure. While at first glance this may not seem like a major issue, how many athletes run personal bests every single practice?

If an athlete ran a 0.01-second personal best every practice, they would eventually be faster than a cheetah and approach the speed of light. While it would be amazing if this was something we could achieve as humans, I don’t believe our anatomical structures or physiological capacities will be ready to produce those kinds of forces any time soon.

I take particular issue with this because I, too, fell victim to this PR-or-bust approach to training my athletes. I celebrated personal bests while chalking up “shortcomings” as something that I could not control. I convinced myself that it must be something athletes were doing outside of training that affected their performances.

While my inclination could have very well been true, it did not sit well with me to see my athletes leaving training sessions with their heads down in disappointment. After several weeks of reflecting on this issue, I began wondering if there was anything I could do in training to help resolve this unintended consequence of a culture that equates achievement with obtaining personal bests while carelessly leaving behind those who appear to have plateaued or regressed.

By only placing extreme emphasis on absolute maximum running and only measuring a couple of variables, such as the fly 10-yard sprint or the 40-yard dash, we severely limit opportunities for athletes to see growth. If they do not hit a personal best that day in either of those metrics, they are kind of left reeling and wondering what they did wrong to not be at their absolute best every single day.

By only placing extreme emphasis on absolute maximum running and only measuring a couple of variables, we severely limit opportunities for athletes to see growth, says @BrendanThompsn. Share on X

I thought to myself that if I could create more opportunities to run personal bests, it would fix the issue and restore motivation, as well as perceived self-worth, at the conclusion of our sprint sessions. So, I started timing each segment of each rep.

For example, a 2×20, 2×30, 2×40 would include Freelap data from each 10-yard segment of each rep, the total automatic time, and the total hand time. Initially, it worked, but eventually the athletes plateaued again. With that, their moods regressed, and the dopamine surges came less and less frequently. I was still conditioning them to behave in this fashion by the way I structured my data collection, and this was now the most obvious issue that I needed to resolve.

 

What Comes Next?

We have now been timing our sprints for several months and the personal bests have stopped coming. The excitement and joy associated with the novelty of timing and intrinsic competitiveness have begun to deteriorate. The athletes have regressed below their baseline levels of intent, motivation, and dopamine responses. The smiling faces and high-fives have diminished because their sense of self-worth and achievement was so deeply rooted in these personal bests that were conditioned into them by their new culture of measuring.

As a coach, you may become frustrated and question what you did wrong. You measured, you made it fun, you took out the fluff from your program to cater to your athletes, and you now wonder, “What do I do now? What comes next? How do we get back on track with all of these personal achievements and team positivity?”

Well, if we know speed is king, then we certainly shouldn’t stop sprinting, performing plyometrics, or measuring. But maybe there is something valuable that we aren’t measuring or including in our interpretation of the data that could give us more perspective on the situation. Eventually, I brainstormed a new way to collect and use data that may address these issues: the rolling average.

Discovering the Rolling Average Concept

The concept of the rolling average is not a new one, though I have not seen it broadcast all over social media the way I have seen personal bests and daily leaders. My thought process regarding this particular metric stemmed from a variety of things, the main one being that I needed to find a way to widen the window for perceived success in the athletes that I work with. I believed that accomplishing this would create not only more, but also bigger, opportunities for that coveted dopamine response that is frequently talked about in sports psychology.

By using every available data point within a given time frame to create these rolling averages, we are not only better able to see where we have been, but also where we are going. For example, in the PR-or-bust data setup, I only included PR splits and improvement from baseline. On any given day when an athlete does not achieve a personal best, neither data point moves, and the athlete perceives that their performances have become stagnant or even regressed. Self-worth is jeopardized, and the athlete leaves with a looming sense of failure.

With the rolling average approach to training, I still track PR splits and improvement, but there is an added column for the rolling average for each metric in order to show the athlete their total body of work. Every single data point affects the rolling average, and the way it is influenced gives a more valuable snapshot as to what may be occurring in the training process. Before every training session, I read each athlete their current averages on each metric (0-10 yard, 10-20 yard, 20-30 yard, etc.) so that as soon as I give them their times, they know how it compares to what they’ve collectively done previously.

Every single data point affects the rolling average, and the way it is influenced gives a more valuable snapshot of what may be occurring in the training process, says @BrendanThompsn. Share on X

You may note a positive, negative, or neutral trend on any given day and throughout any number of days or weeks. A positive trend compared to the rolling average shows that the athlete is collectively better than they have been, and the training process may be working. A prolonged negative trend may indicate overtraining, tentativeness from potential soft tissue injuries, the training stimulus may not be enough, or that it is not working in general.

This would be a great time to introduce a deload phase or figure out whether you need to ramp the training stimulus up or down overall. Talk with the athlete about rest, recovery, nutrition, stress management, school, life, and other important factors in their lives that may be impacting their performance.

Remember, just as it is not feasible to improve PRs every single session, the trends of the rolling average may undulate throughout various training phases. During an intentional heavy loading phase, you may notice some of these metrics fall off a cliff—this is an expected response to a heavy stimulus. When you strategically deload following this heavy stimulus, you may notice that the trends are overwhelmingly positive. Again, this is expected, as adaptation to your heavy loading phase has now taken place and the athlete is collectively in a better position than they were previously.

Be sure to educate your athletes on these phenomena so they understand they are not getting worse, but these are expected outcomes given the training loads. Prefacing this will likely change their outlook when the measurements don’t show them what they are intrinsically wired to seek: personal improvement. This is another reason the rolling average is great, because when the PRs aren’t coming during these loading phases, the window for perceived improvement is wider, and they will still have opportunities to appreciate collective growth.

Comparing the Two Approaches

The premise behind only tracking and celebrating personal bests—while initially adequate, competitive, and fun—sets up the athlete for an eventual plateau and perceived regression, which may translate to feelings of self-doubt and failure. It also fails to track other positive changes that may be occurring on any given day, and that lack of information can make or break an athlete’s intent, motivation, and dopamine response, which is ironic given that this is exactly what we believe we are chasing by conducting our program in this manner.

The premise behind only tracking and celebrating personal bests sets the athlete up for an eventual plateau and perceived regression, which can lead to feelings of self-doubt and failure. Share on X

Running a personal best every session is unsustainable and unrealistic, and it creates a toxic culture that leaves those who are not improving isolated and searching for positivity in their training experience, while temporarily parading around those who have not yet hit that point in their training. The goal of training is always to raise the ceiling on competitive performances, but the process of doing so does not consist of a never-ending positive slope throughout. Additionally, because this approach is not sensitive to the trends of performance, it makes it impossible to make critical changes to programming for individual athletes. A one-size-fits-all approach to training may initially seem great because it is simple and easily applied, but it fails to help the individuals who do not respond well to a general training method.

By shifting to a rolling average approach, we begin to give more perspective on what the athletes have done and in which direction they are going. It creates a training environment that is more sensitive to measuring and effectively tracking all levels of improvement while also informing the athlete and the coach of trends that are occurring throughout. Coaches can then use this information to make changes to programming for individuals and allow for more specialized training to take place.

While I’ve only used the concept for athletes sprinting 60 yards or less, I believe this concept extrapolates well to many measurements obtained from training, which can then be used to influence prescription one way or the other. It effectively widens the window for perceived improvement and allows for more of the athletes you’re training to partake in their own personal victories—even the small ones such as running all reps on a given day 0.01 seconds faster than their rolling average.

This is not to say that this method of data collection is superior to any other, but I began to utilize it in order to gather more information about each individual’s training process and to inform me of whether training appears to be working. Another reason I shifted to this model was to decrease the frequency with which athletes were left feeling like they’d accomplished nothing. It is one thing to feel like you got a great workout in; it is another to have objective, measurable improvement during that workout.

Any good coach will be able to spin even the bad days in such a way that athletes feel like they had a successful day. However, by leaving out certain variables, we could miss out on what is occurring in the bigger picture. The less we measure, the fewer opportunities there are for this perception of success to occur. The more we measure, and how broadly we are able to measure, the more it not only creates more opportunities, but also widens the margin by which personal improvement is objectively obtainable.

In the event that improvement is not occurring, we are able to go back and see how long it has been this way. Is it a small blip in the otherwise relatively positive trend? Has it been consistently negative or neutral for several weeks? What have we done to address it to right the ship? What can we do moving forward to affect these trends and impact the performance trends in a positive way?

Bringing It All Together

So, I’ve now covered several bases regarding data collection and organization that may help contribute to a more sustainable training model, as well as a more realistic and positive experience for the athletes. Training performances wax and wane as the season progresses, and that is okay. Just be sure that you and your athletes are aware of these changes throughout training so that expectations meet reality and athletes aren’t left wondering why their performances aren’t constantly improving.

Additionally, being forward and transparent with your athlete in these circumstances will increase trust and buy-in and improve the coach-athlete relationship as training progresses in the future. As far as application goes, the recent surge in timing device availability and utility has shifted the training paradigm from what would have been considered a high-volume and submaximal approach to being more focused on low volume and absolute intensity. This may not be a popular opinion, but there is more to the training process than each approach in isolation.

This may not be a popular opinion, but there is more to the training process than each approach in isolation, says @BrendanThompsn. Share on X

By using the low-volume training/absolute maximal velocity approach, whether it be a fly 10-yard sprint or a 40-yard dash, we do great things such as maximizing speed and intent and creating a much more exciting practice environment. Another benefit to this level of training is that it frequently exposes the brain and the body to positions that are needed for maximum intensity sprinting. This is excellent when preparing for competitions, as when the time comes for you to compete at that level, your body easily calls on the movement patterns that you’ve hardwired for sprinting, and the CNS has been prepped and primed to fire at this level of intensity.

The potential pitfall is when the athlete becomes accustomed to clenching and fighting as hard as they can for these personal bests that they chase each and every day. While it is great to expose them to this intensity in training and use the timing systems to obtain this intensity and intrinsic desire to be better, there is a level of relaxation that must occur in sprinting to raise the ceiling on results. If an athlete gives it their all and fights to the finish on every rep, they may find it difficult to relax enough to achieve these higher levels of performance and improve the range at which they can comfortably train.

On top of this, there’s a tendency for the wheels to fall off beyond the desired distance. If I have an athlete sprint 20 yards into a fly 10-yard zone, they have programmed themselves to set 30 yards as the finish and put their all into that 30 yards—meaning there is nothing left to continue beyond that point. While great for training and testing, what happens on a big play in competition? Will their velocities significantly fall off after 30-40 yards, as we frequently see on television?

When the eventual plateau hits, where do we go from there? Is it possible to deload from a low-volume approach? Are we flexible enough to admit that we should be sprinting further (60- to 100-yard+ repetitions) occasionally to improve our ability to not only achieve top speed, but hold onto it and decrease the rate of deceleration? Are there ways we can alter the programming to improve, or do we just keep going at it in the hope of eventually having a breakthrough?

Using the high-volume training/lower-intensity approach builds a large aerobic base that allows the athlete to handle lower speeds for longer durations and improves the repeat sprint ability. The catch is that, because the athletes aren’t exposed to maximal speeds often enough, their ability to hold speed is negated by the fact that their max speed potential has not been obtained. So, while it is great that they can essentially run forever and be an ironman at practice, if they don’t maximize the speed component, they will still get burnt in races, games, meets, etc.

The other downfalls of this approach to training are the tendencies to overtrain athletes and contribute to burnout. Under extremes of this approach, you may notice athletes’ overall energy levels are diminished, their ability to run fast at all is dampened due to a chronic CNS volume overload, and they may eventually get overuse injuries and weakened immune systems or even lose their passion due to the nature of this monotonous style of training programming. There is also more to training than doing nothing but submaximal intensity training at high volumes every day.

Athletes have been successful at the highest level under each training approach, as well as some who strike a balance between the two. So, while great for preventing deceleration and having topped-out endurance for games and meets, the ability to maximize speed suffers, and therefore overall performance suffers as well. Additionally, because we don’t sprint often, the shapes that pertain to maximal sprinting are not easily hardwired into our movement patterns. When we go from submaximal training to the real thing, we may see an increased frequency of injuries due to poor movement, and the CNS is not primed to fire at that level.

As before, we must ask the question: Where do we go from here? Are we flexible enough in our ways that we allow for the implementation of more maximum speed work to counter these flaws? Do we allow for more rest days and active recovery days? Are we comfortable lowering the volume in favor of increasing intensity? Will it be okay to allow the athletes longer rest intervals between repetitions, or will it be too much of a culture shock to simply allow them to stand around to recover for the next rep? Can you see that there is a level of maximal speed qualities that needs to be obtained in order to achieve optimal performance beyond enduring the competition?

Interestingly enough, many coaches have had success with both approaches to training, but other coaches have questioned whether these training methods were sufficient or whether they could be improved upon by addition or subtraction. While training Carl Lewis, Tom Tellez had staples in his program that included 6x200m and other longer submaximal runs. Clyde Hart had success coaching with a quantity-to-quality approach. Tony Holler and his Feed the Cats program have had a lot of success with a “less is more approach.” All three coaches have had athletes achieve success on the biggest stages. Is it that the athletes fit their programming just right or that each approach is sufficient as it stands to produce similar results?

I propose finding a middle ground between them, or a sort of hybrid approach. I don’t mean to train at moderate intensities frequently, but rather, balancing the maximal work with the submaximal work in a meaningful way and tactfully choosing when measurement will benefit rather than take away from each. I’ll add that there is no right or wrong way to program as long as you build your program around the important qualities you want to improve in training, providing optimal recovery, and progressing the training in a realistic and meaningful way.

There is no right or wrong way to program as long as you build your program around the important qualities you want to improve in training, says @BrendanThompsn. Share on X

I use this hybrid approach when training myself and my athletes, and it has appeared to be pretty effective thus far. I will go into different aspects of hybrid programming and how I choose to implement measurement within each.

 

Biomechanics

I base my approach to all training around the premise of efficient and optimized movement. While there are schools of thought that totally disregard movement, I believe that sports are based on a foundation of movement and neglecting that foundation imposes limitations on performance qualities while also at times subjecting athletes to greater risks of injury.

Measuring movement is tricky, as it is difficult to objectively quantify and determine which movements are faulty and which are compensations for the faults. However, with a trained eye, knowledge of various movement qualities, and slow-motion feedback, it is often easy to pick apart optimal versus suboptimal movement. I then use this information to figure out which cues, drills, plyometrics, and other exercises I’d like the athlete to perform to rewire the faulty movements and promote the qualities I’m seeking. This topic could be a whole article in itself, and I will save the nuances of movement for another time.

 

Plyometrics

Similar to the biomechanical aspect of my approach to training, I also look for faulty movement patterns that may present themselves in sprinting. I still use video feedback to find the faults and to inform my next steps with a particular athlete or group of athletes in a session. Additionally, plyometrics are great for complementing the focus of the training session.

For example, during an acceleration-themed session where horizontal displacement and rate of force production are key to success, I will pick and choose variations of certain plyometrics to incorporate to develop these traits. Similarly, for top speed days when vertical forces are more desired, I switch my plyometric orientation to developing vertical power and stiffness to transmit forces.

Do not simply do plyometrics just to do them—do them with a particular purpose in mind. If you cannot give a reason for them to be in your program, chances are you’re just doing “stuff.” We want to replace “stuff” where we can so that we can be more intentional in our programming. Again, this topic could be an article by itself, but I will cover that at another time.

Video 1. This video outlines one of the many faults you can find when analyzing the mechanical aspects of plyometrics. Something as simple as ankle stiffness can be the difference between quick, efficient ground striking and slow, prolonged ground contact times.

Running: Max Sprinting, Submax Sprinting, and Tempo Runs

This is fairly straightforward, but the balance seems to have been skewed somewhere along the way. Each aspect of running has its place in a training program and should be utilized based on the qualities you’re after. We have all heard the phrase “speed is king,” and programs have recently began shifting all of their attention in this direction. Maximal sprinting has great utility when athletes simply haven’t topped out their speedometers yet.

The concept of speed reserve is a powerful one, and raising the ceiling on maximum speed allows athletes to “cruise” in-game at submaximal speeds without the same cost of exertion as when they were slower. The higher you raise that ceiling, the faster the speeds you can sustain with less effort, which will then limit fatigue and improve repeat sprint ability in game.

The key to using max sprinting as a training modality is to chase not only the ability to obtain max speed, but also the ability to sustain it, says @BrendanThompsn. Share on X

The key to using max sprinting as a training modality is to chase not only the ability to obtain max speed, but also the ability to sustain it. Some good methods are to use variations of the 10-yard fly as well as the 30-yard fly to address both traits. Only addressing one of these traits does not always address the other, so setting aside time to do both is optimal.

Video 2. This is a 40-yard test given to one of my football athletes. The massive intent and desire to run fast times can at times cause athletes to overexert themselves and “tighten up” in an effort to run very fast. Sometimes, this motivation is enough to propel athletes to great performances; other times it may inhibit them.

If an athlete has suboptimal movement, chances are that max sprinting may not allow them to improve upon those qualities in a controlled manner. Because of that, you may utilize submax sprinting (~90-98% intensity) or even tempo runs (~70-80% intensity) to allow the athlete to home in on any new cues or skills they are trying to master. For submax sprinting (90-98% intensity) I choose not to time, as it changes the intent from movement economy to chasing times.

I personally find that video analysis is great to reinforce movements while tweaking insufficiencies as needed. The athlete shifts their perception of success from time to execution, and in my experience, the results they achieve seem to produce intrinsic feedback mechanisms that are similar to hitting personal bests. They’re excited to master or make progress in difficult concepts as they rewire lifelong movement habits that have been deeply programmed in their brains. It also allows them to focus on qualities such as speed endurance and special endurance that they may need, depending on the nuances of their respective sport.

You may find that athletes actually run faster when on a submax focus, as they allow themselves to relax and their movements become more fluid while sprinting, says @BrendanThompsn. Share on X

You may find that athletes actually run faster when on a submax focus, as they allow themselves to relax and their movements become more fluid while sprinting. It is interesting that even though we don’t typically make attempts at personal bests every day or even every week in the weight room but rather train submaximally, we still see the maxes go up on testing day. I think this often gets overlooked in sprinting in the idea that we can train below our personal bests regularly and intentionally while still having the potential to improve our max speed, speed endurance, and other important qualities in performance.

Video 3. Again, we see the use of initial video repetitions to identify mechanical faults that can then be corrected for with proper training approaches. Technical components of sprinting are more easily controlled in submax runs, as shown here.

As mentioned above, tempo running is great for focusing on the biomechanics of sprinting, but it is also useful in training comfortable rhythm, cadence, and pacing mechanisms. Pacing is the giveaway here, so we should use a timing device to ensure proper execution of this type of training. Tempo improves aerobic capacity and the ability to recover between sprints, as well the durability to repeat sprint and sustain performances when having to compete on back-to-back days.

There are also instances of athletes improving their max speeds and overall performances when getting a steady dose of tempo in their training. These instances are frequently argued as an athlete improving despite their training, while others are quick to say that it was because of their training. I believe, as always, that it depends on the context surrounding performance, and we should use that to lead the way on programming.

Autoregulation

Another way to use timing to inform training is through autoregulation, in which athletes continuously sprint and recover until their times begin to fall off x% from their baseline of the day. Doing so allows the athletes’ times to dictate the training dose for that day. Doing more reps beyond the drop-off point yields diminishing returns, as movement quality, muscle recruitment, and other important qualities drop off as well. Without timing, we are unable to determine this point, which could be the issue we see with the lack of timing systems in training environments, as coaches prescribe x amount of sprints no matter what and the athletes must get through it or face a harsh punishment of even more reps.

The Best of Both Worlds

The debate between endurance and max speed training seems to grace my timeline quite frequently. While each approach has its own pros and cons, I don’t think it is fair to say either is wrong, as there are heavily documented objective results supporting each method. Additionally, we need to understand that the instances of improvement under any of the above training methods do not serve as the rule, as there are often contextual circumstances left out. These include such factors as a multisport athlete versus a one-sport athlete, genetics, training age, and lifestyle choices, among other things that also play important roles in the way an athlete responds to a certain training stimulus.

Maximum intensity sprinting isn’t always ideal, just as overdosing on slow volume every day isn’t always ideal. While we cannot be certain whether a one-size-fits-all approach is out there, I think it is safe to pick and choose pieces of each to complement your program. I won’t stake a claim that this hybrid approach is the best, as I don’t think any approach has been found to always work for every athlete. However, I think it is safe to say that finding a balance between the two by alternating them in an A day (high-intensity) and B day (low-intensity) fashion may yield optimal and more well-rounded results, as you are getting the best of both worlds without ignoring any qualities that may exist between.

Since you’re here…
…we have a small favor to ask. More people are reading SimpliFaster than ever, and each week we bring you compelling content from coaches, sport scientists, and physiotherapists who are devoted to building better athletes. Please take a moment to share the articles on social media, engage the authors with questions and comments below, and link to articles when appropriate if you have a blog or participate on forums of related topics. — SF

In college sports, student athletes often see several strength and conditioning coaches cycled through every year. As a result, they can start to believe young strength coaches are only there in order to move up the ranks—particularly given the proximity in age. In order to achieve buy-in from the athletes, you have to convince them you care and are not just one more coach passing through.

When we look at any strong relationships in our life—our parents, friends, coworkers, classmates—what are the similarities? We give complete trust to those individuals, would probably sacrifice the only hour break we had in a 12-hour day just to make them feel at ease, would listen if they gave us career advice, and would trust they are looking out for our best interests. So why would that connection be any different between a coach and a student athlete?

Earn Their Trust

When I was 22 and entered the professional world of strength and conditioning, one thing I immediately noticed was that if you don’t have an age difference, bigger muscles, or a more successful athletic career, some athletes may think you don’t have anything to offer them besides time. For the most part, if you show them respect, they will show it right back. There may be a group of guys that will test your patience, but keep being consistent and showing you will not give up on making them better; if they are not for the program, then they will weed themselves out. Like the quote says, “Lower the bar and you lose the winners. Raise the bar and you’ll lose the losers.”

In order for an athlete to trust your program and buy into it, they have to respect your professionalism and know that what you are doing is going to benefit them. The best recipe for coaching is confidence—believe in your program, trust every second that you put into becoming a better coach, and project excitement to the athletes that these exercises are going to change how they play the game. They might go ahead and put some faith in your program and end up being a better athlete because of it. But don’t be fooled: they can spot a phony from a distance. Make sure you’re honest with who you are to them and be as open as you can be. If you are not a vocal, aggressive coach, don’t play that role, because once you lose that trust, it is hard to gain back. People respect honesty and transparency.

If you are not a vocal, aggressive coach, don’t play that role, because once you lose that trust, it is hard to gain back. People respect honesty and transparency, says @CoachKeemz. Share on X

If you want athletes to perform with intent and energy, they have to know you want them to succeed as much as they do themselves. One problem you may come across is student athletes who have had bad experiences with a performance coach in high school and now believe the negative stereotypes about strength coaches: that they are uneducated meatheads, they frequently injure athletes, and are just there to scream and cash a paycheck because they couldn’t succeed elsewhere.

So how do you resolve these types of trust issues with athletes? You show them how you are different from that coach who left a bad impression because you won’t give up on them, and you keep your positive energy consistent. The day you switch up who you are, the athletes will notice and look at you differently. There’s not a class or certification that teaches you how to be a “people person,” but it’s important to ask your athletes questions to learn who they are, what they want to do, what kind of family they come from, and so on.

A general “How are classes going?” or “How was your week?” can go a long way. Many student athletes are away from their family and friends and have no one to have real face-to-face conversations with, so it is nice for them to connect with the people they see the most: their strength coaches.

‘How are classes going?’ or ‘How was your week?’ can go a long way. Many student athletes are away from their family and friends and have no one to have real face-to-face conversations with, says @CoachKeemz. Share on X

Early on in my coaching career, I saw coaches I looked up to like Andreu Swasey in the weight room working out in the mornings before any athletes showed up—practicing what they preach and demonstrating the work ethic to wake up even earlier than the athletes in order to get their lift in. I also had coaches like Chad Smith, who would go through the workout routines and make his graduate assistants and interns join him in order to understand what the athletes would be feeling. This was powerful because coaches should always understand what the athletes are enduring and if adjustments need to be made. Thomas Carroll, one of my biggest influences, always preached, “Doesn’t matter how much work it is, do what’s best for the athletes.” He is a coach that treats his athletes like family and understands that it is not always going to be rainbows and butterflies, but will go out of his way to ensure both the athletes and the coaching staff are doing their best to succeed (and not just in their sport, but preparing for the real world, too).

Communicate with a Purpose

Another thing I’ve learned is that in the first couple weeks in a new institution, it’s good to try to reinforce the culture set by the sport coach and be a direct extension of them. I usually observe the overall response to their coaching tactics; knowing your athletes is an important aspect in coaching, because you want them to respond appropriately to your instruction. Vernacular is also crucial: talking the same language is important when you’re building a culture, and everyone has to be on the same page. If the head strength coach calls an exercise a “front elbow bridge” then do not go and call it a “plank.”

Talking the same language is important when you’re building a culture, and everyone has to be on the same page. If the head strength coach calls an exercise a *front elbow bridge* then do not go and call it a *plank,* says @CoachKeemz. Share on X

Reinforce the coaches’ main messages and be an extra voice saying the same things. Once the athletes know who you are and what your goals are in the program, they will respect your hustle and be comfortable accepting coaching demands from you. Many athletes have seen my own transformation in parallel with theirs: I came in to Florida International University weighing in at around 175 pounds, and just five months later was up to nearly 195; after dropping back to 185 pounds, at North Carolina Central University that’s risen up to about 215 pounds in the span of a year. The athletes at NCCU have also seen a corresponding change of strength as I’ve been able to add at least 50 pounds to my max in my back squat, deadlifts, bench, and clean by applying consistent work throughout the first seven months of my time there.

The best part is being able to show them the translation of strength into sport—my sprint times went down, my vertical went up, and my endurance dramatically increased. These changes showed the athletes that I was giving the same effort and consistency I demanded from them, and was seeing the kinds of results they wanted to see. There will be times where you will need to demonstrate exercises and shock some athletes. You may be put in situations where your athletic abilities need to be showcased, like a pickup game of basketball, a timed speed drill, or a competition with coaches—so be prepared for it all.

When demonstrating exercises, I have noticed during lifts if you mention how the exercises carry over to the field, athletes will perform them with greater intent. For example, if we are focusing on the triple extension of an Olympic lift, we might mention how this triple extension is always done when we jump, cut, or run and that might just be enough for them to push through as hard as they can. To scream at an athlete just because they fail to understand or execute might be a direct result of inadequate coaching, so instead of getting frustrated, try to explain the exercise in the way it would make sense to a young individual (because, after all, that’s what they are).

While coaching, bring that energy and show that you enjoy the job because energy is contagious. Nobody wants to be in a room moving any type of weight fast and have a silent coach stare at them with a poker face; even if it’s just a hop around the room with excitement or a “good job,” make sure you’re acknowledging the good consistent work you want to see.

Managing a Team

If you’ve been assigned your own sport team to coach, take advantage of it. Meet with the sport coach and have a needs analysis and annual plan to present, show them you know what you’re doing, and have something set in place to help while at the same time keeping an open mind to hear the needs of the coach. Once the training begins, keep the coaches updated with attendance, performance reviews, imbalances that you notice, special focuses you feel are needed to enhance an athlete’s performance, and anything you feel is important. You do not have to report every single thing to the sport coach, but keep in contact. If there is an assistant coach, contact them first because chances are the head sport coaches are much busier.

In order to get the performances you want from the athletes, it’s the little things that matter. Coach Jack Sprague and Mason Mathews told me to always meet the athletes halfway—to get what you want, give the athletes some of what they want. If a basketball player is squatting for force production, maybe plan some plyometrics to go with that because what basketball player doesn’t like to have more bounce? Just remember to implement it at the right time. Finishing the week with a good arm pump is something basketball players enjoy, especially since their jerseys don’t have sleeves. The confidence they get from feeling good in their uniform could transfer over to the court. Tracking progress data and/or pictures is another good way to show the coaches and athletes that improvements are being made and give them an extra boost of confidence in what you’re doing. These can also serve as a testimonial in case you have any future interviews as a strength coach.

Feel Free to Brag a Little

Athletes love a good story, especially if that story includes individuals they admire or activities they can relate to. Having something in common is a great way to build a relationship with trust. If you’ve had firsthand involvement in individual or team success, mention it. It can be as simple as relating something like, “I shadowed one of my favorite strength coaches as he trained Michael Thomas, and when they did these sprint drills Thomas saw an instant change to his sprint technique.” This field is one where you have to be a good salesman, so make sure you are able to use every resource in order to get your athletes to buy in.

Continued personal development is an effective way to bring something new to the table. One time during 6 AM lifts, I noticed a number of tired athletes, with many complaining about a lack of sleep and how tough the workouts were. I responded by describing two different studies that show the effect of hydration and sleep on exercise, and how if you lack either, exercise will feel harder than it might otherwise and also increase risk of injury.

Upon a couple changes recommended to these athletes, they acknowledged the fact that it might be on them to fix certain patterns—and soon enough, their energy levels increased and they began educating other players, creating a great culture amongst the team. It showed how being prepared and doing the little things in life can have such a big impact in the grand scheme. Even a minor tip from you as a strength coach matters, and could be what these individuals use to guide their lives and achieve greatness in their future pursuits.

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

You are an impostor. Don’t be offended, as we are all impostors. Think of one of the main reasons you became a coach. Was it because of business you didn’t finish in your athletic career? Did you start to prove there was a better way than that of some former coach you really disliked? Is it something you do because of the pull to stay in the sport after immense success as an athlete?

We all come to coaching for different reasons, but what most of us have in common is that we will face impostor syndrome at some point in our career. Most of us thought we knew it all or were desperate for someone to give us a cookie-cutter system that magically produced results. If we coach long enough, we will likely be guilty of both.

As we get better as coaches, it becomes abundantly clear how little we actually know. Interestingly, as we come to grips with this phenomenon, we often become better coaches in the process. Share on X

Our development also leads us to apologize to our earliest teams because they are often our guinea pigs. As we get better, it becomes abundantly clear how little we actually know. Interestingly, as we come to grips with this phenomenon, we often become better coaches in the process. As we become more self-aware, there tends to be the emotional creep of impostor syndrome.

Impostor syndrome (also known as impostor phenomenon, impostorism, fraud syndrome, or the impostor experience) is a psychological pattern in which one doubts one’s accomplishments and has a persistent internalized fear of being exposed as a “fraud.”

The good news is that imposter syndrome can lead to positive things. People who don’t feel entirely comfortable with the fear of being a fraud can be highly motivated. We want to live up to the privilege, title, and status that comes from being seen as an expert in the field. However, it is very natural for us to be psychologically in flux about how much of an impostor we really are.

So, how do you determine whether you are or are not a good coach? Is it because you win, have a large team, are respected by your peers, and/or your team has excellent social cohesion? How do you measure those things? Is it just your anecdotal knowledge and experience, or is it because everyone tells you how great you are all the time? As high as those “measurements” can be for us as coaches, do we really want to know the truth? Can we handle the truth?

The Truth Through Science

The scientific method can provide us with the path to know if we are genuinely doing a GOOD job. Some of us who aren’t enlightened might ignore science because it doesn’t fit our world view, or it might point to an inconvenient truth about our place in that world. Are we a net positive, do we deserve the credit we get, or as practitioners of sport are we prescribing the best methods for the athletes we coach?

What do we need to engage in the practice of the scientific method? Hypothesis, findings, discussion (self-reflection), peer review, and further research that eventually corroborates previous findings. Out of all of this, we find emergent truth. The most fantastic thing about emergent truth is that it doesn’t care if you believe in it—it’s just true. One emergent truth all coaches want to know is: Am I good or am I an impostor?

In comparison to other sports, track and field is one of the most objectively measurable athletic pursuits. In other words, it’s a sport where we can see the direct improvement or decline of an individual’s performance regularly. Improved performance is an important variable for measuring the success of our program.

A Hypothesis Through Training Design

Coaches have been smitten with different training philosophies and methods for decades—e.g., Feed the Cats, short to long, the Baylor method, concurrent, and critical mass systems. We often implement these training ideas because we hypothesize that they will make our program better or a group of individuals in our program better. We implement a new drill, workout, lift, or psychological intervention, and we hope to see an improved result through performance.

It is important to note that our hypothesis should not be a shot in the dark or try to reinvent the wheel. Often coaches ignore good science, research, data, and methods. Interpretation can quickly become flawed if we change too many variables. Sports scientists like Bondarchuk, Verkhoshansky, and Morin, and coaches like Pfaff, Anderson, Hurst, Hart, Francis, and Burris have created clear paths to success worthy of exploration. A coach’s hypothesis is only as valid as their commitment to the entire experiment—that is, the track and field season. Once the season finishes up, you get your findings.

 

Our Findings Through Data

As track and field coaches, we use our findings to determine whether our hypothesis was correct and if it had the results we wanted to see via improved performance for an individual athlete or group of athletes. Additionally, we must also consider in our findings not just how many people improved, but also how many people completed the season without injury or quitting the team. The hierarchy of data should be competitive performance, testing performance, injury rate, and retention. Track and field provides continual data to compare and contrast previous individual performances. Thankfully, due to databases like milesplit.com and athletic.net, we can discern where our training is taking our athletes in competition.

I chart all of my athletes’ performances to track trends during competition. When tracked, a program must show positive returns with elite and average athletes. If your system covers the needs of the sport and the stimulus, you should expect to see these patterns appear each season as the athlete cycles through your program. Progress is significant, and all your athletes should trend toward improvement without any extreme setbacks.

If you coach boys, it is slightly more challenging to dissect progress or chart how useful your program is. Almost all boys get better with maturity from the overload of testosterone. To get a clearer picture through the fog of male maturity, it would be wise to crunch your athlete’s data with other athletes in the area. After about five years, you will be able to see the percentages of improvement. You will be better able to figure out if your athletes are improving at a higher rate than your competition.

For female track athletes, it’s easier to make sense of the data. With girls, these gains are harder to come by because they typically mature sooner and don’t benefit from the same increase of testosterone once they reach high school. Thus, if your female athletes improve throughout their time in high school, you can statistically say with great confidence that your program is net positive over natural maturity.

Another essential tool is to compare the average of the entire event crew (sprints) to the top individual performer. Since 2008, most of our state’s top track and field performers have had the majority of their competitions fed into a database on mo.milesplt.com. The database also allows you to trace the statistics of your sprint and distance crew compared to other high school programs. Information can be displayed by conference, region, class, statewide, and nationwide. The data is crunched and scored just like a traditional cross-country team but with the track events (figures 5 and 6).

If you are around long enough, you will coach a good athlete. The question is, does that talented athlete improve? What about building a stable of gifted athletes? As alluring as those individuals can be, we should be more interested in depth.

Crunching the data often reveals that a team that ranks the highest isn’t due to their best kid but to the group as a whole. In our most recent season, I was blessed to have a great year in terms of depth. We were in the top 2 for all three sprints as a team. In the state of Missouri there are approximately 500 schools that participate in track and field, separated into five classifications. My school’s enrollment typically falls around the 80th largest, which puts us in the second classification.

Every year I use the data breakdown to measure what we are doing as a program against my peers. One of my annual goals is to finish the season in the top 20 rankings as a team in the 100-, 200-, and 400-meter dash. Using this as a measuring tool allows us to maintain competitiveness year after year, and also makes sure we are a well-rounded sprint program.

Competitive data is the highest standard in data. Testing has its place and committing practice time to a 45-second run, a standing long jump, power clean, or gauntlet 20-meter fly with a Freelap timing system has value. I’ve written for SimpliFaster before about my thoughts on the importance of electronic timing. However, most of the value is in the athlete versus themselves or the program to itself. Comparing the growth of the individual and raising the floor of the entire program are equally important for a coach to self-evaluate their positive impact across all levels of talent.

The most meaningful data is how much our athletes improve in competition, says @SprintersCompen. Share on X

Comparing your data outside of competition to other programs has very little value. Testing mostly helps to inform what could be the reason for a lackluster performance or competitive cycle. Typically, we have several athletes who do not test well but perform great on the day of a meet. The opposite is also true for other athletes in our programs. Thus, the most meaningful data is how much our athletes improve in competition.

 

Discuss, Ponder, and Reflect

When we reach the “discussion” part of our experiment, it is vital for us to ask another question: How do we know we have the athlete in the proper event? Again, testing over a variety of skills and biomotor abilities is critical. It is essential to have many tests to evaluate the athletes who are new to our programs as they join our team for the first time. Frequent and annual testing allow our returning athletes to display new skills or levels of fitness. The data leads our returning athletes to train and compete refreshed with the prospect of new opportunities ahead.

A good coach will take the data acquired and cross-reference it with previous testing periods and seasons. This process helps us design new training and improve training loads. We will also be more adept at placing the athlete with the correct training group or track and field event. Over time, a growing catalog of data shows us what training protocol will increase an athlete’s chance of achieving elite status.

In my program I have found, without a doubt, that a flying 30-meter has a strong correlation to success on the track. However, I would caution against coaches only hanging their hats on maximal velocity tests. Good coaches use a variety of criteria for talent identification and steering subsequent training sessions.

A recent epic conversation I had with Jimson Lee serves as an excellent primer on my testing protocol and what I do. During the season, the athletes reveal themselves through their performances in response to competition and how they adapt to the training stimulus.

It is also essential to change the event menu for athletes in your program. Rotating events accomplishes two things:

 

1. 1. It allows athletes to compete in different events,

 

1. 1. It enables us to figure out the best event for athletes as we reach the precipice of the championship season.

 

Another tool I use to figure out if I have trained the athlete correctly and what might be their strongest event is this performance calculator (figure 7). If athletes have a better performance in an event than the one they believe is their best event, a good coach will make an adjustment. It’s in their best interest to train them in the event they are ranked highest in, in the state, region, or locality, respectively.

Additionally, if we want to know we are doing a good job, the three nearest performance predictions should be close to what an athlete can achieve in competition. If an athlete’s performance doesn’t come close in the three events they frequently train for, there is a problem. The issue is they are in the wrong event or they’re getting improper training. Worse, it could be a combination of the two.

Typically, it takes about five years to know with some certainty what problems and strengths are a direct result of a coach’s actions, says @SprintersCompen. Share on X

If you are new to coaching or starting a new program without a database of testing and performance outcomes, it won’t be easy initially. A lack of data is one of the many issues that stand in the way of a program getting off the ground. Typically, it takes about five years to know with some certainty what problems and strengths are a direct result of a coach’s actions. In the beginning, it will be critical to glean knowledge from a trusted, successful coach with a system that safely addresses performance potential. To increase our chances of success out of the gate, the mentor chosen should coach in a similar school.

Sport’s Science Considerations

A coach’s intuition should be the hands on the wheel, but science should be the guardrails. Remember, Mother Nature doesn’t care very much what you think or what your plan is. To maximize our efforts, we need to understand the raw materials we will work with through our careers. David Epstein’s acclaimed book, The Sports Gene, dove deep into the ACTN3 gene and its role with elite sports performance. It found a robust link when contrasting the difference in performance potential between CC/CT and TT versions of the ACTN3 gene concerning speed/power athletes. The personal genetic company 23andme has researched the ACTN3 gene in the people who are members of their service.

When looking at the two types of speed-power athletes, in all but one group nearly 50% of the athletes who have potential in power events are a mix of speed and endurance versus speed exclusively. In the absence of a genetic test, it might be unclear where we should start our athlete’s training. Extrapolating data from 23andme lends credence to those of us in the track and field community who are prudently starting our initial training in the middle of the event menu with a 400-meter centric program. Couple our gut feeling with the common genetic dispositions of athletes, targeted testing, and a rotation of competitive outputs, and we will have a clear picture over time what training should be for our athletes. Throughout a couple of months, these factors will reveal what tendencies we should train to maximize a competitor’s performance at that point in their training age.

To be considered a good coach, once those tendencies are clear we need to have a personal discussion on what is the best way to maximize performance for our athlete(s). Russian coach and sports scientist Dr. Anatoli Bondarchuk has done a lot of research on what we should be doing in practice. His set of books, The Transfer of Training, is considered a seminal work on the subject of training stimulus and its effects on human performance.

In the first volume, Dr. Bondarchuk covered a vast array of training and its implication on sport’s readiness. His research studied the effects of specific sports conditioning and ancillary training methods. The emerging truth that came out of his data is that the stimulus that most reflects the actual sport has the highest correlation of improvement to the actual sports performance. The information on top or bottom shows the relationship for elite and sub-elite sprinters, respectively.

For example, in figure 8 below, you can see the best training stimulus is an interval just below or above (100 meters and 300 meters) the race length for an elite female 200-meter sprinter, allowing the athlete to be a little more aggressive/fast short of the distance or stoic/enduring over the race distance. Thus, we need to train maximal velocity for absolute speed. Meanwhile, in the athlete’s best event, we ALSO need to train longer intervals to maximize output for both ends of the race.

Another aspect of Dr. Bondarchuk’s work is ancillary exercises that can synergistically work with the vital training stimulus to improve the sprinter. Especially as an athlete progresses, it becomes abundantly clear that the critical skill of being able to move quickly requires elasticity. One of the best ways to improve an athlete’s “bounce” is through plyometric movements like repeat bounding. Shown below in figure 9, jump training has the highest correlation to improved sports performance as a supplementary training tool for sprinters.

Conversely, in some cases we can choose a training stimulus that can negatively affect our athletes or, at best, is half as effective as other stimuli. For us to do a “good” job, we must be careful about what we choose to do and certainly with whom we do it. Based on our testing, our data, and suggested training load (figure 10). We must put it all together so we can feel less like a fraud or an impostor and more like we are net positive for our athletes.

Once we know what to do, it becomes crucial to understand how to do it. For example, creating a training session for sprinters, we must select the right pace and recoveries for the distance we want to train. Messing up these key training parameters could ruin an athlete’s practice or worse. The book RunningTrax (no longer in print) is excellent for assisting you as a coach to select the right distances and intensities. (For another option, I suggest picking up Dylan Hicks’ track & field planner program.) Figure 11 shows a sample of training for what is typically the performance level of a high school All-American.

We can now select the proper training based on the number of intervals suggested from the Transfer of Training with accurate intensities based on that repetition volume. A good coach also breaks down the different aspects of training by modeling the event’s various actual elements. In track and field, we must cue the different parts of the competitive whole.

A good coach breaks down the different aspects of training by modeling the event’s various actual elements, says @SprintersCompen. Share on X

Race modeling is an effective strategy. We give athletes visuals through the landmarks (figure 12) and verbal cues as they reach the locations on the track. Good coaching uses science to identify where to place, train, and produce repeated performances that result in their team being steps ahead of their competitive peers annually.

 

Video 1. A video of me race modeling with my athletes.

Peer Review

Next is possibly the most essential aspect of the scientific method as it applies to proper coaching—peer review. The review requires asking several questions about our training:

 

• • Do you coach boys or girls?

 

• • Do you have an indoor track?

 

• • Do you have an indoor track and field season?

 

• • How does your school size play a role in comparison to your opponent?

 

• • How competitive is your region?

 

• • Do you qualify for championships by performance or placement?

 

• • Do you coach multiple sports at the school?

 

• • Do you coach XC?

 

• • What’s the diversity of your population?

 

• • Do you have an outdoor track?

 

• • What’s the weather traditionally in your region?

 

• • Are you allowed to condition freely in the off-seasons?

 

We can quickly see how the review of our program can become immense. Instead of getting bogged down in an endless stream of questions, I suggest we choose a different route. Here is a strategy that I have employed to break through the noise that peer review can be. It’s called the “Wooden Project.”

As many of us know, the former UCLA men’s basketball coach, John Wooden, is regarded as one of the greatest coaches in any sport. A large number of books have been written on his time as a coach and his methods. We all know of his leadership pyramid, but what struck me was his willingness to never stop searching and sharing with experts in the field. Every off-season, Coach Wooden targeted a part of his game that “needed work.” He searched out experts in that particular aspect of basketball.

In the book, You Haven’t Taught Until They Have Learned: John Wooden’s Teaching Principles and Practices, the author and former athlete describes the process in detail. Coach Wooden would research who were the experts in something like free throw shooting. He would then send out a survey to those coaches with a series of questions on training design, mental prep, strategy, technique, coaching, cues, etc. for how they attack teaching the skill of free-throw shooting.

The genius behind this isn’t just the information gleaned but also the collaborative effort through peer review. Not only do the answers from the master coaches go to Coach Wooden, but also among all the participants! When finished, he would send the survey with its 10 answers to all 10 coaches who participated. They would get to see and share in everyone else’s answers, thus becoming a better coach based on the advice of the other experts. Every time Wooden did this, his circle of expert coaches, coming from all sports levels, expanded.

Locally, my friends and I have created a coaches’ circle that meets once a month. We rotate houses for BBQ, training talk, and even a book club for our professional development as leaders. Reading Wooden’s book awakened me to the possibility of creating an international circle of experts who could help me “peer review my methods.”

Through the connections I made from Carl Valle and from Mike Young’s website elitetrack.com, I was able to start what Coach Wooden had done decades earlier but now for track and field. Within the first couple of months, the participating coaches got hundreds of pages of responses on various subjects in the sport of track and field. We all became better, and it inspired me to write my treatise on speed: The Sprinter’s Compendium. My purpose was not to share a system that all fundamentalists must follow. Instead, I wanted to pull in experts in different levels of the sport around the world to help young and experienced coaches alike continue to get better.

Compendium: A compendium is a concise collection of information pertaining to a body of knowledge. A compendium may summarize a larger work. In most cases the body of knowledge will concern a specific field of human interest or endeavor.

The resulting compendium was a raw 763-page monster on the subject of speed. Later, I was asked to give my review of different coaches, their methods, and how I knew they were doing a “good job.” As you would expect, methods varied widely. I was lucky to get several, great, abundance-mindset coaches willing to share and critique different methods. Coaches like Tony Wells (Adapt or Die), Tony Holler (Feed the Cats), Mike Hurst (Concurrent), Sean Burris (Critical Mass System), and Dan Pfaff (Flow State) all contributed immensely to the process.

I’m often asked, “who do you think was the best coach or training system?” My response has often been, “it all depends.” However, I have pondered over the years that this might not be the best response. Not because I am trying to avoid being snarky or keep from offending people. On the contrary, the best coaches must adapt to their environment to bring their hard-fought experiences to bear in conjunction with continually evolving sports science to institute best training methods.

However, all of that can only happen if you know the fundamental principles of the event and the sound science that supports it. As coaches, to stay ahead of the curve we must evolve. Not because kids, biological necessities, or human anatomy are different. We must grow because it requires us to continue to get better so we can “do a good job.”

One of the arguments I faced recently in a debate with Tony Holler was that my system is too complex and thus unwieldy for most coaches. My response at this point is that our athletes demand that we get better. Greatness requires effort, time, inspiration, and eventually, innovation. There is no shame in having a starting point, and then cutting and pasting training that is simple.

When I spoke at ALTIS a few winters ago, I argued you must be a master of different methods before you can become a “flow state” coach like Dan Pfaff. In math, before you can do calculus, you must know your multiplication tables; before you can multiply, you need to be able to add. Eventually, what we do might seem very complicated or sophisticated, and often that can be intimidating. It is our job to demystify it for others and show them the path.

So, Have You Answered the Question Yet? Are You a Good Coach?

Here is an interesting dichotomy. If you answered 100% yes that you are a good coach, you have lost your way or haven’t even started your journey as a practitioner of sport. Conversely, some of you might now feel like a fraud. Good news! You and I can get better. There is no such thing as a perfect system. As Dan Pfaff said a long time ago for the Canadian Coaches Centre Podcast: “A perfect system is a weak system because it can be broken easily. Instead what we want to create is a robust system.”

A robust training system will adapt to pressures known and unknown. It will respond…by producing repeatable, consistent, and high-performance results, says @SprintersCompen. Share on X

A robust system will adapt to pressures known and unknown. It will respond in kind to the forces trying to destroy it by producing repeatable, consistent, and high-performance results. To do this, avoid becoming a fraud, test new training hypotheses frequently, gather your data, reflect on your results, and have them peer reviewed. Our athletes, peers, and mentors deserve our commitment to a growth mindset as we engage in the never-ending pursuit of becoming a good coach.

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

After a recent SimpliFaster blog post of mine was published on prancing and galloping, I received a few messages and comments that made me pause and reflect on my own coaching style.

“Coach, how do you get your athletes to be motivated to and take doing drills seriously?”

I was pleasantly surprised that most of the feedback wasn’t from the anti-drill and “specificity only” crowd, but rather from coaches saying that they want to do this stuff but are having a hard time getting started. I understand that selling things like skips, crawls, gallops, and prancing to teenage football players may take something of a cultural shift, but this doesn’t mean it is impossible or something to avoid because of initial awkwardness.

I did get a few tags on Twitter with the comments linking a GIF or video of the famous “Prancercise” lady. I actually got a chuckle out of them because it shows how easily the look of a drill can turn a coach off, even if the function has tremendous value.

The fact is that whenever you introduce something new during a season, you are bound to get some quizzical looks and kids who pipe up and say something along the lines of “We don’t usually do this” or ask the dreaded question, “Why are we doing this?”

I am a huge advocate for drills for several reasons, all of which I will explain here in this article. As I spoke about in a previous blog piece, the research says drills work—they just don’t always work right away or in the way we hope they do.

Bosch lovers and followers of the dynamic systems theory are well-versed in using variations to further ingrain good patterns and solutions in athletes. Below, I offer advice that will give coaches confidence and present seven key methods for implementing drills beyond the speed ladder variety to create buy-in with their athletes.

1. Make Time for Drills Daily

Doing drills sporadically is one way to ensure that no one ever takes them seriously. Drills are a focus lesson in the same way that most classrooms start off with a small lesson. Doing them inconsistently is confusing and frustrating for developing athletes, and it becomes harder for a coach to calibrate drills to meet the needs of the athletes in front of them that day. Coaches and athletes both will improve their respective crafts and have some sort of expectations on different tasks.

There isn’t much instant gratification in long-term athletic development…but I think the length of time it takes to saturate an athlete with this is greatly underestimated, says @grahamsprints. Share on X

There is not much instant gratification in long-term athletic development. It is really a long-haul type of endeavor. The descriptor “long-term” precedes “athletic development” but I think the length of time it takes to saturate an athlete with this is greatly underestimated. Drilling great movement is not something to throw your hands up at and proclaim, “Well, that didn’t work” after eight weeks.

Coach Mike Whiteman of the Pittsburgh Riverhounds Soccer Club routinely posts videos of excellent training montages of his athletes. His response when asked how he gets his athletes moving so well made me nod my head. What did he say? We slow-cook everything.

Specificity is much easier with a solid foundation of movement.

In a recent webinar, Coach Ryan Banta remarked that it takes about 500 hours for motor learning to really stick and for the athletes to be rewired via neuroplasticity. This kind of long-term development becomes harder when we skip daily coaching opportunities. Most of my coaching failures have happened simply because I sent mixed signals by not being consistent with training modalities.

The drill/warm-up sessions I lead are the one time that all athletes, regardless of event (or in the case of field sports, positions), are all together as a unit. There is something to be said for that cohesive environment and setting the tone for the day with clear and common language.

2. Start Small and Select Carefully

Most coaches I talk to are overwhelmed by the sheer number of drill possibilities. They want to know that they are doing the right thing. I am commonly asked, “What are the best sprint drills to improve speed?” My answer is usually none of them and all of them.

This is not meant to be cryptic. Drills are about creating a more complete athlete rather than just creating changes in peak velocity. Speed, like strength, cannot be maximized in the presence of dysfunction and a general lack of movement competency. We must simply aim to get our athletes to do as many movements as well as we can and build them brick by brick.

Coaches need not experience paralysis by analysis. Rather than searching for the mythical perfect drill, remember who you are coaching and understand that going slow is perfectly okay. By the same token, something too challenging is easily scaled back.

Rather than searching for the mythical perfect drill, remember who you are coaching and understand that going slow is perfectly okay, says @grahamsprints. Share on X

Sprinting is commonly upheld as the pinnacle of athletic performance, and indeed, the posture, rhythm, timing, coordination, and elasticity that is on display in good sprinters makes us stop and marvel. However, if we inherit athletes who possess some speed but lack the ability to perform movements like skipping, prancing, galloping, etc. with the aforementioned qualities, we can move forward by addressing this low-hanging fruit in conjunction with smart sprint training.

It seems impossible to me that an athlete who lacks general movement ability and/or experience will suddenly be a sprinter who displays “maximum beauty” or a clean block start. They have no awareness of what the best of something feels like.

The hardest part is getting started, but just start. Start at the bottom. Start with 10 minutes. Tony Holler has a list of 10 speed drills in his “Feed the Cats” program. He says he coaches the heck out of the drills and wants them done in a “caffeinated” state.

One of my favorites to start with is the “loose skip.” I often note with our jumps coach, Tyler Colbert, that the loose skip is a good eye test on day one of a new season. It is such a simple movement, but it is not uncommon to discover that a sizable chunk of the newcomers cannot perform a loose skip or basic crawl competently. Loose skips and marches are merely the upright version of a crawl.

It may also be worthwhile to explore a drill or movement deeply in one session. For example, I may decide during the “movement” portion of our warm-up to go skip heavy (examples of skipping variations will come in the next section). If I notice that we are having issues with galloping, we will go gallop heavy, and so on. Maybe it is baby bounds, prancing, A-runs—address what is needed.

This summer has given me a good chance to continue using drills thematically. When we have an acceleration day, we tend to go skip heavy. On longer, rhythmic days, gallops, and on top speed days, prancing.

There is no perfect progress, but if it is early in the season, you can start with the most remedial of a variety of drills. Teach a proper march, crawl, loose skip, and basic gallop, and start prancing progressions. The goal is to constantly revisit and repeat things, attack weaknesses, and forge ahead. Four years from now, the scene in the rear-view mirror should look pretty good.

3. Allow Athletes to Repeat Stuff and Sprinkle in Movement Variability

When I first laid a foundation of movement with our track team, I had very few drills. Then I added more. Then I cut out the fluff and stopped trying to do more and focused instead on what I thought was important. It really is about meeting the athletes where they are and then pushing them farther and farther in their abilities each week.

Kids like doing things they are good at, but they also like some unpredictable variety. Too much can turn a practice into a circus really quickly. Most drills can be tweaked slightly to create an illusion of shiny newness. This repetition without repetition keeps motivation high. More importantly, it also allows athletes to experience singular movements in a variety of ways and ultimately figure out what feels the best and how they may use it in the future. I want them to take what is useful and discard what isn’t.

Most drills can be tweaked slightly to create an illusion of shiny newness. This repetition without repetition keeps motivation high, says @grahamsprints. Share on X

For example, the Mach A-skip is commonly cast aside due to its perceived lack of specificity and transfer. I am under no illusion that an A-skip will create a world record holder, but if an athlete can’t A-skip, I ask myself “Why not? What is preventing them from doing this drill correctly?” It could be posture; it could be their foot strike. I want them to feel the flow and rhythm when they do this drill correctly, because if they cannot problem-solve and optimize something at 2-3 m/s, I bet their speed at 8-10 m/s is not optimal either. There is a best way that each athlete can perform an A-skip. It comes down to trying to do everything.

There are so many different types of skips that allow rehearsals of rhythm and timing. Here are some skipping options:

• Loose skip
• Skip for distance
• Skip for height
• A-skip for rhythm
• A-skip for speed
• B-skip
• C-skip
• Big arm side skip
• Asymmetrical skip
• Single leg A-skip
• Quick skip
• Skip bleeds (seamlessly transitioning from one type of skip to another)
• Backward skip on all variations

Nearly every drill has endless possibilities.

4. Don’t Call It a Warm-Up

I usually start a session by saying “Let’s get going” and gradually building the intensity near the main session. I don’t necessarily call anything a “warm-up.”

In a recent SimpliFaster article, Keith Ferrara discusses how he calls warm-ups “ignition series.” I can see the value in using this term or something similar with teams like football. The terminology definitely sounds more appealing than “warm-up drills.”

Especially for a coach beginning to make their foray into drilling and movement, having a unique name for their warm-up can highlight the importance of this portion of practice. This can also create a departure from the idea of warming up as merely stretching and jogging.

Some drills done well will “ignite” the team and pay dividends down the road in their development.

5. Spotlight Good Movement

My #1 goal on all drills is for the athletes to look as athletic as possible on any given day. I typically use the correct-incorrect-correct from John Wooden.

1. Correct: “Here’s what the drill is, here is what you should be feeling, and here is an analogy or cue that could help you.” Really sell the “why” in kid-friendly terms. Examples:

   • A-skip = “We are doing this to rehearse rhythm, slight forward lean, and great foot contacts.”
   • Carioca = “We are doing this to be fluid with our hips. Athletes need to be able to separate their lower and upper body when reacting on the field.”

2. Incorrect: “Don’t do this. Doing this is not a good thing because ________.” I then demonstrate it poorly. I tend to exaggerate, which eases the tension because no one will do it as poorly as this.
3. Correct: Find a kid who can do it really well, gas them up with confidence by having the team watch their model, and follow up with a round of applause. As the rest of the team goes, I circulate and assist with kids who need tweaks. If a kid has a breakthrough, I try to point that out as well. This is all a little cheesy, but it suits my coaching style, which borders on hyper at times. Their progress, however small, needs to be contagious.

There is not enough time to do this on every drill, of course. It depends where we are at. I usually consider what most of my athletes cannot do well and make it a goal for them to do it better.

The learning process is often slow, so drills may be done incorrectly all the time. This is fine, as long as the intent to be correct is high. Athletes need a lot of movement competency in their arsenal. Again, the more, the better.

6. Do Some Drills with Them

I won’t spend too much time on this section since coaches have different levels of comfort and readiness that they need to explore for themselves. I am seeing a growing trend of high school coaches immersing themselves in their own speed/drill training. Coaches like Mike Whiteman, Tyler Germain, Kyle Edwards, Tony Martins, and Joshua Collins all have posted their own training for their athletes to see.

I think it helps the kids to see a coach demonstrate something and be part of the process. It has personally helped me to take information from books and articles on certain movements and perform them with fidelity the way they were intended. This has allowed me to give live demos for the athletes, and if I cannot do the movement that well, I remark on how I am still learning it and explain what I would fix.

This doesn’t mean coaches need to do every drill, or any drill, but I can say first-hand that doing drills with our team has helped buy-in. My hope is that my athletes see my demo and are open-minded. If the old guy in front of them can do it, then so can they.

While not entirely necessary, being able to demo occasionally and show a willingness to learn is another tool for the coaching bag, says @grahamsprints. Share on X

My #1 rule for myself is to never have my athletes do something that I can’t do myself or at least explain really well. There are often days I have dress pants and boots on and never do a drill.

An added bonus is that drills are often low on the plyometric continuum and can reawaken the inner athlete in us coaches. I firmly believe that as we get older, we stop moving athletically, which can cause sarcopenia, reduce muscle power, and increase the risk of serious injuries like hip fractures. This is supported by some research.

While not entirely necessary, being able to demo occasionally and show a willingness to learn is another tool for the coaching bag.

7. Make Sure This Stuff Doesn’t Exist in a Vacuum

Another easy way to create buy-in on drills is through the use of social media. Unfortunately, the training from professional athletes that gets retweeted or posted on Instagram stories for various exercises can border on circus acts. This snapshot of training may be fun or motivational for these high-level athletes, but it is not the whole picture.

Occasionally, however, a montage of wonderfully balanced training makes the rounds.

Marquise “Hollywood” Brown bounding? Retweet.

Antonio Brown working with Dan Pfaff on speed drills? Add to story.

As a Patriots fan watching pregame warm-ups, the same goes for Julian Edelman doing A-skips and Rob Gronkowski doing A-run stepovers at 265 pounds.

These are just a few NFL examples, but with some digging you can find plenty of videos in the high school, college, or professional ranks to fit your agenda. Spotlight great athletes doing the relatively mundane, just like your team is trying to master the basics.

There Are Many Roads to Buy-In

Specificity is a rabbit hole I don’t particularly enjoy going down. Athletic development isn’t always about being as specific as possible. Lots of things support sprinting and performance that don’t look like the sporting action itself. There is nothing wrong with developing general qualities to create better athletes and healthier ones in the process.

There is nothing wrong with developing general qualities to create better athletes and heathier ones in the process, says @grahamsprints. Share on X

To move beyond just assigning workouts and to start to develop athletes, coaches must find an entry point that they are comfortable with. Once you begin the process of developing athletes for the long haul, it will become part of the culture of the program. Some patience is required, as Rome wasn’t built in a day. Laying a simple and solid base of key drills and movements will allow a coach to sprinkle in variations to further challenge athletes while keeping interest high.

Celebrating improvements and efforts is a good way to show the athletes that this is truly important stuff. Likewise, a coach who can demonstrate and explain drills fairly well can enhance the learning experience for both themselves and their athletes. This can result in an understanding of where each drill fits contextually and where to go next.

The fact remains that the training of some of the best athletes on the planet features drills and movements that your athletes are doing or will progress toward. Highlighting this behind-the-scenes work could be valuable so they have an understanding of the pace and plan to progress to the higher-level drills done by their idols.

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