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Like many of my professional associates and peers throughout the country, over the course of my professional career I have rehabilitated and/or performance enhancement trained the athletes placed in my care. In my four decades of practice, I personally have worked with thousands of athletes participating in many various athletic endeavors. Included in this athletic population are the subset of overhead athletes, such as baseball players, football quarterbacks, track and field throwers, volleyball players, basketball players, tennis players, swimmers, etc. These athletes have competed at the high school, collegiate, Olympic, and professional levels.

With regard to the overhead sport athlete in baseball, football, and basketball, my clientele of athletes, like my other professional peers in the same occupational fields of practice, includes $100,000,000-contract athletes as well as Cy Young award-winning MLB pitchers, NFL quarterbacks, and MLB and NBA all-stars. However, contrary to what many of my professional peers do (as expressed to me via direct conversations with them), I prescribe my athletes specific weighted overhead exercises during their rehabilitation and/or training whenever no valid contraindications are noted.

Contrary to what many of my professional peers do, I prescribe my athletes specific weighted overhead exercises during their rehab and/or training whenever there are no valid contraindications. Share on X

Specifically, with regard to the overhead athlete and the upper extremity, these individuals are rehabilitated, involved in post-rehabilitation return to play, and/or performance enhancement trained for a variety of physical conditions including, but not limited to:

• Non-operative shoulder rehabilitation.
• Non-operative elbow rehabilitation.
• Postoperative shoulder rehabilitation.
• Postoperative elbow rehabilitation.
• Post-rehabilitation return to play and/or athletic performance enhancement training in preparation for their particular sport of participation.

Although it appears that overhead weight training has had a greater acceptance in recent years, conversations of concern still exist with medical professionals, parents, coaches, and, at times, the athlete themselves. During these conversations, I often contemplate the days of Dr. Karl Klein and his support of medical professionals and coaches who condemned the squat exercise, as there was a time where this deep knee bend exercise was considered absolutely detrimental to the ligaments of the knee. This squat exercise concern was proven to be unsubstantiated at least 25 years ago¹. These discussions often leave me with the impression that overhead exercise performance is the latest “taboo” in the new millennium.

I mentioned the clientele of outstanding professional athletes to reinforce a point: If specific overhead training exercise were truly detrimental to an athlete’s career, how then could we possibly incorporate them successfully into the physical rehabilitation and performance enhancement training settings? How could they be accepted by these accomplished professional athletes who have so much to lose?

Skill vs. Athleticism

During the course of physical rehabilitation, post-rehabilitation return to play, and the performance enhancement training of athletes, the emphasis is on improving the physical qualities necessary for optimal athletic performance. This achievement assists in optimizing the demonstrated physical skills of the athlete through the transfer of these enhanced physical qualities via the repetitive practice of these physical skills over time. Physical rehabilitation and athletic performance training enhance the athlete’s athleticism.

Unless the rehabilitation specialist and/or strength and conditioning (S&C) professional is also a sport skills coach (i.e., basketball shooting, baseball hitting, baseball pitching, etc.), it is the sport/skill coach who will improve the athlete’s skill level. This article will discuss the rehabilitation, training opportunities, and guidelines for the inclusion of weighted overhead exercises for the overhead athlete.

Vermeil’s Hierarchy of Athletic Development

We base our evaluation and programming for the rehabilitation as well as the athletic performance enhancement training of the overhead (or any) athlete upon the philosophy of USA S&C Hall of Fame Coach Al Vermeil’s Hierarchy of Athletic Development (figure 1).

These training and rehabilitation program philosophies have been described previously in both the literature^2,3 and a SimpliFaster blog post; therefore, a thorough review is not required at this time. A recommended self-review of this philosophical system will assist as a guide for the evaluation and testing of an athlete through the development of the diverse physical qualities necessary for optimal physical rehabilitation and post-rehabilitation return to play, as well as ideal athletic performance.

The Kinetic Chain of the Body

For the overhead athlete to achieve ideal levels of performance, it is critical for all muscle and neuromuscular activity of the body to transform from multiple individual segments to a single efficient entity. It has been demonstrated that the best athletes are those who can apply the greatest amount of force into the ground surface area in the shortest period of time⁴. For this phenomenon to occur, the athlete must establish a strong, stable base of support to maximize the forces initiated from the legs and hips, transfer these forces through the core, and conclude at the shoulder/upper extremity complex to the hand.

The automobile enthusiast may associate this relationship to an engine (i.e., leg and hips), where the forces established are transferred via the transmission (i.e., core) to the steering mechanism (upper extremities and hands) as upper extremity (i.e., baseball) velocity transpires from the ground up⁵. The kinetic chain of the body also assists to diminish the magnitude of the applied forces in throwing type movements and produce torques that decrease braking forces as a protective mechanism during the arm deceleration phase, the most stressful phase of throwing (overhead) cycle⁶.

Anxieties of Overhead Exercise Performance

The foremost expressed concern of overhead weighted exercise performance (i.e., the overhead/military press, push press, jerks, etc.) appears to be the potential injury to the rotator cuff musculature of the shoulder complex. The rotator cuff consists of four muscles: the supraspinatus, infraspinatus, teres minor, and subscapularis (figure 2).

This apprehension is derived from the fear of the possible onset of rotator cuff “impingement” and/or tearing at the underside of the acromion (figure 3a) and/or the coracoacromial ligament/arch (figure 3b). Frequently expressed concerns also include the “dreaded” type III acromion (figure 3a) morphology, which, due to the extended osseous structure, reduces the subacromial space. This space is located between the inferior acromion and the head of the humerus and is approximately 9–10 mm in distance⁷.

It has been reported that at 0 degrees of arm abduction (arm at the side), the subacromial space is approximately 11 mm, at 90 degrees of upper extremity abduction it is 5.7 mm, and at 120 degrees of abduction it is 4.8 mm⁸. Investigators have also utilized Fuji contact film to measure pressures per square area on both the acromion and humeral head. With arm abduction performed from 60 degrees to full arm elevation, there was contact between the acromion and humeral head⁸. Therefore, it was concluded that contact between the acromion and humeral head during this range of elevation is normal.

The physical rehabilitation and S&C professional should take caution with overhead exercise performance in the documented presence of a type III acromion. As it is not financially prudent or even essential to perform diagnostic imaging on every athlete participating in a training program, it is necessary to investigate the scientific evidence to help determine where in the athletic population this specific type III acromion morphology may actually exist.

The concern of subjecting a young athlete to a possible increased risk of rotator cuff pathology due to the presence of a type III acromion is likely overstated. Share on X

In a study of 100 Division 1 college athletes (200 shoulders), it was determined that only 2% (four shoulders) exhibited a type III acromion⁹. In fact, there are a number of medical professionals who believe that the type III acromion likely presents in the later decades of life as a result of the accumulated physical stresses that may result in secondary changes, as occurs with any other aging joint surface. Therefore, it would appear that the concern of subjecting a young athlete to a possible increased risk of rotator cuff pathology due to the presence of a type III acromion is likely overstated.

Prerequisites of Overhead Exercise Performance

Prior to their introduction to formal training program design, the athlete must be prepared to ensure the safety and success of such training participation. Much of this preparation (including overhead exercise performance preparation) would occur during the work capacity phase of Coach Vermeil’s hierarchy. Unfortunately, this stage of training is often omitted in favor of direct participation in the formal training program. Once a work capacity is established, the following are some suggested additional criteria that the athlete should appropriately demonstrate prior to their initiation into a formal overhead training program.

Glenohumeral Scapulothoracic Mobility

The athlete must achieve 180 degrees of arm elevation (figures 4a and 4b), as shoulder flexion deficits of as little as 5 degrees or more have been found to increase upper extremity injury rates in throwers almost threefold¹⁰. The greater the deficit in shoulder flexion, the higher the level of stress placed upon the shoulder complex during repetitive overhead exercise performance. Also, 180 degrees of shoulder flexion will support the presence of the appropriate soft tissue compliance, thoracic spine mobility, and scapulohumeral rhythm (to name a few) required for overhead exercise execution. The accomplishment of full shoulder elevation via overhead exercise performance will assist in injury prevention due to the elimination of range of motion deficits, and the acquired full range of motion will be available for the start of the overhead sport’s pre-season and in-season activities.

Scapulohumeral Rhythm Alterations When Lifting a Heavy Load Overhead

There is a normal sequence of movement between the humerus and the scapula during glenohumeral (arm) elevation. The classic work of Inman and colleagues¹¹ has demonstrated a humeral (arm) elevation to a scapulothoracic upward rotation ratio of 2:1 during both sagittal plane flexion and coronal plane abduction between 30 and 170 degrees of motion (arm elevation). However, during dynamic humeral elevation the scapulohumeral rhythm changes, depending upon the phase of elevation and the amount of external load applied to the upper extremity. For heavy loads, this previously described 2:1 ratio changes to approximately 4.5:1¹². This adjustment in scapulohumeral rhythm is certainly reasonable, as a platform of stability (the scapula) is a prerequisite for the optimal mobility and dexterity of the upper extremity to successfully occur.

The Painful Arc of Motion

An additional concerning overhead exercise topic of discussion with healthcare professionals is the painful arc syndrome. The painful arc syndrome of the shoulder is characterized by pain, usually located at the lateral aspect of the shoulder and upper arm in the area of the subacromial space, the bulk of the deltoid muscle group, and/or its insertion. This shoulder pain may be felt at rest, usually at night, and is typically exacerbated during arm elevation in a specific shoulder arc of motion¹³. This painful arc of motion usually occurs during shoulder abduction and is situated between 60 and 120 degrees of arm elevation (figure 5).

Shoulder pain that occurs in this range of motion is usually indicative of a disorder of the subacromial region. During discussions of overhead exercise performance, some healthcare professionals have expressed the concern that non-symptomatic athletes exercising through this range of motion may develop the eventual onset of a subacromial shoulder pathology. I have found this concern, with proper preparation of the athlete, to be without substance empirically.

To help alleviate concerns over exercising through the painful arc of motion, initiate all overhead exercises from a racked position of the barbell with the shoulder at 90 degrees of elevation. Share on X

To help alleviate this concern, athletes should initiate all overhead exercises from a racked position of the barbell with the shoulder at 90 degrees of elevation (figure 6). Thus, overhead exercises with a barbell are now only executed through half (90–120 degrees) of this painful arc of motion. Avoidance of a starting racked position (elbow positioned low) still allows for exercise performance but will also include range of motion through the entire painful arc (i.e., 60–120 degrees).

To further address extreme concerns over the painful arc of motion, you may stack boxes (figure 7) to assist in eliminating the eccentric return of the barbell from the concluded overhead exercise in fully extended arm position. From this extended arm position, an athlete may drop the barbell to the extended box height prior to the execution of the next overhead exercise repetition.

However, there are substantial strength enhancements and additional benefits in performing the eccentric phase of the overhead exercise. Whenever appropriate, it is highly recommended to perform this eccentric (lowering) phase in asymptomatic shoulders. Eccentric strength qualities are essential during the deceleration phase of high-velocity overhead activities, as deceleration is the most stressful phase of throwing/overhead type activities.

To best avoid potential concerns with the overhead exercise in the painful arc of motion, it is recommended to: ensure proper shoulder and thoracic spine mobility, strength levels of the rotator cuff, and scapula musculature; perform overhead exercise in the plane of the scapula; and implement an appropriate exercise program design to avoid the onset of excessive fatigue. In my experience, following these guidelines, as well as Coach Vermeil’s hierarchy, resolves any apprehension of exercising through the painful arc of motion and allows for successful overhead exercise performance.

Perform All Overhead Exercises in the Plane of the Scapula

The scapula does not rest on the thorax in a position parallel to the frontal plane of the body. The scapula at rest assumes a position of 30–45 degrees forward from the frontal plane toward the sagittal plane of the body (figures 8a and 8b).

There are many biomechanical and anatomical advantages for performing arm elevation in the scapular plane of the body^7,14. Some of these advantages include, but are not limited to:

• The shoulder joint surfaces have greater conformity in this plane of motion.
• During arm elevation, the inferior capsuloligamentous complex and rotator cuff muscles remain untwisted.
• The supraspinatus and deltoid muscle group (rotator cuff-deltoid force couple) are optimally aligned for arm elevation.
• This plane of the body provides for the greatest scapula upward rotation.
• This plane of the body provides for optimal length-tension (force production) of muscles.

As previously noted, scapulohumeral rhythm adjusts from a 2:1 to a 4.5:1 ratio with the application of a heavy load. This change in the ratio implies an adjustment in the elevation and rotation of the scapula, as the application of a heavy load requires a strong platform of stability. Thus, overhead exercise execution in the plane of the scapula will ensure the optimal scapula elevation and rotations necessary to maintain an appropriate subacromial space to assist in prohibiting rotator cuff pathology.

An appropriate hand placement (spacing) on the barbell will ensure this plane of motion is “secured” throughout the overhead exercise performance. It is also important to note that, as the execution of the overhead exercise performance is now performed in the plane of the scapula and not pure shoulder abduction, the concern of the aforementioned painful arc of motion is minimized.

Rotator Cuff Muscle Activity During Overhead Exercise Performance

The execution of such exercises as the standing press, push press, and split jerk take advantage of the benefits of the kinetic chain in the standing position by initiating and transferring forces from the ground up, the same mechanism of force transfer that occurs during competitive sports. The overhead press also exhibits very high supraspinatus muscle activity¹⁵, the muscle most often associated with rotator cuff pathology. As a stronger muscle is less susceptible to injury, why would we not want to utilize the same philosophy with the rotator cuff of the shoulder, and more specifically, the supraspinatus muscle? The rotator cuff and deltoid muscle activity that occurs during the overhead press is presented in figure 9.

Also of note, the serratus anterior, a key entity in the serratus anterior-trapezius force couple, is also very active (82%) during the overhead press exercise¹⁶. A force couple occurs when separate and distinct muscle groups produce equal forces, creating a rotation by the pulling that occurs in opposite directions. This serratus anterior-trapezius force couple serves several critical functions in overhead activity^{17, 18}:

• Rotates the scapula, maintaining the glenoid surface in an appropriate position for the humeral head.
• Positions the deltoid muscle group to maintain efficient length-tension, ensuring ideal strength, explosive strength, and joint stability.
• Prevents impingement of the subacromial anatomical structures upon the coracoacromial arch.
• Provides a stable base of support, enabling axiohumeral and scapulohumeral muscles to move the arm against an external resistance.

The Effect of Exercise-Induced Fatigue on Shoulder Kinematics

Excessive exercise-induced fatigue can negatively affect shoulder joint kinematics. To comprehend this concept, there must be an appreciation of the rotator cuff-deltoid muscle force couple that occurs at the shoulder. The main function of the rotator cuff muscle group is to counterbalance the forces of the deltoid muscle group and maintain the position of the humeral head centrally in the glenoid fossa (joint) (figure 10b).

Arm elevation in the presence of an excessively fatigued non-pathologic rotator cuff disrupts this force couple, resulting in the same humeral head superior migration that occurs in a shoulder with a rotator cuff tear and/or pathology¹⁹(figure 10a). This superior migration of the humeral head may increase the potential for rotator cuff pathology, as the available subacromial arch spacing is now decreased. Additional consequences include increased inferior (downward) migration of the humeral head with the arm resting at the side of the body (figure 10a). Athletes should be cautious when executing overhead (i.e., press) and carrying type (i.e., farmers walk) activities in the presence of an excessively fatigued shoulder muscle complex.

Excessive exercise-induced muscle fatigue may also affect the supporting musculature of the scapula, resulting in decreased scapula posterior tilt, as well as increased scapula protraction, internal rotation, and increased upward rotation. This combined and altered positioning of the scapula, along with the associated superior humeral head migration, serves as an environment for potential rotator cuff pathology.

The establishment of an athlete’s adequate work capacity, as well as the implementation of an appropriate rehabilitation/training program design, is essential to avoid the negative effects of the onset of excessive fatigue of the musculature of the shoulder complex. Excessive muscle fatigue will result in an adverse influence upon the aforementioned shoulder kinematics and can lead to a potentially consequential soft tissue injury.

The Standing Overhead Press

The standing overhead press is a strength exercise that offers many advantages over other upper body strength activities. These advantages include, but are not limited to:

• Potential utilization in both the performance enhancement and physical rehabilitation environments.
• Enhanced strength and hypertrophy of the shoulders and upper extremities.
• Enhanced stability of the lower extremities, hips, and core.
• Execution of exercise in the standing position; thus, forces are transferred from the ground up, as transpires in sport activities.
• The glenohumeral and scapula-thoracic relationship is free-moving without external restrictions.
• The risk of pectorals muscle tears is likely zero.

Activities such as the bench press, incline bench press, and seated overhead press with a bench require the athlete to lie/sit upon this apparatus that includes a backing (figure 11). The bench backing creates a platform whereby the scapulae are “pinned,” so to speak, between the barbell weight, body weight, and bench backing, resulting in compressive forces of the scapulae against the thorax. One of the advantages of closed kinetic chain exercise performance is the stability provided by compressive forces that occur during exercise performance (i.e., the knee joint during the back squat).

Observe caution with regard to the prescribed exercise volume of the bench press, incline bench press, etc. when utilizing a bench backing. Share on X

If the scapulae are compressed and stabilized against the thorax during overhead exercise performance, would there not be a possible adverse disruption to the previously mentioned scapulohumeral rhythm? If the scapulae are “artificially stabilized,” so to speak, due to the described compressive forces during overhead exercise performance, are the scapulae musculature getting a “free ride,” resulting in a decrease in potential strength enhancement when compared to the scapula muscle activity required during standing overhead exercise performance? This is not to state that you should eliminate exercises such as the bench press, incline bench press, etc. from an athlete’s training program design, but observe caution with regard to the prescribed exercise volume in exercises utilizing a bench backing.

The Push Press

As athletes achieve appropriate strength levels with the standing overhead press, a progression for the physical qualities of both lower and upper extremity explosive strength is realized via the incorporation of the push press exercise into the training program design. Although a coordinated contribution of the shoulders, core, and upper extremities is executed during exercise performance, the push press places focus on the lower body. The push press is a knee-dominant activity due to the requirement of maintaining the racked barbell on the anterior deltoids of the shoulders to effectively and efficiently transmit impulse. The exercise has also been shown to produce peak power levels that are similar to the jump squat and mid-thigh power clean exercises²⁰, and it is an exceptional exercise that incorporates the upper extremities to enhance overall explosive strength qualities.

The Split Jerk

It is well-documented that the stride leg plays a critical role in the attainment and maintenance of ball velocity in baseball pitchers^21,22. Some of these stride leg advantages include, but are not limited to:

• The landing (stride) leg serves as an anchor, transforming forward and vertical momentum into rotational components.
• Posterior directed landing forces of the landing foot reflect a balance of inertial forces of the body moving forward to create baseball velocity.
• Pitchers with the highest ball velocity also demonstrate higher braking ground reaction forces.
• The ability to “drive” the body over a stabilized stride leg is a characteristic of high-velocity pitchers.
• High-velocity pitchers exhibit greater stride knee extension.
• High-velocity pitchers increase the forward motion of the trunk via stride knee extension during the acceleration phase of pitching.

It is fairly obvious that appropriate stride leg knee extension, stability, and braking abilities have a strong positive correlation to enhancing ball velocity. When reviewing the posture of the stride leg of a baseball pitcher (figure 12a), we see that his stride leg displays a remarkable similarity to the stride leg displayed during the execution of the split jerk exercise (figure 12b).

The split jerk also requires optimal stride leg positioning, stability, and high braking forces while enhancing core and shoulder stability, strength, and explosive strength qualities. The split jerk produces high peak power (i.e., 6923 W) and mean power (i.e., 4321 W) generated forces to transfer through the kinetic chain to the upper extremity^22,23.

No Place for Exercise Generalizations

If there is such a pronounced adverse concern by some rehabilitation and S&C professionals to incorporate weighted overhead exercises in the athlete’s program design, why don’t they express this same adverse concern during the execution of overhead activities such as pull-ups, chin-ups, and lat pulldown exercises? Not only do athletes perform these exercises with the arms fully extended overhead, but they execute them with the hands fixed to an exercise bar positioned both overhead and anterior to the midline of the body. Thus, these overhead exercises also include a component of joint distraction forces that potentially position the humeral head more superiorly toward the inferior acromion as well as the coracoacromial arch.

Are we, as professionals, also to believe that the concern with weighted overhead exercise performance is seasonal? Why does there appear to be less concern with the performance of overhead exercises during the off-season training of football quarterbacks versus the off-season training of a baseball pitcher or position player? Many of the athletes trained at our performance center are high school and college athletes who are quarterbacks during the fall sport season and baseball pitchers during the spring sport season. Where is the scientific evidence that documents the vulnerability of the shoulder complex/anatomy due to overhead exercise performance changes depending upon the time of the year?

Why does there appear to be less concern with the performance of overhead exercises during the off-season training of football quarterbacks than of a baseball pitcher or position player? Share on X

This discussion certainly doesn’t imply that overhead exercise “fits all.” Nor does it ever recommend the “cut and paste” method of program design. We should regard and treat each athlete in either the rehabilitation or performance enhancement training setting as an individual based on their own specific medical and training history. That stated, exercise generalizations have no place in either of these professional environments. When appropriate, overhead exercise performance is deemed both suitable and beneficial to include in the program design of an athlete participating in the rehabilitation and performance enhancement training environments.

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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. Panariello RA, Backus SI, Parker JW. “The Effect of the Squat Exercise on Anterior – Posterior Knee Translation in Professional Football Players.” Am J Sports Med. 1994; 22(6): 768–773.

2. Panariello RA, Stump TJ, Cordasco F. “The Lower Extremity Athlete: Post-Rehabilitation Performance and Injury Prevention Training.” Oper Tech Sports Med. 2017; 25(3): 231–240.

3. Panariello RA, Stump TJ, and Maddalone D. “Post-Operative ACL Rehabilitation and Return to Play after ACL Reconstruction.” Oper Tech in Sports Med. 2016; 24(1): 35–44.

4. Weyand PG, Sternlight DB, Bellizzi MJ, et al. “Faster top running speeds are achieved with greater ground forces not more rapid leg movements.” J Appl Physiol. 2000; 89: 1991–1999.

5. Hirashima M, Kadota H, Sakurai S, et al. “Sequential muscle activity and its functional role in upper extremity and trunk during overarm throwing.” J Sport Sci. 2002; 20(4): 301–310.

6. Chu SK, Jayabalan P, Kibler B, et al. “The Kinetic Chain Revisited: New Concepts on Throwing Mechanics and Injury.” PM&R. 2016; 8(35): S69–S77.

7. Novotny JE, Woolley CT, Nichols CE 3rd, et al. “In vivo technique to quantify the internal-external rotation kinematics of the human glenohumeral joint.” J Orthop Res. 2000; 18: 190–194.

8. Soslowsky LJ, Flatow EL, Bigliani LU, et al. “Articular geometry of the glenohumeral joint.” Clin Orthop, 1992; (285): 181–190.

9. Speer KP, Osbahr DC, Montella BJ, et al. “Acromial morphotype in the young asymptomatic athletic shoulder.” J Shoulder Elbow Surg. 2001; 10(5): 434–437.

10. Wilk KE, Macrina LC, Fleisig GS, et al. “Deficits in glenohumeral passive range of motion increase risk of elbow injury in professional baseball pitchers: a prospective study.” Am J Sports Med. 2014; 42(9): 2075–2081.

11. Inman V, Saunder J, Abbot L. “Observations of the function of the shoulder joint.” J Bone Joint Surg, 1944; 26:1.

12. McQuade KJ, Smidt GL. “Dynamic scapulohumeral rhythm: The effects of an external resistance during elevation of the arm in the scapula plane.” J Orthop Sports Phys Ther, 1998; 27: 125–133.

13. Kessel L, Watson M. “The Painful Arc Syndrome: Clinical Classification as a Guide to Management.” J Bone Joint Surg. 1977; 59-B(2): 166–172.

14. Johnson T. “The movements of the shoulder joint. A Plea for the use of the ‘Plane of the Scapula’ as the plane of reference in movements occurring in the humero-scapular joint.” 1937; Br J Surg 25:252.

15. Townsend H, Jobe FW, Pink M, et al. “Electromyographic analysis of the glenohumeral muscles during a baseball rehabilitation program.” Am J Sport Med, 1991; 19(3): 264–272.

16. Moseley JB Jr, Jobe FW, Pink M, et al. “EMG analysis of the scapular muscles during a shoulder rehabilitation program.” Am J Sports Med, 1992; 20(2): 128–134.

17. Kelly M, Clark W. Orthopedic Therapy of the Shoulder. Philadelphia, PA: JB Lippincott, 1995.

18. Abboud JA, Soslowsky LJ. “Interplay of the static and dynamic restraints in glenohumeral instability.” Clin Orthop Relat Res. 2002; (400): 48–57.

19. Chen SK, Simonian PT, Wickiewicz, TL, et al. “Radiographic evaluation of glenohumeral kinematics: A muscle fatigue model.” J Shoulder Elbow Surg. 1999; 8(1): 49–52.

20. Comfort P, Mundy PD, Graham-Smith P, et al. “Comparison of peak power output during exercises with similar lower limb kinematics.” J of Trainology. 2016; 5: 1–5.

21. Kageyama M, Sugiyama T, Takai Y, et al. “Kinematic and Kinetic Profiles of Trunk and Lower Limbs during Baseball Pitching in Collegiate Pitchers.” J Sports Sci Med. 2014; 13(4): 742–750.

22. Campbell BM, Stodden DF, Nixon, MK. “Lower Extremity Muscle Activation During Baseball Pitching.” J Strength Cond Res. 2010; 24(4): 964–971.

23. Garhammer J. “Power production by Olympic Weightlifters.” Med Sci Sports Exer. 1980; (12)1: 54–60.

The field of athletic development and sport preparation often undergoes audits via the latest fads, trends, and paradigm shifts. Lately, many successful coaches have moved toward low dose, optimal dose, minimal effective dose, or insert your term here dose. This is especially true among the coaches I’ve been fortunate to interact with and listen to in the past three years. During that time, I attended the Track and Football Consortium (TFC), where Jeff Moyer outlined the idea of strength as a spectrum and how to execute that in a program such as the 1×20 system—a concept that stood out to me.

At TFC and conferences like it, the information often leaves one’s head spinning…in a good way! Each presentation has nuggets of gold and diamonds in the rough, and Jeff’s presentation contained both. In this application, strength training is one component of many that need to be trained in an athlete’s toolbox.¹

In a practical sense, a coach who has limited time to train his athletes (as many of us experience) needs to find a way to effectively and efficiently make improvements in the key indicators that matter. Spending time executing multiple sets and reps of multiple strength exercises not only takes time away from learning vital skills but also the athlete’s recovery and adaptation reserves. In other words, you can only run the well dry so long before you run out of water.

General Physical Preparation? Try Broad Spectrum Preparation

In Moyer’s words, “twenty rep sets are one of the least possible CNS costs to get a positive transfer.” The phase of 20s is also paramount to building a young athlete’s broad spectrum of needs, which include strengthening connective tissues, cardiovascular development, and capillarization of blood vessels, skill improvement, and maximal strength— all within a single set. Sounds like a way to get a bang for your buck.¹

All this got me thinking: How can I see or show this? In his TFC presentation “A Minimalist Approach to Building a Better Athlete,” Moyer mentioned that the 20s cover a spectrum of strength, including:

• Accelerative strength
• Strength endurance
• Maximal strength

It also includes immense carryover to power metrics, such as vertical jump, broad jump, and sprinting. The great thing about trends is that sometimes they produce nifty little tools. Enter velocity measuring devices!

I decided to measure the spectrum of reps in a twenty-rep set and see how these fell along the velocity zone-special strengths chart. In this case investigation, I used Open Barbell V2.0 and the accompanying IOS app in the ½ squat exercise with a pair of female soccer players.

A Mini-Case Study

As chance would have it, I had two perfect candidates to apply this idea with immediately after the conference—two female collegiate soccer players, Meg and Kate. Like many soccer players, they had a lot of experience and hours on the pitch, but only a brief training history consisting of pre-season work (meaning endless low speed running) with their high school team. Meg also had a short period of basic work with me before entering this system. At the time, both were entering their senior seasons and looking forward to Division 1 collegiate careers.

This brings us to a discussion about goals. The funny thing about high school kids is you’ll always get the vague “bigger, faster, stronger,” except in this case, many females choose “faster, stronger, and better abs” (cue the eye roll). The faster and stronger part we can measure, the better abs part may be translated as the following:

Coach: “Oh, you mean better shape? As in better condition.”

Player: “Yeah, that’s what I mean!”

That’s also not hard to measure. Or you can simply observe this as a “what the hell” effect, especially when employing 20s.

With all of my field athletes, I do an initial assessment involving a sprint, long jump, agility drill, and body dimensions. From a general standpoint, the numbers generated from this battery of tests seem to display the key interplay of strength, speed, and power for field athletes. In this case, it was particularly helpful with females who are typically self-conscience about getting “too muscular.” For both Meg and Kate, the absence of gaining body weight over this time period (127 lbs. and 142 lbs., respectively) had a two-fold positive effect. Functionally, as relative strength increased, these metrics improved. The density of their bodies allowed them to move more powerfully and efficiently. Perceptually, the young women were never hit by the scale demon and always fit into their clothes comfortably—if you’ve ever worked with high school females, you know how important this is.

The following images show the velocities of each rep during the twenty-rep set. I was able to track Meg’s progress over several weeks because she began training with me before Kate. So goes life in the private sector—once one athlete sees results, she tells her friends and, soon enough, you get more athletes working with you. But I digress.

As to why this transpired, my guess is that it was her first session attempting a twenty-rep back squat, and she was feeling her way through the movement before fatiguing a bit at rep 10. Being the competitor she is and knowing she can’t quit on a 20, Meg hits nearly a 0.7 on reps 13 and 16 (see image above) before dropping back down in the 0.5s.

On her last rep, she jumps near 0.6 again, probably because she was cued to finish fast—intent is everything when you get fatigued! Upon close examination, you see some fluctuations as the speeds certainly did not drop uniformly as they would in a perfect spectrum. Again, I attribute the jagged outputs to her first endeavor into the 20s.

In the second and third pictures above, we see that Meg slowed down a bit to 0.53 m/s but maintained a fluctuation in the low accelerative range for the remainder of the set. In other words, she was able to repeatedly display her accelerative ability for 14 reps after the initial fast reps.

What’s more interesting is that she displayed faster bar speeds with an additional 15 lb.-load. This gives us insight into the type of strength she’s able to develop in the 1×20 system.

As you can see in the sequence above, Kate begins really strong at 0.65 before dropping a bit into the low accelerative end in the mid-0.50s in rep 4. From rep 5, she maintains speeds in the low accelerative range until rep 16, when she begins to teeter in the absolute strength zone to 0.47 and near-uniform drop until the last rep at 0.42 m/s. We can attribute Kate’s finish in the low 0.40 range to a few factors. First, she is a taller athlete—about 5’10” vs. Meg’s 5’5″ so has further to work. Second, I believe this represented an optimal load where Kate finished in a range that was closer to the absolute strength zone after fatiguing in the accelerative zone for about 15 reps, revealing the spectrum effect of the 20s.

In retrospect, using velocity based training (VBT) to manage loads and cut-off points instead of “failure” may help coaches keep rep quality in perspective, avoiding potential injuries. Twenties can be a tricky demon where athletes will find a way to compete to get their reps. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing unless they’re tumbling under loads or slopping it up with spinal posture. Here, using a bar speed cut-off can sharpen the coach’s eye while providing visual feedback so the athletes can’t argue that they had more reps. Knowing each athlete’s cut-off speed will help coaches determine optimal loads.

Knowing each athlete's cut-off speed will help coaches determine optimal loads. #VBT #1x120System Share on X

About six weeks after her initial session with 85 lbs., Meg increased her squat to 132 lbs. (we jumped ten pounds every time she got to 20). As mentioned above, she did not put on one pound of bodyweight in the six weeks. **This will come into play in a follow-up article as I show how this transferred to her speed and agility markers.

In the sequence above, Meg maintains that force production capability until rep 15, where the “weight” of the load has become heavier in the 0.37 range. (In Dr. Mann’s recommendations, 0.30 m/s is the slowest cut-off for the squat lift [3; pg. 48]). Meg then maintains the high-end absolute strength zone for the 5 remaining reps.

Key Takeaways

Many contend that everything we do in the weight room or in our programming should complement and amplify an athlete’s skill—an outlook I share, particularly within the landscape I operate in of over-played, over-competed high school athletes. For Meg and Kate, this endeavor with the 1×20 system allowed us to stay safe while pushing up general strength and work capacity in an efficient manner. Given that training sessions will become few and far between with the pending season, this program helped lay the groundwork for the myriad of qualities needed during their season.

Using velocity based training with the 1x20 system allowed us to stay safe while pushing up general strength and work capacity efficiently. Share on X

The progress from this system also allowed us to leave a little on the table, given the low neural cost and the conglomerate of other qualities trained along the way. This will come into play as they progress to the collegiate level, where the work becomes more intensive as the stakes become higher. Also, the technical skills Meg and Kate learned in the weight room will prove invaluable as they’ll be expected to hold their own when they enter fall camp.

These days, collegiate strength coaches are on to the fact that most incoming freshmen they train will have relatively low, or no, training age. It’s always good to know my kids can get in there and know the “language,” the technique, the program, and the retention and response of the trainable qualities.

For me, as a coach, this experience spawned a couple of revelations:

1. I can certainly use a VBT device in the training of lower level sportsman. My old thinking was that athletes had to “qualify” to use it (meaning they had to be in a position where we would employ the dynamic effort method). If you work with developmental clientele, you’ll find this a rarity as a reserve of strength and consistent technique are a must.
2. The readings from the device serve as a calibrator of sorts, both for athlete and coach. If the urgency of doing a single set is not enough (no do-overs in my room!), the proof is in the numbers. For the more aggressive athletes who want to load at any cost, the numbers will tell us when to stop. For the complacent athletes who don’t (or simply will not) load the bar despite hitting the rep mark, we can keep it and show improvement or regression in the speeds. In either case, the intent is everything.

If you’re a coach battling with if and how the 1×20 can work, I hope this article answered some of those questions. In the follow-up to this post, I’ll present other metrics that grew congruently with this system. Even if you don’t have a VBT device, a keen coach’s eye, along with measuring things like jumps, sprints, and agility drills, may allow you a similar “scope on the rifle” that VBT offers with this system.

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

References

1. Moyer, Jeff. “A Minimalist Approach to Building a Better Athlete.” Track and Football Consortium VI, December 2017.

2. Mann, Bryan. “Bryan Mann Talks Velocity Based Training.” elitefts (website), April 2, 2015.

3. Mann, Bryan J. Developing Explosive Athletes: Use of Velocity Based Training in Athletes. Ultimate Athlete Concepts 2016.

Heart rate and lactate responses, along with subjective indicators, have been the go-to solution for internal load response for years. It’s time to move on. We need to fully integrate the internal load using sports thermography and other indicators of muscle response, as the neuromuscular system is just as important as the cardiovascular system.

Heart rate and lactate responses, along with subjective indicators, have been the go-to solution for internal load response for years. It’s time to move on. Share on X

Over the course of this article, I propose a major paradigm shift in sports monitoring: measure muscles directly with noninvasive means. Along with the new direction, I promise additional methodologies that fully support existing techniques in tracking the training response, including the latest concepts in sports monitoring.

External and Internal Load – Bridging the Connection

I was interviewed on thermography in sport some time ago on SimpliFaster and contributed an article explaining how ThermoHuman can help professionals monitor their athletes. In this article, I take a step back to explain the monitoring process in more detail, as it’s difficult to make progress if foundational information is not fully comprehended.

Sports thermography can summarize internal load, a product of the work performed and the current condition of the body. Using thermography to immediately evaluate residual training for readiness or post training for decision-making is both effective and efficient. The process is effective because it objectively identifies how muscle and other soft tissues are responding to training, and the speed and automation of software is fast and reliable. In my own monitoring program, it’s the focal point between both internal and external load monitoring.

The quadrant of subjective, objective, internal, and external load monitoring is often cited as a way to convey relations between types of data with monitoring in sport. Today, many of the metrics to monitor workload have had backlash in the scientific community, including the acute chronic work ratio. Furthermore, coaches have experienced a poor cultural response from monitoring, as too much measurement seemed to have caused either poor compliance or low morale.

Instead of using a conventional model for monitoring, we need a fully integrated method of bridging both the perceptual experiences and the load response to training and competing. Share on X

The solution is multifactorial and will require support staff to find alternative ways to protect athlete health while improving injury rates for at-risk populations like elite athletes. Instead of using a conventional model for monitoring, we need a fully integrated method of bridging both the perceptual experiences and the load response to training and competing.

The use of thermography weaves the athlete response, both internally and subjectively, into an objective summary that is quick and easy. Immediate decisions and adjustments can be anticipated and refined to monitor the superficial temperature, and all departments can use the information collected. Fitness coaches can adjust exercise regimens, physiotherapists can increase services and restorative modalities, and sport scientists can use their existing processes to oversee the workload of the players.

Without question, sport thermography is a perfect tool for teams that need specific information on actual muscles rapidly. Share on X

Without question, sport thermography is a perfect tool for teams that need specific information on actual muscles rapidly. If employed as a part of the internal load response with athletes, thermography connects all perspectives by tying all of the data to common areas of injury and fatigue. Impellizzeri, Coutts, and Macora proposed a model for implementation and education with internal and external loading.¹

Biochemistry and Biomechanics

A common discussion point for medical and performance staff is the desire to address the links of muscle injuries and genetics, along with mechanical and biochemical load. Risk factors such as muscle strength, poor sleep, and nutritional insufficiency can turn standard athlete monitoring into a demanding process that is both exhausting and difficult to implement rapidly. Therefore, using conventional approaches and complementing them with thermography makes sense, namely because most of the actions after assessment include passive recovery methods and local strength and conditioning. Recent peer-reviewed research on athlete asymmetries in professional football indicates potential performance loss and possible connection to past injuries. Continual struggles with risk past healing times is evident with those who tore their anterior cruciate ligament in the past and reinjured the same or contralateral leg.

Teams investing in wireless surface electromyography should consider thermography, as the entire body can be scanned quickly, improving the odds of successful screening. In conjunction with manual testing using dynamometers or other devices, medical staff is more than welcome to use sonography as a way to confirm low-grade tears and pulls. Supporting data on delayed onset muscle soreness and injury diagnosis reveal that thermography and biomarkers (creatine kinase) are potentially useful to see the severity of muscular overload. Established studies are cautiously optimistic that it’s enough evidence to include in a comprehensive monitoring program. If a club or team wishes to conduct both biochemical testing and thermography, we recommend following the same procedures as the research performed in the past.

Approaches that use pathomechanics have had mixed results in applied settings, mainly due to the complex interaction of variables outside kinematics. Athletes with mechanics outside of the typical norms found in research are not destined for injury, and those who are in normal ranges are not free from risk either. In my experience, a combination of workload, athlete age, fatigue, and mechanical patterns should be used collectively to keep athletes on the pitch and to extend careers.

Sports Recovery and Muscle Inflammation

The inflammatory response is very difficult to manage, since each day results in a possible direction down the wrong path of repair. Soft tissue, especially tendons, can remodel in a structurally weakened alignment, increasing the risk of rupture. Muscles that are chronically overused will find movement strategies and recruitment patterns that will continue to serve the demands of sport, but it frequently comes with a cost. Extended inflammation beyond normal time periods is a potentially damaging condition, especially to athletes who are genetically predisposed to pathologies. From the available evidence, it appears that delayed healing times occur when internal biochemistry and workload are not in balance, and a mere increase in temperature of 0.4 degrees Celsius can determine risk to specific muscle groups.

The inflammatory response to light exercise and heavy training is a normal condition. Only when the inflammation is accompanied by severe discomfort and followed by an impairment in sports performance or pain does the symptom pose risk. In clinical settings, physiotherapists should use thermography and reported symptoms and cross-validate those scores with primitive ortho examinations and imaging if necessary. Inflammatory responses that are beyond repair and enter the stage of degeneration can be seen by thermal scans.

Athletes who are managed properly will continue to have a typical inflammation pattern, but the severity and duration beyond normal will be reduced. Share on X

Thermography has potential for diagnosis, but for sports medicine, we (ThermoHuman) recommend using the approach for complementary purposes, including examination by a professional. Acute and chronic patterns of inflammation can guide support staff on how an injury or condition is trending. Over the years we have seen a distinct pattern for various injuries, ranging from acute tears to extended complex return to play challenges with the knee and hip. If tracked properly, inflammation patterns can be controlled and guided toward proper homeostasis. Athletes who are managed properly will continue to have a typical inflammation pattern, but the severity and duration beyond normal will be reduced.

A Case Study – Brazilian Soccer and Muscle Injuries

A question clubs ask me daily is whether sports thermography works with teams. My recommendation is for them to read the study from 2019 that utilizes our methodology². The study, conducted in Brazil, monitored elite soccer players for two years. All athletes were tracked, and thermography was used to monitor the skin temperature of the athletes. The process was repeated for two years, and the results were supportive of thermography as a complementary solution for muscle injuries.

The authors conclude:

Findings from this study show that athletes who had muscle injury in the first year (2015) did not present lesions at the same site the following year. Thus, the early identification of the risk of injury, through thermography and the preventive protocol applied, was important because there was no reinjury. Thus, the severity of lesions and time away in 2016 was lower.

It may never be possible to prevent injuries. Sport is still entertainment, and the show must go on with or without its star. What we strongly believe is that sports thermography will reduce the rate and severity of injuries, and reinjury changes will be reduced with sports thermography. Success can be measured with more players available on the pitch or court, but also in the communication and documentation of services and complaints of the athlete. Adding in training regimens and GPS data may expose practice techniques that increase risk, but only if thermography bridges the connection between internal and external loading. IT will be up to the practitioner, not just the technology, for the use of thermography to assist in injury reduction.

Emerging Research and New Frontiers

The expectation is that camera sensitivity and capturing techniques will improve in the future. Currently, the quality of camera and protocols are more than adequate to conquer the challenge of reducing muscle traits with athletes. Adding multiple cameras, creating dedicated workstations, and automating reporting are all exciting directions for us. As more teams adopt ThermoHuman, the approach to monitoring will evolve with its popularity. In the meantime, using thermography frequently is an effective monitoring process for muscle recovery.

Research has already increased, as roughly half of all sports thermography studies were published over the last 10 years. The next 10 years will certainly be exciting and promising. Better controlled studies and experiments are expected to originate from the collaborations of sport science and sport medicine. Outside of football (soccer) and swimming, I expect additional research in basketball and American football, along with rugby, cricket, and baseball.

The most radical potential area for ThermoHuman and sports thermography is software. We have already released our second version, which dramatically improves both the analysis and the reporting. What ensures that thermography is valid and reliable is the protocol of capturing the athlete and the way the information is processed.

If you aren’t comfortable with the concept of thermography monitoring, a good start is maximizing the use of body soreness scoring often seen with monitoring software. Share on X

In addition, all users need to have an action plan after imaging. We recommend sports medicine departments and fitness coaches have an idea in mind before starting the implementation of sports thermography into their monitoring program. If you are not comfortable with the concept of thermography monitoring, a good start is maximizing the use of body soreness scoring often seen with monitoring software. The future of monitoring is going to be faster, smarter, highly more accurate, and more demanding.

Injury Reduction Is Not a Holy Grail

We concur that athletes will continue to suffer injuries in the future, and no program will be perfect. The most precious athletes are often those prone to injury, and we can make a significant impact on player availability using thermography alone. By adding the use of biochemical and other forms of tracking into the monitoring equation, you can ward off obvious risks with a cooperative environment. It will require more education to get the best practices refined with thermography in sport, but I am confident that more education can turn a good monitoring program into a superior solution.

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. Impellizzeri, Franco M., Marcora, Samuel M., and Coutts, Aaron James. “Internal and External Training Load: 15 Years On.” International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance. 2019;14(2):1-4.

2. Côrte, Ana C., Pedrinelli, André, Marttos, Antonio, et al. “Infrared Thermography Study as a Complementary Method of Screening and Prevention of Muscle Injuries: Pilot Study.” BMJ Open Sport & Exercise Medicine. 2019;5(1):e000431.

Well, your track and field season just took an unexpected turn, didn’t it? Many states (including mine) have closed K-12 schools for the next several weeks or more, the NCAA has shut down its spring sports season, and as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to spread, it certainly isn’t going to get any easier for your track and field team to train. It’s entirely possible that high school athletics associations could follow suit behind the NCAA and cancel spring sports entirely. Not what you had in mind, is it?

If your coaches are in a situation like mine, they’re not allowed to have any face-to-face contact with athletes during the school closures—which is why they’ve forwarded you a link to this article. We are not allowed to encourage our athletes to meet on their own in groups. We cannot be a party to any sort of organized gathering of the young humans we coach to do the sports things we coach them to do. Speaking as a coach: I get it, but I don’t like it.

In Michigan, we are currently operating under the assumption our track and field season will resume on April 13. That means that for the next month, if our athletes are going to train at all, it has to be entirely on their own. From a training perspective, it’s not like this situation is totally unprecedented. Whether it’s the state-mandated dead period before your season begins, a vacation with your family, or your lack of reliable transportation during the summer months, there are periods throughout the year where many of you have had to train independently outside of a normal practice.

Coaches, these ideas aren’t for you. This article is for the athletes. Here is a four-week plan to train speed when track practice is out of the question, says @TrackCoachTG. Share on X

For all you speed-focused athletes, this can get tricky. Your teammates who run distance events or cross country can just hit the streets and log some miles, but on your own, it’s more challenging for you sprinters to get the level of high-intensity training needed to continue making speed gains. Nevertheless, I have some ideas.

Coaches—these ideas aren’t for you. Remember, most of us can’t coach our kids right now. But we can post articles on our Twitter accounts, right? This article is for the athletes. Here is a four-week plan to train speed when track practice is out of the question.

Sprint Drills

I don’t like to call anything “warm-ups.” Some of you—you know who you are—don’t always take warm-ups seriously. You go through the motions. These are sprint drills to practice proper sprinting technique and posture. They need to be done at a high intensity with attention to detail. You most likely do some of these drills in practice already. Lots of coaches teach them to their athletes. I have two different sets of sprint drills that I use in practice so that my athletes don’t do the exact same thing every single day. Variety is the spice of life, or whatever. Here they are, with links to videos so you can see what proper technique looks like.

SPRINT DRILLS – A DAY	SPRINT DRILLS – B DAY
A-marches	walk-over knees
A-skips	A-skips
B-skips	B-skips
high knees	backwards high knees
lunge walkovers	skip for height
butt kicks	pogo jumps for height
five box jumps	backward runs (butt kick and reach)
straight-leg bounds	boom-booms
wall drills	3×30 meter accelerations

Finding Your Space

An old coach once told me: “All you need to run track is two feet and a heart.” As cute as that might be, you also need some space if you’re going to train speed effectively. Get creative and explore your surroundings. You need to find a space that has between 60 and 80 meters of open space. A city sidewalk, an empty parking lot, your neighborhood cul-de-sac, a dirt road in the country, the soccer field at the middle school down the street, your backyard, the track at the school you’ve been banished from for the foreseeable future. The world is your oyster. The main thing here is that you need enough room to be able to sprint at or near your top speed.

Other things that could come in handy would be another person, a stopwatch or a smartphone, and some circle cones or mini-hurdles. None of these are necessary, per se, but they’re nice to have. Be resourceful. You can make mini-hurdles out of PVC pipe for under $25 dollars.

 

The Workouts

Let’s make this simple. You’re going to train three times a week for the next month. You might think you need to do more than that, and it’s likely that you would if you were at practice. But we need to be conscious of a few things here. First, you’re training speed and not endurance. Second, you need to prioritize rest and recovery when you do high-intensity training. And third, there is literally a pandemic happening, and you need to limit your exposure to other humans as much as possible. Don’t be a tough guy: There’s no prize being handed out for the person who is least worried about COVID-19.

Be smart, stay safe, and take care of yourself.

Week 1, Monday

Sprint Drills (A Day)

3x 40-Yard Dash

If you can get on a track, this will be easy for you to measure: boys’ hurdle marks are 10 yards apart. If you can’t, just ballpark it. We have to improvise here. Throw down a marker for the starting line, walk off a distance that’s about 40 yards, and throw down a marker for the finish line.

Maximum intent and top speed are the goal of these drills, so make sure you take plenty of rest between each sprint—at least 5 minutes, says @TrackCoachTG. Share on X

If you have a friend, they can help in one of two ways: they can time you, or they can race you. As long as you run the same distance for each rep, your times will give you relevant information even if it doesn’t provide NFL Combine accuracy. Maximum intent and top speed are the goal, so make sure you take plenty of rest between each sprint—at least five minutes. This feels like an eternity when you’re on your own, but you have to do it. Sorry, kid.

Week 1, Wednesday

Sprint Drills (B Day)

Plyometric Training

There are lots of great plyometric drills you can do with limited space and no equipment. Two feet and a heart! You could even do some of these in your living room, as long as you don’t knock your mom’s favorite vase off the mantle. Choose three or four of these that look interesting to you.

Week 1, Friday

Sprint Drills (A Day)

10x 30-Yard Fly, EMOTM

EMOTM means “every minute, on the minute.” A friend with a stopwatch is great, but a smartphone works just as well and will never betray you (except for autocorrect). Mark off a distance that’s around 30 yards. You can start another 5–10 yards behind the line for these, since they’re flying starts instead of stationary. Sprint 30 yards and start the stopwatch as soon as you take off. Your sprint should only last a little more than three seconds. That means you have another 57 to rest before you run again. Start your next sprint every minute, on the minute, until you’ve done all 10. Maximum intent and top speed are always the goal. The faster you sprint, the longer you get to rest.

You’re not done. Over the weekend you’re going to watch so much Netflix that your brain is going to turn into mashed potatoes—and not the good kind that your grandma makes, but the sad pasty kind from the school cafeteria. Save this link and set a reminder in your phone, because come Monday you’ll forget where you found these workouts. Go ahead, I’ll wait.

You good? Cool.

Week 2, Monday

Sprint Drills (B Day)

2x 60-Yard Dash

Most of your fellow high school athletes take around 40 yards to reach top speed, and most can only maintain that top speed for a couple seconds before they begin decelerating. By that logic, then, anything from 40 yards on down is more focused on acceleration than it is on maximum velocity. In order to get to maximum velocity training, you have to use a distance that allows you to reach it and maintain it. Enter the 60-yard dash.

Again, a track would be great, but you probably don’t have access to one unless you like climbing fences, which I would never encourage you to do.

Find a big space and mark off 60(ish) yards like we talked about before, and sprint. If you have someone to time you or race you, that would be great, because we tend to run faster when a clock or a competitor is involved. If you’re on your own, that’s okay too. Make sure you rest 8–10 minutes before sprinting a second time.

Week 2, Wednesday

Sprint Drills (A Day)

Myrtl Hip Routine

5x Wickets

10x Depth Jumps

10x Box Jumps

Today you’re going to spice it up a bit. The Myrtl hip routine will help you with your hip strength and mobility. I coach hurdlers, so I like mixing this in every now and again. For wickets, use your resources. Did you build those mini-hurdles I told you about? Why not? Bruh. You have nothing but time on your hands this month. Okay, well, do you have some circle cones? No? Go in the yard and pick up some sticks, then. All you need is something you can a) put on the ground, and b) see reasonably well.

Whatever you decide to use as your visual marker, put 10 of them on the ground about six feet apart from one another. Then back up about 15 yards or so and sprint, stepping between each wicket (or cone, or stick…sticket?) that you put down. The key is to sprint fast and to maintain an upright sprinting posture during the drill.

Next, you’re going to do a series of jumps. You might not have access to a box, but lots of things will work for this. You could use a park bench, the steps of your front porch, an upside-down milk crate, the edge of the fountain outside the library, or any other surface that is a couple feet high and sturdy enough to hold you. You’ll do your depth jumps first, then take a break and do your box jumps. The goal is not to get tired here, nor to do them all in succession as fast as you can. Take your time between reps, focusing on being explosive off the ground and landing under control.

Week 2, Friday

Sprint Drills (B Day)

3x 20-Yard Dash

2x 30-Yard Dash

1x 40-Yard Dash

You know what to do. Mark off your distances and sprint. Find a friend to time you or race you. As a general rule, rest for one minute for each 10 yards you sprint. That means rest for two minutes after each 20-yard dash and three minutes after each 30. You don’t have to rest for four minutes after your 40, because you’re done. You can rest the remainder of the weekend, right after you put that reminder in your phone for Monday.

Week 3, Monday

Sprint Drills (A Day)

3x 40-Yard Dash

You already did this. Do I need to explain it again? Scroll back up to the very first workout if you forgot

Week 3, Wednesday

Sprint Drills (B Day)

2x 5 Single-Leg Hops

3x 30-Yard Speed Bounds

3x Stair Sprints

For your single-leg hops you can use equipment or your imagination. Those mini-hurdles that you didn’t build last week but definitely built over the weekend would be handy, as would the cones or the sticks. If you don’t have any of those things, pretend that you do. Imagine that you have five mini-hurdles lined up in front of you, spaced a few feet apart, and you’re going to hop on one foot over each of them. When you hop, you have to cycle your hopping leg up and through so it clears the hurdle, whether it be real or imaginary. Land and immediately hop again—bouncy is fast! You don’t want to spend a lot of time on the ground between hops. Do five on each leg, then rest and do five more.

Next, you’ll do some speed bounds. When you do these, make sure to focus on pushing off the ground on contact, driving your opposite knee, and keeping your toe in a dorsiflexed position (that means your toe should be flexed up, toward your shin, instead of hanging down).

Any stairs will work for the final piece of today’s workout, so long as there are about 10–15 of them. You could run up the basement stairs like you did when you were little and thought there was a monster inside the furnace. If you’re reading in Philadelphia, you could recreate the iconic scene from Rocky, only a lot faster. What? You haven’t seen Rocky? Kids these days.

Start at the bottom of the stairs and sprint to the top as fast as you can. Walk back down. Rest a couple minutes. There’s no drill-sergeant-turned-football-coach here for you to impress. Walk means walk. Rest means rest. Do it, and then sprint again. The goal is to be as fast as you can each time you go up the stairs, not make yourself so tired that you’re in danger of falling down them.

Week 3, Friday

Sprint Drills (A Day)

4x 7-Second Drill

You’ll probably need 80 yards for this one. Another person would be good, too. Throw down a marker for a starting line and set a timer (or have your friend set one) for seven seconds. Start the timer, and sprint as far as you can in seven seconds. Make a note of how far you made it—your friend can throw down a second marker to indicate your total distance. Then, after three minutes of rest, do the same thing again, trying to get as close to your total distance on the first sprint as you can. You’ll do this four times in total. Set a reminder in your phone for Monday, go take a shower (you smell v bad), and find Rocky on your favorite streaming service so you can watch it this weekend.

Week 4, Monday

Sprint Drills (A Day)

3x 30-Yard Fly

Mark off your start and finish areas somewhere in the ballpark of 30 yards apart. Start another 10–15 yards behind the cones. Your goal is to be as fast as you can possibly be between the cones. If you have a person who can time you, that’s great. If not, you’re going to have to push yourself. Rest for somewhere between three and five minutes before sprinting again.

Week 4, Wednesday

Sprint Drills (B Day)

5x Wickets

5x Star Jumps

10x Step-Ups (Each Leg)

5x Standing Broad Jump for Distance

I’m extremely proud of you for building those mini-hurdles. Strong work.

Star jumps are an explosive movement, and you should aim to jump as high as you can each time. If we are trying to be explosive, there’s no point in doing anything but aiming for maximum height. It’s only five, so go all out.

All you need is one stair for this. Even the curb on the side of the street will work. When you do your step-ups, make sure that you maintain appropriate sprinting posture, and that you push down hard onto the step. You’re looking to generate vertical force onto the surface while driving your knee and keeping your toe in a dorsiflexed position. Do 10 of these on each leg.

Finally, test yourself on some standing broad jumps. Start from the same spot each time and see how far you can go. Then try to go farther the next time. You won’t feel tired after each attempt, but you still need to rest a minute or two before you go again.

Week 4, Friday

Sprint Drills (A Day)

8x 40-Yard Dash EMOTM

Set your start and finish areas as close to 40 yards apart as you can manage. Get your stopwatch or smartphone ready, start the clock, and sprint 40 yards as fast as you can. If it takes you 5 seconds, you now have 55 seconds to rest. Line it up and go again. Do this eight times. You will have done 320 yards of sprint work, so you’ll be a little bit winded at the end of this one, but probably not as bad as if you’d done all 320 yards at once. You should sprint as fast as you can each time, because you don’t get faster by running slow.

One thing is for sure: If track and field starts back up in a month and you haven’t worked on your speed, you will be starting from scratch when you return to practice, says @TrackCoachTG. Share on X

The Return

If all goes according to plan, you should be back in action with your team after these four weeks. If not, it’s likely the entire spring season has been cancelled. Only time will tell. But one thing is for sure: If track and field starts back up in a month and you haven’t worked on your speed, you’re going to be starting from scratch when you return to practice. Are you willing to bet that your biggest rival has been sitting on the couch eating chips for that entire time? If it were me, I’d want to be ready for action when the time comes.

Be smart, be safe, and be fast. And for goodness sake, wash your hands.

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

When you make a living in the sports performance industry, whether it’s working for a professional team or university or providing a service to a group of individual athletes, you’re in the business of making promises. These promises can be accompanied by a set of strategic recommendations, injury prevention strategies, recovery enhancements, technological improvements, or psychological interventions. The “promisers” typically have their own lane or niche.  Some skill sets are easy to identify, while others are often steeped in intrigue, mystique, and complexity (i.e., “He’s using lots of big, multi-syllable words that confuse me, so he must be an expert!”).

In my case, I’m often called upon to improve the speed of individuals and teams. Organizations know what they want. The “product” can be very measurable. And, although unspoken, this product must lead to wins and championships—no questions asked. Making a team faster with no improvement in the “Wins” column is not acceptable in the land of billion-dollar pro sports organizations. Being able to deliver on such promises is quite another proposition, and living on this razor’s edge can be quite a stressful existence. So, where do you begin?

It’s often thought that producing speedy athletes involves a special combination of well-packaged exercises and drills dispensed by animated coaches. When it comes to making an entire roster of players faster, some assume that you simply dispense more drills and exercises in a one-size-fits-all manner, preferably with loud music blaring in the background. And expensive cutting-edge technologies absolutely must be part of the package to demonstrate the efficacy of the exercises and drills, avoiding relegation to the label of old-school coaching dinosaur. While trendy exercise programming bundled with sexy tech is thought to yield rapid and sustainable results, I must bring you back to down to earth and set the record straight. Most of the bottom dwellers excel at this approach.

Anything worthwhile and sustainable takes time to cultivate. Overnight improvements are quite rare and, in sports where well-coordinated teamwork is critical for success, almost impossible to achieve. This is exceptionally true when developing speed, particularly at the team-wide level. But why does it take so long? Many variables and elements must be addressed on a comprehensive level for a team to be considered one of the fastest in the league that also can win a championship year after year. While some general managers and coaches may take an athlete-centered approach, this is only one piece of the puzzle. An attitude around speed development and application must be cultivated organization-wide to attain a critical mass of acceptance and buy-in that becomes systemically applied and considered around all decision-making.

We talk about the speed of movement, the speed of decision-making, the speed of recognition, the speed of communication, and the speed of thinking. Share on X

Hence, I’ve adopted an approach to change the organizational culture around speed when I work with various teams in both the professional and collegiate sport circles. We talk about the speed of movement, the speed of decision-making, the speed of recognition, the speed of communication, and the speed of thinking. Essentially—the speed of everything.  Running speed is a good starting point as everyone knows who is fast and who is slow. It may cut as deeply as being chosen (or not chosen) back in grade school for a team by your peers. If you were fast, you were likely chosen earlier. If you were slow, playground natural selection quickly and brutally took its course. Modern technology has made us think about speed over everything. Speed of data transfer. Speed of production. Speed of delivery. Even the speed of meeting a new partner. Thus, speed must be all-encompassing and decisively adopted by everyone. So how do we accomplish this?

Why Focus on Culture?

These days, we often hear of leaders changing the culture of a company or cultivating a positive culture around productivity, innovation, and success. “It’s not just what we create, it’s who we are!” and other lovely memes circulate through the organization and appear in elevators and above urinals. Either you are for the culture or you are against it.  The type of momentum generated by culture can be quite powerful and enduring. While some culture initiatives are simply corporate feel-good projects that never materialize into anything productive, a well-implemented strategy that has a positive systemic impact can truly vault an organization into a unique category of success. Some would say that Bill Belichick has instituted a culture of discipline, accountability, precision, talent identification, and strategic superiority at the New England Patriots that we can interchangeably superimpose on different personnel with similar positive results. Whether there’s an organization-wide culture initiative or a top-down dictatorship is up for debate, but the results are indisputable.

The term culture, as defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary, is as follows:

“The set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes an institution or organization.”

While culture can often refer to the customs, arts, and social institutions of a country, ethnicity, or community, sports organizations often discuss culture in terms of the dictionary definition, adopting attitudes, goals, and practices in the hope that success quickly follows. In business circles, corporate culture is deemed successful only if a business is also financially viable. Employee satisfaction, career longevity, community involvement, and other qualities can be part of that assessment, but if a business is losing money, it really doesn’t matter. In the same vein, a sports organization can have lots of happy players that get along with coaches and staff, sign autographs, and attend charity events. But if they aren’t winning, the organization will make changes sooner than later.

It’s important to point out that when instituting an approach that is adopted organization-wide—a culture shift—casualties can be incurred during the implementation. In the recent award-winning Netflix documentary, American Factory, a Chinese company acquired a former automobile factory in Moraine, Ohio, intending to turn the business around and make it profitable again as an auto glass production facility. With that in mind, the Chinese factory owners—who operated similar successful factories in China—instituted a change in the corporate culture that mirrored their previous ventures. Much of that culture revolved around the speed and volume of production, sometimes to the detriment of worker safety. Slower, less productive employees also were systematically fired as part of the transition.

Clearly, the key goal of the culture change was profitability and sustainability, not affability. The company offered significantly lower wages to the non-unionized employees, and job security was limited. But the factory was operational and providing jobs to individuals who were unemployed for three to four years previously. While this is not exactly comparable to New England Patriots players taking lower salaries in exchange for championships, culture can be exceptionally ruthless on the path to success.

While it’s all well and good to discuss culture and organization-wide change, it’s quite another thing to organize all of the pieces in a manner that yields progress. In the case of movement speed, there is no shortage of experts and gurus in the industry to show you new drills, equipment, biomechanical analyses, research papers, and fancy technology.  But none of this matters if you don’t have organization-wide buy-in with everyone pulling in the same direction. Provided below is a list of requirements that give organizations a fighting chance to effect positive change around movement speed that applies to their finished product.

Personnel

When implementing a culture change, everyone must be part of the solution. It’s short-sighted to think that you only need to overhaul the players. Everyone in the organization must examine their role in increasing the speed of play as it pertains to developing a championship organization. You might be surprised how important the roles of front office executives, coaches, and staff play in cultivating an ecosystem of movement speed and everything that comes with it. The measures taken by all individuals add up to create a sum total of faster team play. While a race car requires a powerful, durable engine to attain the speeds necessary for victory, it also needs an exceptional driver, a fastidious pit crew, top-notch mechanics, and appropriate financing to ensure the team assembles all the critical pieces at the right time. The list below is not exhaustive, but it shows how the key pieces interact to maximize the possibility of improving a team’s overall speed capabilities.

Players

First and foremost, you do have to start with the players who make up your team. We have all heard the saying, “Sprinters are born, not made!” There is significant truth to this statement, and all teams and sport organizations should take heed. Selecting players who have the right combination of muscle fiber type, nervous system output, and compatible anthropometrics is critical for filling your stable with thoroughbreds. While we all like to think we can coach ourselves out of mediocre genetics, the bottom line is that biology is significantly more important than methodology. This is why all talent scouts need to arm themselves with a stopwatch in addition to their sport-specific wisdom. An athlete’s innate speed capabilities are the foundation upon which you will build other vital qualities and skills.

An athlete's innate speed capabilities are the foundation upon which you will build other key qualities and skills, says @DerekMHansen. Share on X

We often see and hear track coaches extoll the virtues of running track to prepare athletes for other sports. While I don’t disagree with this line of reasoning, I specifically like to watch athletes compete in Track and Field events because I can see them run over multiple, maximum output scenarios—a larger sample size upon which to evaluate their speed abilities per se. How do they run over shorter sprints? How do they run over longer sprints? How do they run after a bad start? How do they run in inclement weather? How durable are they over the length of multiple track seasons? How do they perform in high-pressure situations? All of these scenarios matter and provide much more information than two repetitions of a forty-yard dash at a combine or pro day.

Players not only need to be fast, but also need to have the specific conditioning to repeat high speeds consistently throughout the game. Legendary NFL strength coach Al Miller once told me that Jerry Rice’s brilliance was in his ability to repeat the same speed through the entire game. While he may not have had the glorious 40-yard dash times of Deion Sanders, he could wear down defenders with his superb conditioning. “He would run at defenders at his top speed throughout the first half of the game. By the second half, he didn’t slow down one bit, and the defensive back was at his mercy,” noted Coach Miller. This off-season preparation was entirely created by Rice’s legendary commitment to off-season training.

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Flowing from the story of Jerry Rice’s unique accomplishments, an organization must choose athletes who understand the importance of maintaining the level of commitment to speed training and preparation that got them there in the first place. It’s very common to see athletes reach the professional ranks on their talent—often fostered by the discipline and structure of a collegiate setting—only to lose their edge and motivation once they start getting paid. Like the heavyweight boxer who worked tirelessly to the title belt, their work ethic and character can quickly fall off once they achieve a taste of fame and glory. Championship organizations need players who have longevity of motivation and ability to have a fighting chance to compete for the title year after year. This means consistent dedication to training in the off-season and maintaining health and ability during the season. Not every athlete has this level of commitment and character.

Championship organizations need players with longevity of motivation & ability if they want a chance to compete for the title year after year. Share on X

Traditionally, the faster players tend to be the newer, younger stallions who were honed by their college preparation and perhaps a career on the track team. Newer and younger also means cheaper. Once players have had time to develop a resume of stats and legitimacy, they’ve earned the right to demand more expensive contracts. It’s also a good bet that they’ve slowed down a step or two—de-trained from the diet of life as a pro and less urgent off-season preparation. While they may have gained valuable tricks of the trade, skills, and knowledge to help compensate for their speed loss, the net gain may be zero. Hence, a sound return on investment may require a commitment from these players to buy-in to the comprehensive approach adopted by coaches and staff. The right combination of fresh newcomers and well-maintained veterans under the right coaches can be very difficult to slow down from game to game, and it may be only a matter of time before a deluge of speed takes over the game.

Coaches

The obvious role of the sport coach is to place their athletes in positions to take advantage of their talents. A coach who doesn’t involve the fastest players in all aspects of the game will leave some very valuable cards on the table. From a purely strategic point of view, developing schemes and plays that put fast players in open space is critical for taking advantage of individual speed potential. Players with speed often can create something out of nothing. But to achieve consistent success, coaches must play a part in systematically creating opportunities for game-breaking plays using team speed. This can include disguising formations, creating misdirection, and using the occasional trick-play to keep the other team off balance. Once the opposition is thrown off balance, team speed can quickly shift momentum and drastically change the outcome of a game.

To achieve consistent success, coaches must help systematically create opportunities for game-breaking plays using team speed, says @DerekMHansen. Share on X

Sport coaches also need to work closely with strength and conditioning staff to make sure they’ve allocated an appropriate amount of time throughout the year to work on speed development. While this may seem like an easy ask, sport coaches are often overwhelmed with technical and tactical issues, always looking for extra repetitions or run-throughs to ensure they prepare their players adequately for impending competitions. Having worked with several teams on speed programming, I’ve found it’s always difficult to ask for a few extra minutes here and there to fit in high quality sprinting reps and the associated recovery time. However difficult the ask, you not only must do it, but you also must make the head coach aware of the need to allocate the necessary time to get the job done (i.e., make players faster). Sport coaches need to understand the time it takes to reproduce maximal sprint efforts for improvement to occur.

I remember being called several years ago by a professional sports team, and the strength coach told me they had 15 minutes to work on speed. He asked, “What can we program in that time?” I told them if they truly wanted to work on speed and had to warm the players up adequately, they would be lucky to get a few quality sprints in that window, given the recovery requirements of several minutes between reps. The strength coach replied, “Our head coach doesn’t want to see guys standing around for a few minutes between reps.” I could only respond with, “Well, I guess your head coach doesn’t want your guys to get faster.” This is the reality with most sports teams.

A few strategically placed recovery breaks goes a long way to increase the speed of practice & minimize the possibility of injury, says @DerekMHansen. Share on X

Sport coaches also need to understand how the demands of practice can slow down their players. The sheer density of drills and plays during practice can slow movement speeds significantly, and the steady accumulation of these types of practices has the potential to de-train speed abilities over the course of a season. A few strategically placed recovery breaks can go a long way to increase the speed of practice and also minimize the possibility of injury. For many coaches, however, taking their foot off the gas in practice is not part of their DNA. As the old saying goes, “Fortune favors the bold.” A new generation of coaches may start to understand the value of incorporating rest breaks in lieu of rehearsing plays that may never be used in game situations.

Performance Staff and Strength and Conditioning Coaches

Strength coaches are often characterized by their love of the weight room and all sorts of weightlifting equipment. It’s not surprising that a large proportion of strength coaches don’t feel comfortable teaching sprint training to athletes. Often, strength coaches use gym-based solutions instead of actual sprint training to work within their comfort zone. Recently, more performance staff have started recognizing the value of emphasizing speed training and have adjusted their approaches accordingly. Strength coaches with less aptitude have hired consultants to help with technical training and programming. I’ve been brought in on numerous occasions to teach team staff how to coach speed throughout the season. Gradually, an acceptance of the critical on-field requirements is taking hold among performance staff. But the amount of time, energy, and money spent on education, professional development, and equipment purchases still disproportionately favors the weight room.

We often hear that performance departments should simply hire track sprint coaches to teach athletes how to run. While this is likely an improvement over the “running” skillsets of traditional strength coaches’, it’s unfortunately not that simple. While every sport can benefit from linear sprint training, speed professionals must also understand the specific requirements and the culture of the sport with which they’re working. There are limitations within every sport that restrict the ability of conventional track training conventions. These limitations include time, space, athlete awareness, and the perception of coaches.

I’m sure everyone would love just to slap down some mini-hurdles and tell people to lift their knees. News flash—it ain’t that easy. I’ve been working with teams for over 20 years, and trust me, working with team sport personalities, schedules, and logistics requires a much different skill set. The ability to adapt methods and techniques to the sport-specific needs and desires of the coaches and athletes is imperative for success. You wouldn’t drop an Olympic weightlifting coach into a sprint training group without a chaperone present to blend techniques, translate terminology, and integrate methods progressively; speed professionals must become acclimated to the culture before making any significant contributions. And it may take many years before any significant changes that make it onto the field of play are minimally realized.

Medical Staff, Physical Therapists, and Athletic Trainers

Gone are the days of receiving a physical therapy treatment, hopping off the table, and running onto the field. Return-to-play (RTP) is not as simple as a handshake, a few warm wishes, and some crossed fingers. Every dot must be connected along the continuum from injury to recovery to the restoration of function to practice and, finally, to full competition. While some people like to use words like load management, I prefer to apply the basic tenets of progressive comprehensive training that prepare an athlete for the stresses and demands of their sport. Hence, medical staff must be part of the continuum of care and must understand the demands of high-speed running that could be addressed much earlier in the RTP process than previously thought. If these staff members do not understand the mechanics, velocities, and forces involved in the movements required for high-level performances, gaps in preparation will widen and place the athlete at risk of re-injury, never mind limit their output and overall performance capabilities.

Based on my own experiences in teaching both performance and medical staff at the highest levels, none of the skills involved in returning someone to high-speed running are discussed or taught in formal medical or rehabilitation science university programs. Time and effort must be taken to equip these professionals with the tools to not only understand what they need to do but also the abilities to conduct the protocols and training sessions on their own. Some of the work could be performed in a clinical setting, with medical staff gradually moving to the weight room and field environment soon after. In some cases, athletes could be handed off to performance staff as part of the continuum of care with both parties speaking the same language to discuss the choices to date and pinpoint the next steps in the process. Such a seamless process will not only build athlete confidence in team staff but also ensure that no stone is left unturned in the RTP journey, maximizing the potential for both durability and sustainability.

Front Office

Front office executives often work hand-in-hand with coaching staff when identifying talent and choosing players in drafting scenarios, free agent signings, and trades. While every team may have different means of determining needs, it’s assumed that most successful teams draw up short-, medium-, and long-term strategies around player acquisitions that fit into their coaching style and within their salary cap. When adopting a team-speed approach, front office executives must have a strategy that identifies players who have appropriate speed abilities as well as the sport-specific skills, mindset, behavioral traits, and teamwork qualities that fit with their vision for the organization. The executives who can identify, acquire, and integrate the players with pure speed ability and the sport-specific skills to go with it will undoubtedly give their team an upper hand.

The team must also have a significant degree of depth when it comes to the speed of personnel. Competition in training camp and practice must bring out the high-speed capabilities of each and every player. If only a handful of players on a team are fast—with the average speed of the roster hovering at mediocre—the speed at which practice is carried out can be much lower and impact the reflexes and anticipatory skills of each player. Teams often strive to practice as they play, but slower speed in practice will almost always lead to the same result at game time. Thus, it’s critical the front office executives strive to acquire players that are fast at every position and throughout the depth chart.

Legendary ice hockey player—Wayne Gretzky—had notable on-ice speed. And he was surrounded by teammates who could easily match him on the ice—such as Paul Coffey, Mark Messier, Glenn Anderson, and Jari Kerri—and mesmerize opposing teams with their speed and skill. There is great video footage of Gretzky beating other top athletes, including soccer star Pele and tennis phenom Bjorn Borg, in sprinting competitions in Sweden back in the early 1980s. Clearly, organizations can only benefit by surrounding speed with more speed.

Ownership

The team owner is as important as everyone else in the planning, decision-making, and implementation chain when it comes to the team culture around speed. First and foremost, there is a financial commitment that’s implicit when seeking out the appropriate players for the roster. Renewing contracts, signing free agents, and scouting new talent efficiently all take significant resources. The right coaches must be in place to implement a system and series of programs that can maximize the abilities of each player on the team.

On the infrastructure side, owners must provide the necessary facilities for accommodating a speed-based approach. On several occasions, I’ve been contracted to guide the design and construction of ramps and hills for resisted speed training within the confines of a practice facility. This is not a small endeavor and requires the approval of budgets as part of a long-term vision. Finally, these facilities need to be outfitted with the appropriate advanced technology to track and monitor progress from session to session and networked accordingly to allow for quick analysis, review, encryption, and storage.

In some cases, ownership may choose to be stingy with spending on building the correct roster, let alone committing to a long-term approach for player development. Many professional teams turn a profit from simply being in a league full of talented, outspoken athletes. If the home team isn’t faring well for a season or two, fans still show up to see stars from visiting teams and still buy beer, burgers, hot dogs, nachos, and player jerseys. Television revenues also maintain profitability for owners and paying for “extras” that may or may not yield post-season success is not always considered a wise financial strategy. The mindset to create the potential for any distinct advantage over the competition must be hard-wired from the top down to give an organization a fighting chance for a championship.

Private Sector Service Providers

One often overlooked area that’s part of the big picture of speed development and maintenance is the private sector coaches and performance professionals who work with players in the off-season. Because most professional sport collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) limit the amount of time team staff can spend training players—with some pro sports not allowing any significant monitoring of player off-season activities—coordination and integration of contributions made by private sector professionals is critical for an organization’s continuum of care. The pro team must make efforts, within the rules of the CBAs, to communicate and share information with service providers throughout the year to build trust, disclose important information, and demonstrate a willingness to work together toward a common goal.

There will always be a handful of players who choose to do their off-season work with a personal coach or trainer who simply wants to entertain them. Organizations, however, must recognize that the majority of private coaches have a vested interest in seeing the process through to a championship and the individual accolades that can come from it. Teams also need to allow for creative license in implementing off-season work, assuming the general goals of the off-season physical preparation are agreed upon. A team built on a foundation of speed can only expect that the off-season activities of individual players should include a reasonable amount of speed work outside the gym environment. The onus is on both sides to work together for the benefit of both the athlete and the team. As with any relationship, time must be allotted for gradual growth and mutual respect. As with every element concerned with speed, this is not an overnight proposition and may take years to cultivate and optimize.

Programming and Planning

Once the proper infrastructure and personnel are in place, programming becomes one of the easier components to design and implement when cultivating a broad-based culture of speed. The different times of year have varying opportunities and constraints that all coaches and staff must take into account. A team with a well-developed culture around speed will take advantage of the entire year to maximize opportunities for improving speed and the practices of various stakeholders, and not simply put their chips on one number and hoping for results. Diversifying your speed training approaches is necessary for the volatile market of high-performance sports.

Off-Season

Depending on your sport, level, and professional league, the off-season may present either a significant opportunity to improve speed or a major obstacle to working with athletes. As a team or professional organization, you can mobilize staff and implement a comprehensive approach to consistent training for speed that will ultimately mesh with your in-season strategy.  However, if players’ unions and CBAs limit coaching time with your athletes, the off-season may not be the best time to mount your assault on mediocre sprint ability. If player participation in the off-season period is lacking, it may be the best time for coaches and staff to meet and formulate a reasonable pre-season and in-season plan around optimizing team speed.

For teams that have the opportunity to accumulate a significant number of sessions dedicated to speed development in the off-season, emphasizing quality and consistency will pay substantial dividends throughout the rest of the season. Acceleration abilities are the highest priority for training, as most sports involve relatively short accelerations repeatedly throughout a game or competition. While some programs will focus on endurance and general conditioning, accumulating hundreds of acceleration repetitions over 10-20 meters will build specific endurance qualities for accelerating. I’ve seen this work first hand, and I’ve even watched it significantly improve the results of evaluation protocols geared toward aerobic interval testing. Knowing what type of work carries the biggest bang for your buck is critical when you’re constantly squeezed for time in team sport settings. Understanding that ideal conditions will never be available for your off-season programming is the first realization to make before you achieve any progress—however minute.

Pre-Season

The pre-season is rife with sport-specific demands, many of which can quickly exceed the capacity of every player if left unchecked. Strategic objectives and player evaluations take priority over all else. Endless repetitions allow for the installation of the “system” and weeding out players who cannot survive or fit into the speed and precision of everything.  Because the bulk of energy and tissue resiliency are dedicated to these sport-specific demands, you must dispense any additional loading of a high-intensity nature very carefully with surgical precision.

You cannot overcome deficits in such a volatile, short-term period, but you can reinforce technical norms through activities prior to practice, such as in the warm-up sessions. Traditionally, warm-up activities—even the so-called dynamic warm-ups—hover in the low- to medium-intensity range at velocities and rates of force development that do not resemble what will take place in the heat of battle. A combination of fear and complacency can quickly take hold when you could easily achieve productivity with a few simple changes. Moving into more intense activities such as linear accelerations from various start positions can encourage adaptability and hasten readiness in these shorter warm-up periods with minimal risk to athletes if progressed appropriately. Imposing such a demand will have a positive effect on readiness and, more importantly, overall preparedness over numerous sessions during the pre-season period.

In-Season

In professional sports, the in-season period can become a very attractive domain for effecting changes and maintaining qualities above and beyond what at “typical” team attempts to accomplish. However, readiness and recovery seem to be the rule of the day, with fancy terms such as load management popping up more and more. Many people assume that rest and even more rest is the solution to every problem—performance deficits, injury problems, and athlete discontent. And that performance staff are unaware of the sinister effects of de-training that may occur with multiple systems—systems not appropriately stressed through practice and competition alone.

As with the pre-season scenario, you can plan warm-ups to include discrete amounts of speed work. A well organized in-season program will also include at least one session per week where you can accomplish a more ambitious attempt at consolidating speed work. If combined with a sound practice plan that gives players opportunities to hit higher speed in a sport-specific fashion—taking advantage of open space—teams may even experience speed improvements as the season progresses. For the in-season period, my experience shows “Fortune favors the bold” in that those who push the boundaries are destined to be rewarded while those who continue to back off will eventually find themselves pinned to a wall.

Post-Season

If you take the correct measures for developing and maintaining speed for the rest of the year leading up to the post-season, you’ll have very little work to do to reap the benefits. Of course, it’s only advisable to maintain some of the same routines established in the regular season once the post-season comes around. Nobody wants to peak too early; the free fall from a premature de-loading effort can be unrecoverable both physiologically and psychologically. The post-season hopefully becomes a validation of all of the well-measured training stresses you’ve imposed throughout the year.

Professional Development

A change in culture often involves facilitation, encouragement, and guidance along the journey. It might seem easier to simply change the entire staff to fit your vision for a team. However, upgrading the “software” with the current staff is often all you need, particularly if everyone gets along and has developed trusted relationships with the team’s top players. Professional development is an important commitment, but often the commitment is fragmented, planned at the last minute, and lacks overall coherence in relation to organizational goals. “Flavor of the month” professional development events are common, with staff picking their preference of who they want to see. During one off-season, it may be manual therapy techniques, the next year it’s load management practices, and next year it will be virtual reality for performance and rehab. While I understand the allure of variety, at some point you have to focus on consistency and hone specific skill sets that will translate into results over the long term. While this may not seem like an exciting approach to professional development, it is absolutely necessary in the pursuit of mastery.

Creating a long-term professional development plan within a professional sports organization seems like a naïve concept, given that time in pro sports can be short-lived. I argue, however, that front office executives would embrace employees who had a long-term vision and developed a plan around meeting those goals in an ambitious, albeit realistic fashion. Sports dynasties are not born overnight; they’re developed through careful management of variables over time, evolving every year. It’s so easy to attribute wins to personnel and talent alone. However, longevity requires that everyone working under the same roof has deliberate intent to get better every game, every week, and every season for the duration of their tenure. A focused, long-term continuing education plan must be part of that intent.

Marketing and Promotion

Faster game play in most sports is often much more entertaining than either a defensive-minded or blue-collar approach to competition. Even when slow, patient, and deliberate works regarding the scoreboard, it’s incredibly tedious and boring. There is a reason basketball has a shot clock, football has a play clock, and delay of game penalties exist. Moving fast is intrinsically appealing and looks better to the human eye. Professional leagues are now using technology and data to emphasize players’ speed on the field with wonderful dashboards and graphic displays that point more to gamification and celebration of elevated metrics. The NFL Combine may not be an integral part of draft research for individual teams, but as a promotional event, it attracts a good amount of attention and places speed front and center. Even Rich Eisen is dedicated to running faster every year in the 40-yard dash as he passes the half-century mark.

Once a team has speed, show it to the world. Speed propaganda is an untapped element within the cultural ecosystem, says @DerekMHansen. Share on X

Once a team has speed on its side, it makes good marketing sense to show the world the fruits of their labor. The team knows it, the fans know it, and more importantly, it’s embedded in the minds of the opposition every time they step into the competition arena. Perception becomes a reality, and everyone changes the way they think about that team. If you say it enough, people start to believe it. Speed propaganda is an untapped element within the cultural ecosystem.

Concluding Remarks

While I expect more people to start talking about the culture of speed (or maybe even the culture of load management) very soon, I challenge them to fully define what they envision and how they will implement it broadly and effectively. Just as we’ve seen from the people who have become overnight gurus in the art of micro-dosing training (it took me about 20 years to label and refine the concept), we quickly realize that talk is cheap and results speak volumes. If you have truly implemented a broad cultural approach to speed, you will clearly see the results demonstrated week to week so that everyone can see it at the stadiums and arenas and via live streaming broadcasts. Walking the walk takes years of planning and development, while talking can occur instantaneously. Choose wisely who you follow.

I’ve built my professional development courses upon decades of trial and error around the integration of speed techniques with tens of thousands of athletes and almost every sport conceivable. A large sample size of experiences is extremely valuable in helping you navigate through all the potential challenges and crises experienced in sport every day. The various modules of the Running Mechanics Professional (RMP) courses are a building block solution to comprehensively integrating a speed-based approach to all types of sports at all levels. We discuss the interactions you’ll have with all potential stakeholders—athletes, coaches, parents, administrators, physical therapists, doctors, psychologists, and scientists—in your quest to slow down time and speed up movement. A strong culture involves a common language, customs handed down from generation to generation, an appreciation of art, and strong leadership throughout. It does not matter what individual qualities you want to improve in a person or organization, as they still need to be surrounded by a profusion of supportive elements to ensure both quality and sustainability.

While many people will continue to put forth exercise-based or data-driven solutions, the advanced specialist will understand the exceptional importance of ecosystem building and relationship cultivation that forms the foundation of any speed-centered initiative. My personal experience over the last few decades continues to confirm this approach and will ultimately outlive my career. I desire to impart this knowledge to those who genuinely want to immerse themselves in a culture-based approach. Coursework is simply the start of this relationship—an ignition point. Ongoing ecosystem development and management is a lifelong endeavor.