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The best sprinters in the world apply large amounts of force in short periods of time at maximum velocity. I believe it is the ALTIS program that has said, “Apply force in the right way, at the right time.” I have come to love this quote because the subtext here is that there is more to it than simply mashing the ground with reckless abandon. Speed and rhythm are not mutually exclusive terms. In this article, I cover how we develop the sometimes-vague ability to hold and create rhythm with drills and cues.

Getting Started with Rhythm

Instead of getting wordy with long-winded origin stories or rationale for rhythm work, let’s get started. Here’s a video of one of our former standouts, Diego Fernandez. I love this video because, although he has gone sub 1.00 in the 10m fly (22.5 mph,) he looks effortless and at peace here. He has attained maximum velocity and then he maintains a rhythm. His chest is projected slightly forward, his pelvis is neutral, and he is upright without being too tall, which can make the ground reactive force low. His arms are free of tension, while his legs look ready to strike. Because of his posture, limb timing, and rhythm, he is ready for the ground before he even gets there. He will not be as compliant in the lower limbs at touchdown. Posture. Rhythm. Timing.

If I had four sprinters this talented who put the time in on this, we would win a state championship every year. We start early in the year with acceleration complexes and begin timing flys in some capacity shortly thereafter. We don’t do flys with full run-in until a base of accelerations has been laid. I think patience is important because I am not coaching elite sprinters.

I am not just interested in an athlete’s improvement from week 1 to week 2. They could improve their top speed just because they were more motivated or timed their acceleration better. We will celebrate it, of course, but I’ve had some athletes run solid fly times gritting their teeth with red faces. Fast, but not sustainable or extendable.

Three-Bucket Position Iso Hold and Captain Morgan Hops 

I love wickets. Most of my sprinters are really bad at wickets, at least for a while. Running over wickets requires that you run fast enough, with good enough posture—and therefore, good lower limb stiffness—to have enough vertical displacement to switch thighs with terrific timing. It is the speed that creates the short ground contacts, not actively trying to achieve short contacts.

I will do wickets, but not in the first few weeks, and even then, probably not with the JV group. If it is rhythm with ground reactive force we are trying to develop, then I think we need to check some other boxes first before my beautiful wicket garden ends up trampled to bits. If I provide context with some other items first, I usually find wickets come more naturally.

I sometimes use cones or chalk lines, but athletes are often still unable to self-organize and harmonize stride length and frequency. Wickets are a force application tool, not a means to artificially increase stride length. Getting athletes to understand that they shouldn’t tiptoe or mash the ground takes time. Apply force in the right way, at the right time.

First, up is the three-bucket position iso hold popularized by Dr. Ken Clark. It is pretty simple.

• Imagine a bucket of water on your head.
• Imagine a bucket of water on your knee
• Imagine a bucket handle around your foot.

This gets them into a pretty decent starting position.

• Neutral head and “cheetah eyes.” (I stole this cue from Coach DJ Brock of Acton-Boxborough H.S.)
• Thigh parallel to floor.
• Ankle cocked ready for the ground, toe slightly behind knee.
• Think about the stance leg glute and foot being connected and wired together and try not to be too tall.

If athletes cannot hold this isometric position for a decent amount of time (say 30 seconds), and they start shaking uncontrollably, they are not ready to do wickets well. You cannot have rhythm, timing, and thigh switching in the midst of weakness and dysfunction. I encounter MANY athletes who cannot hold this position without shaking after five seconds. I suppose, over time, there would be marginal improvements if they just keep hitting the wickets, but I prefer to get out in front of things rather than work from behind after doing things poorly. Let them have some success first. If nothing else, this becomes a reference point or teaching tool when they do dynamic drills.

For a little twist on this, you can progress to Captain Morgan hops. I prefer hands on hips so they can feel their pelvic positioning. I have heard the cue somewhere to think about the pelvis itself as a bowl full of water. This variation begins the process of acquiring rhythm. The athlete should take remedial baby hops forward, without being too “toe-y.” Again, they should be actively trying to feel the glute working with the foot on the ground. This allows them to stay upright without being too tall. I usually like them to do a few reps about 10 yards in length on each leg.

The glute medius in the stance leg usually gets a nice little workout in addition to our weight room work. The glute med is responsible for stabilizing the hip joint and helps alignment of the pelvis and knee. The glutes are really active on the ground during sprinting, and weak glutes can cause back pain and knee issues.

You can actually see the athlete in the first clip self-organize and reposition the toe under the knee. This allowed her to feel a little more stability in her stance leg and keep her foot in the raised leg more ready for the ground. 

The Captain Morgan Hop and Switch

This will be the first drill that requires the athlete to switch their thighs with correct timing. The athlete should assume the same position as the previous drill. I now ask them to hop-hop-hop and switch. I often give them a rhythm to follow to aid in the patterning and timing of this switch.

The execution of this drill seems simple, but it sets up some of the items I will get to later. It is important to note that the stance leg is actually going to be the trigger that cues the swing leg to strike. I find when the stance leg heel lifts, if the swing leg begins to strike simultaneously, the thigh switch is clean and forceful. If this is mistimed, the switch becomes stompy and some postural deviations and compensations occur.

This is a very general drill. Before I lose you because you think I am giving some gimmicky drills, understand that the end goal is to dribble and use wickets effectively, do a great block start, and run at top speed efficiently. To do all of these, timing and switching of legs takes place. I am willing to dive in at the athlete’s entry point, but most high school athletes need progressions to this by making their body care.

We still sprint weekly, but if I place these items near the main session, perhaps my point is a bit clearer without major fatigue. Remember: The goal is to have short ground contacts that don’t lack force. Punch the ground with the sweet spot of your foot.

A-Switches for All Speed Athletes

These can be done with mini hurdles or without; my preference is without. The advantage of the mini hurdles is that they provide a visual cue for when to self-organize and punch the ground. The athlete is also required to hold the isometric position while hopping dynamically. Ideally, the stance leg hops should be small and as close to midfoot as possible.

A couple drawbacks I have noted are that athletes sometimes move away from neutral head position and look at the wickets. They also extend at the knee slightly more and deliver a strike that is “toe-y.” Spacing ranges from 4–6 feet, depending on how long an athlete can stay in the three-bucket position.

I prefer regular A-switches for this reason. It’s not about just adding chaos for the sake of chaos, but when an athlete is ready for more. The wicket variation may look more appealing, but keep an eye on its execution. It is merely a thing to help upright running mechanics or to at least understand them.

To me, the A-switch is the first item that really starts the journey of dynamically progressing to wickets and dribbles. The execution has a double tap between switches. This allows my athletes to really lock into a rhythm. Once an athlete can do this, it becomes pretty easy to progress them to stepover runs (dribbles) or boom-booms.

I have had success teaching athletes dribbles out of an A-switch because their slack is already reduced, instead of loosely cycling their legs on their tiptoes. I have had lots of athletes do mistimed boom-booms, which gives them less time to prepare for the ground, and thus, less stiffness and bad posture. I am all for learning and self-organization, but I want to put them in a position to succeed.

If you still want to add another level of chaos, I have experimented with 1-2-3-3s. These are an A-switch variation. They’re the same thing, but they look different and are fun. Fun can be a goal. I have also called the boom-boom the left-left, boom-boom-right-rights. Often, athletes have trouble with the rhythm right away. To this, I say good! This isn’t an early-season task, but we will give it a go eventually.

Basic Jog Dribbles and Stepover Runs

For all of the reading and video-watching I have done, the best technical advice on the execution of a dribble came from a 10-year-old student of mine. He saw me watching a wicket video during snack time and asked me what I was watching. I replied that it was a sprint drill. He said, “It looks like they are riding a bike with their toes up.”

When you think about how your legs are ready for the next push on the pedals on a bike, and how your feet switch but still stay in rhythm, it makes sense.

Of course, at recess I asked him to show me. You can learn from anyone. He was instantly better at it than most of my high school athletes.

Note the heel-to-toe action upon strike. This allows the athlete to punch the ground and roll through the whole foot without being too stompy. A dorsiflexed ankle keeps them ready for the ground once again. I see a lot of these done on tiptoes. The goal is still to apply force with an appropriately fast ground contact time as a result of the speed and rhythm. Think of it as purposely stunted sprinting.

There are several benefits to these.

• Easier than setting up wickets.
• Can be done at ankle, calf, or knee heights or as bleeds from ankle up to knee. This is a great screening tool or plan B for an injured or tight athlete. It gives both of us great feedback on how we may have to alter the plan.
• Great meet day warm-up tool in a bind. Cut the fluff and get to the meat if the officials are rushing the athletes.

Here are a few videos of my athletes trying some different variations. One of the athletes in the video mildly strained his hamstring after competing in four meets in two weeks. I primarily used dribbling to progress him back to higher intensities and he still ran a school record in the 400m. He was able to stay in control and regain confidence at different heights. We did rhythm dribbles first, focusing on the switch, and then added speed progressively from calf to knee.

Dribbles

I only utilize low calf up to the knee dribbles and not ankles. I get strange outcomes when coaching ankle dribbles, so I need to get better here. It is harder to see the switch, but it would be a perfect addition to setup or recovery days. Again, think about them as a tool. It is a drill to run well at different amplitudes and partial ranges of motion.

Just like when you are goblet squatting, at some point if you want to barbell back squat, you have to do it, even if it is a partial range of motion. We still routinely sprint fast, so you can do both. I love using A-switches and bleeding them into dribbles. Again, the tasks are different, but the intent is the same.

Med Ball Unfolding Jumps for Fluid Coordination

I have to thank Carl Valle and Blaine Kinsley (Director of Baseball Strength and Conditioning, Arkansas Razorbacks) for showing this exercise on Twitter. When I first viewed it, I could see a lot of similarities to acceleration and block starts. This has a lot of potential as a useful item on days I teach acceleration concepts. I love using exercises like this, not just to potentiate the CNS, but to also provide a reference point in close proximity to the main session. Feel, then do.

Rhythm isn’t just a max velocity concept; it is also critical during acceleration. There is more to it than projecting maximally with violence, although saying it this way can help.

Everything is general work to a track and field coach except the actual track workouts. Although I don’t experiment in the weight room with Bosch concepts, Frans Bosch has influenced some of this experimentation with movement drills and sprints.

I am not a world-leading biomechanist, but I understand that by making general work harder, the specific work may become less daunting. Antifragile pertains to the mind as well. Failure is a good thing, especially if athletes are close, and they are motivated to hit a position.

I had both of the athletes in the video below start overhead and then do a quick eccentric hinge action. They both retained excellent posture and began the jump by leading with their chest. The first athlete started from a kneeling position to further push his comfort level. He responded quite well. In super slow motion, I see several key performance indicators that later translated to an improved block start.

Athlete #1:

• Excellent posture.
• Torso and shins drop together. Note the positive shin angle.
• He looks like a mousetrap, loaded from glute to feet and ready to go.
• Lower limb stiffness is excellent, and he pronates and finishes through the big toe. I see an athlete getting to the most advantageous part of his foot at the right time.

This athlete spent a lot of time in the weight room before coming to me, and his block start is rapidly improving, as you will see later. Half of this is getting him confident enough to have his legs behind his center of mass and knowing when it is time to “go.” This exercise is great because, if they time it wrong, they get the sense that it felt off. It slows down acceleration, but not as much as a sled pull. While we still work toward top speed goals, he is able to accelerate effectively with rhythm that will pay dividends as his training age increases.

The female athlete did not start kneeling. This was her first time doing this exercise, and she volunteered to be filmed for the sake of this article. She is very strong and has run over 19 mph on our Freelap timing system. She is not a great accelerator. What I see in this slow-motion video aligns with that.

Athlete #2

• Great posture and hinge. It’s no surprise, as she has a very strong upper body and lifting experience.
• Leads more with hips than chest.
• Doesn’t get as deep of a shin angle and doesn’t take advantage of being patient to get to the ball of foot and pronate (sneakers an issue?). Arms are mistimed as a result.

However, for her first time doing it, I was pleased she got out of her comfort zone. She would absolutely get a benefit out of continuing items like this or even a basic broad jump in an acceleration complex. Timing it better would yield more power output in the jump itself. Oftentimes with plyos, jumps, and med ball work, I’m not worried about the so-called “transfer.” Just getting a kid comfortable with generally expressing more power is the first step before I worry about specifics and drawing parallels to acceleration. Working through being uncomfortable here will allow her to have a better block start.

This is pretty advanced, so take your time getting there. As an analogy, there’s no need to rush to a weighted Bulgarian split jump if their Bulgarian split squats need work. Both of these athletes progressed to these exercises and did so safely.

Skip and Switch Buildup Flys for Connected Speed

I rarely do my fly work from a static start. In top speed work, I want them to focus on their speed, posture, and rhythm and not worry about overcoming inertia. It’s safer for the muscles and easier to progress to max speed with a skip or lead-in start.

A new favorite of mine lately has been the skip and switch fly. To me, it is an early prerequisite for sprint-float-sprint work. An athlete builds into a maximal skip for distance without rocking or changing their sprint posture. The key is MAXIMAL so that there is enough vertical displacement to seamlessly transition into a rhythmic buildup or eventually a fly. I sometimes call out, “Boom, boom, boom, pow!” The “pow” is the moment when they time the step and continue to a sprint without dropping velocity.

Sometimes I just take a visual cue like a chalk line or wicket and put it in their hands. I can tell them what to do, but they have to figure out when and how to do it. If they are not projecting peacefully and maximally off the inside edge of the foot, they will feel it, and you will see it. A lot of times, high school kids are uncomfortable or shy doing things maximally. Some of the athletes below could benefit from just skipping for distance as far as possible first, which I often include on acceleration-themed days.

Skip and switch

Here’s an exchange with one of my athletes after her skip and switch fly:

Athlete: That felt weird.

Me: It looked weird.

Athlete: I’ll fix it.

Any chance I have to remove myself from cueing, I take. Again, they have to figure out when to go because it feels right. Once they race, they are on their own anyway. Opportunities to fly solo aren’t the worst thing in the world.

Rhythm Can Be General

You can start the process of this when the athletes are young. I have had the opportunity to work with athletes ages 6–30. I don’t teach 10-year-olds everything that a high school senior does, but we skip and hop in different rhythms. Unless I think a young athlete is ready and understands that they are not just a green obstacle course, I will probably leave the wickets in the trunk of my car.

Sometimes a song comes on and the music is perfect for them to do the exercise to. As long as it is age-appropriate, laying a nice base of general movement skills can pay off in the long term.

The older athlete in the video improved in bounding in one session. When strength isn’t the issue, I am going to go out on a limb (pun always intended) and say most people just don’t know how to time their limb movement correctly. I had him time the foot strike with the arm swing flapping back, then coming in closer into the ribs while just marching and walking. Then we progressed to baby vertical bounds the same way, again trying to let his arms contribute. The “use it or lose it” and “it’s been a while” refrains hold true here.

Other simple tasks to do include crawling and jumping jacks. There are a lot of variations of jumping jacks, such as seal jacks, front jacks, rotational jacks, and Highland flings. These don’t make someone into an elite sprinter, but any good athlete can start here.

I remember being at the Weston Twilight meet and seeing some fast sprinters do some crazy dance moves like the BlocBoy shoot in the above video. Perhaps they can do it because they already have stiffness and rhythm. If I have a chance to do exercises like this and single leg skips with my athletes, I will. It isn’t immediately transferrable, but it is at least an indicator of talent. Making someone more athletic is always a useful thing.

Rhythm Is Universal – Apply the Methods Selectively

All of these words and items just to say that rhythm is teachable and important. Rhythm and timing are applicable to all sports. No matter what type of training beliefs you ascribe to, there is value in this.

Eliud Kipchoge displays rhythm when he runs a marathon. Usain Bolt and Antonio Brown look rhythmic at sub-max speeds in their warm-ups. Go on YouTube and watch them.

You can run any rep distance with appropriate rhythm. Here are videos of two of my athletes running with appropriate rhythm and speed for their individual workouts.

The first athlete is running split 300s at roughly 80%. He has a history of stress fractures in his feet, so I prefer the split rep and turf. He is finally getting comfortable with running.

The second athlete is running 200s at race pace, fast and relaxed (25 seconds).

Tempo running by nature is about rhythm, hence the word “tempo.” Especially when you think about the 200m and 400m, there needs to be some attention to rhythm in training, so sprinters arrive at the 150-meter and 300-meter marks relatively unfatigued. But I am not saying run 350, 450, or any rep distance just for the sake of doing it. If you believe in it, then get there first and with the appropriate athletes, but it can be run well with technique close to race level.

Again, the overarching goal is still to run as fast as we can and extend a high percentage of that maximum effort for longer.

Our goal is to look for things that can help athletes understand that there is nothing beyond top speed except losing their rhythm. We can’t only sprint, but we can’t do so much other work that our track work is watered down.

This runner does a great job of switching thighs and staying relatively stiff by letting his shins drop and not exhibiting a lot of compliance. He pushes hard away from the ground without over-pushing, and there is triple extension without making it seem jumpy or artificial. If you take a picture of someone doing a block start, most know what the post-up position looks like (line from heel to shoulder and head), but it also depends what they did to get there and what comes afterward if it was useful or not. His low heel recovery and glute pushing is looking better. I haven’t coached him into or out of anything.

We have also done a few short hill run sessions, which force stiffer low limbs since the ground comes more quickly under the center of mass than if it was flat. Now that this is in place, we can begin adding blocks while adding new challenging things, but always working on our speed.

After all of this, perhaps wickets are an option. If you think about the progressive spacing of wickets from short to longer, the concentric circles move from low calf up to full knee. Dribbles are just wicketless wickets with a slightly different footstrike.

I am much better at coaching small groups or one-on-one in a focused setting than big groups during track season. It’s hard measuring wickets for so many abilities and deciding who does or doesn’t do them. In the past, I have done wickets in the first week. This was a big mistake. The idea of something being useful is not always reality in your reality.

If you coach high school track, your job is hard just because of the logistics of multiple events, space constraints, equipment, and abilities. It will probably be a better experience for you and your athletes if you keep things simple and decide on a logical place to start.

Likewise, you may find that certain things I have mentioned in the scope of this article are beyond or unnecessary for your athletes, and that’s fine too. No need to do iso holds all the time if your athletes are healthy and strong. I always experiment and add accordingly.

Once I see something has run its course, I eliminate it during the season as well. Come championship season, we may stop doing a lot of this because the athletes are already great at it. My job out in Byfield, Massachusetts, is to coach what I see and make athletes who sometimes have no business running into state qualifiers and into adults who love fitness.

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The content found in “The Dosage Debate: Maximum Velocity Sprint Training,” the precursor to this article, was the result of a thought experiment. Besides taking myself through a thinking exercise, one of the goals was to generate dialogue in the coaching community. I have received a substantial amount of feedback and questions since its release, and I feel that explaining my thought process and giving some additional information will help tie up some loose ends and lead to additional dialogue.

First, that article does not really showcase my beliefs one way or another. It is no secret that I am a huge proponent of training that has an athlete attain maximum velocity, but how a coach implements its use within their programming can have quite a bit of variance based on the constraints of their situation. Also, it is important to keep in mind that since I was having the thought experiment with myself, it referred mostly to the clientele I deal with: high school males who participate in track and field. Part of the intent with this article is to broaden the scope to any population.

What ignited the thought experiment was the idea of flipping programming design. In discussion with numerous colleagues, I have found the most common approach is to:

• Create the workout and approximate recovery.
• Administer the workout.
• Adjust recovery as needed.

The approach I took considered recovery on the front end. You can trace most of what follows here back to this quote, posed to me by an anonymous source with credit to Jay Schroeder:

“Only train athletes to a level from which they can recover.”

One way to view this is if I know exactly how an athlete will recover from sprint training, what would be the best way to train the athlete to become a faster sprinter? Here are considerations a coach at any level should think about when programming sprint dosage.

Consideration #1 – The Athlete’s Nervous System

Although a common topic in sprint training is which supplemental exercises to use to train the muscles involved, the reality is any movement starts with the nervous system. Many people consider sprinting to be the most intense human activity, and the corollary to this is it places the greatest demand on the nervous system. I often view sprinting through the lens of the amount of electrical current flowing through a person’s body.

It is hypothesized that children are less able to recruit/use fast-twitch (type II) motor units than adults. This makes sense. My 5-year-old is capable of sprinting every day because there are low levels of current flowing. An elite sprinter would obviously lie on the other end of this spectrum. It is like the shock of one of those old trick slices of gum versus a bolt of lightning. A person can handle the trick slice of gum multiple times a day, every day. Getting struck by lightning may have a person sidelined for a prolonged period of time.

In addition, it is not all about the raw power that is produced. When people perform a new skill, it rarely looks fluid. As the person continually undergoes the activity, the body figures out a more efficient way to carry it out. This is the nervous system eliminating the neural pathways that do not assist with the activity and deepening the pathways that allow for the best current solution. So, it is not just the ability to produce more power, it also comes down to the efficiency of the pathways that the power can flow through. Eliminating and solidifying neural pathways takes time, and can only be accomplished when the opportunity is provided, but how often is appropriate?

Consideration #2 – Frequency

I recently spoke with a college strength coach who said he had his pre-teen son sprint every day over the summer, and he continually improved his speed. As Boo Schexnayder stated in his recent article, “The Syndrome”:

“The younger athletes, because of their lower levels of power output, do very little internal damage to their bodies as they practice, train, and compete. They don’t possess the high levels of athleticism needed to hurt themselves. Thus, they require little recovery time.”

If we view this looking at a high school athlete over the course of their four-year career, we would conclude that the density of high-intensity training sessions would decrease as the athlete is able to produce more powerful outputs. I have heard from numerous coaches of elite athletes at the collegiate level and beyond that athletes can only attain maximum outputs in training once a week or less. Schexnayder continues:

“The more developed athletes are victims of the tools they possess. Their high power output levels produce more internal stress and damage. They require more recovery time.”

The following diagrams give a visual representation of these concepts:

When I played youth football, just about everyone played both ways, and no one thought twice about it. By the time high school football came around, however, this was very rare. Our best players may have played a few series on their nondominant side of the ball during a game. (Note: I attended a high school with 2,000 students, so ironman football was not a necessity.)

This pattern is logical. Most high school males are in the heart of puberty, and becoming a man creates the ability to produce more power. However, the body’s ability to recover from the increased power it can produce does not seem to come along for the ride. Therefore, it makes sense for coaches to utilize a two-platoon system.

This takes us to the conversation about an athlete’s “insulation.” In sticking with the electricity analogy, insulators serve as protectors from the dangers of electrical current. My corresponding thought to this is, “Can we enhance the ‘insulators’ in the body so an athlete is better able to recover from the ability to produce higher levels of power?” I believe we can by exposing prepubescent athletes to sprinting on a regular basis.

I have been part of and have observed a large number of sport practices ranging from youth to college. One commonality among them is that the opportunities to produce the highest levels of power possible are few and far between. I played multiple sports from age 4 through 21. My first true speed session was when I was 18.

Thanks to the efforts of many coaches and organizations, this is becoming less common, but it still exists. I currently live near a youth soccer field. Most of the practices there involve kids standing around and going through a drill where the power levels are low. I have yet to see them spend any time performing true sprints (giving the athletes time to recover fully so they produce their best output).

A common complaint by numerous groups about today’s youth is their lack of free play and activity. It seems the days of eating breakfast at home, heading out to play with the crew, and returning home when the street lights went on for dinner are long gone. During that time outside of the house, one skill that I developed was the ability to sprint. It is amazing how I can look back at my summers as a youth and see how each day represented multiple sessions of a sprint practice.

A simple game of tag at a park consisted of short bursts of maximum effort followed by recovery. Riding a bike to a friend’s house to play Wiffle ball was recovery. Running the bases and playing the field in Wiffle ball had moments of maximum effort, and the rest of the game allowed for recovery. Lunch, wherever we could get it, was downtime. The football or basketball we played afterward also followed the same pattern. All of these activities provided opportunities to chase and elude, which are excellent drivers of intent. Timing and racing are two more.

I say all this because if our youth are not getting exposed to these types of activities, we have two choices: continue to complain about it or provide them with opportunities to express maximum power. If they are not getting it in their own free time, devoting some time to it in your sport practice seems like an easy fit. Not only will they reap the rewards of developing more effective neural pathways, but their ability to recover from the higher level of power outputs may come along for the ride.

Consideration #4 – Outliers

A trend we have noticed with the freshmen in our program over the past few years is approximately 10% have had nagging hip flexor issues. Our sprint program would be classified as low volume by most, and we design everything around improving acceleration and maximum velocity. By the time they are sophomores, those issues go away, but we would prefer for this trend to not be present. We have two hypotheses that are not mutually exclusive to one another:

1. The athletes undergo a tremendous amount of change due to puberty.
2. The athletes have not experienced operating at maximum velocity, possibly due to a combination of a sedentary childhood and exposure to sports in which bouts of maximum velocity are few and far between. While incredibly intense, basketball, football, and soccer do not allow exposure to true maximum velocity (as found spiked up on a track) due to factors such as fatigue, equipment, surface, and court dimensions.

Our belief is that it is probably a hybrid of the two. The growth, coupled with their bodies being shocked into operating at an intensity they haven’t dealt with, leads to issues. We feel 10% is too high of a percentage, and we are toying with ideas from Sam Portland (speed gate golf) and Ross Jeffs (racers versus trainers) to help combat this issue.

Consideration #5 – The Load of Curvilinear Sprints

Any track coach whose athletes have performed regular training or competition on a 160-meter indoor track are well aware of the mechanical damage that moving at high velocity on a tight curve can cause. The previous article outlined the advantage of curvilinear sprints as a way to protect the nervous system because they involve the athletes moving at a velocity lower than what is found in linear sprinting. That being said, a coach must be aware of the forces placed on the musculoskeletal system when sprinting on a bend. The resultant force vector changes when an athlete is on a curve because a significant lateral component is required to stay on the curve.

First, there is a good chance an athlete’s mass won’t change much during the course of a training session, so we will assume it is constant. With mass out of the way, we can focus on velocity. Imagine an athlete jogs on a curve at a velocity of 5 m/s. Then, on the next repetition, the athlete doubles the velocity to 10 m/s. The force required to move twice as fast and continue the motion on the curve would be four times as much because the velocity is squared. The example below shows this comparison, ignoring units for simplicity. The hypothetical mass used was 100, velocity of 5 (left example) and 10 (right example), and radius of 10 (denominator).

The next example shows the impact of the radius on force by leaving the mass (100) and velocity (10) constant in both. We can see that decreasing the radius from 10 to 5 (values in the denominator) causes the force to double.

With these examples in mind, we can use the following assumptions moving forward:

1. Force vectors are different on a bend, which places a different demand on the musculoskeletal system (when compared to linear sprinting).
2. If an athlete begins to move at a higher velocity on a bend, greater force is present.
3. If the radius is tightened, and the athlete is able to move at the same speed, greater force is present.

We can now carry these into training implications:

1. Identify the demands of the sport and design curvilinear training accordingly.
2. If you introduce curvilinear work, err on the side of caution. Like any form of training, damage can result from an improper dose, but this may be even more true with this modality because it may be foreign to a high percentage of athletes. Stimulate the musculoskeletal system—do not destroy it.
3. Do not be afraid to experiment with different radii and speeds. When operating at high speeds with sprinters, use large radii (such as the example provided in the precursor to this article). These types of sprints can help prep athletes for the nasty curves they face during indoor competitions. When operating at lower speeds, such as submaximal curve runs with high jumpers, you can tighten the radii.
4. Trust your eyes! If the athletes look fluid, your setup is probably safe. If they don’t, you may need to make adjustments. Being able to make this determination requires you to watch your athlete’s reps!
5. Even if a track athlete is only a sagittal specialist (short sprints/hurdles, long jump, triple jump), bend work still carries weight as a valuable tool in developing a robust athlete because of the variation in the force vectors placed on the body. Field and court sport coaches should also thank you for your efforts of having them spend some time outside of the sagittal plane.

• An additional force we should consider besides centripetal force is one we should never forget because it always wins: the force of gravity. According to Mike Kennedy, accomplished physics teacher and track/cross country coach at Neuqua Valley High School, “If you assume gravity acts at the runner’s belly button, the torque from the ground force and the force of gravity will put a great deal of stress on the hip, leading to injury if the athlete is not prepared for such stresses. It is essentially a class 1 lever with the hip as the fulcrum.” Athletes can perform simple serpentine runs with large radii at various speeds on a track, court, field, or hallway during a warm-up or cooldown or in the heart of the workout.

Where Does This Leave Us?

On one hand, I think designing sprint training is simple. Tony Holler and I co-authored an article that was prompted by his tweet:  “Speed training is really pretty simple. Why is there so much confusion?” If we are patient and willing to accept small gains, programming can be basic at the novice level, and the baseline will rise for all. It is hard to go wrong with having an athlete sprint 2–3 times per week if the dose is appropriate and the recovery is sufficient.

On the other hand, as a coach who has worked with groups of up to 60, I know I am missing what would be optimal for some. Trying to address their individual needs makes designing and managing sprint training quite complicated.

As a teacher, one of my primary goals is to get people to think, so I will leave you with four thoughts to ponder in regard to sprint dosage:

• When do your athletes need to be recovered from a sprint dose?
• How long do you think it will take your athletes to recover from your prescribed dose?
• Do you have contingency plans in place?
• If you had to sprint every single day or die, how would you adapt?

Special thanks to Jake Cohen of the University of Illinois for providing feedback on the original article, which helped create this. Also thanks to Mike Kennedy of Neuqua Valley High School for his review and input for this article.

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

Coaching youth sports, I operate with a handful of “All the Time” principles: have fun, never quit, and do no harm. These principles apply whether I’m coaching teenage girls in a competitive soccer match or managing elementary schoolers in a recreational softball game. They apply during the most unpleasant weather, during early morning games at faraway fields, and even during times of great stress and uncertainty.

Over the past week, my email inbox has gone from trickle to flood with announcements of precautionary measures, postponements, and cancellations, as schools, sports leagues, and local attractions first labored to find the best course of action amid the pandemic and inevitably then opted to shut down. Within this necessary abundance of caution, the missing piece in the last wave of cancellation messages has been proposed alternatives.

And for those in leadership positions, that’s the responsibility—to assess a given situation and say “Okay, here’s what’s next.”

Among other teams, I currently coach the Girls 2009 Flex soccer team for the DMCV Sharks soccer club in San Diego. We have 14 multisport athletes on this team, girls who also play softball, baseball (you got that right), basketball, flag football (damn straight), and even one starting to run cross country. For this group of high-energy girls, cancel everything means an awful lot of cancelling.

To stem the tide of shutdowns and postponements, I chose this team to launch a YES IC (Yes, Informed Continuity) program to keep the girls active, motivated, engaged, connected, and, above-all, safe during the coming weeks and/or months. It follows a simple progression:

1. Active Anywhere (home-based independent activities)
2. Own the Game (structured, partner-based games and challenges)
3. Different Formation, Same Team (small group sessions)

This program is a road map for what coaches are tasked to do in the first place: provide structure and strategy where there was none. As the managing editor for the blog here at SimpliFaster, I’m hoping we can use our platform and community as a hub for coaches to inspire one another to continue leading our athletes through this major disruption in play.

Yes, Informed Continuity

With young athletes, one of the simplest coaching tools is teaching them to change self-talk from what they did wrong (or didn’t do at all) into what they will do right the next time. It is a 180-degree shift in mindset and intent, changing “I pulled my head on that swing” or “I turned toward pressure with the ball” into “I will keep my nose on the ball” or “I will play the way I’m facing.”

Importantly, in a wave of cancellations and NO’S, this program starts with a YES. It starts with declaring what you can and will do. You don’t suddenly need to be an online coaching expert or pretend to be that which you are not. Follow the simple principles: have fun, never quit, do no harm.

Phase 1 – Active Anywhere

During this initial period of nebulous, near-quarantine for my team, I promised to provide at least two structured weekly activities that the players can do at home (or anywhere). Are we looking for amazing individual athletic gains? No—we are simply adding something where suddenly there was nothing.

Continuity. Kids need it—when you’re small, continuity is what gives the world shape.

Like most teams, we have a team scheduling app with a calendar, messaging, and player availability features. Rather than using the “Availability” tab to confirm the intent to attend a team activity, for my ’09 Flex team we will begin using our Team Snap account to show that they have independently completed our planned team activity. The “Yes” tab becomes “I have done it.”

In addition to marking completion via our scheduling app, I will encourage my players to connect with their teammates via FaceTime, text, or any medium of their choosing before and after each planned activity. This is crucial. Practice, games, and tournaments may be stricken from the calendar, but the team and LTAD carry on. Never quit.

What does this look like? Again, you don’t need to become an online coaching savant. For the 9- and 10-year-old girls on my soccer team, here’s what we’ll be doing this coming week in our two planned sessions:

Session 1: Movement Basics

WARM-UP (Standing or Walking):

• 10 x Frankenstein Toe Touches
• 5 x each leg RDL Toe Touches 
• 10 x Knee-to-Chest Hugs
• 10 x Open & Close the Gate
• 10 x Flamingo Lunges
• 10 x Grass/Carpet Pickers (or substitute “Runners” Wall Stretch)
• 10 x Side Lunges

LEGS & JUMPS

• 2 x 10 Walking or Standing Lunges (BONUS: add ~3 lb. barbells in each hand)
• 3 x 20 Jumping Jacks
• 2 x 10 Tuck Jumps
• 3 x 10 Bodyweight Squats
• 2 x 10 Star Jumps
• 2 x 5 Squats holding to a count of 10 at the bottom range of each
• 2 x 10 Skater Jumps

ARMS & CORE

• 5 x 2 Push-Ups (quality over quantity!)
• 3 x 30-second Planks
• 3 x 30-second “Farmer’s Carry”  (For this they can use light dumbbells, 5 lb. bags of flour in grocery bags, books in handled bags… Just keep each side relatively equal.)
• 2 x 10 Reverse Crunches 
• 2 x 20-second Single-Leg Planks (each leg)

BONUS CHALLENGE

• 5 Stick and Land Stair Jumps (Jump from stair to wide landing with safe two-leg landing)
• Banded Shuffles (If you have resistance bands. If not, regular shuffling can substitute.)
• Standing Broad Jumps (three jumps out, three jumps back, space providing)
• Pull-Ups or Chin-Ups

Session 2: Individual Ball Skills

WARM-UP (same)

BASIC SKILLS & FITNESS

• 3 x 25 Toe Taps
• 3 x 25 Bells
• 3 x 25 Sole Rollovers
• 3 x 10 Squats holding ball overhead
• 2 x 10 Hand Walks
• 3 x 10 Star Jumps

ADVANCED SKILLS (Watch full three-minute demo by Yael Averbuch first. Then, replay going through each skill individually, pausing the clip and executing for two minutes before moving forward to the next skill.)

• Single Foot Cuts
• Roll to Cut
• 2-Footed Cuts
• Tap-Tap Roll
• 4-Touch “Tab Ramos” Combo
• “Pulling” Sole-V Inside
• “Pulling” Sole-V Outside
• “Pulling” Sole-V Behind the Back
• Scissor
• Step-Over

CHALLENGE

• Not-A-Soccer-Ball-Juggling. Using a tennis ball, racquet ball, whiffle ball, or any ball of choice, set a baseline number in your first three juggling attempts and then continue juggling until you beat that number by three.

These Phase 1 activities are the types of things I forward to my players during rainy weeks or stretches when field access is limited. Ideally, this initial phase will be one of weeks and not months, but plan in a way that is sustainable and be prepared to move directly to Phase 2 as soon as doing so falls within your club/league/community guidelines.

Phase 2 – Own the Game

At this point, we begin regaining control of what has been taken away and move out of solo, home-based activities and into sessions that can be conducted with a teammate, sibling, or friend. For my soccer players, this will take the form of planned wall skills and games they can play on school/park handball walls, soccer “tennis” volleying games on grass or blacktop, and non-contact shooting games on local fields.

Because kids have opportunities to play year-round, they’ve had fewer opportunities to adapt the game on their own, so in this phase they will need explicit instructions in order for these sessions to resemble a true team activity and not a playdate. (This is not to denigrate pick-up games and informal, sports-based play—those are vital and necessary for kids, but simply fall into a different category.)

For these sessions, I’ll be sending the partner-based activity to my team with a warm-up, progression, rules, and approximate times so there is a plan to follow.

Session 1: Soccer H-O-R-S-E

WARM-UP (10 minutes)

• Team Dynamic Stretching Routine (3 minutes)
• Mobility Warm-Up. Mark ~20 linear yards for: Skips, Carioca Runs, Side Shuffles, Backpedal, 3 Steps-Forward 2 Steps-Back, Full Sprint (5 minutes)

SKILL (20 minutes)

• Dribble Vectors. Begin at middle of marked 20 yards and dribble for 6–7 touches in any direction, then perform one of the 10 Advanced Skills. Continue pattern without expanding beyond a reasonable diameter of space (2 minutes on, 30 seconds off, for 10 minutes total).
• Partner Passing. Two-touch passing, either foot. Two-touch passing, same foot (do right, then left). One-touch passing. Throw-in, trap, return pass. (2 minutes each, 10 minutes total).

PLAY: Soccer H-O-R-S-E (30 minutes)

• There are nine “Zones” the players can shoot for: Lower Left, Middle Left, Upper Left, Lower Center, Mid-Center, Upper Center, Lower Right, Middle Right, Upper Right.
• Player #1 selects the spot they will be shooting from and announces the target zone they will be shooting for. If their shot hits that zone, Player #2 must execute the same shot. If Player #2 fails to execute the made shot, they have the letter “H.” If Player #1 does not make their initial shot, Player #2 can then select any spot to shoot from and any target zone for their own shot.
• If Player #1 makes their shot and Player #2 also makes the shot, Player #1 selects a new spot to shoot from and a new target zone. Players cannot repeat a made shot during the same game.
• Alternate in this manner until a player has the letters H-O-R-S-E. Try to complete three full games in 30 minutes.

CHALLENGE (10–15 minutes)

• Alphabet Juggling: Juggle ball with partner announcing a letter (A, B, C, D) for each successful exchange from partner to partner in the air. See how far in the alphabet you and your partner can go without the ball hitting the ground.

Phase 3 – Different Formation, Same Team

Whatever the timeline presented as each community moves through the crisis, this final stage is a transition toward the resumption of regular team activities. Each step represents defined progress, which is again key when coaching young athletes—they respond to forward movement and understand where they’re going based on where they’ve been.

So, when circumstances safely allow it, I’ll resume modified in-person coaching for my Flex team and plan small group and non-contact team activities, such as a range of fitness-based activities (beach, trail, and hill runs) to accompany partial or full groups for skills, drills, and games. Whether this phase is four weeks or four months out, it is difficult to be predictive in terms of what “best practices” for one of these sessions might look like…. Are small-sided games advisable or inadvisable? Should a team of 14 come out as a full group, two groups of 7, or three groups of 5-5-4? Those are specific details every coach can adjust to within the phase—the important thing is having the confidence and a plan to get here.

On this path, assign your athletes an activity journal to keep them motivated, competitive, and accountable within the team. Many SimpliFaster followers have adopted Tony Holler’s “Record, Rank, Publish” ethos for speed and weight room training, and the same simple concept applies even in uncommon circumstances. For years, I’ve used the sheet below for my multisport athletes to track their activities and track/reward their efforts across a range of fields. We hold occasional one- or two-week competitions with prizes, while also encouraging the kids to consistently track their progress in a self-directed manner.

#YesIC

As you’ve been reading this, hopefully you’ve come up with better ideas than these for remote sessions; or perhaps you already had those better ideas but didn’t have the platform to send them.

This program is a simple outline, waiting to be filled in. We’ll be following and sharing #YesIC on our social media pages, where coaches can ideally offer their own ideas for workouts, team communication strategies, and safe best practices—providing the Informed element of Informed Continuity that SimpliFaster’s community of coaches and performance professionals is uniquely able to contribute. The floor is open. You can  also send ideas, workout plans, and video clips to me via email: [email protected] and we will make every effort to continue supporting coaches and athletes regardless of the challenges our current moment in time presents.

You got this. Remember: have fun, never quit, and do no harm.

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