I was asked a question in an interview that I did recently and I thought it was pretty interesting.

The answer was not what the coach (interviewer) expected and he seemed a bit surprised.

He later explained what the answer he planned on hearing was. I just was looking at the question at a different angle I guess but I didn’t see my answer as strange or out of the ordinary.

Based on this coach’s comment, I thought it would be a great discussion to see what responses other coaches would make to the same question.

Here is the question:

‘What is the *one* characteristic that you would want all of your athletes to possess?’

It’s great to hear what other coaches have to say and would love for you to add your answers to the blog.

I have worked with some great athletes in my career.  Though talent does play somewhat of a role in overall success of an athlete, it is not the only factor. I had some extremely talented athletes and had less talent athletes succeed at high levels. On the other hand, some talented athletes never did reach their full potential.  

If there was one attribute that I would give all of my athletes it would be…

I look forward to your comments.

Yours in speed,

Patrick Beith

www.AthletesAcceleration.com

P.S.- What makes athletes successful whether they have talent or are overachievers?

What one characteristic would you want all of your athletes to have?

Please post your comments below

One of the main questions I get, especially when I do phone
consults with customers, concerns the best way to set up
a training program for an athlete or group of athletes.

With the upcoming high school winter (depending on where you
live) season just about a month away, you *should* already
be preparing your program for this time period.

As I started preparing for the new season, one in which I
have to introduce my system to an entirely new (and large)
group of athletes, a few things came in mind I feel will
benefit you.

The key to a successful season from a performance standpoint
lies in being organized.

The more you prepare in advance, the less likely you are to
be rattled by unforeseen inconveniences, which you are all
but guaranteed to encounter.

So I came up with 4 fundamentals to organizing your season.

Three of the 4 action steps should be completed *before* you
actually sit down to periodize your season. Following
these rules will make structuring your program considerably
easier because you’ll have a framework
from which to operate as opposed to doing what typical,average
coaches do…make it up as they go along.

Remember, these rules apply no matter what sport, age,
skill level or gender your athletes are.
1. Review Your Previous Season’s Program, Notes and Results

As I said, organization is essential. This year’s program
simply can’t be better than last year’s program if you
don’t have some data to work with.

Examine your microcycles (weekly plans) and mesocycles
(generally monthly plans, but can be longer) and compare
your athletes’ training results with how they performed in
competition.

Were you using to much volume?
Running them too hard? Too easy?
Did performances fall off during a particular period of
training or did they improve across the board?

Asking questions like these and looking for answers within
the notes and records you kept last season will help you
make improvements to this next season’s program and ensure
your coaching system is evolving in the right direction.

Because either you’re going forward or going backward. And
if your intention is to regurgitate exactly what you did
last year, what kind of improvements are you expecting your
athletes to make?

Hey, maybe you won the National Title last year. But that
doesn’t mean you can sit back and keep patting yourself on
the back this year. Don’t you think your competition took
the time in the offseason to learn how to get better so
you don’t win again?

If you want to keep improving, you need to keep detailed
yearly statistics - or at least something consistent.

So if you’ve never kept training records in the past, start
this season.

You’ll thank me for it.
2. Establish Goals for the Season

Now that you have last year’s training and performance
records in front of you, you can set goals for the season.

And by goals I mean goals for the team, goals for individual
athletes and just as importantly, goals for you as a coach.

Neither you or your athletes can get to your destination
if you don’t even know where that destination is.

So goal setting, to me, is one of *the* most important
parts of any program.

Write your goals down in as much detail as possible.

Is the goal to improve your 40 by .3 seconds by the
start of the season or improve the team’s average 40
time by .2 before the first game?

Do you want to win a State Title in the 100 or place
3 athletes in the finals at the League Championship
this winter?

If you set generic goals like ‘make the team faster’
then you won’t accomplish them. You have to set your
intention on a specific goal by focusing on the end
result and then working backwards.

As you’ll see later this is one of the most overlooked
and also difficult components of the training plan.
But if you don’t start with the end goal and end date
and work backwards, you can’t get a true understanding
of how to progress your training.

Now that you’ve looked at last year’s results and have
some ideas on what did and didn’t work (so you can make
any required upgrades to your system) *and* have
established goals to work toward, you will have a much
clearer understanding of what you need to do to achieve
the goals and improvements that will lead to optimal success
this season.

3. Review Your Favorite Training Resources

Now that you have an idea of what needs to be done, you
need to go back and review your favorite training resources.

We all have a few whose information has gotten us steady
results and you should review them each year. Because I
can just about guarantee there’s some knowledge within
those resources you’ve yet to tap into. And with a different
focus than last year, the path to you new goals will
begin to present themselves now that you are looking for
those answers.

It’s like if I said to keep an eye out for yellow cars.

You didn’t notice them before, but now that the seed has
been planted in your mind, you’ll start to see them
everywhere.

But, since you’re not the typical coach, you’ve also learned
some new information since last year. These new resources
you’ve added to your library are going to be pivotal in
the continued evolution of your coaching and your program.

After all, how can you improve on last year if you haven’t
learned anything new?

You can’t.

So if you’re in need of some effective new training
resources, click here:

http://www.athletesacceleration.com/products.html
4. Put the Pieces in Place

Now that you’ve covered the previous 3 topics, it’s time
to look at your program and and break down the actual
movement skills and energy system demands required for
success.

These other topics should provide the framework, but there
are still some critical elements that must be addressed.

You may think some of these assessments are too basic.

But in my experience, erasing the board and taking a
fresh look at the entire sport/event, etc. before upgrading
my training program is a fundamental reason why my athletes
compete at such a consistently high level…
1. Make a detailed analysis of the demands of
your sport.

A football player and a soccer player aren’t going
to be on the same speed training program.

Is there a significant aerobic demand to your sport?
(It’s probably much less than you think.)

How about agility and change of direction skills?

Does your sport focus on acceleration or top end speed?

Do your athletes hold, swing or carry an implement in
their sport?

2. Establish a list of qualities and abilities needed
to succeed in the specific speed applications of your
sport. This should be based upon your analysis of
demands.

For example:

- Absorb impact and then accelerate.
- accelerate while in a state of extreme fatigue
- develop consistent acceleration pattern out of blocks
- hit a moving ball while running at top speed

3. Create a list of specific training activities. This
list should be designed to address and develop the
identified list of qualities and abilities.

For example:

- specific drills teaching athletes how to take a hit
and effectively accelerate
- fartlek runs and whistle workouts where athletes
simulate the types of starting and stopping while fatigued
that they’ll experience in a game
- drive phase development and block work session to teach
a consistent, explosive sprint start
- drills teaching athletes techniques for striking, kicking or
dribbling the ball while running at full speed

4. Create a list of general training activities. These
should be designed to prepare the body to undertake
more specific training, when specific training is
considered too advanced for the learning athlete.

For example:

- an athlete must learn how to separately absorb
contact and learn to accelerate before the actions
can effectively be combined
- athletes must develop their aerobic power, lactic
capacity and acceleration ability before they can
succeed at combining those three elements successfully.
- athletes must develop a consistent acceleration pattern,
understand the drive phase and perfect running mechanics
before successfully developing a fast start
- athletes must learn how to kick, strike or dribble the ball,
as well as learn acceleration and top speed mechanics before
they can combine these skills

5. The list of both general and specific training
activities must be organized in a logical fashion into
a valid training program.

With any speed program, skills must go from general
to specific, basic to complex.

Athletes must establish general conditioning before
doing complex lactic acid workouts.

They must develop the ability to accelerate before
doing speed endurance.

And beyond that these skills must be broken down further
as well as addressing other biomotor abilitiesthat we will get
into shortly.

6. The training program must actually be administered
and should undergo constant evaluation.

Even the best plans must be modified. Weather, injuries,
and a myriad of other situations and circumstances
will arise that force you to change what you are doing.

Sometimes something you plan just plain doesn’t work.

That is why a detailed plan, as well as note taking
and testing, will give you a good idea if your planis
progressing as expected.

So start going through these 7 steps and taking specific
notes on how they can be specifically applied
to your team, sport or training.

Because even these 7 topics are just a general overview
of the pre-planning behind the training plan.

Once you’ve established your lists and have gotten
more focused on the general areas that must be developed
you can start to get more specific.

That’s why I strongly recommend you take a look at the
Complete Speed Training program. Of all our recommended
resources, this is the one that establishes a foundation
for all the previous topics in the greatest detail.

And it’s the only one that covers all training demands -
speed, strength, flexibility, coordination, conditioning,
agility and power - in one seamless package.

Plus you and I can get on the phone for 30 minutes and
talk about any aspect of training you want!

If you haven’t already, check it out now:

Complete Speed Training

In speed,

 Latif Thomas CSCS, USATF II

There still seems to be many questions on what an effective
warm up is and how it should all be put together. I want to
share with you what we use at Athletes’ Acceleration. 

If you want your athletes to be able to perform at a high level
in their sport, a proper warm-up is crucial. Not only is it our goal
to get our athletes ready to compete and perform to their full
potential, our role as coaches is first and foremost to prevent
injuries.  

There is nothing more critical in reducing the incidence of
 injury then putting our athletes through a well structured
warm-up program. 

What does a properly designed warm-up program mean? 

Running fast and performing explosive movements are
extremely complicated activities from a neuromuscular
standpoint, so there are certain things to consider and
rules to follow. 

To read the rest of the article and learn more about
setting up a warm-up routine with sample warm-up
programs provided, go to: http://www.athletesacceleration.com/warmitup.html 

Yours in speed,

Patrick Beith
www.AthletesAcceleration.com
www.CompleteSpeedTraining.com 

P.S.- To discover how to put together the perfect warm-up
routine for your athletes,  click below:

http://www.athletesacceleration.com/warmitup.html

You would be surprised how often this question comes up.

I remember a Sports Illustrated article in the mid-1990’s
about a high school sprinter (from earlier-he was well out
of high school when the article was written) that was posting
10 flat times in the 100 meter dash. After the race he would
smoke cigarettes and the coach would be lucky if he decided
to show up for practice. He was self proclaimed ‘lazy’.

There was a girl that went to the same high school I went to,
she ran track in 1986, and she could run an 11.7 100 meter
and throw the shot 50 feet.  She also wasn’t a big fan of going to practice.

Obviously, both ‘athletes’ were naturally fast. There are some
athletes that are just born faster then others, but does that mean they can’t get better?

Are slow athletes doomed forever?

Can your athletes really *learn* to get faster? 

If so, how?

Check out Latif Thomas’s new article ‘Speed is a Skill’:

http://www.athletesacceleration.com/speedisaskill.html

Yours in speed,

Patrick Beith
www.AthletesAcceleration.com
www.CompleteSpeedTraining.com
P.S. - Speed is a skill. The ability to take advantage of the potential of one’s body, and do so consistently, is a highly technical skill. As coaches and athletes we often allude to this concept when talking about speed development, but rarely do we discuss how important this statement is and what effects it has on training and performance.

To read more and learn how to develop true speed in your athletes check out:
http://www.athletesacceleration.com/speedisaskill.html