Today I want to answer a few training questions that
need to be addressed…
***QUESTION***

Dear Latif

I have been using your CSTP (Complete Speed Traininig
Program) for about 1 year with
my son (he is now almost 10). In overall I am
quite satisfied with the results, which also have
got many comments among the soccer coaches. He is
now playing up with a very good BU12 team and still
is the fastest kid once you give him more than 10
yards. I have couple of questions:
1) I think that by comparison his 10 first yards
are “slow” (basically he does not “explode”). One
thing I have not incorported into his training is
a specific strenght component. By reading the
literature I realize there are quite different
views about this issue with young athletes
(including extreme views as the one by Barry Ross).

Do you have any suggestions?

2) I have the impression you are not very
enthusiastic of any over-speed component, but it
seems that many others consider over-speed as a
useful tool. Would you advice entirely against it?

Regards
Juan C
****MY COMMENTS****
1) At 10 I wouldn’t be excessively concerned with
his lack of explosiveness. If he were in his teens,
my suggestion would be to get him into the weight
room to develop absolute strength.

Instead, I would focus on body weight exercises such
as the squatting and lunging movements (and all
the variations found in Complete Speed Training).

The most critical element of using these exercises
is that you teach perfect technique and posture. Not
only will this maximize the effectiveness of the
movement, but it will minimize injury and muscular
imbalances, as well as prepare him for when he is
old enough to start doing the exercises with weight.

I still prefer to keep the number of repetitions in
the 5-8 range when training for strength (and just
increase the number of sets, if necessary) even with
bodyweight exercises. This way muscular fatigue
will not compromise technique. Have him focus on
being explosive on the way up, by driving his heels
into the ground and firing his glutes. The tempo
should be along the lines of 2-1-1.

Technique is far more important than weight for young
athletes. And it is critical that we stress this fact.

This past Saturday I was in the weight room watching
my athletes. One athlete, who I do not coach, was
squatting. He had the customary HS tough guy starting
weight on the bar - two 45lb. plates on each side.

I could tell by looking at him that I was about to
see some seriously bad technique - and I was right.

When he finished his set of (being generous here)
quarter squats I told him that he needed to squat
to parallel and drop the weight considerably. That
he would get much more out of the lift if he
did that, as well as get better results during
competition.

Like many know-it-all high school kids (amazingly
they most often are football players) he ‘yes, OK’d’
me and I walked away knowing it went in one ear
and out the other.

Fifteen minutes later I see him loading a third 45lb.
plate onto the bar (I wish I was making this up) and
I almost choked.

In hindsight I should have refused to let him lift
the weight simply for moral reasons, but I often
deal with weight room Heroes like you need to deal
with alcoholics - you can’t force help on them - they
have to want help.

Anyway he attempted to ’squat’ this weight and
the bar dropped *maybe* three inches. He finished
his useless set of 5 and I was re-inspired to be
hyper-vigilant about making sure my athletes didn’t
do anything like that with their training.

This athlete only cared about looking cool in front
of his friends, not getting better or stronger. And
unless you teach kids that this mindset is wrong
when they first start, we’re going to continue to
develop meatheads and not athletes.

That said….

I can’t speak for Barry or what his advice would be,
and while I don’t agree with everything he says, his
information is still something to be considered and
implemented to varying degrees.

You can listen to my discussion with Barry Ross on
speed and strength training here:

http://www.athletesacceleration.com/interviews.html
2) I am not a fan of over speed training for the
vast majority of athletes. And I have never used it
with sub-collegiate athletes.

Overspeed training simply puts athletes in a poor
mechanical position that is more conducive to injury
than improved performance.

When you force an athlete to run faster than they
are capable of, the swing leg is going to land out
past the Center of Mass, ankle plantar-flexed. We
call this reaching or braking. The shoulders drop
behind the hips, great stress is placed on the
hamstring and ground contact times increase. This
is the opposite effect that we should be creating
in training.

Sub-elite athletes have so many mechanical, postural
and coordinative issues to begin with that adding
to this makes no sense to me. I would much rather
do resistance work to teach force application and
I believe this is a far superior use of time than
overspeed training.
****QUESTION****

Hi Latif,

I have one question… what is the proper foot
strike for sprinters during the fly zone or float.
Do we want a quick heel to toe or on the balls of
your feet……?

Thanks a bunch!

Dave k.
****MY COMMENTS****

This one is pretty simple.

When doing any speed work athletes should ALWAYS
be on the balls of their feet.

The heels should never touch the ground when doing
acceleration work, top speed work, floating, etc.

Running heel to toe requires foot strike taking
place in front of the Center of Mass (which slows
athletes down) and means their ground contact time
is lengthened (which, again, slows athletes down).

Both factors should be avoided at all costs.

This is how I teach speed:

==> http://www.CompleteSpeedTraining.com

On a side note, there is one instance where a rolling
heel to toe foot strike is advocated when sprinting:

During the last two steps of a jumper’s approach
on the runway. (In case track coaches were wondering.)
***

When working with athletes we must make sure we
maintain focus on teaching proper mechanics,
efficient movement and SAFE training. Otherwise
we are just babysitters, not coaches.

And the world has more than enough babysitter
coaches, especially in the weight room.

Check out our catalogue of resources that will
help you with the former and avoid being the latter:
http://www.athletesacceleration.com/resources.html

------------------------------

Spread the Word:

 digg this  del.icio.us  Technorati  Blogmemes  Ask Jeeves
 Furl  Reddit  Rojo  Simpy  Spurl  Socialize It
 Earthlink  Google  Netscape  Windows Live  Yahoo

------------------------------

This entry was posted on Friday, April 4th, 2008 at 12:59 pm and is filed under Speed Training . You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.