I find that ultimate joy and satisfaction stems from
a life spent in service to others.

It doesn’t mean you have to sell your worldy possessions
and move to a Red Cross Camp in Darfur, but we should
use our skills and talents to make other peoples’
lives better in some way that is meaningful to them.

That’s why it meant a great deal to me to receive
the following letter that I want to share with you.

And just think about this:

If a grandfather can achieve this success with a 10
year old, consider what kind of results you could
get with your athletes…
***

Dear Latif-
 
I bought your Complete Speed Training program,
used my opportunity to speak with you in which
you addressed all my questions, plus, you gave me
advice about working with a 10 year old. 

Then I was off to the West Coast to work with my
grandson for 3 months, using all the elements of
your Complete Speed Training program.  The first
day I timed Malik at 6.5 as his best of three 40
yard sprints (yes, each with adequate rest).

Because I live in Florida I had to leave a training
schedule that consisted of progression of drills
with ladder, cones, medicine balls(different
weights) and a weekly schedule.  Because Malik’s
attitude and desire to train his results were
excellent and his mother made sure he was just as
keen about his eating habits.
 
My daughter and I started working with Malik
shortly after my purchasing the Complete Speed
Training program, which has been almost two years.
I returned to Florida in February of 2007 but sent
her updates on training until I sent your training
program to her. 

Latif, I would say to you that, you are the “Guru”
of speed and developing ones speed.  Not just
me but my daughter is most appreciative of your
knowledge and passion you have for your craft.
                
My grandson has come so far in such a short time
and all my daughter and I did was follow your
Complete Training program…but we treated it as
the “book” on speed training and development,
with absolutely no deviation.
 
Latif Thomas; Malik ran a blistering 5.1 40 just a
few days ago.
 
Thank you so much for being there for him.  He’s
soon to be 11 years old. He is the fastest, badest,
most confident linebacker on his football team.
 
Appreciatively, indeed,
 
Jim Pennington
Pensacola, Florida

**********

There isn’t much more I can say to that.

If you don’t have your own copy of the Complete
Speed Training Program, now is the time to take
action.

Click here now:

==> http://www.CompleteSpeedTraining.com
To your success,

Latif Thomas
P.S. I’d like to hear *your* Complete Speed Training
Success Story.

To share your successes send your story to:
info@athletesacceleration.com with a subject line
of ‘CST Success Story’.

Include specific details about how you and/or your
athletes have benefitted from the program. And be
sure to include your full name, sport/s, city and
state (or country!).

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

Mastering the technical elements of the 110HH while
producing consistent times and improvements is a head
scratching process for any coach or athlete.

So who better to answer those questions and help
you solve those problems than 2-time Olympic
Silver Medalist and World Indoor Champion Terrence
Trammell.

We’ve teamed up with Terrence to develop a resource
for hurdle coaches and athletes like no other
currently available.

But we need to make sure all of *your* biggest
hurdle questions, problems and difficulties are
being addressed.

So click here now to ask your questions:

==> http://tinyurl.com/2r733l

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

I got a few dozen questions about yesterday’s email.

And, unfortunately, that’s just more than I can
respond to individually…

On the bright side I’ve addressed these questions in
the past, so I wanted to direct you to the answers.

The biggest question was about the ’short to long’
program and what that is.

Recently I wrote a fairly extensive article on this
topic. You can check that out here:
http://www.athletesacceleration.com/speedisaskill.html
I also talked about running turns as part of running
the 200m dash.

My team had their first meet yesterday. Since this is
my first spring season working with this group, none
of them had any clue how to run the event.

So, of course, I explained it and we did some work
out of blocks to prepare.

After winning his race yesterday, my top male sprinter
noted that now that he had a race plan, ‘it felt
a lot different’.

In asking him to clarify, he noted that in the past,
he’d come off the turn and already be breaking down.
So he wouldn’t have the strength (and by ’strength’
he means speed endurance) to finish strong.

So he would break down and his times suffered.

But yesterday, with a different race strategy, he
said he felt good coming off the turn. Over the last
80 meters, where he expected to be exhausted, he
still felt explosive, fast and mechanically sound.

And it certainly wasn’t the smoothest race I’ve seen
so that performance will only improve.

So, many of you asked how I train my 200 meter
runners.

I wrote an article about that as well. You can check
it out here:

http://www.athletesacceleration.com/200metertraining.html
To your success,

Latif Thomas
P.S. I walk you, step by step, through putting
this entire process together in the Complete
Speed Training Program. I’ll even get on the phone
with you, at your convenience, and answer all your
questions! Where have you found a better deal than
that?

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