Americans like fast cars, fast food, and fast people. Richard Petty, McDonald's, and Carl Lewis are as American as George Washington, bald eagles, and apple pie. In over 20 years in football and strength and conditioning, I’ve never heard a coach say, ‘I want my team to be slower.’
And yet once the season starts, most programs abandon speed training for either extra conditioning or nothing at all. When I first discovered Dale Baskett’s speed training program and had Dale come to Cornerstone Charter Academy (Belle Isle, FL), we did not continue to directly train speed in-season, and it’s a major coaching regret that I’ve had for a decade.
At CCA, our off-season program ran from the third week of January through May 1st. We had a three-week spring session in May, before two weeks off for finals, and our 7-week off-season program in June and July.
Speed training normally begins to show benefits from anywhere between 3 to 6 weeks, while the residual training effect of speed training lasts only 2-8 days. At CCA, we allowed for plenty of time in the winter, spring, and summer to see the benefits of speed training, but then we abandoned our gains in-season due to my ignorance.
We indirectly trained speed in-season by using Dale’s programming in our team warm-up, but intent (races, timing), plyometrics, and bounds had not yet found their way into our pre-practice speed programming. While we improved our 40 times by 5/10 as a program average over 12 months, I think we could’ve seen those gains continue to grow had we done true in-season speed development.
Caption: Residual Training Effect from Ben Peterson and Cal Dietz’s book, Triphasic Training
WHY we program speed training
The residual data in the chart above means your off-season program filled with speed training (I hope) only sticks through the first week of tryouts or camp before your gains begin to diminish. If I want my team to get fast and stay fast, I’m going to have to program speed training into my weekly practice plans on TeamBuildr Practice.
We do so to stay fast, but also for the drive to our central nervous system (CNS) and the bulletproofing of our hamstrings for competition. Most coaches believe we can mitigate hamstring injuries in games by hitting max velocity sprints during the week.
Caption: Football player and wrestler timing a 20-yard lead Fly10
Romanian Deadlifts (RDLs) are a great exercise and one of my rock lifts, but they’re not performed at the same speed as a maximum velocity sprint. Our fastest RDL might top peak velocity at 2.2m/s on VBT, while our fastest athlete sprints 10m/s on a grass field in football cleats.
The comparison doesn’t exist between top-end sprinting and anything else that we do. Thus we must hit our max velocity sprints at least once per week to maintain our speed gains throughout the season.
What coaches want I recently polled football coaches on the coaching forum Coach Huey, and 60% of the polled want to peak for speed the first day of “camp” in August. As coaches, we want to play fast and be fast, but that means we have to train fast during the season.
On top of wanting to be fast on day one, 33% of the coaches polled want to program speed training in-season, while 33% already do. Speed training in-season is much easier to do in sports that play only once per week, such as American Football, rather than sports that play three times per week, like basketball or softball. But the multi-game per week coaches don’t have to abandon speed training during the season, and we’ll get to that later.
The Weekly Schedule
For this article, we’re going to assume that your speed work needs to come after school and not during an athletic period or weight training class. Speed training should be done before practice, while the athletes are as fresh as possible. I wouldn’t program speed training the day after a game, event, or meet. In the world of high school football, the programming can be fairly simple. If you play on Friday nights, as many do, your speed days can be Monday and Thursday.
In sports that play 2-3 times per week, you may only find one day per week for speed training. While that’s not ideal, it’s more than enough compared to the vast majority of programs that won’t train speed at all, let alone every week in-season.
HOW to train speed in-season
Football players can practice on speed days in their t-shirt, girdle, and shorts with their helmet and shoulder pads off during the pre-practice speed training portion. I’ve used the method of allowing players to throw the ball around for five minutes as a warm-up after having sat in desks for eight hours during the school day.
Caption: Martial artist DJ performing ‘reverse lunge and knee drive’ activation drill
Once the athletes are warm, we can activate. I use a specific activation plan that includes Reflexive Performance Reset (RPR) as well as high knee walks, lunge variations, foot strengthening drills and cross-crawling variations.
After activation, our Monday session can focus on acceleration while our Thursday session can emphasize top-end speed. Acceleration days will utilize horizontal, extensive plyometrics as well as technique drills and starts (ex., half kneeling) before a pair of testing reps of 5-yard lead Fly10’s.
During the football season, Thursdays are typically a shorter, faster practice in a helmet, t-shirt and shorts. As we work to hit our top-end speed I like to use vertical, intensive plyometrics, bounds, and a pair of 20-yard lead Fly10’s that are timed on the Freelap Timing System.
If you’re a multiple game per week sport and play on Tuesday and Friday, the best recipe might be Monday and Wednesday for speed training. Monday can be an acceleration day, and Thursday is a max velocity day.
Get fast, stay fast
To get fast, speed has to be a priority of your off-season S&C program. To stay fast, speed has to be a priority in your weekly practice schedule. Your athletes also must stay healthy, and even in the world of proper speed training, you can overtrain your athletes. This is why we allow for walk-back rest after drills, access to water between reps, and one minute of rest for every 10-yard sprint during timing. We’re saving the volume for the sport practice so our drill reps stay low, our plyometric contacts keep a low volume; and that’s why we only time sprints for 1-2 reps per session. Keep the intensity high and the main thing—the main thing: winning games on the field, court, or ice.
Caption: Division III football player Solomon training for contact over summer break
If you also need to lift weights after school rather than during or before school, that can be achieved on the non-sprint days. One training session of medium volume and one of low volume will make for a perfect cocktail when mixed with our shots of 100 proof speed training. Speed kills, and much like not wanting to lose strength in-season and thus we lift weights, we need to stay fast in-season and continue to train speed. Get fast, stay fast.
Baskett, Dale. https://www.athleticspeedandmovement.com/
Dietz, Cal and Peterson, Ben. (2012). Triphasic Training: A systematic approach to elite speed and explosive strength performance. Bye Dietz Sports Enterprise.
8 Keys to Speed Development
How to Deal With Vendors as a Strength Coach
