This week’s guest is Derek Hansen. Derek is the head strength coach at Simon Fraser University, and is a renowned speed expert and consultant. He is the director of SPS consulting, and owns the site strengthpowerspeed.com.
Derek is a Canadian coach who was mentored by Charlie Francis and is well-respected as one of the top speed and strength experts in the world. He wrote the chapter on speed training in the book “High Performance Training for Sports”, which many sports performance professionals are familiar with.
If you haven’t noticed, a recurring theme on this podcast is that of strength, speed and power development. I’m happy to have Derek on due to his long-running experience in strength and conditioning and track and field.
As with most experienced and successful coaches, Derek has taken a lot of complicated ideas and funneled them down to simple and effective principles. Today on the show, we talk about Derek’s philosophy in application towards linear speed testing, sprint drills, general vs. specific strength, bar speed monitoring, and more.
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Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster, supplier of high-end athletic development tools, such as the Freelap timing system, kBox, Sprint 1080, and more.
Key Points:
- The value of testing linear speed in field sports
- The evaluation process of athletes for speed
- Derek’s take on sprint drills and transfer to speed performance
- Ideas on specific vs. general strength training for building speed and power
- The potential of negative transfer in barbell training for the sake of speed
- Bar speed monitoring and its application (or contraindications) for sport performance
- Role of building muscle hypertrophy in speed development
- Scope of using the Olympic lifts in speed and team sport development given that there is time for coaches to teach athletes the lifts with an appropriate proficiency
Quotes:
“I just like to see people sprint, and see what they look like”
“If all you did was time people to 10 yards, you would have a good amount of information, if you timed to them to 20, even more”
“There’s a bit of a show to (the NFL combine)”
“To get the time, you get some information, but if you actually see how they run the 40 or any linear sprint distance, it’s important to me, because it tells me, one what their preparation was. It tells me how efficient they are going to be. If someone expends a lot of energy and is very tight running the 40, it tells me how efficient they are going to be in their sport. It tells me they may not be as effective in their sport, because they might not have as much control over their body. It may determine their change of direction abilities if they are not relaxed in a maximal linear sprint”
“Some of the things that we look at in the 40 yard dash subjectively should dovetail with what (sport coaches) are looking at on the field and have some commonalities so that we can arrive at the same place and provide value to the athlete. Everyone wants to test well, but ultimately are they playing well on the field and are you winning games.”
“If I’m working with a younger or novice group, sprint drills are good for posture, limb mechanics to some degree, and useful for general strengthening in a lot of cases” “They are particularly good if you are working with teams in a confined space”
“Drill might not be necessary because they are doing more damage than good; I had a 10.5 sprinter who couldn’t do a skipping “A”. His running technique wasn’t bad, this drill was just going to make things worse and frustrate him, so we got rid of that drill”
“Drills are either active (teaching) or reactive (corrective drills)”
“I’ve found significant improvements in changing and retaining technique when I video movement and athletes can watch it on their own”
“If you work with track and field, you don’t really look at the weight room as the answer, you look at it as a part, or very small part of the answer”
“What central nervous system energy can be taken up by too much weightlifting that will hurt an athlete in actual sport practices? Is too much lifting creating problems mechanically? Those are two things I’m watching carefully all the time.”
“I’ve had enough athletes, all the way from sub-10 athletes to 11 seconds in the 100. Some of the guys running 10.6-10.7 had much better numbers in the weightroom than the guy who is running 10 flat”
“If you’re moving something faster, there is a (global) nervous system contribution there” “I don’t’ look at (moving a bar faster a peripheral adaptation)” “People are giving too much credence to moving the bar faster, thinking it means they will now move faster; it doesn’t work that way, it’s specific to itself”
“Just chasing numbers in terms of bar velocity is inappropriate (for athletes)”
“Just having a bar on your back, putting load through your spine, and your nervous system’s response to it is very important”
About Derek Hansen
Derek is a NSCA Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist that has been working with athletes in speed, strength and power sports since 1988. Originally working with Track and Field athletes, Derek expanded his services to assist athletes in all sports with an emphasis on speed development. He has since worked with some of the top performers in the world as a coach and a consultant – including Olympic medallists, world record holders, Canadian National team athletes, professional sports organizations and professional athletes from numerous sports. Locally, Derek has produced some of the top sprinters in British Columbia and continues to work with some of the fastest athletes in various sports.
Provided below are some of Derek’s key qualifications, credentials and designations:
- NSCA Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist
- NSCA Provincial Director for British Columbia – 2006 to 2010
- NCCP Level 3 Track and Field Coach – Sprints and Hurdles Emphasis
- NCCP Level 2 Olympic Weightlifting Coach
- Course Conductor for the National Coaching Institute (NCI) Vancouver for Strength & Conditioning and Recovery & Regeneration
- Head Strength and Conditioning Coach for Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Canada
- Sport performance consultant, sport technology advisor and rehab specialist for a number of teams in the NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB, MLS and NCAA Division I college sports
- Presenter, workshop leader and lecturer at major international conferences on various topics relating to sport performance, rehab and sport technologies
- Speed, strength and conditioning consultant – Cycling Canada – BMX and Track Cycling – 2013 to present
- Speed, strength and conditioning consultant – Speed Skating Canada – Long Track preparations for the 2010 Olympics
- Past Recruitment and Athlete Development Coach – Vancouver Region – for Bobsleigh Canada
- Head Coach – Metro Athletic Club – Track and Field – 2001-2009
- Head Strength and Conditioning Coach – Canadian Men’s Field Hockey Team – 1999-2004
- Head Strength and Conditioning Coach – Canadian Olympic Women’s Softball Team – 2001-2004
- Consultant – BC Basketball/Basketball Canada – Centre for Performance Youth Development – 2001-2008
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