This week’s guest is Lee Taft, who is highly respected as one of the top athletic movement specialists in the world. He has taught his multi-directional speed methods to top performance coaches and fitness professionals all over the world.
Today’s episode is all about coaching and building speed in a team sport environment.
Through my own journey in learning about the role of vision and reaction in sport this past year, as well as some podcast episodes highlighting reactionary skill as a critical component of the training process, such as Episode #35 with Cameron Josse, I’ve been searching for experts who can lay down solid guidelines on making what we do as strength and speed experts count when it comes to on-the-court play.
One of the most frustrating things as a sports performance coach is working extremely hard to improve athletes’ strength, power and armor, but then watching them struggle to keep up with the movement skill of the opposing team. Lee’s work in multi-directional sport movement helps to fill in that gap. You’ll find great insight particularly from his ideas on reactionary speed, linking movements, sensory roles of the feet in team sport movement, and more.
This is an episode that confirmed some things I’d been hearing from great coaches in the past year, and more importantly, sparked new ideas and thought processes in me, to the effect that I’ve been pouring over slow-motion YouTube videos of the world’s best athletes, as well as creating conversation with my fellow sports performance professionals. Lee is a first-class individual, and whatever your mode of coaching (strength, track and field, physical education) I know you’ll love this episode!
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.
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Key Points:
• Lee’s background in the speed and agility field
• How athletes move well innately, are a product of their environment, and when there is a need to coach them
• Guidelines in making the decision to actually coach an athlete’s movement pattern and technique
• How often to cue an athlete, and how many attempts to go before we give instruction
• Some of the worst cues for athletes in the realm of speed and agility
• Why the false step
• Reasons people can be fast linearly, but lack multi-directional speed
• Linking skills and movements, and their importance to speed ability
• The line in building speed, where strength coach ends and sport coach begins
• Foot strength, shin angles and mobility in the scope of team sports
• Lee’s favorite lifts, generally speaking, for speed development
“The younger coaches should be banned from the internet and “quick access” so that they have to actually lock themselves in a weightroom or court, and learn from trial and error!”
“A drill is just a conduit to a skill”
“All humans are designed to be able to move. Their exposure to organized activities that force different patterns. That is what is going to determine how efficient and effective they move in those sports”
“What my feet do (in response to an attacker or defender) is built in. It’s not a conscious thought.”
“If I had the guts to do it, I would open up a facility that was just based on play, but a little more systematic. I have a ton of reaction games, tag games, and implement those in a progression. Play is how we learn, the ability to predict our opponents movement, that is what makes us appear quicker”
“Guided discovery means that I make sure I wind you up and head you in the right direction, and let you go. I want to make sure I don’t interfere with your learning process.”
“I gotta get out of the way and have enough confidence in myself, and an ego that can be checked and say “the more I talk, the more I delay the learning process””
“If an athlete’s understanding isn’t there, then I’ll immediately give instruction…. If rep to rep, if I’m seeing some kind of progress, I’ll let it ride. If I think a cue or a word, or some form of feedback can help them and stay online a bit better, then I’ll give it. It might be the 3rd rep, or the 10th rep, or it might be the next day”
“I will many times interject on effort or attitude more than I will technical if I feel that’s what needed” “Don’t make your athletes think too much, just make them feel it”
“When “false stepping” the body is trying to get momentum in the direction it wants to go, and it wants to get there quicker!”
“When we miss those (multi-directional sport play as a youth) windows, when an athlete gets older, it’s really really hard to develop”
“Think about change of direction in most sports, it’s not predicted, it’s reactionary… we could take a cross country runner and make them pretty good in a rehearsed manner, but what happens when you have to react to a defender, or a ball? That’s why it’s important for young kids to get that exposure to sport play”
“Become very aware of the sport language and terminology and needs of the sport that you are training…. it’s that little bit that might make the athlete more comfortable with me and let them know that I know what I’m talking about… use the language that they use”
“I control mass and momentum by the sensations that my feet give the upper body”
“Deceleration is never the goal, change of direction is the goal!”
“Get on the ball of the foot, but allow the whole foot to touch the ground, that’ll give you the feeling, sensation and support you need to move in the direction you want”
About Lee Taft:
Lee Taft, known to most simply as “The Speed Guy”, is highly respected as one of the top athletic movement specialists in the world. He has taught his multi-directional speed methods to top performance coaches and fitness professionals all over the world.
Since 1989, Lee has taught foundation movement to beginning youngsters and helped young amateur athletes to professional athletes become quicker, faster and stronger. Lee’s entire philosophy is based off one of his most notable quote, “Learning athletic movement correctly from the start is the foundation for
athletic success.”
With the release of Ground Breaking Athletic Movement in 2003, Lee revolutionized the fitness industry with his movement techniques for multi-directional speed. His innovative approach to training has impacted how athletic movement speed is taught. Lee brought to light the importance and fine points of the “Plyo Step”, “Hip Turn”, “Directional Crossover Step” and athletic stance. According to Lee, “Speed and agility done right is about making sure we marry the natural movements athletes have with effective and efficient body control to maximize speed and quickness”.
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