Today’s episode features speed and athletic movement expert Lee Taft, making his second appearance on the podcast. Lee has unique experience as an athlete, educator, sport coach and speed coach that puts him on another level in terms of dissecting movement that leads to success. He has 3 decades of work under his belt in the speed development industry, and hearing him talk about the fine points of speed both reveals the fine-tuned complexity of an athlete in motion, as well as helping us as coaches find the best way to steer athletes towards the optimal model.
One of the things that I’ve always been interested in is not coaching speed out of athletes. Until you have a thorough understanding of how athletes move properly, it can be tough to know when to actually instruct an athlete in movement, and how to do so. That is where Lee’s deep dives into speed become so valuable.
In terms of speed, I love track and field, but movement in team sport certainly has differences from top-end sprinting. In today’s episode, Lee talks about some of the key differences, not just between a track and team sport athlete, but also a court sport and field sport athlete. We go into the importance of well-rounded speed development, but how this changes as an athlete matures in their sport. He also digs into the development of reactive agility through his favorite games, as well as how he uses reactive versus closed components within each speed training session. This episode is particularly valuable for coaches working with a range of athletes
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:
- The difference in the way athletes move in a court sport vs. a field sport and training implications
- The value of teaching a court sport athlete speed of a distance that goes outside of what their sport requires
- The best age for athletes to start specializing in how they train speed in regard to their sport
- Low versus high heel recovery ramifications in a team sport environment
- Ways Lee builds reactive ability into athletes
- Proportion of closed versus reactive agility based work
- Lee’s favorite games for reactive agility development
“Great plays are made when players can make a unique play that they can’t do traditionally”
“If you do too much too soon, especially with a boy who has the potential to grow again, what they are going to do is they are going to develop a movement patter and it is going to get engrained….. it is hard to get out of later because you’ve been so specific from a young age, and that is why general training is so important” 16:30
“I’m constantly adjusting my athletes based on their sport, where they’re at, and if they’ve reached puberty yet”
“If you are going to work with an athlete one day a week on sprint mechanics, how much are you going to over-ride the 10s of thousands of reps they are doing outside of that?”
“Hip height is really important based on my mechanics for changing direction”
“The sweet spot (of hip height) is developed by habits”
“We start training sessions with reactive drills, the reactive drills tell me what we need to do next”
“The foot tells the core what to do, or the arm action tells the core what to do”
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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