This post isn’t going to be all that organized, but that is because there isn’t a singular intention for this article, rather, a variety of things to consider in your own training or working with speed and power athletes. I started my journey into the sports performance world completely and utterly obsessed with vertical jumping and strength training. To me, if those two aspects of things were the only things really worth spending time on in training, and speed would come as a result.
As a track coach, speed is my business. I knew a decent amount about it in my early years as a coach, and I have picked up bits and pieces here and there as I move on in my “travels” in this industry. First off, many of these posts are going to be related heavily to what is known as “track speed” also known as “top end speed”. I feel, although I am more of a “vertical jump guy”, I have had some success in the world of coaching speed as well. Here are some random droppings of my past 5 years in speed education.
Top end speed is influenced heavily by muscle tone. If the muscle belly is too tight, or the resting tension is too high, the body won’t be able to move fluidly through the large ranges of joint motion that top end speed requires. Sometimes too much heavy strength work or plyometric work can cause muscle bellies to be a bit tighter than is optimal for top end sprinting (although it isn’t the worst for acceleration).
- Therapy is an important part of muscle tone, as well as the prevention of knots and adhesions within the muscle and fascia. Foam rollers, PVC rollers, and tennis/lacrosse balls should be standard in the inventory of any coach or athlete. Part of being a well-oiled machine is making sure your soft tissues are moving correctly.
- Hips and hamstrings are everything. If you are a sprinter, it is your goal to feel the workouts in your hamstrings or your butt. The muscles that hurt the most after you do a significant sprinting workout are the ones that your body used the most. If you feel sprint workouts in your quads or inner thighs, you need to do some specific strength and corrective sprint training to give your body more strength and recruitment in the real workhorses of the sprint, your hips and hamstrings. I actually used to always feel sprint workouts in my inner thighs, and I happened to have pretty big inner thighs for the size of my legs. As I have done more of the correct work in the weightroom and on the track, I have learned to feel workouts in my hamstrings and butt… I am also much faster because of it.
- Some of the best lifts out there for sprinters are the barbell hip thrust, barbell glute bridge, glute ham raise, and romanian deadlift. Squats are nice and should be included in a program, but they won’t provide the glute development that these other exercises offer.
- Core strength and mobility are neglected, but vital aspects of top end speed sprint work. An athletes mobility is closely related to how they are able to hold their speed throughout a race. Tightness in dynamic positions will cause the “sprint position” to be much harder to maintain.
- Faster athletes on the top end of speed will be able to “pull” their center of mass underneath them well, using the hips and hamstrings. Slower runners tend to “push” their center of mass forwards relying heavily on their quads. Sometimes these push runners can be very fast over 10-30m, but they will get killed after that distance by the hip dominant athletes.
- There is no reason to continue a sprint workout after your times begin to get slower. If an athlete starts slowing down significantly in a speed based workout, then stop the workout or find something else to do. Don’t get in the habit of teaching athletes to run slow when they are trying to go all out.
- Sprint form is influenced very heavily by where the athlete has the most powerful muscles. If an athlete has very strong quadricep muscle in the front of their legs, and weak abdominals, this athlete will not be able to run any faster in the “optimal sprint position” of posterior pelvic tilt and high hips. This is because they would now be using their weaker muscles to propel them down the track instead of the strong ones. This is why strength work and drills should be prescribed to combat weaknesses, rather than just expecting the athlete to hear a cue and automatically be able to correct themselves.
- Power and “Fast Twitch Composition” are really important to being a great sprinter, but muscle balance, technique, mobility, and muscle tone are all big players as well. Not to mention having long legs in relation to your total body height….
- There are 1,000,000 ways to train a 400m sprinter in track and field…. ok not quite that many, but there are a lot!
- Hill work is a vital part of complete speed training.
- It is vital to supplement power sprint work with more general training such as circuit training, mobility work, and slower paced technical sprints.
- Weight training for sprints can legitimately be a bad thing if it is not performed correctly, especially if it causes the athlete to gain weight in the wrong areas. Is your training in the weightroom causing your athlete to start having legs that look more like a horses (strong hips and hamstrings) or a bodybuilders (strong quads)? If your athletes are starting to look like bodybuilders, you are doing it wrong. I have seen this really hurt sprinters (and myself when I was younger!)
- Traditional sprint drills really don’t do all that much for sprint form because they only train the vertical component of sprinting, and not the horizontal component. I have almost completely phased out the standard A and B skips in favor of developmental drills popularized for British coach Alex Caan. See examples of these below.
– Some of the best lifts out there for sprinters are the barbell hip thrust, barbell glute bridge, glute ham raise, and romanian deadlift. Squats are nice and should be included in a program, but they won’t provide the glute development that these other exercises offer.
Whatever your sport, having better top end speed can help you be better. Apply some of the principles above, and see your speed reach levels you didn’t think possible.
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