The Speed Report: Final Preperations for In-Season Performance

by: Dale Baskett
Football Speed Specialist
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Many weeks and months go into preparing a team for in-season speed. Can you imagine running ladders or dragging a parachute for seven months? I can't either. Hopefully, your off-season speed development was thought out and well conceived for the many phases required. To truly perfect the art and skill of running fast on the football field is like baking a cake. Many ingredients need to be blended in certain amounts and the baker must know just how much of each ingredient is required. Too little or too much of any one ingredient can alter the results for a consistent and edible product.

The same is true for turning out fast players in bunches. A system that progresses skills and physical development optimally must be designed correctly to cover the entire off-season. The prize at the end is, of course, the speed and movement capability performed during the season when it counts.

Part/Whole-Part Relativity

Any structure that is being built that sustains must have parts that are relative to the foundation. With speed development it is crucial. The specific being taught must line up with the theoretical premise of the product design in every movement taken.

The biochemical foundations applied must be examined on all that you do during the off-season. All the pieces need to fit to realize the end results. When done right, the pieces all fit together to form the whole. Motor habits for speed and movement must be on the same page when limbs rotate at varying speeds. Too often coaches just throw movement procedures together. We must be aware that the mind only records and doesn't decipher. The coach and the athlete must control the correct mechanical applications to fit the whole for maximizing speed processing.

Strong Start, Strong Finish-Phase One

The importance of beginning the off-season right is to establish a bio-mechanical training system for progressive development. The following needs should have been met thoroughly and consistently for your early off-season to have been successful. It should have contained mechanical foundation work for technical skill development at lesser speeds and greater volume.

The program should have been designed to be specific to the desired result (the right ingredients to bake the cake). If the athletes learn to work with the drills system as designed and can execute them well at lower speeds, moving to the next phase of training should have been smooth and successful.

Early Spring-Phase Two

Part of speed training is doing work that enhances power production physically: plyos, weight training and other power building activities. This should have been a time to work on some plyos and basic movement drills in a combination mode. This is a great way to produce speed and power collectively. Short springs that integrate into a plyo and back to a spring in the same run-through are extremely valuable. Be creative in finding ways to design such activities accordingly.

Bridge to Summer Training

Late Spring-April and May-should have centered on fast ground plyos and quickness drills; that is, high intensity quickness drills mixed with fast plyos. This really works the nervous system well. Fast twitch contractual force production is working in unison to enhance the physical demands required. Never fail to overlook mechanical effectiveness application on every movement on the speed drills you use.

Final Touches

The last but least phase is the summer series. Coaches should use this time frame to work on high-level speed work with long recovery phases. The objective is simple--come into August when the season begins--running and moving fast.

I would not suggest plyos during the summer prior to in-season. They should have already built the power aspect needed during the off-season. Just prior to show time we need to tap the nervous system to peak our speed to its maximum level. All movement drills should also be fast. When the season begins, I want my athletes at their very best level of football speed performance. It's hard to make it better during the season.

Summarizing Where We are.
Was It Done Right?

We just spent some time going over the phases needed to be prepared for the in-season. There are a variety of applications for what it takes to run fast and be prepared properly.

As I ponder the last statement I begin to reflect about all the years and athletes and teams I’ve worked with. 28 years to date and many experiences with trial and error including great athletes, novice athletes, and many in-between.

I write today to football coaches throughout the country at every level, speaking from a position of experience and accrued knowledge. However, knowledge for knowledge sake is only as good as the paper it is written on. The key to all of your hard work with your kids is to look back and realize that application of the right knowledge produces extreme results. It’s one thing to do a multitude of tossed salad training but the parts must match the whole. Qualified ingredients determine the end results. The number of items employed doesn’t secure automatic production. In most cases they’re not uniform and simplistic enough to be effective when the whole part is observed. Quality, not quantity is always the path to follow when you are developing speed during the off-season and, especially, in-season.

Remember, if some is good more is not better and less is more. Does this apply to everything in life? No, but it does when speed and power development athletically is the subject in training regimen. The exciting part of speed and movement development is the creativity of processing proper skills over time. The maximizing of those skills and measured performance evaluations will always shine when the prescription of the measured ingredients are precisely calculated over time.

Consistency of steady, accurate application always produces outstanding results when the job is completed. Too often we are looking to jam and push instead of steady as she goes. This requires time and a plan, the way anything that’s worth anything is formulated. Hopefully, your off-season matched the aforementioned time frames and applications discussed in this article. If that’s not the case then today is the first day of your new journey. Tomorrow, as we presently read, is the beginning of the new in-season.

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Over the last 27 years, Dale Baskett has trained over 100 NFL players representing every NFL team. This includes 21 All Pro’s and two members of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Additionally, he has worked with both high school and college football programs at all levels. His in-depth line of videos, available at www.AFMvideos.com, shows position-by-position drills, coaching points and on-field demonstrations. For further information, contact him at 858-829-5599 or DBSpeedt@hotmail.com.

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