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Speed Assistance and Resistance - Good or Bad for Football?by: Dale BaskettFootball Speed Specialist © More from this issue Since speed and movement and movement control are the most sought-after athletic qualities, coaches and trainers are always looking for ways to help athletes improve in these areas. Let’s look at the topic of loading and assisting and try to sort out the good from the not so good. Coaches constantly ask me about load speed work and assisted speed work. For football, it’s a controversial subject. First, coaches place too much value on it and, in most cases, use it improperly. Often, coaches will overload the athlete beyond effectiveness and pay little attention to the mechanical effectiveness in the process. In this way, more harm than good is accomplished. The reason is clear why this occurs. Coaches must understand that certain skill functions must be applied before this becomes an important issue. The emphasis for resistance is to not make the training modality about a heavy overload workout. This diminishes the potential purpose of its effectiveness. If athletes can’t sprint at 90% to 95% of maximum sprint capability during resistance work, then it provides little gain for true development. However, that’s not the only area of concern when evaluating its potential for your program. Resisted training has been used in other sports besides football and track and field. Weightlifting is pure force against resistance. Using resistance methods for speed training has a place, if used properly. The methods vary and you should be careful with resistance. Overloading is the most common mistake made with cyclic resistance when applied. The larger the load, the greater demand for more force. The term overload indicates that there’s weight resistance provided at each step taken. Your normal body weight is all you have to move without resistance. Adding resistance requires that you have to apply more force each step to the surface. Greater force is required to overcome your weight and the added resistance. Although sprint-assisted and resisted training has been around for many years, there’s very little scientific research that has been conducted in this area. However, the research that has been documented indicates that only small changes in assistance or resistance can make significant changes for running production. Once again, this points to our concerns for mechanics being a greater focus for acceleration speed characteristics and movement speed in general. Anecdotal comments from coaches and professional athletic trainers range from high praise for assisted and resisted training to claims that these methods aren’t worth the time and effort to include in a normal practice. Team training for resisted and assisted work can be difficult to apply to large numbers in a small period of time. If you choose to use these methods, be aware that resistance must be minimal in relation to the velocity required for speed work. Most coaches will overload the amount of resistance needed and the velocity and frequency is reduced dramatically. Resistance then destroys mechanical application and this negates positive results. For example, use a hill that is 2-3 degrees in a very slight upward angle. The slight angle will provide plenty of resistance to the stride cycle while maintaining mechanical efficiency. You can use rhythmic strides at a set percentage, say 70-75%, over a 30-50 yard distance. You can also do sprint work at shorter distances such as 15 to 35 yards at full sprint levels. Assisted training can also be applied with a very slight angle downward. You can actually work numbers on each run through using this type of application. Research indicates that if you’re going to use decline, incline work that using them together, going up and then down, offers better results than working them individually. Speed training needs to be a system periodization design for proper effectiveness. No one or two things like assisted or resisted training is a program. They’re merely a part of the journey to get to the beginning of the season. Coach Baskett began his career as a football speed coach in 1979. During the last 35 years he’s consulted and trained hundreds of coaches and thousands of athletes nationwide. In the last year he has worked directly with high schools in California, Texas, Minnesota, Kansas, and Pennsylvania. Over the last few years he has also consulted with Texas Tech, Ohio State, USC, University of Washington, and the University of Mount Union. You can reach him directly for more information or if you have specific questions on your training program. Coach Baskett is at dbspeedt@hotmail.com and 858-568-3751. Website: footballspeedandmovement.com |
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