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Speed Report – Weight Training for Speed in a High School Environmentby: Dale BaskettFootball Speed Specialist by: Fred Eaves Strength and Conditioning Coach, Battle Ground Academy (TN) © More from this issue Football has become a game of speed. High school football strength and conditioning coaches across the country are constantly searching for ways to improve the speed and explosiveness of their team in order to produce maximum results. Training for speed in the weight room is paramount for coaches and teams to reach their desired results. Focusing on Olympic movements in the weight room can be very beneficial in increasing a player’s speed. Why Use Olympic Movements? Olympic lifts are multi-joint movements that teach athletes how to produce power from the ground up. Using multi-joint movements also teaches the body how to perform well as a single unit. Our body has to perform as one unit in both the weight room and on the playing field in order for success to be achieved in each of these areas. Olympic lifts also teach change of direction through the receiving position of the power clean, power snatch and split jerk. The body must change direction in order to properly drop under the bar in a receiving position for all of these lifts. This is of great benefit in football. It is a sport with constant change of direction, and Olympic lifts are an excellent way to train for that. Olympic lifts have been scientifically proven to have great value, but many coaches are afraid to use them due to a lack of knowledge or fear of injury. Everyone in the field agrees that these lifts should only be taught by a strength and conditioning professional that is properly trained in these movements in order to maximize their safety and effectiveness. We would encourage anyone who does not have a background in Olympic lifts to take one of the USA Weightlifting certification courses. They are very practical certifications, and they will greatly improve any coach’s knowledge and understanding of teaching these movements. We currently use all of the Olympic movements in our program at Battle Ground Academy. Movements include the clean, snatch, jerk, and use all of the different Olympic assistance exercises in order to help increase the speed and explosiveness of our athletes. This may not be ideal for your individual situation. We’ve learned that no two high school environments that are exactly the same, and each coach must adjust accordingly in order to maximize their results in the weight room. As a coach, it may take years to feel comfortable incorporating the snatch and the jerk into your weekly plan. We want our athletes to establish proper movement patterns. Freshmen can start the Olympic lift progression with broomsticks. We teach our freshmen that we do not care about lifting heavy weight at their age. The major focus of the program with young athletes is to move the bar extremely fast with great technique. Moving the bar fast at this age is teaching their neuromuscular system how to fire quickly. We not only work on great technique with this type of progression, but we also get the added benefit of increasing the rate of force development for these young athletes. A coach should never use over three reps in the power clean periodization with high school students unless working on technique. Anything above three reps could cause a breakdown in technique due to the taxation of the central nervous system during the session. This is the outline of a teaching progression for the power clean: Coach Baskett began his career as a football speed coach in 1979. During the last 34 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. |
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