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AFM Magazine


The Speed Report: Maintaining Maximum Speed Capacity During the Season

by: Dale Baskett
Football Speed Specialist
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In the July Speed Report on final preparations for in-season speed, I stressed maximizing speed prior to in-season. Now we are in-season and we must have a plan for sustaining the qualities we worked to develop. The key emphasis here is quality, not quantity. As I have put forward the last two years of writing the Speed Report, everything is quality, not quantity. Speed is a precision skill which must be trained in that manner. Too much emphasis on over working the physical aspects of training will degrade growth and maximum potential that can be produced and sustained.

What’s the Prescription During Double Days?

Hell week to football is a train wreck for speed skills. Young men go through physical demands that are more about physical conditioning than anything else. Coaches often use this time frame to install packages for the year that will be functional for early season contests. So, hell week becomes a time needed for conditioning, package installation or both.

To me, personally, so be it. Whatever direction a program is designed in the beginning of the season is beyond my control, obviously. However, those who do make the decisions, in my opinion, often don’t communicate to those who do work with speed and movement. Those who are trying to do the correct thing year round and funnel the growth into the season have an absolute bump when the first two weeks begin. I’m speaking in many cases and certainly not in every case. The bump is that most of the players are tired, have heavy legs, and when running fast is presented the athletes are prone to exert effort that is far from quality production. The result of effort and diminished quality for speed is analogous of garbage being sprinkled over mama’s homemade apple pie. The result is counterproductive to the source of a sweet quality result. Speed, as indicated, must be trained when the athlete is fresh and electric. Speed is a precision skill. Playing the piano with your elbows is not a quality technique and the noisy sound will still resonate ineffectively. We must look beyond incorporating work and effort during the first two weeks of football season and categorize it as damaged control where speed is concerned.

I Have a Solution - Let’s Talk

My solution is simple: the guy in charge of fatigue is usually beyond your control. If you’re the head coach, reading my commentary means you have a choice. Make football secondary and the weight room and speed primary. You’re saying put strength/power, and speed first and sacrifice football when the clock is now ticking? No, what I’m saying to the strength / speed coach or head coach is that you can preserve what you’ve created during the off-season. Don’t let it erode until the hell week or double days subside.

Now that I’ve pointed to certain aspects important to the start of football, where speed is concerned, let’s move forward. The concerns and challenges as well as the best case scenarios and worst for football speed have clearly been established by my conjecture. My study over the last 28 years has afforded me a great opportunity to receive tremendous feedback for identifying common human movement inefficiencies. These inefficiencies are directly relative to quality performance. They occur in spades when fatigue is present, so keep the knife sharp.

Ok, What Do We Do?

What you do for two weeks is go back to basics. The first two weeks are multi-busy with many objectives to complete. Multi-tasking is part of what football is about for the first two weeks. The mental challenge of all that’s new and/or expected is always demanding. My prescription is simple: don’t demote quality speed. Go back to basic foundation fundamentals. This works best due to the fact that fatigue and speed don’t mix. Mechanics and techniques are the first to suffer. Too much is required mentally and physically when it all starts. Therefore, work with it and not against it by reinforcing basic fundamentals.

Step Two - Contact, Contact, Contact

The first focus is mechanics once again. You’re now wearing gear and into contact. So, what about technique and contact? Contact is football but it does not enhance quality speed once the pounding begins. Football is not kind to mechanical function. When the emphasis is on football, athletes have a natural tendency to move and exert effort rather than execute fast movement skills. The deeply experienced and highly developed athletes have little issue with this because of processed motor functions that deliver the ingrained responses. Remember – speed and movement are highly refined skill activities.

Games are About to Start - What’s Next?

The following information will be the best and most creative direction to follow. We started with basics again and now we can use the speed and movement session with greater emphasis. We need to begin by putting your speed work in the beginning of your practice – probably 15 to 20 minutes after properly warming up. Again, we must be fresh to begin speed work. Secondly, we want to train fast now that doubles are behind us. The first week after doubles will still leave you with some heavy leg hold over. So go easier on percentages of intensity that first week so the legs can recover to a state of proficiency.

Now We are Playing - Week to Week

Although unique, the following information will be a great help. Sometimes unique doesn’t fit the standard most are usually accustomed to. Step one: you need to do speed work without full equipment on – strip to shorts and t-shirts for your speed work. At this point I have thrown a curve and you’re about to have a heart attack. Well the reason is simple: you don’t wear army boots in order to do speed work. My ears are ringing. ‘You mean we need to begin practice with speed work?’ Yes, and run as close to naked as possible. Now I hear the second negative comment, ‘well we have to play in the gear, we learn to carry it.’ If that’s your feeling, ignore this section. And it’s a comment that will direct you towards better results. We all have choices; however, I’ll make a deal with you. Listen to what I’m telling you and your athletes will sustain the speed you brought to the season. Don’t listen and you expose them to work in vain to run fast and then have football destroy it.

If It’s Broken, Fix it

I’ve have the good fortune, as you know, to work with the best of the best. They always came back in the off-season year to year. Each off-season was the same; they had to rejuvenate the finite mechanical functions each year. I had NFL players that would be with me from five years to fifteen years during every off-season. Today, that’s impossible. This is due to the teams keeping most of the players in house or having so many mini-camps that they may as well stay in the city that they play in. The other reason is the incentive to develop is not as great. I teach playing speed skills. Today the combines are where it begins and ends.

Years ago an athlete’s desire to play faster and better meant more potential opportunity for greater future income. Today, the incomes to start playing in the NFL are off the charts which stifles desire to develop once in-house. I’ve worked with numerous NFL All-Pro’s over time. They all wanted to develop. Today they are focused more on the price. You have young athletes and the best thing you can do is help them understand the importance for speed. Football must be played fast in order to be maximally effective.

In-season Insights/Points To Remember:

• Train fresh at the beginning of practice.
• Utilize long recoveries between sprints.
• Quality, not quantity (Racehorses, not plow pullers).
• Fifteen minutes max. Time spent two days a week will keep things straight.
• Stress techniques always--especially when your athletes are tired.
• In-season is to preserve speed first and enhance if possible – don’t loose speed.
• We lift in-season to stay strong; speed requires the same in-season attention.
• We must run fast to be fast and stay fast.
• Don’t do ploys during in-season. They are too demanding but train fast.

The greater the tap to the nervous system the better your in-season speed will be. Don’t be surprised if more is less and less is more for speed. Football is a running game and playing fast is the goal.


Over the last 28 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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