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AFM Magazine

AFM Magazine


The Speed Report

by: Dale Baskett
Football Speed Specialist
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Football has grown tremendously in the area of athletic development and strength development in recent years. The knowledge level in the weight room alone is nearly off the chart. The advent of the NSCA (National Strength and Conditioning Assoc.), which is now approximately 30 years old, provides certification for strength coaches nationally. The journals they supply are written by PHD scientists and are knee deep with physical science infomation which is almost beyond comprehension. However, while strength and power in the weight room is important and heavily emphasized it has a limiting carry over for speed enhancement on the field. Many athletes are very strong and powerful yet that alone doesn’t insure maximum results for speed development capability. Adapting the strength and power to the skill of running is of greater value for speed and movement results.

Football Speed, Be Specific
    Football speed is different than linear sprint speed yet the most measured speed is the linear 40 yard dash, the least utilized distance and direction during a football game. Coaches should be concerned with the most important speed skill to be developed, which is multi-direction changes with intense velocity. Straight sprint speed, burst, multi-direction movements and short space acceleration, constitute the bulk of field speed movements during a game. The reason certain players on your team move fast on the field, yet their 40 time is not that impressive is because they have innate vision capability to see things happening and react to the changes without as much loss of velocity as compared to others. This area can be trained with movement drills that present reaction cues for direction changes which programs spontaneity.

Let’s Break It Down
    Running fast – where does it start? It starts as a mechanical skill function and ends as a mechanical skill function. What about ladders, sleds, weighted balls, hills up, hills down, plyo’s, jump ropes, etc? All have their place if used properly and CATAGORIZED properly. Pure speed is simple, it’s maximum force application to the ground per leg cycle. The short and long of it is that if  executed biomechanically correct, an athlete will maximize velocity each step.  Example: If you take a 10 year old boy and put him in a six week development series of training for biomechanically correct running skills that are systematically designed for progressing speed with technically controlled movement, he will see a 4 - 5 tenth of a second drop in his linear sprint speed. Is he stronger? NO, he’s a physical baby with minimal strength and power and mechanical skills allow him to tap the power that he has naturally. A young person cannot lift weights to get stronger; he must completely rely on sound technical application. This clearly illustrates the value that can be obtained through adhering to technical application.

    Running is a cyclic activity that is repetitive, which I term as cyclic compounding. Each cycle applies maximum force in multitudes of cycles. If an athlete has  the proper leg, body and head alignment angles in place each stride, along with syncronized upper and lower limbs, he will maximize force and leverage. Controlling limbs and body movement during high rates of speed is a difficult skill which requires controlled execution. This reflects back to tremendous lifters who are strong but haven’t fully maximized their athletic speed capability. Dedicate more time on technically correct movement refinement and you’ll see your team speed flourish.

Straight (Linear) Speed and Agility Similarites
    A study done recently at the School of Human Movement and Sport Sciences, University of Ballarat, Australia, indicated some useful criteria for the football world in terms of specific training for specific results. A study of 40 athletes tested for straight 30 speed and the same 40 tested in six varying angle changes 30 yds. each.  Afterwards they divided the athletes into two training groups, (20 and 20). One group trained for straight speed, the other for angle speed training for a six week period of time 3 days per week (See Figure 1).

 The agility group practiced the same angles as the orginal test for six weeks at 100% velocity efforts. Linear speed people practiced sprinting the 30 yard distance for six weeks at 100% velocity. When they retested at the conclusion, the linear group improved on the sprint test but had zero improvement on the movement test. The results were the same for the agility group, zero gain on linear speed but the group did well on agility speed improvement. Doing agility drills will allow an athlete to learn by familiarization. By performing the same drill over and over as was the case in the study conducted by the human performance scientists, as well as sprinting continuously in a linear manner will afford an athlete some gains in speed. What is concluded by this illustration is that you must develop both types of speed which are not similar to each other when servicing the need for a football player. One type of training will not service both sides of the fence. Mechanical training was not part of the developmental process for the test study groups. Scientists indicated that the agility angles presented a tremendous challenge for the athletes during the entire training series.

Technical Applications - The Maximizer
    If you want to have players run fast and be in control of high speed movements on the field, we must apply sound mechanical technique to all running and movement activities so that we don’t merely drill to become familiar with a procedure but teach athletes to execute mechanical control to become more confident on their feet with the speed and movement objectives that are presented. Drills should be ever changing so they cannot become drill familiar. The following are some biomechanically sound factors that will help you develop your athletes with their speed skills for football.

    The technical aspects are the premise for good biomechanical sound movement techniques athletically. If you will incorporate the techniques into your training and learn to identify these mechanical movements while training your players, the dividends will pay back two fold.

1. Line (See Figure 2), consists of the leg, upper body and the head being in a connected line of force from the ground up. Leg, torso and head staying aligned during every stride.

2. Synchronization (See Figure 3), the upper and lower rotation of the arms and legs must be rhythmically sequenced, as the limbs rotate front to back from the shoulder and hip joint.

3. Footstrike (See Figure 4), the foot lands on the ball of the foot at all times and the leg is activated downword when the leg returns to the front of the body on every rotational cycle.
    
    These three factors must be executed collectively on every cycle taken to maximize force production and body control. The arm angle must be in a 90 degree angle or as we refer to it as the letter “L” and the wrist and elbow are locked which leaves only the shoulder joint free to move when the arms rotate front to back. The hand stops even with the shoulder as the arm comes forward at the same time keeping the L locked.

    If you will observe these three biomechanical concepts and apply the connection during all of your sprints and movement drills, you’ll begin to see changes in motor pattern control that makes your players amazingly more dynamic in speed, quickness and body control movement. Take the time to be mechanically sound, even if you have to pull time away from other areas and catagorize what counts. Sometimes we have too many bells, whistles, functional additives. Don’t miss the mark on the area that when all is said and done will yield the most gain for maximizing potential, technically sound running and movement skills that are executed well during intense sprint and movement efforts.





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