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Speed Report: Combining In-Season Conditioning with In-Season Speed Trainingby: Dale BaskettFootball Speed Specialist © More from this issue Combining the two – in-season conditioning and speed training – is a subject that often comes up for discussion when I’m doing clinics and workshops across the country at various high schools and colleges. We always discuss the physiological energy mechanisms and how they function when we train. The same question seems to arise each time: What’s the best way to condition during the season? The answer is usually not well-received. My reply is that we need to understand how the game is played physiologically. If you run athletes hard and often with short recovery time between efforts, your athletes are being exposed to overtraining. Consequently, you’re training the wrong metabolic system and will not be tapping the proper system that is required. Limited recovery with constant brutal sprinting is going to keep the heart rate at maximum levels. The heart rate should have a chance to recover to learn how to drop sufficiently on any given break. Volume and low recovery constitutes quantity, not quality. Let’s break it down and learn to apply useful energy placed specifically to maximize the energy system used when playing the game. We are too fixed on what can easily become hand-me-down information from your old coach you played for or the last staff you were on. Then you became a head coach. It’s important to explore and learn what present-day research tells us about conditioning. There are different types utilized, which means you might have to change your thinking. Change can be beneficial, which can advance your training methods for better physical performance. The typical thought process is to run kids with a good deal of volume, keep them tired and continue to expend effort. This is not specific to what takes place in a game. Your thought is to make them tough by beating them, which is time wasted. Legendary coach Bear Bryant learned later in life that killing athletes was truly killing athletes. You need them to play at a high efficiency level for a 48 to 60-minute game. Actually, the real facts are that in a 48-minute game your athletes are full out only five minutes and 35 seconds. They are not running hard or they are resting for the other 42 minutes. The way we do this correctly is to rest after the high-intensity sprint and the high-intensity conditioning rep. Now, we are working the anaerobic system function at high levels of efficiency over and over and over for four quarters. The same is true with short speed with high intensity. Never put your athletes in a state of exhaustion and keep them there. Remember, football is five minutes and 35 seconds of full playing activity at 100 % intensity while the remaining time is walking or slow jogging. Aerobic conditioning degrades speed physiologically. You become slower by the week if you continue that approach. The nervous system must always be addressed. It’s key to speed and conditioning. The following are ideas that work and are not experimental: 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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