Sports Speed Training

I had a fantastic question the other day regarding landing technique and how it should be performed. The question related to how hard or soft the landing should be in terms of foot contact with the ground surface. There are a couple ways to answer this question. The first being, are you looking for real world reactive speed that will happen in sport? Or are you looking to introduce or possibly bring an athlete back from injury?

Let me address the first response to this question. In sport, especially team sports, where the movement of players is dictated much by what the opponent does (reactive speed and quickness) there is no time for slow soft movements. If you use slow soft movements you are beat, period! Cutting or change of direction, although not exactly the same as jump landing, is done with explosive quick actions of the feet and legs to decelerate and immediately accelerate. To make this occur at rapid speed there must be hard, quick pressure put into the ground to elicit a stretch reflex of the musculo-tendonous complex. We need the athlete to be able to fire the muscle as quickly as possible to produce force (one is to immediately absorb force and the other is to create acceleratory force). This isn’t happening if the actions are soft and slow.

My second response is regarding teaching the beginning athlete or an athlete recovering from injury how to absorb force with no reactive nature to a secondary movement. In this case, in the early stages I am not opposed to teaching them to absorb into the landing which means to yield to the gravitational and mass forces. This technique may allow the athlete to gain confidence and reduce forces on the injured area.

Now that I said that about the yielding to forces in the initial stages…it isn’t going to last long with me. As soon as I feel the athlete is proficient or given a clean bill of health I want action into the ground. I not only want action into the ground I want a “sticking action” (like a gymnast landing after a vault- no movement). Please understand I am not suggesting the athlete overly pound his or her feet into the ground. I am simply stating that I want the athlete to not yield to the force being subjected down upon them. I want the nervous system and muscular system to act quickly on these forces and be able to reverse as fast as possible.

Sometimes when we evaluate movement we forget to look at what the movement is for. In other words, if you simply looked at the sport of soccer, volleyball, tennis, basketball or football you wouldn’t even ask me if I preferred my athlete to land softly and absorb through the landing. You would immediately know athletes need to be trained to quickly reverse the downward force and turn it into the next movement.

So regardless if we are talking about landing or cutting the same principle applies. Be aggressive during foot contact in order to be quick!

Yours in Speed,

Lee

P.S. Take a look at my Low Box Training and see how you can develop a quicker response time off the ground with your athletes. This is a great tool every coach, trainer, therapist, and athlete should have.

One of my favorite tools to use to introduce how to move the feet from under the center of mass are the Low Box series. The other great use of low box training is the introduction of quick plyometric exercises. Let me share with you a workout I often use with athletes to get them moving better.

1. The SSE warm up system:
   1. Foam Roll of some kind- could be a stick, ball, or roller to reduce the muscle tension/knotting
   2. Corrective stretching if needed in areas of tightness or imbalance
   3. Activation- turns on posterior chain, hip flexors, and lateral hips, as well a core and upper and lower body.
   4. Dynamic movements- slow controlled movements such as elbow lunges, lateral lunge walks, skipping, carioca, shuffling…

1. Balance and stability training using low boxes:
   1. 4-6 inch low box
      1. Forward leap from right foot to left foot onto the box and hold the landing for 2 seconds. The landing should be just like a landing off a vertical jump except on one leg. Perform 5 reps on each leg
      2. Lateral leap and hold- same exercise as forward leap except now you perform it laterally. – perform 5 reps on each leg.

1. Multiple box routine:
   1. Use 4-8 boxes at 4-6 boxes
      1. Jumps- start with a controlled jump on and off each box as you travel over all boxes in a row. Hold each landing, on and off the box, so the coach can check technique. Use proper arm swing- Perform 4 tips through.
      2. Quick jumps- same routine except jumps are quick off the box and floor. Perform 4 trips through each box.
      3. Hops- (this is for athlete prepared for single leg hops). Just like in the jumps each landing is controlled and held for a moment so technique can be checked. Perform 1-2 sets on each leg
      4. Quick hops- perform 1-2 sets of quick hops on an off each box.

1. Short Acceleration: Now that the athletes nervous system is primed and ready to explode after the low level quick plyo’s let’s work acceleration. It is important to note that if there were too many reps performed on the low box plyo exercises the nervous system might be over tired and not be able to fire up. But the routine above in pretty low level and is great to prepare the athlete.
   1. Ball Drops- Coach stands 10-12 feet (more or less) holding 2 tennis balls out at shoulder level. When the coach drops one of the balls the athlete must accelerate and catch it before the 2nd bounce. The coach can have the athlete in various stances (parallel, staggered, facing backward, sideways, ½ kneeling…) perform a total 12 reps (4 straight, 4 sideways- 2 each, 4 backward using hip turn)

1. Chase game for acceleration: Now put the acceleration skills to work by having a fun but competitive game. I am going to show you one game I like to use to work on acceleration and competition.
   1. Race through the Gate- 2 athletes stand side by side in a parallel stance and 2 cones are placed side by side 3 feet apart (only enough room for one athlete to get through). On the coaches signal the athlete must race to see who gets through the gate first. The athlete will need to use their body to get in front of the other athlete. Not illegal pushing or tripping, but contact will occur. Perform 5 reps.

At this point at the Lee Taft Speed Academy athlete would get a short break and then go on to do strength training.

The focus of the above workout is to use great technique on all skills and be as explosive as possible when required (the slower controlled jumps and landing do not require great explosiveness- just more control)

Important! Before using the low box training make sure the athletes understand the technique of jumping and landing. It doesn’t matter the exercises are fairly low level and low boxes are used- technique has to be executed first.

Yours in Speed,

Lee – Speed Training