How do you approach training agility in a more holistic way? Agility is an important element of athletic success — being agile means more wins in your sport and fewer injuries on the field. Whether you’re programming for yourself or your competitive athletes, take a closer look at how you do agility training in this blog.

Travis Hansen has been involved in the field of Human Performance Enhancement for nearly a decade. He graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Fitness and Wellness, and holds 3 different training certifications from the ISSA, NASM, and NCSF. He is currently the Director of The Reno Speed School inside the South Reno Athletic Club. He has worked with hundreds of athletes from almost all sports, ranging from the youth to professional ranks.

Taking a Systematic Approach to Agility Training

The word “system” is what is especially important in the title above.

For as long as I’m sure you can remember agility training has been treated as a method of training involving an endless array of cone drills, with perceived fancy footwork to capture the eyes and imagination of whomever is watching. But at what point do we step back and analyze whether or not our current approach is actually benefiting and improving an athlete’s change of direction ability.

More importantly, are the patterns and drills being practiced actually helping to prepare the athlete, regardless of sport for the demands he or she will face when the time comes, so that they are less likely to get injured and in the best position to excel.

I think the industry, myself included, has failed in the proper physical preparation of an athlete’s agility skill since there hasn’t been an actual progressive training system that has been promoted that covers all elements of agility and one that can accommodate anyone on the athletic training spectrum.

Lets first discuss the two primary types of agility training and then go from there.

Two Types of Agility Training

#1 Rehearsed Agility Training

Also referred to as “Closed Loop” agility training involves predictable patterns of movement that athletes have to follow with the objective of teaching proper cutting and change of direction techniques to help build coordination and awareness of the body in space before more advanced methods are employed (i.e. pro agility 5-10-5 shuttle run).

#2 Reactive Agility Training

Is a more game and sport specific approach to agility training that involves an “Open Loop” and unpredictable training environment where the athlete is expected to perform spur of the moment action through quick decision making much like in sport (i.e. mirror drill).

I imagine most are familiar with the two types of agility training above, and usually the bus stops here.

Coaches and trainers will program various techniques that fall into either one of these two categories. But when you really take a step back to see what is occurring in motion during sport there are an additional three types of agility training that needs to be practiced which can fall into either one of the two categories above.

#1 Attack Based Agility

Involves motion moving forward and different potential angles to attack an object (i.e. endzone, goal, or opponent) and can be either offensive or defensive based.

Sport Examples:

• Soccer or Basketball Player zig sagging back and forth as they dribble the ball up the court
• Lacrosse or Hockey player trying to skate past a retreating defender towards the goal
• A wide receiver or tight end running a skinny post towards the endzone

#2 Retreating Based Agility

Involves motion occurring backwards and at potentially different angles to generally track down an object or an opponent.

Sport Examples:

• An outfielder turning around to track down a fly ball hit towards the wall
• Baseball/soccer/lacrosse/hockey defender trying to stay in front of an opponent in the open field or court
• A football defensive back trying to cover a wide receiver or tight end downfield

#3 Lateral Based Agility

A side to side motion to defend an opponent or draw an opponent out of position to attack and make a play.

Sport Examples:

• A base runner taking a quick directional step and attempting to steal a base
• A basketball player shuffling to get in front of oncoming player to take a charge
• A football lineman trying to over a rushing defensive end
• A tennis player taking lateral steps and loading the body before make a powerful hit

The Next Steps

I’m sure you could conjure up more examples like the ones above, but what’s important here is that you’ll notice a majority if not all of the change of direction and agility moves fall within these three categories in either a rehearsed and scripted environment, or in a more spontaneous and open reactive based training setting.

From here, you can break down the drills above into specific elements or features.

It’s important to note that these sequences happen pretty naturally and the information is more for awareness and appreciation of the specific steps which can then be broken down into other drills.

The checklist is important for drill qualification purposes and to encourage sport movement specificity.

Agility Movement and Step Sequences

Here are a few videos for each type of agility drill that represent the sequences above that you can use with your athletes right away week in and week out to refine and optimize agility training capacity! Keep in mind that oftentimes sport movement situations involve a combination of each of these three in some shape or form.

You’ll see attack-laterals and vice versa, and attack-retreats and so on and so forth.

For more, be sure to check out The Truth About Speed & Agility Training.

Attack:

Lateral:

Retreating:

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Speed is king when it comes to athletic development. Whether you’re a functional fitness warrior or a coach trying to inspire growth in your athletes, most of us can benefit from being faster. What should you be working on in your programming to create better speed and agility?

Ryan is the Director of strength and conditioning at Pro Performance RX In Morgantown, West Virginia. Ryan has been working in the private sector with hundreds of youth athletes for the last 5 years. He is always excited to talk training and dig deep into the Why. Never stop learning, growing and adapting.

Speed Kills!

It’s time to bring to light what is really behind developing speed, and it doesn’t start with any miracle drill or band attached to you while you run.

I want to educate parents, sports coaches, and the general athlete on developing speed and agility.

What I don’t want is our athletes running around cones when all of our time and effort can be better spent elsewhere.

It pains me to see coaches or organizations who should know better than having their athletes do agility sessions where all they do is run cone drills for an hour. To me, they are simply ignoring the truth and science of how the body and its components work. Do I have athletes use ladders and cones? Absolutely, but it is not the main focus, and it certainly is not what we do for an entire hour.

Here are the short answers to building the fastest, most versatile athletes around.

Simple Truths About Developing Speed & Agility

1. Quality is of utmost importance.
2. Increasing ability to apply force into the ground and absorb it
3. Improving stride length and frequency
4. Increasing ability to repeatedly do both of the previous two

Movements That Improve Speed Development

1. Sprinting
2. Resisted Sprinting
3. Plyometric Jumps
4. Olympic Weightlifting
5. Heavy Squats & Deadlifts

Part 1: 5 Questions I Get Asked And Their Truths

Question #1

If we aren’t doing “speed and agility” drills, how are athletes getting faster? (Typically asked when someone doesn’t see us doing a ton of cone drills and sprinting.)

Answer: We need to redefine what speed and agility are.

Speed /spēd/ noun: the rate at which someone is able to move. “We turned onto the runway and began to gather speed.” Synonyms: rate, pace, tempo. Antonyms: momentum.

Agility /əˈjilədē/ noun: ability to move quickly and easily.

Speed and agility drills are not a lot of hard intense sprinting and running with minimal recovery. These equate to conditioning. What they are: drills that have specific work-to-rest times and maximal effort designed to work on one or two elements at a time. Such as:

• Lateral (side-to-side speed) = shuffling
• Linear (straight ahead) = sprinting
• Change of direction (moving in various planes of motion) = changing levels and angle
• Deceleration/acceleration = starting and stopping

For speed and agility, we need to work plane sessions out and hit all the variables of moving in various planes of motion, direction, and sprinting.

Question #2

What is the best drill/exercise for improving speed?

Answer: The ultimate thing for getting faster is to sprint. Realize that to improve your top-end speed, these sprints cannot be done at anything less than 100%. The next thing is to get stronger, build a bigger engine, and build in better breaks.

Question #3

What if I’m fast, but can’t change direction. What do we need to do?

Answer: If you have ever watched Mighty Ducks, you know there is one hockey player who is super fast but can’t stop. He isn’t effective because he has no control. We have to be able to stop to be an effective player and to reduce injury as well as increase agility.

These type of athletes need to focus on 3 things:

• Coordination of their body – practicing changing hip levels and footwork
• Build in better brakes – continue to get stronger and do movements with eccentrics
• Training in other planes and directions besides straight ahead linear speed

Question #4

Why don’t we just have all athletes run track?

Answer: I think track is a great sport to be involved in. I do believe it can help with speed development. However, it is limited. It covers much of the linear speed development (if they’re running sprints) and some power development if they’re a thrower or jumper. But many sports have multiple other components that need to be addressed to fully develop speed and agility in all aspects.

Question #5

My athlete is fast in drills and practices but not in the game. What’s the deal?

Answer: The truth is that not everything can be solved by practicing drills and getting stronger. You need to practice and study the game, know the game inside and out. If you know where to be and place yourself correctly on the field, you will be faster than anyone else on the field. The better your knowledge of the game, the more things will happen and you will be in the right place at the right time. Your brain can be the best thing to help you improve your speed.

Part 2: Putting Together a Program and Applying It

In order to program speed work and actually apply it in a functional context, we break it down into the following components.

1. FORM WORK / RUNNING MECHANICS

Keep these early in the workout as they are technique intensive.

Warmup basics – A March, A Skip, B march, B Skip, Arm Drill. We do these drills typically as part of our general warm-up to improve coordination and practice for the feel of the correct movement.

*Coaching Techniques: There are small nuances in sprint and change of direction techniques that will help. Certain angles, arm actions, and mechanics do make a difference. Athletes learning how to accelerate, keep dorsiflexion of the toes, keep chin down, etc. matters, but diving into the correct techniques and going in depth on that is for another article.

2. LINEAR SPEED

• Sprints – Typical distances we utilize 10, 20, 40, 60 & 100 yards
• Short – 10s and 20s to work on acceleration
• Medium – 40s and 60s to hit top speed
• Long – 100s to work on maintaining top speed/endurance

Typically 40 to 60 yards is when you hit your fastest speed and then you try to maintain it after that.

3. LATERAL SPEED & CHANGE OF DIRECTION

Shuffling. Various steps – Crossover, open step. Accelerate, deceleration, and changing the level of your hips and direction of running.

Mainly we put lateral speed and change of direction together to provide efficiency and because of how well they complement one another.

4. REACTION

Putting all the other components together, we add another element to it. Reaction is how quickly you process the information and react. We use a lot of tennis ball drops for this and change the start position.

For lateral we do 5/10/5s with various commands – colors, numbers – and we layer the elements. I say right is an odd number and left is even. I then go from 1-10 in numbers. To increase the difficulty, we increase the number from 1-100. 56 is hard because you have to process two numbers with one being odd and the second being even and process that 56 is an even number after that. To continue that, the cones on either side are colored and I could say a color or a number.

Thus we continue to improve how quickly they can react and process information to only be concerned with what information is useful.

Creating power is what creates a better first step. The stronger and more powerful an athlete becomes, the faster and more explosive they will be. Simple. The best way to be effective is consistency and time. Time will build the proper foundation.

What does that look like? There are many ways to apply it and put it together, but here’s one way we like to do it:

How do I build the right strength training plan to complement my speed and agility? Refer back to these two previous articles:

The Key To Better Strength Training Workouts

7 Tips for Writing Better Strength Programs

Some Closing Principles:

• Try to keep it simple.
• Sprint and run in all directions.
• Add volume as conditioning and skill of movements improve.
• Get stronger every day.
• Repeat daily.

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Kyle Donsberger is a CSCS, lifelong athlete, and owner of Impulse Athletics. As a current member of the Canadian Skeleton Team and 2012 & 2016 Olympic Trials semi-finalist in the 400 meters, he knows a thing or two about speed training. In this blog, he introduces you to some simple plyometric drills that prevent injury and improve performance in all the things you do every day.

Why You Should Do Plyometrics

Although you probably still participate in physical activities as you get older (like running or recreational sports), you likely don’t train to perform in those sports. Plyometric exercises help your body absorb and generate force in a safe environment that improves performance in the physical activities you still love to do.

Does this mean you need to start spending countless hours in the gym? Absolutely not. The best part about these plyo movements is that you don’t need any equipment to perform them! You can go out to the local park and find some grass and jump to your heart’s content.

Here’s the top five plyometric exercises you can do anytime, anywhere, to maximize your power for healthier bones, joints, and ligaments.

1. Squat Jump

How it’s done: Stand tall on your toes and then drop down through your hips. Explode up and land in an athletic position (knees bent and sitting back into your hips). Make sure you jump straight up in the air, minimizing forward travel. Here’s a visual of multiple squat jumps in a row, but feel free to start with one:

Also, be aware of your landing position. Failure to absorb landing through your hips causes issues with your knees, ankles, and feet. Avoid this by sitting into your hips upon landing. (A good mental cue I picked up from gymnastics coaches is to imagine like you’re sitting on the bike when you land.)

Keep your chest up and your eyes looking forward. This keeps your spine neutral, allowing your body to better transfer power. It also prevents back injuries.

2. Double Leg Hop / Standing Broad Jump

The double leg hop (also known as the standing broad jump) is similar to the squat jump, except you jump forward instead of straight up.

I know you’re probably going to get sick of hearing this by the end of this blog (if you’re not sick of it already), but I’m going to harp on it for as long as I coach: the key to minimizing the risk of injury while also improving performance is loading through your hips instead of your knees.

How it’s done: Sit back into your hips, keeping your chest up and eyes looking where you want to go. As mentioned before, this keeps your spine neutral. After loading through your hips, shift onto your toes and jump forward.

I recommend starting with a smaller jump (50-60% power) to get the feel for it. If it feels comfortable, progress to full power. Land like you would the squat jump: into your hips in an athletic position, as if you’re sitting on a bike.

Keeping your chest over your toes is a simple mental cue to avoid landing through your knees. Just make sure your core is stable to keep this from happening to avoid folding at the hips.

Another common mistake with this movement is leaning back on your landing or falling backward. This happens when you reach your feet too far forward. The fix for this is the same as when we land through the knees – keep your chest over your toes.

3. Vertical, Horizontal, Vertical Jumps

How it’s done: It’s easiest to break this drill down into simple pieces. Think of it as doing a squat jump into a double leg hop and finishing it off with another squat jump. So maybe a better name for this is squat jump, double leg jump, squat jump.

The key for this one is (you guessed it!) sitting into your hips.

Start tall and then load your body by sitting into your hips before jumping vertically. Land in an athletic position and jump forward (double leg hop). Land a second time (again through the hips) and jump vertically (squat jump).

Focus on traveling a minimal distance forward on the vertical jumps and a maximal distance on the horizontal jumps.

4. Lateral Hop

The lateral hop works your body moving side-to-side. It’s not a super common exercise people do, although it’s super beneficial from a loading standpoint.

How it’s done: I recommend setting up somewhere where there is a line on the ground (gymnasium, lined field, local track, etc.).

Pick a leg to start on (let’s say left) and lift the other foot off the ground. Jump from your left leg onto your right leg while staying on the line. Start at 60-70% max power to get a feel for it, and then build it up to max power while maintaining the lateral hop.

I said it before and I’ll say it again: load through the hips! Loading through your hips and pushing off the ground leg (instead of reaching with the other leg) allows you to control direction much better and ensures you stay lateral.

This also solves the other common mistake I see, which is pulling the “off” leg. Doing this not only makes the move less powerful, but also leads to issues with your feet and knees. Pushing off the ground leg gives you significantly more control over your body.

5. Single Leg Hop

How it’s done: Pick a leg, load through the hip on that leg, and jump forward. Keep your eyes and chest up to maintain balance and prevent collapsing at the waist. Land on both feet after the jump in an athletic position.

If you want to generate maximum power (which I’m sure you do), work on cycling the take-off leg. This allows you to generate more momentum. As you progress the single leg hop to multiple single leg hops (which we’ll talk about later), the power compounds.

Try doing one (or all) of these moves a few days a week. Your bones, joints, ligaments, and tendons will thank you for it.

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Dr. Matthew Styf, PT, DPT is a certified clinical orthopedic specialist and S&C specialist based out of Massachusetts. He’s passionate about athletes of all ages achieving their fitness goals, whatever they may be. Here he explains how and why doing plyometrics is key to keeping you strong and healthy in your fitness journey.

Putting the Pep Back in Your Step with Plyometrics

Even if you’re keeping up with your overall fitness as you age, you might be losing some of your “pep”.

So how do you prevent this? It boils down to having a consistent, well-rounded approach to your fitness. Even though you start to lose overall strength each decade past age 20, you can still gain muscle mass. But keeping muscle mass is only part of the equation for continued health as you age. You also need to work on your power.

Maintaining your current power output (or ever increasing it) as an adult is not necessarily done via what you see professional athletes doing. High-level, high-intensity power movements like cleans, snatches, and jerks are excellent strength and conditioning exercises. But there are other lower-impact, efficient movements to help you chip away at improving your athleticism.

Lower-level power or plyometric movements such as jumping rope, hopping, agility ladders, KB swings, and even sprinting can easily be added to a program to improve power as we age.

There are a lot of different schools of thought on what you should be doing and how you should go about it. But my advice is to find something that fits your goals and routine and go with it.

Adding plyometric or power work to your current workouts will help you feel more confident with dynamic athletic movements. Just make sure you add it to the beginning of your workout so you’re not doing it while fatigued.

Why Power Matters

So why power? Why does it matter? If you trip and catch yourself, it requires a sudden loading of the muscles and then a quick push back up to keep from falling over. If you don’t have enough power to do this, you’ll likely fall over, which can mean broken bones.

Power is moving weight fast and performing fast movements.

Many aging athletes don’t train as many fast-twitch muscle movements, which ultimately limits their overall power capabilities. Keeping tabs on your reaction time and motor control is also important for an aging brain. Training plyometrics helps with all of this.

Plyometric & Power Progressions

I wouldn’t jump right into just any power variation that looks cool (because you may injure yourself). If you’re new to this type of training, start with something that has lower intensity, such as double-leg mini hops, agility ladders, or jumping rope.

This allows your bones, muscles, and tendons to adapt and build up the stiffness required to progress to more glamorous plyometrics. (Keep in mind that past injuries and other possible degenerative conditions may limit what you can perform.)

I recommend this progression to my athletes:

• Agility ladders
• Double-leg mini jumps
• Jump rope
• Single-leg mini jumps
• Band-assisted jumps
• Box jumps
• Broad jumps
• Sprints
• Weighted jumps

The starting point in the list above for each individual is different. A 30-year-old who has a history of athletics starts with higher level power development whereas a 50-year-old who is looking to improve fitness by starting a strength/power training regime needs to start with exercises that are less intense.

For example, the 30-year-old would plan for two total body workouts and alternate them in an ABA or BAB fashion using box jumps and sprints as the big two power movements.

The 50-year-old might start with the agility ladder and jump rope as their big 2 power movements. They can then advance through the progression fast (because they have a lower training age and are starting at a point that allows for more progression).

Does this mean the 50-year-old is making more gains in their power development compared to the 30-year-old? NO! It means the 30-year-old has fewer adaptations to make compared to an older person with a lower training age.

Be sure to check out this blog if you’re looking to land your first box jumps!
Box Jump Progression for Beginners

Ultimately, where you start compared to others doesn’t matter. What matters is that you start at a point that is appropriate for you and stay consistent with your approach. If you’re making gains each month or year, you’re doing it right.

Whether you’re programming for yourself or someone else is doing it for you, make sure you’re getting adequate power training in addition to strength and mobility. This will keep you ahead of your age and ensure you don’t lose that pep in your step.

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When it comes to athletic performance, learning how to pump the brakes with body control is an often undertrained skill set. Being fast is worthless without a durable, long-lasting set of brakes.

Matthew Ibrahim is an experienced S&C coach, college professor of exercise science, and a Ph.D. student in human and sports performance. He’s presented in over 20 U.S. states and several international events. Start training to stop on a dime and blow past your competition with the knowledge and drills he shares in this article.

Check out his latest program Building the Breaks 2.0 to start building elite athleticism and deceleration skills ASAP!

Deceleration Training: Building The Brakes for Athletic Performance

Scroll through your Instagram feed under current fitness trends and you’re likely ooh-ing and ahh-ing over your favorite athletes performing ridiculously high box jumps, leaping out of a building to hit a slam dunk, or exploding past the defender in football.

All of these explosive feats of power and force production have one thing in common: they’re grounded in the athlete’s ability to pump the brakes, stop on a dime, and absorb force. But nobody seems to care about training to stop on a dime, decelerate, or land with control until they get hurt.

Injuries, whether we like it or not, are simply part of the territory in sports. However, you can do yourself (and your body) a favor by preparing the right way in your training to reduce the chance of getting hurt when playing your sport.

Elon Musk once said, “Brake pads on Tesla cars would literally never need to be replaced.” Pretty bold statement for such an expensive car. The good thing is he can back it up since the Tesla is a high-quality car built for speed and performance.

Your body, when trained the right way, is designed to be fast, explosive, and powerful. Becoming the Tesla of athletic performance means that you also have a durable pair of brakes to help you decelerate and stop quickly.

Building your brakes will not only increase your athletic performance but also reduce your risk of injury, keeping you on the field or the court longer.

The Best Athletes Are Durable Athletes

A basic key to athletic performance is being available to play your sport and help your team win. The best to do this is to stay strong and durable by reducing the risk of injury. A durable athlete is one that can recover quickly and withstand the constant demands of sport.

The highest rate of lower body injuries in athletics take place in five key areas:

• Calves
• Hamstrings
• Groin
• Knees
• Hip flexors

Keeping these five lower-body regions strong will go a long way in making sure that your body is physically prepared to consistently perform at a high level without any setbacks.

Strengthen Your Knees

How often do you strengthen your knees in your training program (besides the typical squatting and lunging exercises)? I’m guessing probably not a lot. Don’t worry, you’re not alone.

The hands-supported kneeler is a great exercise that you can easily add into your training to strengthen your knees.

When performing this movement, I recommend 2-3 sets of 6-8 reps with a big emphasis on a 3-to-5 second eccentric (lowering) component.

Get Stronger Calves

How often do you work on your calves in your training programs? Unless you’re a super-committed bodybuilder, I’ll assume you likely spend little to no time building strong calves. Again, you’re not alone here.

Keep in mind, your feet are the first thing to touch the floor when landing and absorbing force, which demands a lot from the calf muscles and Achilles tendons. Build strength and durability in this area if you want to be a beast in your sport with heels-up single-leg bridge iso holds.

It might look like a boring exercise, but don’t knock it until you try it. Lock in and perform 2-3 sets of 10-15-second holds per side.

Deceleration Drills for Explosive Athletes

Let’s jump back to the trend of being fast, explosive, and powerful. These qualities are often sexy and amazing to watch when an athlete displays them at a high level.

But just remember — athletes who can produce power efficiently can also stop on a dime efficiently. These two athletic development traits go hand in hand.

Sports take place in a variety of directions at varying speeds requiring quick reaction times. It’s in your best interest as an athlete to turn over every stone in your training. Don’t leave anything up to question, especially if you plan on playing your sport for a long time.

Deceleration skills come down to harnessing all of these athletic qualities to boost your overall performance while keeping you both strong and healthy. Whether you’re moving forward and reverse, side-to-side, or in multiple directions, decelerating efficiently means that you can stop on a dime and absorb force at any time.

Drop Reverse Lunge to Stick

Agility is a necessary skill for nearly all field and court-based sports. How often in a basketball game do athletes sprint, quickly stop, change direction, then sprint again in a completely different direction?

It’s crucial for you as an athlete to incorporate multi-directional deceleration drills in your training. Adding the drop reverse lunge to stick to your workouts helps you decelerate in the sagittal (forward and reverse) plane of motion.

Be sure to stick your landing and control your body. Aim for 2-3 sets of 3-5 reps per side in your training for best results.

Forward Alternating Close-Out

Use this exercise to build multi-directional deceleration skills.

Take your time building up a good rhythm here. This exercise isn’t about speed quite yet. First, work on feeling coordinated with the movement at roughly 75-80% effort.

Once you’ve built up some good mechanics, you can bump up into the 85-90% effort range. I recommend performing 2-3 sets of 3-5 reps per side.

Achieve Total Body Control

Controlling your body is a prime focus when defining athleticism. Think of Odell Beckham Jr.’s crazy one-handed catch with the Giants back in 2015. Masterful body control.

How about when Vince Carter jumped out of the building in the 2000 Sydney Olympics to dunk over a 7-footer? Insane. Talk about an athlete controlling his body.

I could go on and on with examples, but you get the point.

Tempo

Full-body control starts by building a base level of strength. A simple way to achieve this is by using exercises that focus on specific tempo work.

Two key areas in tempo work are eccentrics and isometrics. Eccentrics focus on the lowering aspect of an exercise to force you to slow down and take your time. Isometrics focus on owning specific body positions and building strength in them.

Why are eccentrics and isometrics important? They increase the overall time your body spends under tension. An increased time under tension equates to building strength and body control. Controlling your body boosts your athletic performance.

Coach’s Tip: For a detailed guide on how to use tempo in your training, check out Understanding Tempo Training For Maximum Strength Gains.

Heels-Up Split Squat Iso

Do this lower-body isometric exercise to increase strength and control specifically in your calves and knees.

I suggest performing these at the following clip: 2-3 sets of 20-25 second holds per side.

Plank Body Saw

This simple eccentric-focused upper body exercise improves strength and control in your shoulders, upper back, and core.

Perform this for 2-3 sets of 8-10 reps.

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Kyle Donsberger is a CSCS, lifelong athlete, and owner of Impulse Athletics. As a current member of the Canadian Skeleton Team and 2012 & 2016 Olympic Trials semi-finalist in the 400 meters, he knows a thing or two about speed training. Continue reading for his top tips on developing explosive speed and sprinting mechanics.

What Is Speed Training?

So, what should you focus on when it comes to speed training? Speed is multidimensional and requires technical abilities, power development, strength, and neural drive. Let’s go through three different aspects of speed training in more depth.

Acceleration Mechanics

Acceleration mechanics impact your ability to generate initial speed. When looking at acceleration, there are a few things you want to work on:

1. Driving your foot under your body, not in front of you. When your foot drives directly under you, there’s less contact time on the ground. It also increases your ability to drive forward.

2. Stabilizing your upper body so that you can transfer forces from your arms down through the ground to be more explosive. We also need to make sure that the arms are traveling in straight lines (not twisting) to maximize power production.

Power Development

The more power you can generate, the faster you can move. In physics, power is the amount of energy transferred or converted per unit of time. To develop power for speed, you need to develop large amounts of muscular force over shorter periods of time.

Strength

Studies show that relative strength is a key indicator of speed. The sweet spot for relative strength is the ability to squat 2-2.5x bodyweight.

Having this level of strength allows you to generate enough force to keep your body upright while sprinting. This allows you to develop force quickly.

Sprinting

The last and most important thing about speed training is that you need to actually run at full speed to work on the skill. So after developing all these skills, we need to implement them into speed training by just sprinting as fast as we can.

4 Progressive Drills for Acceleration

1. Bucket Hold

Let’s start with one of the most basic exercises to work on speed training: the bucket hold. The point of this exercise is to become comfortable being in a strong, tall position, which is key for full speed.

Stand tall and use your hip flexor to lift your knee up. Make sure the foot is directly under your knee, not under your butt (this affects your mechanics). Drive through your grounded leg and extend up as tall as you can.

To progress, hold a stick over your head, which forces you to stay tall. You can also add load to challenge your stability by holding a med ball, kettlebell, or an aqua bag instead.

2. Switches

After you’ve mastered the bucket hold, you can progress to switches. In this movement, you are aggressively switching legs while maintaining posture and stability.

It’s important that you’re snapping your legs down, not jumping to drive your knee up. Focus on driving the “up” leg into the ground and switching with the other knee. Like bucket holds, you can add complexity by holding a stick over your head or adding load.

3. Wall Drill

The wall drill improves acceleration mechanics, which is crucial for developing speed.

Put your hands on the wall and lean forward with your ankles. Your lean should be anywhere from 60-45 degrees (the deeper the lean, the better). From here, bring one knee forward in a controlled manner while keeping your hips square and the grounded foot strong.

Ideally, your shoulders and hips are in line during this movement. Bring your knee up to about 90 degrees, then bring it back down to the starting position. As you become more comfortable, you can add speed to the movement, eventually getting up to full speed.

4. Dead Legs

Dead legs are the bread and butter for acceleration mechanics. In this one, you’re sticking to one side and not alternating like you would for A-skips. “Bounce” with a nice rhythm and explosively drive your knee up to about a 90-degree angle. Once it hits that 90 degrees, drive it back down as fast as you can.

Like with switches, the key is driving your leg down. With practice, you’ll be able to apply force into the ground more quickly.

3 Drills for Explosive Power

1. Double Leg Hop / Standing Broad Jump

This drill is key to developing explosive power for your start.

Focus on loading through your hips and exploding forward as far as you can. Land in an athletic position (stable on both feet with no twisting of the hips) as best you can. The idea is to challenge the angle of take-off so you’re producing maximal horizontal force.

The key is keeping a stable upper body, which makes it easier to transfer power from your arms and through the legs.

2. Single Leg Hop

This one is like the double-leg hop, except you’re only using one leg. Remember to keep a stable upper body and land in an athletic position (no hip twisting!). This is a great drill to challenge your dynamic balance.

3. Bounding

Bounds focus on horizontal and vertical force production. Hop from one leg to the other, trying to cover as much distance and get as much air as possible with each hop.

Make sure your foot is landing under your center of mass. This propels you forward with the next jump.

Master Your Start

Start in a 2-point stance. Focus on loading up the front leg and exploding forwards.

The key to loading up your front leg is to sit into your hips so your weight shifts onto the front leg. Drive your hips down and feel a load through the hamstrings similar to stretching an elastic band before firing it. Focus on driving as far forward as you can – this will generate the best angle to develop acceleration.

To build speed, keep your back flat and gradually get taller with each step. By about step five or six, you should be upright. The faster you can get upright while driving forward, the faster you are able to move.

Coach’s Tip: For an in-depth guide on how to master your start, check out The Secret to Sprinting Faster: Work on Your Start.

Tie It All Together

If you want to improve your acceleration and speed, I recommend speed training a minimum of twice per week. If you don’t have a whole bunch of time to do a speed workout, then think about microdosing it. Do 10 minutes of sprint work/drills at the end or beginning of a workout. Those minutes add up and can lead to big changes if done consistently!

Say you train four times a week. Adding 10 minutes of speed work during each of those workouts will get you 40 mins of speed work in a week! In a month, you’ll get 160 mins of speed work. (Nearly 3 hours!)

No matter your fitness goals, everyone can benefit from speed work. Being able to run fast with good form and footing is important for so many sports (including chasing your kiddos around the yard). If you dial in these 7 drills and include a little sprint work, you’ll see yourself transform into a completely different animal!

Related articles

What is overspeed training, and why should you do it? If you want to be a faster, stronger, and more efficient athlete, consider using these overspeed exercises and techniques in your next strength workout.

Brandon Humphrey is a kinesiologist and personal trainer based in Burnaby, British Columbia. His company, Kin With Conscience, provides mobile and online personal training, kinesiology, and strength and conditioning services to individuals of all abilities. In this article, he shares his expertise in overspeed training, as he has done with many of his high-level athletes.

Some Athletes Focus on the Wrong Things

Let’s be blunt about this — too many novice athletes are misguided in the weight room. Most new gym-goers are first exposed to bodybuilding or physique-centric narratives when it comes to training. It’s the first thing they see when exploring fitness pages on social media, the first thing that pops up in Google searches, and the first thing they encounter when they step into a gym. Massive arms. Toned glutes. Shred. Cut. Bulk. Sculpt… you get the gist.

I don’t intend to slander bodybuilding, it’s a sport that is beyond me. The dedication I’ve seen from friends and colleagues competing is mind-blowing to someone like me (who enjoys lifting but also equally enjoys pizza and ice cream far too much to endure an intense calorie-restricted cut phase). I’ll personally continue to be too fluffy for bodybuilding and leave that area of coaching to those who know it best.

However, it’s important to recognize that bodybuilding and aesthetic training are heavily linked to the public’s perceptions of fitness, so they’ll continue to influence anyone just getting into training. In the case of athletes (and those just curious about exercise), bodybuilding programs are often their first exposure to weightlifting and it tends to set the foundation for their ideas of future training.

I think we’re missing the mark if the dominant narrative for any new lifter is “just follow this online bodybuilding program.”

Not everyone should be training for aesthetics and this is especially true for sports performance athletes.

When it comes to sports performance, physique both matters and doesn’t matter at the same time. Performance and physique are not equal. For example, we can quantify physical performance through testing such as improvements in the vertical jump, 40yd dash, bench press, squat, etc.

Physique is more about appearance: height, weight, musculature, body fat percentage, and the “eye” test for an athlete looking the part in their sport. All of these things may or may not actually have an effect on performance. In other words, physical performance is what we can do while physique is how we look.

What is Overspeed Training?

Now that we’ve established the prevalence of common fitness industry ideas around training and aesthetics, it’s time we get to the fun part: getting faster and improving performance by using overspeed training.

Overspeed training is an intermediate-to-advanced training technique used to promote speed and power in athletes.

It utilizes lighter loads and/or neural training techniques that allow athletes to move at higher speeds than under normal conditions. For our human physiology readers, consider the (theoretical) concept of post-activation potentiation, where we use a neural training stimulus that allows the body to go faster than previously able, then remove the assistance with hopes that the body adapts and retains some of this performance boost.

Overspeed training is never the first thing I do when working with an athlete to make them faster, but it is something I hold as a trick to keep training fresh and induce adaptation in well-trained individuals.

Younger athletes in awkward growing phases aren’t usually a good fit for overspeed training, as their coordination is still developing and they usually need to build a strength base first. For speed work, young athletes are usually just fine sticking with accelerations, sprints, and a variety of jumps and throws. Overspeed training is usually better suited to somewhat physically developed and coordinated athletes with decent training experience.

Build Strength Before Speed

To move with speed, you must produce force quickly (power). This means being very strong for a short period of time and producing an explosive muscle contraction. You need a solid strength base to do this. If you can’t produce force effectively, you can’t produce force quickly.

Having said that, I see many athletes who are good at getting stronger but forget about the application of strength training toward a performance goal. This unfortunately results in not making any relevant physical adaptations to enhance performance.

Below I’ll explain how to put your work in the weight room to good use with several overspeed training techniques.

Standard Speed Training vs. Overspeed Training

Standard speed training might include lifting at high velocity, such as barbell squat jumps at 30% 1RM (repetition maximum or rep max). Bodyweight squat jumps, approach jumps, broad jumps, plyo push ups, lower body plyometrics, and sprints are all perfectly valid training methods in any athlete’s program when used effectively.

Overspeed training is the special sauce for high-performing athletes and anyone looking for the biggest of bounce and the springiest of steps.

These are tools that tend to be intermediate-to-advanced, but all are exercises I believe any athlete looking to get faster should use at some point.

Speed training as a whole helps you understand your weightlifting efforts full circle. It’s the piece that often gets missed in a sea of online content about strength, size, and hypertrophy, where athletes ultimately train for on-field performance but don’t always connect the dots.

Overspeed Training Exercises

Banded Plyo Push Ups

Banded plyo push ups are a very simple form of overspeed training that use a quick contraction through a reduced load in the concentric (up) phase. The band adds elastic energy and reduces weight at the bottom of the push up, allowing for a more powerful, explosive push out.

How to do it: This exercise can be set up with a resistance band pulled across a squat rack. You can adjust the height of the J-hooks or change the band tension to heavy or light.

Benefits: The advantage of doing a speed-focused push up variation is that you receive better kinesthetic feedback by explosively propelling your body rather than using an external object. You also need to cushion your landing, which puts stress on the shoulder joint in a way that is adaptive to the forces you face in your sport, especially any close-contact/combat sports.

When it comes to sports, the banded plyo push-up translates best to push-dominant movements like American football, particularly among blockers. Offensive linemen must be able to explosively push the opposition. From a strength and conditioning perspective, they use a mix of near-maximal isometric contractions/extended high-intensity pushes (like on longer plays when they’re locked in contact with the opposition and continue to push) as well as short, choppy, aggressive shoves (like when they’re creating a block in open field).

Depending on their position, other players may need to produce quick and aggressive shoves when running the ball and pushing off a defensive tackle (think of a stiff arm). Banded plyo push-ups are a great option for the latter scenario, whereby the quick, ballistic movement and necessary shoulder stability mimic the gameplay demands on the athlete.

Band-Assisted Vertical Jumps

I think band-assisted vertical jumps are the most practical and effective overspeed training exercise there is. I love them as a form of contrast training with quick and explosive contraction.

How to do it: Fasten your resistance band of choice to the top of a squat rack or chin-up bar. You need overhead clearance, so be smart with where you choose to do this one. It’s better to start with a light band rather than too heavy, otherwise the height you reach can be dangerous!

Pull the band tight with tension while lowering your hips into the bottom of the squat jump, then explode powerfully, keeping tension on the band by continuing to pull with your arms. The idea is to experience less resistance and slingshot on your jumps, often adding close to a foot of vertical.

Benefits: This is a great exercise if you’re a less-twitchy jumper, as it allows you to feel the speed your jump should generate. The reduced resistance created by the band also helps you work on your springiness through a higher velocity contraction that’s faster than what you’d normally be able to generate under regular bodyweight conditions.

I recommend aiming for about one foot of increased vertical jump when using band assistance.

Falling Accelerations

Falling accelerations provide a neural training stimulus that encourages faster turnover of the legs during acceleration. The theoretical concept here is that we are tapping into primal instincts around the feeling of falling and we must speed up our legs to catch ourselves.

How to do it: Start in a crouched position and lean your weight forward. Notice in the photos that as I progress, I shift my weight forward so that more weight is on the ball of my front foot, my head is forward and in front of my body and my hips are above my head.

I encourage you to tuck in your chin more than I did. This promotes tipping forward more. A cue for this is to think about looking back between your legs. Your head drops more, and you feel more top-heavy, which exaggerates the falling-forward momentum.

Benefits: This exercise might feel uncomfortable, like you’re falling forward and stumbling out of the start. I think there’s a lot of value in providing an uncommon training stimulus occasionally. Ideally, you’ll feel the sensation of faster turnover in this drill, then apply that to feeling the same turnover in your sprints.

Downhill Runs

You’ve probably done or seen uphill runs. While running uphill promotes acceleration mechanics over short distances (or as grueling conditioning over longer distances), the human performance nerd in me loves the application of using a slight downslope to assist acceleration.

How to do it: Use a very gentle downslope, around ten degrees or so. (Think of something comparable to a gentle slope on most residential driveways.) I don’t recommend any large distances for multiple reasons. First, it can be hard to find a consistent and subtle gradient long enough. Second, grass can be slippery, and concrete is a hard surface to wipe out on. If you’ve ever run downhill before, you may know that feeling of “I’m going too fast and I’m going to wipe out!” That’s not the sensation we’re going after.

Benefits: Much like the falling acceleration, downhill runs encourage faster leg turnover with slightly less resistance. Consider how 100m sprint times don’t count as world records if there is too strong a tailwind. Less resistance gives you an advantage. Your strides are slightly longer and carry more distance when running down a slight vertical drop.

Related articles

Morey Croson, the head speed coach and founder of The Performance Lab of California, explains how you can be the quickest off the line by focusing on the position of your feet and hips as you take off.

Improve Your Sprinting Technique

Developing an explosive start takes consistent, deliberate practice. At first, you’ll likely see immediate improvement (similar to when you start benching or squatting for the first time), but if you want to keep seeing long-term improvement, you’ll need to continuously work on your starting technique.

Start Off On The Right Foot

The first thing to focus on is getting your first step to the ground as quickly as possible. I often see athletes overreaching or leaping too vertical in their first step. While you might get a little more distance doing this, it increases contact time with the ground and negatively impacts turnover of your legs.

The goal of the start is to initiate as fast of a turnover rate as possible. From there, you’ll be able to build the length per step or “open up” your stride.

The position of your foot when landing on your first step is extremely important. Similarly to the quickness of your legs, you want to spend as little contact time with the ground as possible. Notice the difference between the two athletes in the picture below.

The athlete on the left comes up more vertically with his striking foot almost flat on the ground. The athlete on the right stays more horizontal (parallel to the ground), increasing his ability to gain acceleration in the drive phase so he can take off on the ball of his foot.

Your first step usually takes the longest (about .18 seconds for the best sprinters), but that number should go down (to about .14) for the second step. This is because your body gains speed through acceleration.

By the 5th-7th step, your cadence should be at or below .1 of a second. For this to happen, your foot needs to strike the ground underneath your hip and your heel needs to face upward to the sky. This means there is adequate horizontal force to be able to pick up more distance per step.

In the image below, see how the athlete on the right has his foot positioned directly under his hip, unlike the athlete on the left. The athlete on the right will be able to reach max speed before the athlete on the left because he’ll be able to get his legs cycling faster.

Don’t Make These Common Mistakes

Distance per step is important — the best way to improve both distance and top speed is to improve how your foot is hitting the ground at the start instead of trying to reach.

A common mistake I see many athletes make in their starting position is lifting their back foot too high behind them. During the start, it’s important to keep your feet close to the ground, especially after push off. From there, you need to drive the leg forward and then quickly strike back down underneath you. When the movement is too vertical from the start, you’re bringing the foot too far behind.

Your chest does not need to stay down when starting. Instead, focus on your hips coming forward. To accomplish this, your spine must be in an upright position. But remember, just because your spine is upright does not mean your chin or head needs to pop up.

Your arms should be strong in extension or pulling back. This is important throughout the duration of your sprint, but it must be initiated from the start. Your arms can be a little longer at the start, but once you get to top speed they’ll need to be short and quick (which is opposite to the leg cycle). Your legs, on the other hand, should be short and quick at the start, focusing on turnover. Once you reach top speed, your legs should be long, fast, and forceful.

For a more in-depth look at how to improve your drive phase after the start, check out this video analyzing some of the world’s best sprinters:

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Add These Into Your Programming to Start Sprinting Like a Pro

I have some bad news. There is no one single exercise that I consider the “make it or break it” move to improve your overall speed performance.

The good news is that certain training methods and a mix of exercises can absolutely set you up to improve your sprinting speed and prevent injuries.

In this blog, I’ll cover five methods you can easily integrate into your training to improve your top speed.

• Use a staggered stance.
• Work your hamstrings.
• Add in plyometrics (jumping and landing exercises).
• Focus on foot and calf exercises.
• Strengthen and improve your posture. (This one’s important!)

Coach’s Tip: When training to improve speed, it’s all about technique. Always focus on your technique if you want optimal results.

1. Use a Staggered Stance

Instead of a square or neutral stance, use a staggered stance in your exercises. Unilateral movements like lunges, rear foot elevated split squats, and single leg RDL’s are more effective than regular squats and deadlifts when it comes to developing your sprinting speed.

This isn’t to say that you can’t improve from doing a traditional squat or deadlift, but you’ll see the most improvement from performing exercises in a staggered stance position.

The reason this is effective is because your spine often ends up in a flexed position when doing squats and deadlifts in a neutral or square stance (especially when lifting heavy weight). Due to the range of spinal extension required when sprinting, neutral stance movements don’t benefit your top sprinting speed. Staggered stance exercises allow you to target extension in your lower back, hip, and knee simultaneously.

2. Work Your Hamstrings

I typically prefer single leg exercises while training, but the hamstrings are an exception. My favorite hamstring exercise to improve speed is the Nordic hamstring curl. This exercise requires both eccentric and concentric strength, which challenges your hamstrings in their full range of motion.

Along with hamstring curls, you can use the following exercises in your program:

• Traditional single leg curls (standing or lying)
• Single-leg hip thrusts
• Deadlifts
• Squats

3. Add in Plyometrics

Building power throughout your body means focusing on jumping and landing exercises, also known as plyometrics. The ability to perform both broad jumps and vertical jumps is the best predictor of top speed.

Most athletes who jump well can also run fast.

You could argue that genetics play a large role in a person’s ability to sprint fast, but I disagree. Sprinting is developed in people who consistently participate in a lot of running and jumping, especially while growing up. Now, do certain people have genetic advantages? Of course. But everyone can improve sprinting speed by strengthening the right muscles and joints.

Here are some examples of how you can incorporate plyometrics in your training:

• Single-leg and two-leg broad jumps
• Depth jumps on one or both legs
• Box jumps on one or both legs
• Jumping uphill and downhill
• Jumping with resistance

I recommend including at least two plyometric workouts per week in your training for the best results.

4. Focus on Foot and Calf Exercises

Both stability and range of motion are critical when running at top speed. Your foot creates hundreds of pounds of force when it hits the ground mid-sprint. In order to sustain this, you need strong mobility and stability. This is where maintaining range of motion is critical for dorsiflexion (raising the foot upwards towards the shin), plantarflexion (pointing foot down and away from your shin), inversion (tilting the sole of the foot inward) and eversion (lifting pinky toe and tilting foot outward).

Mobility and stability are all about motor control and tissue function. Ideally, your foot can hold position when your body’s force strikes into the ground. If you need help getting there, I suggest single-leg calf raises and/or foot raises. Make sure to focus on the range of motion throughout the foot and ankle.

Working the muscles in your feet is not overly complicated, but consistently adding these simple exercises into your training can dramatically improve your sprinting speed and aid in preventing injury.

2. Fix Your Posture!

It’s obviously important to develop strong legs and the lower body of a badass runner when working to improve your top speed. But your upper body strength and range of motion are equally important.

Without the ability to pull from your lats or generate upward momentum with your pecs, your legs have to work even harder, which can cause timing issues. The exercises mentioned below will help build upper body strength to support critical postural development.

There are multiple exercises you can use to strengthen your posture, but I’ll cover those that are best for improving top speed.

Exercises to improve extension in your core:

• Weighted planks
• Pull ups or lat pull-downs
• Lying overhead press
• Lying supermans
• Good mornings

Don’t forget to include sprint-specific drills and sprint workouts to improve your technique and start time.

Related articles

Depending on your sport, your sprinting capacity can make or break your athletic performance. As one of the tenets of well-rounded athleticism, speed can be a tricky thing to train unless you know what to improve. Morey Croson, head speed coach and founder of The Performance Lab of California, offers up the top three things he looks for when training clients to run faster. He focuses on contact time, turnover speed, and distance per step. Check out The Performance Lab Blog for more helpful tips on making speed gains. 

Improve your speed training

Speed is the crux of most athletic endeavors—since entire athletic careers can be won or lost on milliseconds, every tiny inch of time matters. The margin of error is so small, and if you’re not measuring, you’re not getting results. Or you might be getting some results, but you’re not hitting your maximum  capacity for improvement. 

The three ways I measure speed are related to your basic movement patterns:

1. Contact time (how long your foot is on the ground) 
2. Turnover time (how long your foot is off the ground)  
3. Distance per step (how far your feet travel each step)
    

Unpacking how you perform in each of these categories can lead to huge improvements in your quickness and agility on the ground. 

It always pays to be faster.

Contact Time

Shortening your contact time is a fairly basic practice involving balance, posture, and proprioception (your body’s ability to sense movement, action, and location). 

You can improve here by incorporating more plyometrics—exercises that include a lot of jumping and hopping, plus landing drills, and single leg exercises. Think double-unders, agility work, and single-leg RDLs.  

The best sprinters in the world are able to spend under 0.1 seconds on the ground per contact. You can calculate this by taking video of yourself sprinting with a high frame rate. (I recommend getting video of the side, back, and front view for the most accurate results.) 

The higher the frame rate, the more accurate the time will be, which will give you a better understanding of what to improve. 

Turnover Time

The turnover time is the amount of time your foot spends off the ground. Short turnover time is essential to any great sprinter in any sport requiring quick footwork. When someone has great natural speed, it’s usually because they have a fast turnover time. 

Depending on the height of the athlete, the optimal turnover changes. The taller the athlete, the longer the turnover time is because the athlete should be picking up more distance per step. Generally, this is about 0.35-0.38 seconds for anyone over 6’3”. Shorter athletes typically have quicker turnover times (0.3-0.35 seconds), but they don’t pick up as much distance per step. 

When it comes to improving your turnover time, focus on these: 

1. Developing your core strength and postural stability
2. Increasing your foot strength and big toe range of motion
3. Improving your arm-swing coordination (how well you coordinate your arms pumping with your steps)

Distance per step

Your distance per step will also depend on your height. In taller athletes, it averages around 2.5 yards per step, or 5 yards per leg cycle. For shorter athletes, this falls around 2 yards per step, or 4 yards per leg cycle. 

But there’s a lot of variation here. If you’re not getting much faster after improving your foot contact time and turnover time, then your distance per step is the area to focus on.

When it comes to elite-level times, the distance per step becomes extra important. If you break down the times, each additional step you take (including foot contact time and turnover time) is about 0.45 seconds. This means that if you can stretch your sprint to eliminate a step or even half a step, your speed performance will improve. 

This is especially true for a 40, 60, or 100-yard distance. In the 40-yard dash, the difference between finishing in 4.3 seconds vs. 4.5 seconds can mean millions of dollars in draft selection. 

Distance per step

It’s worth your effort to isolate these three areas in order to understand where you can make subtle changes to your sprinting technique. The smallest improvements can ultimately lead to valuable milliseconds of time shaved off.

I find that many athletes looking to improve their speed spend too much time reading or watching videos and not enough time studying their own movements. When you start to break down your own top-end sprinting mechanics, you can better determine your weak spots. 

Take the extra time to film your own sprinting and you might be surprised at how much faster your turnover time could be, or that your distance per step could be a hair longer.  

If you can measure it, you can improve it.

A novice runner might see improvement simply by doing some squats and deadlifts or integrating more sprinting into their training. But high-level sprinters and elite athletes need to use more detailed, specific measurements to make gains. 

The benefits of measuring and tracking your skills go beyond your sprinting results. When you approach your training this way, you:

• are more likely to stay healthy
• can better predict cycles of peak performance 
• have a clear road map to achieve specific outcomes
• can easily maintain focus and motivation

The best athletes in the world approach their training in this measured way and there’s nothing stopping you from doing it too.

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