SPRINTING EXERCISES
:Before we dive into this topic, I want to credit elite speed coach and former sprinter Latiff Thomas for introducing the concept I’m about to discuss with you.
It’s called “Short to Long.” What this means is that we start small and simple with our sprint training and then work out to more complicated distances and patterns.
In other words, athletes will and should start and become proficient at 10‐yard sprints, then 20, 40, 60, etc. There are at least two reasons why this strategy is important. First, it prevents injury, and doing too much too soon. I’ve witnessed 3 older men at the facility in which I train completely tear their hamstrings by
violating this arguable principle. The odds of you tearing your hamstring with 5‐10 10‐yard sprints are far less than when you perform 5 60‐yard sprints. It’s a third of the volume. Furthermore, the shorter distances create greater knee angle and activity, which automatically disperses the running stress more evenly across all muscle groups. When we exit the initial acceleration phase then our knees and ankles straighten and the majority of the work is placed on the hamstrings. Multiply this by several sprints, add a weak and deconditioned body to boot, and you can see the large risk. Secondly, shorter distance sprints are different than longer distance ones. Each distance requires a different ratio of skills or needs, and the posture and sprint patterns also become different. With that being said, it’s easier for the athlete and their body to learn to ingrain a single distance and sprint pattern perfectly, rather than throwing in multiple distances and different patterns.
The first sprinting exercise that should be introduced to athletes or clients is the 10‐yard dash. This drill combines the skills of acceleration, starting strength, maximal strength, power and explosiveness, and it’s sport specific. You may have heard the phrase that many sports are played within a 5‐ to 10‐yard box in all directions. It’s true. An athlete needs to master a 3‐ or 4‐point stance or any other stance variation, and accelerate well at this distance before progressing to the next level of 20 yards. What separates the great performers at this distance versus the longer ones is primarily their maximum strength levels. The best 10‐yard runners I’ve had could squat or deadlift at least 2x their body weight. When you analyze all of the biomechanical factors it makes sense. Momentum is non‐existent since the body is completely static in the chosen stance type once your setup is complete. It then becomes an ability of expressing as much strength as you can to overcome your resting inertia. Foot contacts will naturally be longer since there is no momentum, or reduced resistance of your body mass. The runner who can summon the most
“force” relative to their bodyweight will generally be the winner here and get their body accelerating faster than the weaker one.
The next progression is the 20‐yard dash. This is another undermined distance in acceleration and speed development for many. I bet if I told you a time that was elite for this distance you would look at me with a blank stare on your face.
The 20‐yard dash is basically a continuation of the 10‐yard dash, with two distinctions. At this point the athlete moves from a “lean stride” into more of an
“upright stride.” This switches the muscle activity to more of the hamstrings and builds and expresses more strength in this muscle group. Power, acceleration, and sport specificity are still very present at this point, and this test can help improve and is a precursor to top speed that comes later on. A majority of plays in sport are played at this distance, so direct exposure to this distance in sprinting will naturally carry over to the court or field. I guarantee it. Here are some handheld standards for female and male high school athletes in the 20‐yard dash, compliments of Bigger, Faster, Stronger. It also includes standards for the 40‐yard dash as well.
Unfortunately, there are no standards to date for male and female collegiate and professional athletes. I’ll keep searching, and hopefully at some point our culture can establish these for us.
http://www.higher‐faster‐sports.com/support‐files/women's‐speed.pdf http://www.higher‐faster‐sports.com/support‐files/men's‐speed.pdf
I’ve done some research on my own and according to their times, I would say their data collection was good. I think as time goes on and more and more athletes use acceleration and speed tests in their athletic training, we will be able to narrow down the standards more precisely. Nonetheless, the ranking standards provided are a great general reference for any coach, athlete, etc.
The final stage of sprinting exercise is either the 40‐ or 60‐yard dash. I will be referencing the 40‐yard dash because it is more familiar to many than the 60.
They are essentially the same thing, though, and could be treated as such. This 40‐
yard dash has been probably the most highly popularized athletic training event promoted in the industry, along with the vertical jump. Some coaches and trainers absolutely despise it, while others bank on the test. The question is then should we use it if we are looking to get faster? Without a shadow of a doubt, YES!!! Here are some reasons why. First, the distance is sport‐specific, whether you want to admit it or not. The ratio of short‐distance speed work to longer distance is definitely in favor of the former, but there are still situations where longer distance work occurs.
Examples include a running back breaking loose for a touchdown, a soccer player eluding an opponent and heading towards the goal, and a baseball player hitting a triple. If we elect to omit this type of training exercise from our athletes, then we reduce their acceleration and top speed, increase injury risk, and leave them ill‐
equipped when the time comes to compete. You may have just noticed that I said
“Top Speed.” This is correct. If you recall in the beginning of the book, I referenced a quote from arguably the best Olympic speed coach in our history, Charlie Francis, who noted that reports show that a vast majority of athletes who are not Olympic‐
level sprinters will reach their top speed around 40 to 60 yards. So by using this
distance in training, athletes will naturally not only learn to increase their speed and accelerate faster, but they will condition their neuromuscular system to accelerate longer as well, resulting in greater top speed. Along with sport specificity, top speed development, acceleration, and power, 40‐yard dashes do a good job in developing anaerobic conditioning. Repetitive maximum effort 40‐yard dashes are very taxing on the body, especially the faster you become. This is one of many routes in this program where we develop the Specific Energy Systems or
conditioning types for athletes, so that they are able to last longer in competition and support higher speed output repeatedly.
Moreover, we encounter the other end of the power spectrum with the 40‐
yard dash. Recall the 10‐yard dash, where biomechanical factors such as our
momentum and GCT are different. As we accelerate and reach top speed around the 40‐yard mark, momentum is much higher, the resistance of our body mass is much less, and our GCTs are heavily reduced. This specific set of conditions requires us to recruit our muscles and produce force at an extremely high “velocity” if we want to continue to run faster.
Next, the hamstrings are very dominant at this point during the run. The difference between great speed and poor speed at this point will be determined primarily by hamstring strength and power, along with RFD (Rate of Force Development), or speed of our muscles as was just discussed. The 40‐yard dash then automatically develops this part of our essential anatomy.
Lastly, the 40‐yard dash regulates the function of performance at both shorter and longer distances. This is one of the most unaccepted and overlooked aspects of the 40‐yard dash. Do people who run fast 40‐yard dashes generally always run a fast 20‐yard dash? Yes. Do you know who had the fastest Fully Electronic 20‐yard dash? CJ Spiller of the Buffalo Bills. At his NFL Combine, he recorded a 2.41 second run! That’s amazing. CJ’s 40‐yard dash was a very arguable 4.38, and his fastest unofficial was a 4.27! And there are plenty of examples like this one. What many do not realize about the 40‐yard dash is that it provides an extra 20 yards and around a dozen more strides to teach our body to increase its speed.
More opportunity can mean more success in this case. There exists an obvious correlation between 40‐yard performance and 20‐yard performance, and it’s because the 40 helps build more speed and power that translate into shorter distances. The hamstrings are still very active in shorter distances, and the 40 builds this muscle group, thus we get transfer there as well. Also, there is a strong correlation between the 40‐yard dash and the 100‐yard dash. Aside from the fact that the most successful NFL Combine performers in the 40‐yard dash were decorated collegiate sprinters, this holds true for even Olympians, who are the fastest humans in the world!
Note: RT stands for Reaction Time from starting gun.
Nothing really needs to be said after looking at this. The range of 40‐yard dash times among the fastest 100‐meter runners in history ranged from 4.19‐4.35 seconds! Although this chart and information have no bearing for a team sport athlete, I still thought it was important nonetheless.
The final sprinting exercise that I would like to discuss is “Flying Sprints.”
Flying sprints are designed to improve the athlete when he or she is sprinting and already “flying” so that he/she can improve the transition from acceleration to top speed. We usually run 20‐ and 30‐yard flying sprints, meaning the athlete will start how they normally do and then we emphasize timing and focus from the 20‐ or 30‐
yard mark up until the 40‐ and 60‐yard mark. The flying sprint variations do a fantastic job at building speed since ground contact will be minimal, and they build horizontal force production and glute‐ham strength and power. These can be performed in addition to regular sprints, or serve as a substitute if athletes struggle with the transition, or as a complement for a complete sprinting program.
AGILITY
AND
QUICKNESS
Since I can remember, the majority of focus in most speed and athletic development programs have been placed on improving strength, size, fat loss, speed, power, and conditioning. Very little attention has been specifically paid to agility and quickness, even though it’s these two skills that are just as essential as the rest in sport. As a testament to this statement, if you analyze the top 10
performers in the 40‐yard dash from 2012 and 2013, only two of them ranked in the top 10 in the 20‐yard shuttle run, which is an agility‐ and quickness‐based drill. The other similar based drill, called the “3 Cone Drill” showed almost precisely the same outcome, except that only one of the top 10 40‐yard dash performers from 2013 ranked in the top 10 of the 3 Cone Drill. 99 This would at the very least indicate that Agility and Quickness is unique and needs to be practiced. General strength, speed and power training will not make an athlete optimally effective at changing direction, according to many studies. 100 101 102 103 I can attest to this in my own training and training of others. Conversely, the top 10 runners of each group in agility at the combine were also fast though, and there is one report that does show a solid correlation between sprinting speed and agility. 86 More specifically,
according to the Historical NFL Scouting Combine Data site, the top 10 fastest performers in the Pro Agility Shuttle Run, averaged a 4.52 and 4.43 40‐yard dash in 2012 and 2013. 104 Of course this is only a report from 2 years, but it is interesting and pretty confirming that linear speed and sprint performance matters when it comes to being able to change direction better. Moreover, many of the direction change exercises require a strong linear speed element. Just analyze them for a moment. The athlete plants, turns, and then sprints “forward” in the new direction in most cases. Lastly, there is a top‐down relationship between all speed exercises regardless of distances or direction traveled. As you have seen, the 100‐meter runners have fast 60s and 40s. Runners who have a fast 40 have fast 20s and 10s.
And most agility exercises span ten yards. So being powerful and fast overall is going to benefit you in agility and quickness drills. There is not an optimal
relationship between agility and speed, but there is a strong one. Before I continue, I would like to quickly define what each of these terms mean. Agility and quickness, by definition, is the ability to start (or accelerate), stop (or decelerate and stabilize), and change direction quickly, while maintaining proper posture. 48 Change of direction training is another similar term used that means the same exact thing. I would like to modify what Clark said about the agility and quickness definition. This type of training is where an athlete initiates acceleration in one direction,
decelerates in that same direction, and then cuts and re‐accelerates into a new direction. Obviously, the majority of athletes are required to be agile and quick at any given moment during competition, otherwise they will get defeated. Period.
Also, a majority of injuries have been found to occur in movements that can be