“Prepare ship! Prepare ship…. for LUDICROUS SPEED!”
If you get that reference, we can be best friends. But, this is what will probably not end up being the last part of programming speed training. We’re going to reach speeds we never thought possible today, folks. Buckle in.
To start the session off, we’ll move through are same warmups to mitigate movement limitations, then into a general dynamic warmup, and then Mach Drills. If I haven’t already, here is where I’ll start to combine some drills. For example:
A) 10yd A March to 10yd A Skips: 2 rounds, walk back recovery
B) 10yd Fwd Pogos to 10yd A Run: 2 rounds, walk back recovery
I will limit the amount of drills we do so that we can move to technical accelerations from positions that have helped in the past. Going off of what the athlete had already done above, we’ll continue with:
C) 4 Point, 15yd Acceleration - 80%, 1/side
D) Half Kneeling 15yd Side Start - 85%, 2/side
Then we’ll move into the meat and potatoes of the session which involves….
Got to run with the horses before you can fly with the bulls
The best way to hit top speed that is just blazing fast is to use flying sprints. A Fly is a build-in to the sprint, followed by a maximum effort sprint. It is the fastest, most taxing thing you can do to develop speed without the usage of assisted sprinting. The progression I follow is such:
Walk-In Sprints - simple as it sounds. Walk 5-10yds, sprint 10+yds
Jog-In Sprints - again, jog 5-10yds, sprint 10+yds
Coast-Sprint-Coast - build into an easy run, sprint 10-15yds, drop back down to the easy run. Coasts are roughly 10-15yds each.
Sprint-Coast-Sprint - same as above, just sprinting, then an easy run, then sprint again. 10-15yds per segment is perfect.
Flying Sprints - the real magic here.
When I program the flying sprints, I start with about a 10yd build into a 10yd Fly. I’ll slowly work my way up in yardage by first adding some distance to the build, and after getting to 20-25yds for the build (takes 2-3 weeks), then I’ll drop the build back down to 15yds and add distance to the fly. Once the fly has reached 15-20yds for 3-4 reps, then I’ll start adding back into the build. Typically, I’ll max the build at 25-30yds, and the fly will end at 20yds. Longer than that exposes people to too much injury risk, in my opinion. I’ve had athletes leave my programming services, run 30+yd flyes, get much slower, come back, reduce the distance of the fly and get significantly faster, which is also why I do not extend the fly out that far.
Why fly when you could run?
Simple answer is simple: it reduces fatigue. By not programming straight up 30-40yd sprints, you give the athlete a chance to reach true, unimpeded, non-fatigued top speed.
The other end of this is that, why do I have to choose to do just flyes or just accelerations? We don’t live in a coin-flip world, and I don’t have to make that choice. I’ll program flyes in the middle of a week. At the beginning, it’s a huge shock to a nervous system that hasn’t done a whole lot for a weekend, so I’ll throw some acceleration work on a Monday, and then go to flyes on a Wednesday or Thursday. The accelerations at this point are 20-30yds, reaching 40yds after a few weeks. I generally do not program past 40yds or even really reach 40yds due to time constraints (thinking back to 10yds = 1min rest). If you decided to do 4x60yds, that’s almost a half hour of rest in a session. Unless there’s nothing else going on that day, that’s a TON of time that could be used for weights, plyos, med ball, or sport practice.
To gain technical mastery, all work must be devoted to sprinting fast. Everything I do during this phase will be devoted to sprints, even if someone doesn’t realize it. I’ll use medicine ball drills that emphasize a first step acceleration during the sprint. I’ll do simple wall drills in the warmup to emphasize full hip extension during accelerations. I’ll use isometrics that emphasize the foot being underneath the hip. Plyos and bounds will start to either disappear from the program, or be relegated to my Friday session, which I’ll explain a little later. The weekly format will look like one of these two options:
Option 1:
Monday - accelerations, total body lift, upper body focus.
Tuesday - off-feet conditioning, med ball work for power, mobility
Wednesday - flying sprints, small amount of accelerations, total body lift, lower body focus.
Thursday - total body lift, evenly split (will be an easier lift involving more bodyweight control and less true lifting). Mobility, med ball work for power.
Friday - short plyo, jump, bound session
Saturday - easy mobility or off
Sunday - off
An athlete should be absolutely crushed from this week. If you’ve never had the pleasure of experiencing what can only be described as neurological fatigue, it’s a treat. It’s hard to hold conversations, your brain feels fuzzy, you might even have less precise feeling in your hands/feet. You’re absolutely exhausted. No amount of sleep in the world is going to help, you think. An easier version, and thus more recommended, is as follows:
Option 2:
Monday - accelerations, total body lift, upper body focus.
Tuesday - Possibly off-feet conditioning, mobility
Wednesday - flying sprints, small amount of accelerations, total body lift, lower body focus.
Thursday - Mobility, possibly a SHORT med ball circuit for power.
Friday - short plyo, jump, bound, med ball session
Saturday - easy mobility or off
Sunday - off
This kind of week is a little bit easier to recover from, and is recommended. I will start with something that looks like this, and the move into more of an Option 1, which brings us to the question of, when to deload?
I think deload is kind of a bad term, but sounds really cool so I keep using it. I like the term “transition week” more. The transition is from phase to phase, but drops a little bit of fatigue each time. During the phase we’re talking about right now, I’m really doing everything in my power to keep fatigue to an absolute minimum, and use as little axial loading as humanly possible. I don’t have any machines available to me at the moment, so I need to get creative in my ability to program during these kinds of situations. I’ll go through what a program for a “Wednesday” would look like for an athlete of mine right now, and then go through what I wish I could make it look like.
The right now:
Correctives:
90/90 Hip Lift, R Arm Reach. 5 breaths
Turtle Rocking. 8 reps
Foam Roller Calf Release on Wall. 2x5 breaths
Reverse Bear Crawl. 5/side
Dynamic:
Jog Fwd/Bwd, 20yds ea
Easy Skip Fwd/Bwd w/ Arm Circles, 20yds ea
Easy Side Shuffle w/ Arm Swing, 20yds ea
Easy Carioca w/ Arm Swing, 20yds ea
Easy Backpedal, 20yds
Sprint Warmups:
A) 10yd A March to 10yd A Skips: 2 rounds, walk back recovery
B) 10yd Fwd Pogos to 10yd A Run: 2 rounds, walk back recovery
C) 4 Point, 15yd Acceleration - 80%, 1/side
D) Half Kneeling 15yd Side Start - 85%, 2/side
Sprints:
A) 15yd Build, 10yd Fly, 3 reps. 6 mins between ea
5 min break
B) 3 Point 15yd Acceleration, 2/side. 2 min between ea
Lift:
A1) Barbell RDL: 2x8, 330 tempo
A2) Lat Inhibition Hang: 2x6 breaths
B1) Alternating Arm DB Bench Press: 2x6/side
B2) 3 Point DB Rows: 2x8/side
C1) 2 DB Split Squats, Front Heel Elevated: 2x8/side
C2) Half Kneeling Cable Chop: 2x8/side
As you can see, a pretty simple lift with a lower body focus. The session is mainly taken up by sprinting, and should take about an hour to an hour and a half. Nothing excessive, and fairly get in, get out.
The right now:
Nothing changed outside of the lift, so to spare you the boredom, we’ve skipped ahead…
Lift:
A1) 1-Leg Prone Hamstring Curls: 2x8/side, 330 tempo
A2) Lat Inhibition Hang: 2x6 breaths
B1) Alternating Arm Chest Press: 2x8/side
B2) Chest Supported Alternating Arm Machine Row: 2x8/side
C1) 1-Leg Leg Press: 2x8/side, 330 tempo
C2) Half Kneeling Cable Chop: 2x8/side
The changes in the lift seem quite minor, but reducing as much fatigue as possible is absolutely crucial when trying to promote changes in power and speed. Getting an athlete to lie down instead of being anywhere near standing is an absolute game changer. If you’re thinking to yourself that there’s less glute development because I swapped out RDLs, you’ve never leg pressed right. That baby will cook you. Again, this is an incredibly simple lift, that hits all major muscle groups, and gets you out in what should be 20-30 minutes.
Recovery
My assistant (me) has just informed me that I haven’t said anything about recovery this entire time. Let me change that. I’ll start with some background. I grew up mainly competing in combat sports, and do you know what feels good when you compete in combat sports? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Your back, neck, shoulders, elbows, knees and ankles all hurt. Do you know what helps that? Nothing! So with that background in mind, I’ve never been a huge sauna/ice bath/red light/blue blocker/strange supplement kind of guy. Every piece of research I’ve ever read on any supplementation requires some strange modification to life and a supraphysiological amount of the supplement. Ice baths give you a massive stress bomb that makes you feel alive and awake because adrenaline just increased. Saunas are my personal favorite just because I do enjoy the feeling of being in a sauna, but also do not do a whole lot besides activate the normal dopaminergic response to sweat. Red light is cool, but have you ever tried just seeing the sun in the morning? Blue light is completely unavoidable in todays day and age. It can be mitigated, absolutely, and staring at a screen in the darkness does murder mitochondria, but if you’re that worried about mitochondria, you probably do enough exercise that those little guys are completely fine.
What does work then? In the absolutely beautiful words of Forrest Griffin, when asked what he’s going to do after his last training session of the day: “Sleep, sleep, more sleep.” Sleep is king. I will do absolutely everything in my power to get a good night’s sleep. I’m such a sleep nerd, that I even have an Oura ring. I don’t use it to tell me how to train, but damn it all, I want to know how I’m sleeping. If I don’t sleep well for a week or two, training gets worse, I get sick, or I get irritable. All of these things affect my career, social life, and emotional well being, which inevitably will tie into performance. So, get a better pillow, put a sleep mask on, make sure your room is cool and quiet, stop staring at your phone before passing out, and go to sleep to recover. Naps are completely acceptable if you have time during the day. If you are someone who has invested tons of time and money into recovery modalities, awesome. But, getting a better mattress, something to track sleep, blackout curtains, some earplugs, a sleep mask, a better pillow, and some comfortable bed linens is absolutely a better investment. This is a talk for another time, but I think the point has been made to SLEEP to recover.
You may notice that I recommend starting slowly with everything. This will be covered in a different article as to why, but the basis of this approach is: if I’m working with someone I’ve never worked with, I always start with less complexity, volume, and intensity than I’d like to. This ensures that they adapt favorably and mitigate injury risk. I can’t take back adding any of those three things too quickly after I’ve done it in even a single session, because that fatigue is there now, and I likely need to burn a training day or two to allow for the optimal recovery. It lets me mask mistakes quickly and easily, while still being able to use my training time quite effectively.
From Dark Helmet to John Dutton to Forest Griffin...impressive range!