TRAINING LAB:

SPEED & AGILITY

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Got a Strong Trunk. Good. But Are You Also Mobile?

Author: Phil White

In last month’s post, we explored the reasons for getting your trunk strong, which include improving hip-to-shoulder (and vice versa) power transfer, generating and resisting rotation, and reducing your risk of lower back pain. But while getting strong is all well and good, you’ll only be able to apply it to your full potential if you’re also mobile.

Sprinting 101 for Strength and Conditioning Coaches with Derek Hansen – Part 2

Author: Derek Hensen

There are few more purely athletic pursuits than sprinting, and just about every field and court sport requires running at maximum effort and efficiency. And yet most athletes have major room for improvement in not only their expression of top-end speed, but also their biomechanics and locomotion.

Sprinting 101 for Strength and Conditioning Coaches – Part 1

Author: Derek Hansen

Running is one of the most elemental things we can do as athletes or, for that matter, as human beings. But just because the instinct is hard-wired into our DNA, it doesn’t mean that it’s something you can just put into your programming willy-nilly, particularly when it comes to sprinting.

Accelerate to Dominate: 5 Drills That Improve Acceleration

Like most things in Strength and Conditioning, acceleration is extremely trainable. It's entirely possible for an athlete to hack tenths of a second off of their 40 like butter with a good training program, and this shows up big-time on the field.

The Truth About Speed and Agility Training

It is 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. Now, before we go down the rabbit hole, let me bring us to the point of this article.

Why Understanding Arm Action Is a Critical Factor in Teaching Speed

As a coach with over a decade of experience in the realms of track and field and sports performance, I’ve noticed a common trend when it comes to the arms: people think arms aren’t that big of a factor in how we sprint.

Single Leg Workouts to Build Speed and Explosiveness

They’re all searching for the dynamic speed drill to increase their velocity and the elusive top-end speed routine that will knock off those two seconds and destroy that pro-agility drill that will only leave coaches, scouts and other contemporaries exclaiming in profanities. So where is this magic pill to elevate that potential and unlock speed you ask?

The Fundamentals of Increasing Strength to Improve Speed

There are three aspects of improving speed – running technique, muscle elasticity, and strength! The problem is many coaches and athletes aren’t optimizing their speed strength training with the right program design to reap the greatest benefits in speed and force production.

Off-Season Training for High School Football: Developing Explosive Speed and Power

In the first article, we discussed the first three months of your off-season program, from December to February. During this time your emphasis should be to recover from the season, lay the foundation for your off-season program, build strength, and develop the lifts and abilities you will shape your training around.

Movement Progressions: A Better Way To Overcome Training Plateaus

Having used scaled exercises for years in our gym, we have seen that it can lead to plateaus with slower progress out of the scaled version, along with some bad habits and more frequent injuries.

With lots of frustration, and trial and error, we decided to rely less on scaled exercises in favor of exercise progression.

Mobility For Athletes: More Important Than Ever

Unlike the old days where our grandfathers and great grandfathers’ bodies began to lose function because of a lifetime of physical labor, many of our kids and young adults are beginning to show similar signs of breakdown - but for the opposite reason.

Improve Athleticism With These 4 Reactive Agility Drills

While cones, hurdles, and the like can serve a purpose, the majority of the exercises programmed with them are huge time-wasters. As an athlete, having finely tuned agility is necessary to competing at the highest level — regardless of your sport or position.