Create A Base of Power and Speed for Athletes
You want to build a base of speed and power and technical capacity that allows you to perform at a high level consistently. The base is really important, but the base is not aerobic.
Training Week
When a training program makes speed and power a priority during the preparation phase of training, what does a typical week look like? What those three training days entail is completely a coaching decision. Below are two different examples showing how we have included three days of prioritizing speed and power development.
General Prep: Example Training Cycle #1
This is probably the most traditional training cycle followed early in the training year.
Day 1:
Acceleration (between 6 and 12 starts). Early in the season do starts from different positions (2/3/4 point). Start at 10 meters and work toward 30 meters, but rarely go beyond 20 or 25 meters because most high school athletes cannot accelerate properly.
Create an acceleration complex or cluster (different exercises or drills to accomplish the same feeling) where an athlete pushes a hurdle, sled, or another athlete in order to feel how violent and explosive acceleration must be. Then, the athlete comes back and performs an acceleration without any physical restriction.
Later in the season, as you get closer to competition or testing, athletes start to use spikes and sprint on the track. Athletes can compete against each other and practice acceleration during relay exchanges, and athletes can begin using blocks if the coaching staff feels they are prepared.
Day 2:
Dedicated to accelerations in several formats (pushing up a hill, pulling sleds with a harness, pushing when pulling is not an option, using bands, and any type of starts that you can imagine); anything that requires the athlete to create energy from a still position. Supplement acceleration training with horizontal jumps (standing long jump, standing triple) and horizontal bounding (skips for distance) and/or med balls throws that include a horizontal displacement. As the season progresses, we begin to get more specific, as noted on Day 1.
Day 3:
Another specific speed day. There is an unlimited amount of variation for what this day can look like, but early in the season we work on feel, technique, and the part-whole-part process. Straight leg bounds are a great as a primary exercise for developing elasticity. The third speed session of the week is a max velocity warm-up (including max velocity sprint drills), wickets, and straight leg bound training modality, finished with another form of vertical displacement exercise to match the theme of the day.
Between Each Speed Day
If we follow the format above in a seven-day cycle, what do the days between speed training include? At the high school level, most athletes do not train on Saturdays during the general prep phase. If we include three days of speed work in a five-day cycle, we might be asking for an injury and CNS fatigue. Therefore, we combine both acceleration days, and come back on Tuesday with tempo work (during general prep) to prepare the body for specific work later in the season. Wednesday is a recovery day—a complete day off. Thursday would count as the second speed day and would look very much like Day 3 as described above. Friday would then be treated as a second tempo day to prepare the body for specific endurance later in the training cycle. If Saturday is available for training, then Friday could be a third speed day, followed by tempo on Saturday.
General Prep: Example Training Cycle #2
The following example will also look at training during the general prep phase. The three days of speed and power development remain the same, but, the daily order changes. It actually allows for a specific day within a seven-day training cycle, aside from three days of speed and power development.
Potentiation is the driving factor for Day 1. Basically, Day 1 prepares the body for Day 2, allowing for two consecutive speed days. Generally, speed days are separated by a minimum of 48 hours so the central nervous system can recover from all the power output created in a typical speed session and then come back 48 to 72 hours later to perform another speed session. Because Day 1 serves as a primer, the athlete will be prepared to have another valuable speed day of training the following day. Since high school athletes do not produce nearly the same amount of force as college or elite athletes, two consecutive speed days is safe for most high school athletes if the right exercises and progressions are followed.
Day 1/2 exercises can include any tools within the acceleration and max velocity inventory, keeping in mind the goals of Day 2. Both days can serve as acceleration or max velocity days, or a combination of the two. Using back-to-back days of the same skill—but using a variety of different exercises, versus using one day as a more difficult version—but still training the same skill or speed in general.
Day 3 of speed would occur 48 hours later, on Thursday, allowing the body to recover following two back-to-back days of speed. During the general prep session, give the athletes a complete day off on Wednesday.
Day 4 (third speed workout) would resume the work established during days 1 and 2. The athlete can revisit what was practiced or established in the first two days or complete a more specific workout.
Example 1: 100/110m hurdler
Day 1
Work on such things as skip for distance, pull a sled with a harness, or use a bullet belt or resistance band, all to apply the principles of acceleration.
Day 2
Include wickets, following a max velocity warm-up and sprint drills.
Day 3
Off
Day 4
The athlete could come back and work over hurdle 1, if they are prepared to do so, or continue to work on the acceleration mechanics necessary to arrive at hurdle 1 in eight steps with proper mechanics. Depending on the skill level of the hurdler, they would then continue to the subsequent hurdles.
Example 2: Sprinter
Day 1
Back-to-back max velocity days working step over runs (dribbles) and sprint posture
Day 2
Wicket runs and fly runs.
Day 3
Off – Rest and recovery
Day 4
Sprint-specific day.
Day 5
Off – Rest and recovery
Day 6
Tempo runs to work on specific endurance, preceded by a tempo warm-up that also includes wicket runs or some sort of speed work.
The number one goal is to make athletes faster and more powerful. And if we focus on creating a base of speed and power in the off-season and throughout the general prep portion of the season, then our ultimate goal will certainly be closer to becoming reality.