Speed Development:
Front Side vs. Back Side Emphasis
Robb Rogers, M.Ed., CSCS
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Speed Development:
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When designing a speed development training progression I believe all of these parameters should be factored into the equation. How much of each is determined by the individual needs of the athlete. Let’s consider the linear days first. For sake of discussion, Monday is going to be the Assisted Linear day (AL) and Thursday will be the Resisted Linear day (RL). Sunday is a full recovery day in which no activity is planned. Wednesday is a recovery day in which active regeneration activities are scheduled and combined with pre-hab exercises. Each training session will begin with dynamic warm – up which will have activation and integration exercises, technical warm – up drills, loosening activities and build – up sprints. At this point, the athlete is turned on, warmed up, loose and ready to go full speed. A word of caution, the hamstrings must be prepared to go full speed. To begin training cycle with an athlete that is not prepared with several days of basic speed training foundation is begging for a hamstring injury. The athlete must be in condition, having done quality backside chain training (RDL’s, One Leg Good Mornings, Glute Hams, Reverse Hypers, supine physioball bridges and curls, etc.) and been in a stride/sprint running program. Finally, this is speed development, not conditioning. The athlete must be allowed, encouraged and made to recover for 3 – 5 minutes between reps for optimal speed enhancement. Let the fun begin!
Assisted Linear Day Assisted drills will be assigned in both starts and overspeed sprinting. The tools used to assist the athlete can be a slight downhill grade (no more than 3-5 % grade, less is more for the beginner), tubing and other specialized tools designed for assisted drills. Another word of caution, tubing breaks, strings can tangle in the sprinters feet and athletes can stumble and fall if they are towed too fast. It will take at least one session to become familiar and somewhat comfortable with assisted training. Remember, speed is month to month (according to Tudor Bompa and my experiences agree), so you will not see results for 4 – 6 weeks of quality, intensive drills. The key to the training program is the mind. The coach must get the athlete to focus on a certain technique on each and every rep. When prescribing absolute speed drills on AL day it is relatively easy to create front side focus on the hands for front side arm drive. The athlete can see them, people are naturally very hand dominate and can readily attune to the cue that hand speed will improve foot speed. Knee punch is also relatively easy to cue for an athlete. The knee is so large it is easy to be aware of and focus on knee punch. The difficult focal cue is the toe. If the knee is up and the toe is down, the assisted front side mechanics are poor at best. Front side mechanics focus will encourage better quality assisted speed drills as they will create focus on the part of the athlete and improved quality of efforts. Only when the mind and body are focused together on quality repetitions can the efforts prove to be optimal in performance enhancement training. One more key coaching point when prescribing assisted drills. Have the athlete run at 90 – 95% of full effort and the coach will add the additional 7 – 12% of assistance to take the athlete just over 100%. Remember, be quick, don’t hurry (John Wooden) and be smooth, because smooth is fast (Ray Evernham). When prescribing assisted starts on AL day, the cues include hand punch toward the finish line, knee punch, toe up, short – quick first step and chest up – flat back for posture. The more powerful the athlete, the longer the stance is in starting. For a less powerful athlete, a more bunched start tends to be better. The hips need to be slightly higher than the shoulders, the hand should be directly under the shoulder and the front knee should be in front of the toe at ½ of the foot length in order to create a “positive” shin angle. If the knee is behind the toe the athlete cannot put force into the ground until the center of mass is over or in front of the base of support. If the athlete is pulling rather than pushing then the chance of injury is increased, the ground contact time is longer, the athlete tends to be more contractile with the muscles and less elastic with the tendons and can even stumble on the third step of a start. Therefore, a positive shin angle is a huge key to proper first step and get away step mechanics.
Resisted Linear Day Resisted linear days will be assigned on Thursday in our mock training week. Resisted linear exercises can be accomplished by prescribing hill running (up an incline about equal to a parking garage ramp), parachutes, sleds, harnesses, rubber bands or partners. This day is dedicated to back side technical emphasis. Start with resistance drills of a hill or with a waist belt as this is directly in front of the glute “engine” and is easier for beginners. Loading at the shoulders with a partner or shoulder harness requires the core to be utilized during the drills and introduce areas of additional coordination and possible weakness to the drill. The focal points are hammer drill with the hands, cueing “thigh-separation” for glute extension and knee punch, power into the ground and heel up action during the recovery phase. The hammer hand drill is very similar to the front side arm drive drill but the emphasis is all on the down stroke of the arm drive phase which corresponds well with the impulse into the ground on the support leg during the drive phase. Glute contraction, hip extension and power into the ground are very difficult to quantify and master. A partner holding a harness and requiring the athlete to march and then skip will begin the process of teaching the athlete how to impart force into the ground. Posture and body lean are critical to acceleration. To engage the center of mass and provide kinesthetic feedback to the athlete a belt harness or giant rubber band at the waist is an excellent tool to encourage glute contraction and corresponding hip extension. Prescribing a drill of repetitive single response skips will begin to create first step force mechanics, powerful glute extension and knee punch. A sled with 35 (and up to 50% for the more powerful) of the athletes bodyweight loaded on it will create additional mass for the athlete to overcome in the start and acceleration phases, but realize that over 10% of the athletes mass on the sled will begin to alter the sprinting mechanics. As the athlete becomes more accomplished, more resistance can be added, as long as the form continues to hold true, technically. The heel up coaching point is relatively easy to master for most athletes. This is the glide or stride phase as opposed to the strike or power phase of sprinting. The athlete is not focused on imparting force to the ground as much as maintaining stride length and turnover then focused on the “heel – up” cue. In the start drills the focus is on arm drive back, flat back – chest up posture, heel extension – big toe push off, power into the ground. The three steps in five yards and 5 steps in 10 yards drill is a key testing component to acceleration starts (but begin counting after step one, as the first step will get the athlete to the starting line or zero).
Contrast Training Contrast drills start with assistance or resistance and then the help or hindrance is removed in order to “trick” the nervous system into imparting maximal force impulse (force into the ground in very short time) and optimal turnover during the ground contact and recovery phases. These drills are prescribed as sprints uphill onto flat or slight downhill surfaces; chutes, sleds and harnesses with release mechanisms applied during the start or sprint; tubing or tow string that will fall to the wayside at max velocity. Another version of contrast is to do a resisted drill or two followed by an unloaded sprint or start. Then prescribe an assisted drill followed by an unloaded sprint or start. The resisted drill will teach the nervous system to impart greater force and the assisted drill will teach the nervous system to impart the force utilizing the shorter contact time, thus increasing the impulse into the ground. This type of training is excellent for advanced athletes and needs to be of low volume and high quality. A total of 1-2 resisted reps followed by 1 unloaded rep, 1 assisted rep and 1 unloaded rep with each rep being a total of 45 – 60 meters is plenty for a beginner. The distance of each rep is 1/3 acceleration zone, 1/3 speed emphasis and 1/3 for slowing.
Elastic Training for Sprinting Speed The ability to learn the mechanics for sprinting and jumping that load the tendons with stored energy, thus allowing them to snap back with an explosive contraction that will create optimal power are time consuming and require split – second timing and coordination. If the toe is down on ground contact or if the stride length is slightly too long then he muscles are loaded and doing most of the work. If the toe is up and the foot is making ground contact at the optimal place then the tendons are loaded and the corresponding kinetic energy release is much greater than anything the muscles alone can generate. An example is a gymnast on a floor routine that is able to tumble and flip and upon landing immediately explode up into a flip going back in the opposite direction. Another example is a world-class sprinter doing A skips in warm – up and the amount of ground that is covered with each seemingly effortless skip.
How do I create focus on front side and back side mechanics? These cues are emphasized beginning with the execution of the floor and wall drills. The beginning position that is taught is to have the athlete lean into the wall with the arms fully extended at shoulder height and slightly externally rotated. I use the cue of creating a Nike swoosh at the webbing of the hand between the thumb and forefinger of the left hand to get the correct external rotation. The lean is long enough that the athlete will be at about 50 degrees with the heels on the ground and calves on stretch (this is critical to load the glutes during back side emphasis). The weigh should be “full – footed” with the load slightly toward the fore – foot and with the toes up. The posture should be long and tall with the glutes and core contracted (check by palpation – but make sure and communicate that your are going to do this and get permission in today’s litigious climate). Front side drills of the lower body knee and toe punch are executed by cueing the athlete to focus on the knee punch first and then the toe up during the drive phase on the wall. Use different drills to emphasize each technique as beginners can only successfully focus on one cue at a time. Back side technique emphasis comes in response to cueing of the glute contraction and corresponding hip extension and power into the ground are much more difficult for the athlete to master. Thigh separation is an excellent cue to introduce here as the athlete is not moving through space and the movement is slower than actual sprinting. The total complexion of the drill will change as you coach the athlete to change their focal point from front side to back side emphasis. If the coach cues the athlete to contract the glute for hip extension, the coach must palpate the glute to determine if the glute is indeed contracted. It is excellent feedback for the athlete and nine times out of ten the glute will be flaccid in beginners. Full extension at the hip knee and with corresponding flexion at the ankle joint are much more difficult to master. Many times the athlete will lack knee extension and will be unable to dorsiflex the ankle as the drive leg contacts the ground. Often times the support legs will be unequal in their distance from the wall as the athlete has imbalances in their flexibility or proprioceptive feedback mechanism. As the drill advances from single response drills to double, triple and other multiple response drills the knee drive action will be uneven and the support leg will tend to collapse.
Notice the linebacker’s extension and knee punch
The lateral version is the same with the person facing laterally and leaning into the wall on the arm or fore arm. The weight is distributed linearly through the foot the same as in the linear version with the following exception in that the weight of the inside foot is on the outside and the weight of the outside foot is on the inside. Brace the hips up laterally so that the athlete is at “attention” and the mid-line of the body is long and strong. The drill is to have the out side knee punch up and across to the inside hip. The foot is dorsi-flexed up at the little toe, not the big toe. The big toe up creates a couple of problems including beginning to turn the hips in the direction you are going and inhibiting the ability to get the correct positive shin angle. The step down is very small in the lateral wall drill. It is not much longer than the width of the athletes’ foot. The commands are “punch” to punch the knee up with proper foot mechanics and “step” to put force into the ground. If the athlete is struggling to get the knee up and across, the proper shin and little toe angle in the up position or optimal positive shin angle upon ground contact then again hip flexor mobility is the limiting factor.
The floor drills will create very
similar responses in execution but will stress the front side core, tall –
braced up hips and calve flexion to a much greater degree. Which series
do you introduce first, the floor or the wall? It depends on the athletes
so I introduce both at the same time. The floor drill sequence is to get
into a prone “up” push – up position, hands under the shoulders, braced up
at the lower core with the calves on stretch and the toes up or “toes
toward the nose” (foot dorsi-flexed). The first drill is the cannon ball
in which the athlete pulls the feet up under the hips without dropping or
lifting the hips, maintaining the braced up core with the hips slightly
higher than the shoulders. The knees should be in a position to replicate
the front leg of the start stance. At all ties the hands and feet should
be in line as if they are on the same linear fairly narrow track. Another
drill to check the foot position and begin to translate this non-moving
drill into a moving drill is to have the athlete go from the long position
to the cannon ball, back to the long, to the cannon ball and then jump out
and land on two feet in a good squat or athletic “break down” position.
This drill will insure the athlete will learn the proper cannonball
position. You will have to coach the extended position. The next linear
drill is the mountain climber drill in which the athlete will begin in the
long braced up position and will flex one leg up until the foot is even
with the opposite extended leg. On command the athlete will “switch” the
flexed and extended legs without dropping or rising at the hips. After
mastering this drill, the athlete will do three switches on command and
sprint out for 5 – 15 yards. When first attempting the sprint, most
athletes’ will over reach with the last switch, lose the braced up posture
and even stumble on the get away step.
The lateral versions of this drill are to do the cannonball drill with the flexed leg planting outside the hand position and the extended leg lining up with the mid-line of the body in the alternate leg “groiner” drill or the feet lining up with the hands track in the double leg “frog” drill. The knee punch should be forceful, the front side shin angle should be adequate for jumping or starting and the foot should be straight, not with the heel inside the foot or internal to the externally rotated lower leg. If the athlete cannot get the foot in the proper position then he hip flexors are too tight at the front corner (ASIS) of the hip. This will negatively impact foot placement in many sports techniques from hitting to change of direction. The start or jump drills should be off center at an angle in order to begin multi-direction start and acceleration drills.
These drills will create the foundation for optimal stance and starting mechanics. The next drills in sequence for starts are the mountain climber, tennis ball and rollover starts as well as the scramble up and go drills. These will be combined with beginning the transition into change of direction drills, which require deceleration, change of direction and re-acceleration. These drills include in – line split squat series, lateral squats and scorpion squats for hip mobility and strength; star jumps to teach optimal landing mechanics from the foot through the core as well as speed angles and traditional agility – mobility drills. For more speed training
information, check out our Sport Speed
DVD
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