Speed and Skill Optimization

Speed and Skill Optimization

Speed and skill. The two most important attributes that win games no matter what sport you’re playing or in what century you are in. Speed and skill are timeless. Speed and skill put butts in the seats, raise banners in stadiums, get athletes paid and coaches “W”s.

There is a paradigm around Speed and skill. They co-exist in all athletes and the name of the game for coaches since the beginning of time has been the quest to increase speed and skill simultaneously.

Can this be done? Yes

Do most coaches go about this tricky yet straightforward process the wrong way? Yes

Does it have to do with EGO? Doesn’t it always? I tend to answer a lot of questions with questions.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions and the vast majority of coaches actually make their players slower. They often times do more harm than good when it comes to this dichotomy of speed and skill.

I know you’re thinking well who the hell are you to be writing about this? Well, maybe I am nobody or maybe I am someone. Many, many men and women smarter than me have written on this topic. I am just here to be the messenger, the conduit of knowledge to you. So pay attention. You’ll thank me later.

 Great coaches know how to train certain metrics in their players. They have that intangible quality to tease certain attributes out of their players that most other coaches can’t.

There is a small window in practice where speed and skill can be trained. This shouldn’t be a surprise to you, but that window for speed and skill acquisition is best taught at the beginning of practice when athletes are fresh. Tired athletes with slow sluggish bodies and a fatigued CNS cannot achieve the necessary level of speed specific stress in order to stimulate the body to adapt to and improve their speed performance. TIRED ATHLETES MOVE NO WHERE FAST!

Speed Development

As mentioned earlier speed is “the” advantage in any sport. Speed never slumps. To be fast you must train fast. How fast? As fast you can possibly can. As often as you can. You cannot fight human physiology, “speed training” at the end of practice is simply just work capacity and that is making your athletes slower. There is nothing wrong with work capacity. Everything has it’s place. Know what you are doing and why.

The only window to develop speed within a practice is at the beginning of practice just after the warm up. The following is important to remember, after a finite number of speed training repetitions you will notice your athlete start to slow down even though they won’t feel “fatigued.” You must stop the speed training at this point. Our goal is speed training, not work capacity. When the athlete starts to slow down, their times increase or they become a half a step slower in the speed work it is time to transition to your regularly scheduled practice.

Choose a sport specific agility or acceleration drill lasting 3-8 seconds. The intent and effort from your athletes on these reps must be MAX EFFORT! Choose a hockey breakaway, a sprint start in a running sport, or a rapid change of direction drill mimicking a football or baseball move.

If you are want to work on some top end speed work with a hockey dryland session, soccer, baseball or football practice you could do perform some flying 60’s or flying 90’s. Also, a good rule of thumb is to limit the use of the implements they use in their sports. No sticks or balls. Just the athlete moving as fast as they can. On the very last rep of the drill have your athletes perform a shot or pass at the end of rep to put it all together and transition into practice.

The table below is a list of rest periods and recommended repetitions regarding speed optimization during practice. These must be followed to the letter. To increase speed, we must be moving at max speed…this in turn requires ample rest before the next repetition.

Duration (seconds)                    Rest Period (seconds)                             Repetitions

3                                                       50-75                                                             8-12

5                                                       75-90                                                             6-8

8                                                       90-120                                                          4-6

 Skill Optimization

We have discussed how to use practice to increase our speed, but how can we also increase skill development without eating up all of our precious practice time? Can we train speed and skill simultaneously? Is it possible to sharpen both sides of the sword at the same time? How can we train both without sacrificing the other?

What if I told you that speed and skill can be trained within the same window without detriment to the other? Clever coaches utilize rest intervals between each rep of the speed drill as a chance to train skills. By taking advantage of active recovery and performing a non-taxing skill movement during the resting phase of the speed work is the key. Active recovery not only gives your athletes time to rest from the speed work, but the skill movement keeps them moving and helps boost venous return aiding in more efficient recovery between speed reps.

Basketball players could perform 10 reps of a 3 second, high intense agility drill followed by 60 seconds of a low intensity ball handling or shooting drill.

Hockey players could skate through cones at max speed for 5 seconds, then work on low intensity stick handling for 75-90 seconds.

Intense focus and maximal intent must be performed on the speed portion and the skill portion. Once the athlete slows down, misses the easy shots or stick handles it is time to transition to practice. Drills should be performed at coach’s discretion and divided as evenly as possible into groups to maximize the flow and efficiency of these drills.

By keeping your athletes in a constant state of high performance in both speed and skill, in the beginning of practice and utilizing that window when your players are fresh is a tremendous way for coaches to improve their teams speed and skill.

Remember that speed and skill training is not work capacity training. The speed and skill drills must be performed with max intent, taking advantage of the duration, reps and rest times listed above. Your athletes might not feel tired, but as soon as times increase in the speed portion, form breaks down and reps missed in the skill portion it is time to transition to practice.

I can promise that if you implement this into your practice plan the speed and skill of your players will increase and you will have gained a huge advantage.