Speed Development:

The Latest Evidence and Practice

In team sports and individual sports there is no more universally important athletic attribute than the ability to move faster than your opponent. Ninety five percent of sport is about being faster or quicker than your competition. Whether we are sprinting 200 meters on a track, getting back on defense to stop a fast break in basketball, running a route in American football, kicking at the end of a cross country race, or bursting past a defender to score a goal in soccer, speed is king. So it is no surprise that developing speed has long been the top priority for most sport coaches. What may be a surprise is that until recently we had very little understanding of how to do that.

There have been decades of practice, empirical evidence, and theories. However, whether we are talking speed, strength or otherwise, our understanding of how the human body adapts to stress is a budding science. Prior to the 1970’s we knew very little about the subject from a scientific point of view. In my lifetime alone we have discovered more about the subject, maybe 10 times more, than was known in the previous 100 years. Many times the theories and practices of the best coaches and athletes were validated by science, sometimes it turns out that the conventional wisdom of our best coaches is wrong.

We live in an exciting time as coaches. There is emerging science and experimentation that is shining the light on how to best improve speed. Many coaches, especially at the high school level, will continue to cling to what they have done and how they themselves were coached. Those of us who embrace new information have an opportunity to gain a competitive advantage.

So what is the emerging science?

There are two significant discoveries that are changing the way people think about coaching for speed. Both have been supported by scientific studies and field studies and duplicated many times. In the article below I will summarize the story, science, and application of these discoveries. The first section of the article will focus on a discovery that improves acceleration. The second section will focus on linear max velocity. Between the two we will see a clear common theme emerge. Finally there will be practical application including workouts in the appendix of this article.

Section 1: Horizontal Force Production - The first segment focusses on shorter sprints and acceleration that is important in team sports.

Section 2: Force Production to Bodyweight Ratio - The second segment is focused on overall sprinting speed and is heavy on max velocity linear speed.

Appendix: In the appendix you will find workout templates and guidelines as well as links to studies, articles, and videos found in the appendix.

Before we get started here are a few things to know about speed development:

1. There are two very different phases of a sprint. There is an acceleration phase and a max velocity phase. Most athletes will never reach max velocity during a sporting event. Sprinters in track will reach max velocity. Rarely a football wide receiver/defensive back or running back might as well, but not very often. It almost never happens in team sports.
2. Most of athletics (pretty much everything but track) involves change of direction or what is often called “agility.” This involves acceleration, deceleration, and reacceleration.
3. Speed is affected by stride length and stride frequency which are both a byproduct of running mechanics and force production.
4. Running mechanics (technique) is an important component to improving speed and preventing injury and will improve stride length and stride frequency. Proper mechanics can be taught and learned effectively and in a relatively short time period of time. Proper mechanics will also increase efficiency and therefore improve repeated efforts and therefore appear to enhance conditioning/endurance.
5. Force Production is vitally important to speed development - the ability to apply force into the ground. Strength is the maximum amount of force that can be applied in unlimited time. Power is the amount of force that can be applied in a limited time or rapidly (with speed). Strength, power, and speed are inextricably linked. Force production increases stride length and stride frequency and has a positive impact on endurance/repeated efforts. The latest scientific research and empirical evidence indicates that increasing the ability to apply force into the ground is the most important variable in developing and improving speed.
6. General Strength is the foundation of all other sports skills. Athletes need general strength in order to execute proper running mechanics and prevent injury. General Strength is necessary before specific strength can be developed. As Coach Mark Rippetoe says, “the specific dangles from the genereal.” Superior athletes are stronger than other athletes on average. Although strength does not equal speed.
7. Traditional steady-state cardiovascular training has been proven to reduce strength, power, and speed in explosive sport athletes. Conditioning for these athletes should involve interval training instead in order to prevent losses in performance.

The Research

Section One: Horizontal Force Production

Background Information

Joe Defranco became famous as a world renowned developer of athletes. He has worked with high school, college, and professional athletes from all sports. During his 20 years training athletes he began to develop a theory that very heavy sled pushes and/or drags correlated highly to speed improvements, particularly acceleration. He also noticed that shin angle was important in the acceleration phase as the athlete needed to push the ground back behind him and that very heavy sled pushes and sled drags helped teach this mechanic. This theory defied the traditional guidelines for improving speed. In the past athletes were encouraged to keep the load on and sled sprints at 10% of the athletes bodyweight (or that the load should not cause more than a 10% drop in velocity or split time). So, needless to say, the coaching world did not accept Defranco’s methods. However, his results were amazing. Eventually several researchers produced multiple studies that proved Defranco’s heavy sled drags/pushes were in fact very effective if not superior for improving speed. Defranco’s current head director of human performance, Cameron Josse recently released a study inspired by that research. This is a summary of his findings and recommendation from an article he wrote for simplifaster.com – Maximum Power Sled Sprinting for American Football.

Key Points from the Article:

• Horizontal Force Production
  • Sprinters exert force onto the ground with each stride that has both a vertical and horizontal component.
  • Net Horizontal Force propels the body forward horizontally.
  • Ground contacts with more horizontal force result in greater propulsion.
  • Ground contacts with less horizontal force produce a braking effect.
  • During acceleration horizontal force is dominant, as the athlete reaches maximum velocity horizontal force drops and gives way to vertical force.
  • The best sprinters are able to prolong this inevitable drop and continue to produce higher ratios of force (accelerate longer).
  • Several recent studies (see appendix) have proven that heavy sled sprints with 69% to 96% of the athlete’s bodyweight to be effective in improving acceleration and speed.
• Optimal Loading for Maximum Power
  • Traditionally speed coaches have warned against heavy sled sprints recommending the load be 10% of the athlete’s bodyweight (or that the load should not cause more than a 10% drop in velocity or split time).
  • Recent research contradicts the traditional guidelines and showed that the load would need to be enough to slow the athlete to 48%-52% of their max velocity and therefore the sled should be loaded between 69%-96% of bodyweight.
  • “according to research, it seems that improving acceleration is heavily dependent upon finding the optimal combination of horizontal force and velocity, improving the ratio of force production in the horizontal direction, and maintaining horizontal force for as long as possible as movement velocity increases with every step.”
• Case Study
  • Cameron Josse pre-tested 4 football players (linebackers and running backs) in the 40 yard dash and recorded their 10, 20, and 40 yard split times using an electronic timing system.
  • He then trained them once per week with heavy sled drags of 48% to 52% of their max velocity for 4 weeks.
  • The load represented 71% to 80% of the athlete’s bodyweight in the first week and climbed to 77% to 94% as the athletes grew stronger over the 4 weeks.
  • See Appendix A for the workout template used that includes warm up and finisher.
  • He then retested the 40 times in the same manner as the pre-test.
• Training Schedule
  • 1 day a week, 4 heavy sled sprints, 4 weeks
  • See the appendix for the workout template used that includes warm up and finisher.
• Results
  • There was up to a 14% increase in the load on the sled (strength/power).
  • There was a range of improvement in .10 to .33 seconds in their electronic 40 times over the 4 week period.
  • All recorded splits improved for all athletes (10 meters, 20 meters, and 40 meters).
  • “One area that all players showed improvement in was the ability to accelerate at each 5 yard segment over 20 yards against their individual optimal load. During the first two weeks, most of them began decelerating between 15 and 20 yards. But by weeks 3-4 all of them were able to continue accelerating or maintain acceleration every 5 yards.”

Section Two: Force Production to Bodyweight Ratio

Ryan Flaherty is the Senior Director of Performance for Nike. Prior to that he ran a successful human performance business providing private training for elite athletes in San Diego. He is widely regarded as one of today’s top speed experts and is known for a piece of research he did with USA Track & Field. Below you will find a summary of key points from an interview he recently did on Tim Ferris’ podcast (Tim Ferris Show Episode #238 “The Savant of Speed – Ryan Flaherty”).

Key Points:

• Speed is influenced by genetics but is also influenced by skill and adaptation and therefore to a large degree CAN be coached, learned, trained, and improved.
• Speed involves stride rate & stride frequency. Both of these can be improved by improving technique (running mechanics, efficiency) and by improving the ability to produce force into the ground (power). More on the relationship between technique, force production and stride length/stride frequency below.
• Force Production is most useful as it relates to your body mass therefore he uses a “Force Number” – force to body weight ratio
• Experiment at USA Track
  • Elite Olympic level sprinters running on a force-plate treadmill
  • The key characteristic that made one sprinter faster than another WASN’T technique, it varied and sometimes faster athletes had more technique flaws.
  • Absolute force production also was NOT the key characteristic that separated the faster sprinters.
  • The key characteristic that correlated to being faster was – how much force can you produce relative to your mass (bodyweight).
  • Elite sprinter have an “insane” amount of strength/power in the lower body relative to their bodyweight.
• He tries to improve this ratio by increasing force production without increasing bodyweight
  • In advance athletes (well trained, generally strong) he tries to improve strength while avoiding muscle mass gain.
  • Limit volume (total number of reps) and eliminate the eccentric phase of the primary heavy lift while training very heavy.
  • In novice athletes (young, untrained, weak) he will include a hypertrophy phase (higher volume, eccentric included, induce muscle mass gain) because the gain in muscle mass for them is helpful and prevents injury.
  • Novice Athletes vs Advance Athletes – Novice Athletes need general strength not specific strength. Spring mechanics are dependent upon the ability to hold proper positions, so they need general strength in order to improve mechanics and avoid injury. Once athletes reach a minimal level of general strength, THEN specific strength becomes the focus.
• He conducted an additional study/experiment. He looked for correlation between specific strength exercises and sprint speed. He was searching for the best way to improve force production to mass ratio. Over a 5 year experiment he found the Hex Bar Deadlift (a.k.a. Trap Bar Deadlift) had the best, really the only, correlation. Increased Hex Dead 1RM without an increase in bodyweight equaled improvement in speed.
  • Elite Athletes can pull 3.2 times their bodyweight.
    • He has female Olympic sprinters pulling 440 pounds at a bodyweight of 130 pounds.
  • Average people who want to improve speed should pull at least 2+ times their bodyweight
• See below, in the appendix, his guidelines for training including actual workouts, exercises, sets & reps, etc.
• Increasing stride length is vital to speed and is a byproduct of technique and force production, but mostly force production
  • Technique can improve stride length and stride frequency by improving efficiency of movement. This can be taught and learned very effectively and in a relatively short period of time this can be improved significantly.
  • Be careful when working on increasing stride length to avoid overstriding (foot strike in front of the center mass – hips).
  • Increase in force production to mass ratio has a significant impact on stride length. Once technique is improved, this may be much more important than anything else.
  • Elite sprinters often have variations in running mechanics and sometimes defy convention wisdom in their technique, but they all have insane force to mass ratios.
  • Usain Bolt runs his 100 meters in 42 steps, the next fastest man runs it in 44
  • Even in distance runners he has found that increasing force production improves stride length and stride frequency thus reducing the number of steps needed to reach a particular distance and improving times.
• Max Velocity and Maintaining Speed during a sprint and the interaction of Force Production and Conditioning/Endurance
  • Once sprinters hit a certain speed, maximum speed, at 30 to 40 meters, they actually either maintain speed from that point forward, or most likely slow down a little over the remaining distance
  • The 10 meter splits from the point of max velocity onward are almost identical.
  • The best sprinters slow down the least after reaching max velocity.
  • He found that there is a strong correlation between the rate of slowing down and the ratio of force production to mass.
  • Athletes with the highest force production/mass ratio maintained speed better, slowed down the least.
  • Weaker athletes slow down more
  • Other studies have shown that strength improvements impact the ability to endure repeated efforts. There seems to be evidence that strength may play a larger role than traditional conditioning/endurance when it comes to improving explosive repetitive movements like sprinting and including multiple sprints like you find in team sports (see below)
• Conditioning vs Strength
  • Many speed and sport coaches have focused on “conditioning” to improve the ability to maintain speed in a single sprint AND to improve the ability to run repeated sprints with limited rest. There is merit in this approach and it does work to a degree. Improving cardiovascular conditioning does positively impact sprinting and repeated sprinting.
    • In conditioning, specificity is very important. You have three energy systems and you should be careful that your conditioning is sport specific and work to rest ratios are sport specific. This is a topic for another article.
    • Research has repeatedly established that conditioning with steady-state cardio (traditional jogging or cardio machines) will decrease strength and speed and increase injury risk for power athletes unless they are over-fat. So power athletes should avoid jogging for distance, unless fat-loss is a major goal (and even then, there are better ways).
    • Sprint intervals have shown superior results for power athletes and do not interfere with speed or strength while improving “conditioning.”
    • Recent research has shown that improving speed has a significant impact on ability to perform repeated explosive movements such as a sprint AND improves the ability to maintain speed in a sprint.
  • If an explosive effort such as running a pass route, or a fast-break, or running a base, represents 95% of my max strength/power output, then it will be difficult for me to repeat that effort several times at the same speed.
  • If through strength/power training I improve strength/power output, then that same effort to get on base or get open on a route will represent a lower percentage of max effort. So say because I’m stronger/more powerful, it only take 85% of my max power output to get the job done. I will be able to more consistently repeat that effort at the same level.
  • Research has shown that power improvement trumps conditioning improvements when it comes to repeated bouts of explosive activity.
• This all sounds like linear speed (straight line) and a lot of max velocity stuff. What about team sports like basketball, baseball, football? Our athletes almost never reach max velocity. We live in a state of acceleration/deceleration/reacceleration. The same kind of research with the same kind of results has come out of Defranco’s Training. They have found that very heavy sled sprints (pushing or pulling a sled loaded with 50-95% of the athletes bodyweight) improves acceleration speed better than anything else – and this has now been proven by multiple studies. See more below. But first, what does Coach Flaherty recommend we do in our training sessions?
• See Appendix B for Ryan Flaherty’s actual workout template.