While there are many, many physical qualities that drive your on-field and on-court performance as a player, it’s hard to discount the immediate, obvious, and game-altering impact that Speed can have. Although it may not be quite true that “speed kills”, it sure does make life very hard for your opponent when they know they’ll be chasing your superior pace all day! As we’ve talked about in this space before, game speed can be distinctly broken down into three components: Linear Acceleration sprints (straight-line sprints over 1-10yds), Maximum Velocity sprints (sprints from 10yd-120yds), and Agility (decelerating/changing direction in response to your environment). To maximize the effect your off field, supplemental training can have, it’s critical to improve all three of these components to move faster, and with more agility, in a way that truly transfers to on-field/court movement.
If you’ve been putting into practice some of the strength, mobility, and power drills that we’ve covered in this blog, then it might be time to apply all those skills to some speed and agility-specific exercises that can help bridge the gap to moving faster on-field. These activities require both a partner to help out and a harness of some sort, but they can have a tremendous impact on teaching your body to produce more force, more explosively, in the right direction, and over the optimal ranges of motion… and when the body does that, it can do some special things when it comes to speed and agility!
The Harness Linear Acceleration Skip is a foundational tool for youth (and even professional) players looking to improve sprinting ability; it does a fantastic job of helping you learn to produce more power all while rehearsing proper short distance sprinting mechanics. Skipping, done properly, is very similar to your brain and body to sprinting, but the movements are just a bit slower, making it easier to fix mechanical errors that can slow you down on the field. Try these for 2-3 sets of 10-20yds, and once you get comfortable with the form, try these with your partner applying a bit more resistance with the harness as well!
The Harness Linear Acceleration Sprint is a great progression from the Skip, reinforcing the same proper short sprinting mechanics, but now at a higher, more game-like speed. Try these for 2-3 sets of 10-20yds, focusing on maintaining great mechanics while increasing both the speed and power of your movements.
The Harness Lateral Acceleration Run is a core movement progression for any player looking to address not just their straight-line speed, but also their ability to move quicker and more athletically laterally and in rotation. While the movement fundamentals are very similar to Linear Acceleration, the mechanical challenges of moving in what is called the Frontal Plane (i.e. side-to-side) makes the drill significantly harder. Try these for 2-3 sets of 10-20yds each way, focusing on applying force not just down into the ground, but over to push your body to the side.
And there you go! Three activities that, if you’ve been applying the strength, mobility, and power activities we’ve introduced this season, are great ‘next steps’ in your training to develop better on-field speed and agility. Building real speed and agility, actually getting faster on the field (vs just running around cones or dancing through agility ladders) is tremendously hard… if it wasn’t, then everyone would be flying around in-game. But by building your strength, your mobility, and, now here with these drills, your speed and agility specific mechanics and power, very good things can happen to your ability to move faster on the field or the court.
If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to us through our Contact page here and, for more general and sport-specific training information, visit our Instagram at: atsc_solutions. We also have a vault of proven, effective programs that we implemented at the Division I and professional sports levels for purchase on our Products page here. And if you’re looking to take your game to your highest levels, click here and let’s work together either in-person if you’re in the Cape Fear area or here if you’re interested in our individually-specific online training!
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