⚡️SSL #012 How To Program For Speed

Oct 22, 2022

Today I’m going to share with you 4 tips for how to train for speed.

In the same way, you can have the recipe of a 5-star chef, but still, struggle to make the same 5-star food…

You can have all the best exercises in the world, but still, struggle to improve your speed if you aren’t able to put them together effectively.

To make this even easier for you I’m even going to show you a program for an athlete of mine that improved their speed by 1 whole second.

Specifically, I’m going to talk about:

Testing Like A Pro
Training Blocks
Tapering To Win
Running 1 Sec Faster

Let’s dive in.

#1 Testing Like A Pro

Obviously the better you can find your weak points, the better you can customize your training.

This is where assessments come in.

The amount of technology we have available today is insane.

You can get almost the same level of information as that of a professional athlete.

Normally you would need expensive timing gates, radars, special high-speed cameras, and more just to get detailed data on your speed.

I use a couple of apps and pieces of tech with my 1:1 coaching clients, in total it costs less than $200 but it gives the same data as a $2,000+ piece of equipment.

One of those apps is mysprint, its designed by a PhD researcher, and validated in multiple studies.

This is a great way to test your acceleration and find out if you are strength or speed-dominant.

I recommend finding 1-2 weak points to hyperfocus on and mysprint should be enough to help you do that.

#2 Four Types Of Training Blocks

Let’s say you conduct a couple of tests and find out that you are strength dominant.

Based on this, we might find out that your weak points are 1) transferring strength into speed and 2) max velocity is very low.

Now we know need to spend more time training near max velocity.

However, unless we’ve already been training at high speeds for some time we do not want to dive into high-speed sprinting right away.

At least not over medium and long sprint distances, the risk of injury could be high.

Instead here are 4 types of training blocks that could be programmed over 4 months.

General Preparation Period - light training in order to get your body prepared to handle more volume, weight, and speed.
Power Period - Lifting medium weight at faster speeds and steep hill sprints to develop speed over 20-30 meters.
Reactivity Period - Olympic lifts, lots of plyos, unresisted 10-20m flyes to develop reactivity.
Max Velocity Period - light minimal weight training with max velocity flyes for 30m with 10 to 30m run-ins to develop max velocity.

This type of progression would allow an individual to prepare their body to handle intense sprinting, transfer their strength into speed and then focus on max velocity.

Even if they had zero sprint training before.

Keep in mind, there are many more training blocks, these are just a few examples.

#3 Tapering To Win

Studies suggest that tapering certain aspects of your training as you approach your competitions can lead to a significant improvement in performance.

For example, let’s say you are preparing to walk on a team and want to run your best 100m a few months from today.

Here are a few way you would taper (adjust) your program:

Weight Training = progress from heavy lifts to fast & lighter lifts.
Plyos = progress from two feet explosive jumps, to single-leg fast hops.
Sprints = progress from accelerations to max velocity work, to lower volume max velocity work.

As you can see the overall trend is to progress from heavy and slow, towards light and faster, first increasing and then slightly decreasing volume towards the end.

Of course, there are many factors to account for, and this is just a generalized overview of 1 way to adjust programming.

#4 Inside Look Into Running 1 Sec Faster

One of my recent athletes, Lexi plays softball.

She came to me because she wanted to run a faster 20yd dash so we focused most of our sprint work over short distances.

I found that she was strength dominant so much like the example I gave earlier we had to prioritize developing max velocity.

If we would’ve gone straight into flyes her technique would’ve held her back tremendously since she had zero speed training before.

Here’s a quick overview of what we did over 3 months:

The first month we spent a lot of time working on technique. Also, she ran steep hills to improve her first 5-10 meters and prepare her body for high-speed sprints.
In the second month, we introduced more plyos and added in more max velocity work gradually.
Finally our 3rd month we spent a lot of time developing max velocity through 10m, 20m, and 30m flys.

In Lexi’s case, she started out as one of the slowest on her team and over the course of 12 weeks, we shaved off 1 entire second from her sprint.

These results are not uncommon among underdeveloped athletes who have never properly worked on speed.

However please do not expect this kind of results if you’ve been doing proper speed training for 1-2+ years already.

I also work with athletes who run sub-11, in those cases, we have to fight very hard for the smallest amount of gains.

TL;DR

Find 1-2 weak points to hyperfocus on and the mysprint app should be enough to help you do that.
Unless we’ve already been training at high speeds for some time we do not want to dive into high-speed sprinting right away
4 types of training blocks:
1. General Preparation Period - light training in order to get your body prepared to handle more volume, weight, and speed.
2. Power Period - Lifting medium weight at faster speeds and steep hill sprints to develop speed over 20-30 meters.
3. Reactivity Period - Olympic lifts, lots of plyos, unresisted 10-20m flys to develop reactivity.
4. Max Velocity Period - light minimal weight training with max velocity flys for 30m with 10 to 30m run-ins to develop max velocity.
Here are a few things you would taper (adjust) your program:
1. Weight Training = progress from heavy lifts to fast & lighter lifts.
2. Plyos = progress from two feet explosive jumps, to single-leg fast hops.
3. Sprints = progress from accelerations to max velocity work, to lower volume max velocity work.
Quick overview of what we did over 3 months to help Lexi run 1 sec faster
1. The first month we spent a lot of time working on technique and running steep hills to improve their first 5-10 meters and prepare her body for high speed sprints.
2. The second month we spent more time with plyos and begin to introduce more max velocity work gradually.
3. Finally our 3rd month we spent a lot of time doing working max velocity through 10m, 20m, and 30m flyes.
These results are actually common among athletes who have never properly worked on speed and are far from their genetic potential.
However please do not expect these kind of results if you’ve been doing proper speed training for 2+ years already.

Stay Fast,

Cesar

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