Coach ,

I don’t think I have ever headed into an off-season without thinking about how to make my team faster. Yes, I wanted stronger and bigger, but speed on the field is the game changer when it comes to winning football games.

This morning I had Tony Holler on the Coach and Coordinator Podcast to talk about setting up off-season training to create “Apex Predators.”  We talked about these ideas in regards to the pursuit of speed and power for your athletes.

Here are the main tips he shared:

1. Treat all of your players as athletes. This means the big guys as well. He explained that the top 10 offensive tackles in the NFL average 6’5” 309 and run a laser-timed 4.9-second 40-yard dash. Speed is important in every position!
2. Train speed before you have them lift. It fires up the nervous system and produces better results in the weight room. More importantly, to get fast you have to train fast, so sprinting after lifting doesn’t allow that.
3. The work to recovery ratio is critical. Coach Hollers explained how in the workout they did that afternoon, a 55-minute session with 50 athletes, each athlete had about 90 seconds of work total. That seems counterintuitive, but in order to increase speed, the body needs to recover between sprints.
4. Record, Rank, and Publish. Measuring what matters is the key to understanding the results and where your team is headed. It allows you to ask the right questions about the training you are putting your team through.
5. If you have to “crush them” do it at the end of the week so they have the weekend to recover and so that speed development is not negatively impacted.

Coach Hollers explains that while this may seem the opposite of what typically is done in the offseason, where coaches seek fatigue as a measure of how hard the team worked, the results of doing it differently will show up in the measurables.

He recommended that every coach who is interested in creating a faster team start by attending the Track Football Consortium which begins tomorrow.   

You will want at least one of your coaches to attend this consortium of 20 speed experts who have presentations designed for football coaches.

Warning!!

Many of these concepts will Challenge Everything you know about Speed Training. These will all be recorded and available till Dec 31

Here is the lineup of Speed Experts and Topics:

Acceleration Perfected: Start Faster, Be Faster

Ernie Clark Sprints/Hurdles Coach, San Jose State University

Winter Training for Football and Track: The Speed and Power Approach

Tony Holler, Founder of Feed the Cats, Track Coach Plainfield North H.S. (IL)

8 Things Anyone Can Do to Make the Weight Room More Productive to Your Speed Development Chris Korfist, Co-Founder RPR; Slow Guy Speed School, Track Coach Homewood-Flossmoor H.S. (IL)

Systemized Weight Training: Taking the Guesswork Out

Joey Guarascio Head S&C Coach, Florida Atlantic University

Video Analysis: Simple Steps for Expert Insight

Dr. Ken Clark One of the World's Top Sprint Scientists, Westchester University; KenClarkSpeed.com

Single Leg Off-Set Training for Novelty Stimulus and Increased Performance

Dan Fichter, Football Coach, Neuro Training, Irondequoit H.S. (NY), 

Wanna Get Fast - Training Compliments to Speed: What Else Besides Sprinting?

Marc Mangiacotti, Men's Sprints, Hurdles, & Horizontal Jumps Coach, Harvard University Athletics

Misconceptions of Speed Development with Team Sport Athletes

Zach Dechant, Assistant Athletic Director of Sports Performance, Texas Christian University

Offseason Programming: Considerations and Designs

Dan Pfaff, Pfaff Sports Consultancy

Wearable Resistance: The Future of Fast is Light

John Cronin PhD, Professor in Strength & Conditioning, AUT University, New Zealand

Run Fast, Hit Hard: A Feed the Cats Approach to Building a Successful Sprint Based Football Program

Garrett Mueller, Head Football Coach, Stewartville HS

Bounce

Dan John

Ecological Dynamics: The Constraints-Led Approach to Coaching the Overhead Throwing Athlete

Steffan Jones, Director of Sports Performance

Sprint Mechanics and Sprint-Related Hamstring Injuries: Theoretical Bases, Emerging Evidence, Future Directions

Jean-Benoit (JB) Morin, Director of the Department of Sport Sciences, University of Saint-Etienne (France)

Speed and Power for the Field Sport Athlete: Combining the Gym and Field for Success

Graeme Morris

Less Practice, More Plays: The Art of Offensive Simplexity

Dan Casey, Offensive Coordinator, Episcopal High School

Speed Profiling: Merging Physical with Technical

Jonas Dodoo and Ryan Grubbs, Speedworks Training and Liberty University

The 3 Cardinal Planes of Loading: Powerleaks, Compensations, Load Adaptations, and the Brain

Dr. Shawn Allen, Diplomate, American Board of Chiropractic Orthopedists

Deceleration: The most overlooked aspect of athletic movement!

Dr Damian Harper, Lecturer in Coaching and Human Performance, University of Central Lancashire (UK)

Multi-Directional Speed Concepts: The Seven Fundamental Patterns

Lee Taft, Lee Taft Athletic Consulting

Click Here to Register for FOOTBALL TRACK CONSORTIUM.

One thing about this offseason is undeniable. You can’t go wrong in making your team faster and more explosive.

Always be growing,

Coach Grabowski