How To Improve Your Acceleration Using These 4 Drills In 4 Weeks

Football is a game of speed, and creating an effective football speed training program is one of the most important things a coach can spend time on. I've also seen a lot of coaches and athletes struggle with developing speed, so this article will explain some of the principles that must be understood. But in general, forget about these when trying to make yourself or your athletes faster. If you've got your Apex tracker, even better as you'll be able to see how much faster you're getting by tracking your max speeds. There are only 90-130 milliseconds of time to get all that force into the ground.

To start, no athlete can be expect to succeed with their speed training if they aren't properly warmed up. Many programs still use that old school warm up philosophy of jogging around the field a couple times, getting in a circle and holding static stretches as the whole team counts to 10. Now, I don't know any sports that require holding a stretch for an extended period of time in order to get prepared to compete or practice.

That's what builds your momentum during acceleration phases and keeps it going during your full speed sprinting. Modeling and clinical studies have shown that the hip extensors are very likely contributors to sprint acceleration performance. But for those athletes, bodybuilders in particular, interested in preserving muscle gains while losing body fat, it's an absolutely fascinating topic and knowing what you are can be your best weapon against fat and muscle wasting.

Rumpf et al. demonstrate that for the best results, sprint training should be completed over distances greater than 30 meters.7This fits excellently with Dr. Young's suggestion that team sport athletes should complete repetitions that fall between 30 and 60 meters in distance.

When combined with a forward torso positioning (forward lean from above the hips), hamstring and glute tension is increased dramatically, leading to an even greater potential for increased tension and force production during this phase of the sprint.