By: David Schuman

Peak Performance Speed For Football
Winning The State Championship Through Explosive Peak Performance Training!

Every college coach, NFL coach, and high school coach understands that speed kills. If you have explosive, fast athletes, your team can score from anywhere at any time. The fastest most explosive athletes are the ones that score the most touchdowns, get the division 1 scholarships, and go on to the NFL.

There are also a lot of myths out there about how to develop speed. Every athlete has a certain makeup of fast twitch (explosiveness, speed) and slow twitch fibers (endurance) in the genetic makeup. That makeup is genetic, but when athletes train, they can train to maximize the use of those particular fibers.

Through correct speed training and the balance of appropriate speed conditioning, a football athlete can recruit the use of more fast twitch fibers while maintaining the value of the slow twitch fibers.

When training there are several stages of development for training that will help an athlete develop peak levels of speed performance.

Every athlete can get faster whether they are a lineman or a defensive back. Speed is a skill just like catching a football, making a block, or throwing a pass.

Speed Is A Skill Like Any Other

General Preparation Phase / Post-Season Training

When training for speed during this phase of training, which goes from the end of the football season to the spring, the athlete, should be focused on develop technique and skills in:
• Sprint Mechanics
• Change of direction
• Agility
• Foot Quickness

There are specific techniques that when learned, the athlete then has a baseline of development that they can draw from to improve their speed skills. This is critical to becoming fast and should be done two-three days per week with a coach or trainer.

A Baseline Of Techniques Can Improve Speed Skills

Specific Preparation Phase / Off-Season Training

In this phase athletes should be developing specific speed, applying and emphasizing techniques learned in the general prep phase, and focusing on the drills that will make them faster.

Athletes should be training a minimum of 2 times per week and focusing on a combination of speed endurance and explosive speed designed to create muscle overload and true speed that can be used on the field.

This should include running track, doing higher intensity speed training, overload training (i.e. using sleds, parachutes and other equipment that provides explosive qualities for performance), high intensity change of direction drills and focused foot quickness drills. This phase runs from spring to the beginning of the summer and should be done with a coach or trainer.

Athletes Should Train A Minimum Of Twice A Week

Sport Specific Preparation Phase / Pre-Season Training

Speed training should be focused on football specific speed, which includes training that is characteristic to a game that involves explosive 2-8 second movements as well as movements and drills that involved 10 drills of 4-15 seconds with 20-30 second breaks to mirror the actions of an offensive drive.

This will create speed, strength, explosiveness, and conditioning specific to the needs of football reaction drills and sprint drill incorporated game situations and cadences are important for sport speed.

Speed drills should focus multi-discipline speed like short obstacle courses that have foot drills, sprinting, change of direction & other explosive characteristics. The application of the training towards a football game is the key to success in this phase. This phase goes from the end of the school year to and including pre-season football camp.

Click To Enlarge.
Training Towards A Football Game

Performance Peak & Maintenance / In-Season Training

This phase should include a combination of speed drills for burst and explosion with obstacle training to create an environment that will peak the athlete for the end of the season, and hold the peak throughout the playoffs.

	Quickness & Absolute Speed Vs Sports Speed & Explosiveness! To fully understand the relationship between absolute speed, and their relationship to the demonstrations of speed, as we see in sport, it helps to view the body as 2 separate systems. Learn about these seperate systems below. [ Click here to learn more. ]

In this phase speed training should only take place twice per week, focusing on the quality of the training. Many coaches make the mistake of trying to run their kids into the ground during the season instead of focusing on the quality of each conditioning and speed session.

This may include sets of routes being run by receivers, timing their routes, pulling drills for lineman timing their pulls, end zone runs by running backs designed to time them when the break away from a defender and run for a touchdown, sideline to sideline runs for a linebacker, or 3,5, & 7 step drop timing for a quarterback.

Rest is as important as training in this phase. This speed training approach with equaled phase training for strength, position skills, and game knowledge will allow your game to be at a peak level when you need it most.

To win state you must prepare to win state and speed is key to success.

About The Author

If you have any questions about this article or training you can contact David Schuman at Schuman's Speed & Sport Center or Schuman's Elite Training at 1-866-Schuman or 201-891-4115 or you may also email him at dschuman@schumanspeed.com. Schuman's web address is www.schumanspeed.com and www.schumanselite.com

David Schuman

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