Episode 30 - Speed Development For Youth Athletes

Darren Hansen [@CoachDHansen] dives into the approach @HansenAthletics takes to develop speed with our youth athletes.  This is a question we get from parents and followers frequently, and we wanted to give you an insight into the HA process. We cover the top three things a coach needs to be looking for to help these young athletes not only develop speed but decrease the risk for injury.

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Transcript

Welcome to another episode, this is your host Darren Hansen on the road again. So audio might not be the most fantastic, but I'm excited for today's episode, I wanted to update you guys on a couple things with Hanson athletics. For those tuning in, we have our scheduled move, we are expanding our gym on March one. So we have that coming up soon, we have about a month in our old location. And then we're gonna move into our new spot, which we're super excited about, for the people that we service, here in Pocatello. We also have some sweet deals going on training teams, and individualized remote coaching. So if either of those things appeal to you, and you're in need of some help with your training, and direction, now's a great time to begin to start that journey with us. And with our coaches. So today's episode, we'll get right into it, we're going to talk about speed development, because this is a popular question that we get from coaches, from athletes from parents alike. So we're going to talk about speed development. And first and foremost, I'm going to swing it back to kind of have the prerequisites for speed. We typically have parents come in with young kids, so think 1011 1213, and they are interested in seeing their child increase their speed, because maybe they're behind others their age, maybe they just feel like they're not as good as they could have been, or they used to be faster, and now they're slower. So the conversation, when that comes into play always starts with kind of the base requirements, and the needs of kids that age, to increase their speed. And then we'll work through this conversation into what what it looks like for an athlete that is developed. Okay. So first and foremost, when somebody brings in Canada, that agent has the request to see their kid increase their speed. First and foremost, the coaches know, we need to increase their strength and power. Okay, so strength being the, the pretty much the base block, building block for all of this, we call it a base level of strength. So if an athlete comes in, and they do not have what we would label as a base level of strength, that is the first priority, because because to be fast, you have to be strong, and you have to be able to put power through the floor. So what's unique with that age group is you also have the need to be strong, which a lot of them haven't built that base level of strength yet. Number two,

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there's a little bit

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of what we call neuromuscular coordination that comes into play here. So that's the ability for the brain to efficiently so neuro neuromuscular efficiency is also is also things you have efficiency and coordination. So the brain's ability to efficiently fire the muscles required to move fast, okay, and required to create speed push to the floor,

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and run. Also the coordination. So as a kid is developing, there's such a wide range of

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where they're at, if they're between 10 and 13 years old, with just how naturally they begin to develop with neuromuscular coordination. So through getting strong and lifting weights, and giving them opportunity, with movement patterns, in a controlled setting where they can get coaching, we can start to cause some accelerated adaptation and improve that neuromuscular efficiency a lot faster than if it was just happening on its own outside of a structured strength program.

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So what you'll see is those two things start to come together. So as you get more efficient, as a coordination goes up, you'll see a speed increase immediately. So that's somebody brand new, they're going to get fast, faster very quickly. Also, as they get stronger, even without any technique or form, there's going to be some sort of increase in speed because of their ability to put power through the floor. Also, if it's a poor moving pattern, so it's important to note that this can also lead to a higher risk of injury, okay, so if you're stronger, but your movement is still poor, you're gonna be able to get yourself in some situations where you might get hurt, or being a little bit more prone to getting hurt. So let's move down the line. So let's say you have an older child, kid, and they come to us well trained or we have worked with them for three or like two to four Yours, they have that base level of strength. Okay. And once that

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is in place,

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then the question becomes a little bit more of making sure that training has carryover to sprinting, A and B giving them opportunities to sprint. So let's start with a, the specificity of how we perform our movements is very thought out, okay, so the way that we launch, the way that we step up, the way that we squat, all of these things are actually reverse engineered from the from the ability to create speed, and run efficiently. So sometimes that's where people get lost in what we do. And don't really understand why we're doing what we do in terms of foot position in those movements, the way we load them, range of motion, depth, all of that. So everything is first and foremost, designed to improve running, because that's the ultimate form of athleticism. And that's where you're going to combine all the movement patterns that the human body can, can move through, and all the planes of motion into one display of athleticism. So when you have someone that's strong, now it becomes imperative to teach them how to, in their training in the gym, work in ways that will carry over to running. So their technique, the way the specific ways they perform the step up, and the lunge and the squat will be imperative to capitalize on the strength gains they've made and improve their form and ability to run. Okay, now Part B, this is important is going to be to give the kids opportunities to sprint full speed. And when I say full speed, what we see often that's a mistake is there's not adequate rest ties between reps and the distances are potentially too long. So if you're taking your you're a soccer coach, a basketball coach, whatever your sport coach, you want your kids to get faster. So you run you do conditioning with them, and you run them. And maybe you're doing sprints, but you're giving them a 22nd rest 32nd rest, they're not going to be able to recover from full effort Sprint's and each one is going to get a lower and lower output. And you're not working on running fast, you're working on running a little bit slower. So you're working on running at 85%. What's imperative is you give rest times that allow them to recover completely and let them run full speed. Every time I mean full freakin speed. So if you have to rest two to five minutes, maybe five minutes with beginners, fine, do it Take your time, you only need to get for three to four reps in to really start to cause some adaptation. So adequate, adequate rest times are important. And again, the ability to run full speed. Now the reason we love the true form. So the treadmill we have at our gym and you see on our social media all the time, and we're getting two more, we're gonna have three. The reason why we love that tool so much is it allows for our athletes to run full speed and get adequate rest in between but the curve and then and not having an engine, they have the lowest curve on the market. So what it does is it simulates the closest to running outside. So you actually have to use a lot of muscle and pull through and push through the treadmill.

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So this tool allows us to carry over the way we step up in lunch

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directly into the treadmill, allowing them to run full speed. But not only that, now we can coach because it's really hard to coach sprint technique outside because they're running away from you. So it's pretty difficult to see all the things you need to see without running alongside next to them, which would still be hard to see what you need to see. So that's why we love the truform there's definitely in a program, you definitely want to have them running and doing sprints on the ground so they can get maximal carryover in terms of that's going to be the most specific way for them to sprint because that's the way they're going to be sprinting in in the sport. But the treadmill is an awesome tool. The trueform treadmill is an awesome tool, allowing us to coach them while putting together what we're working on with their strength and the specificity specificity in the way we move. Okay, so if you want if you're looking for a program for to increase your speed to increase your kids speed, you're going to want to have some check some check marks checkboxes on what you're looking for, okay? You're gonna want to make sure that there's an assessment on your child in terms of the coaches getting a good idea of where they're at development wise. coordination wise, and their past history and strength levels. So, because that's all going to come into play with putting that together to create speeds. So make sure that, you know, strength should be a focus, even if even if you are caught up with, there's so much stuff on the internet saying they're gonna make kids faster, yada, yada, yada, there's a bunch of BS out there with some cool movements with bands, plyo balls all that. Do not worry about that. Right now, the only thing you need to worry about is your kid getting strong. And you're in them being in the hands of a coach to understand the specificity of movement to carry over to running. Okay, so you just need to ask those questions. And make sure that they have a direction with that and then giving the kids opportunities to sprint full speed and play outside will be the ultimate way to make them the fastest they can be. So, with that being said, hopefully that gives you guys some direction, and answers questions we always have when parents bring in their kids or they hit us up on the internet, you know, how do I get faster. So those are the first steps to getting faster, and let's just highlight them again and dumb them down. So it's going to be developing their base level of strength. So they have the platform to build speed upon. It's going to be having direction with the specificity of the way that you perform your lower body primal movements to have direct carryover to running. And it's going to be the last thing is going to be giving them opportunities to run full speed, not conditioning. Okay, let me let me reiterate that not conditioning, run full speed, rest as long as needed. Run full speed again, okay, you need that maximum effort, each set to drive the adaptation. So hope that gives you some insight again, if you have any further questions, send them over. You can email, email us, Darren, enhance athletics comm you can hit us up on social media, send us a message, anything like that. So Hanson athletics. If you type that in pretty much any platform, you're going to get some responses. And we can help you out from there. So again, thanks for tuning in, guys. Thanks for all the support. From the bottom of my heart, we are so so thankful to everyone that supports us. This big move coming up with physical location is all because how much the community has backed us. So I want to thank all those people. I want to thank the people that worked with us on the internet and are part of our community there. We have some cool stuff coming up in the in the future regarding seminars, Olympic lifting online training team, and a specialty course on site for Olympic lifters. So if any of those sparked your interest, let us know. We also have our first coffee brand coming out we're gonna have your wake your ass coffee coming out. wake your ass up coffee coming out. It's gonna be sold on the handset Linux site. But we are stoked about this the wake your ass up kind of quote and apparel have been the most popular. So we knew we had to follow it up with something and that was a brand and getting our own coffee. So we're going to be selling coffee on the internet. Again, connect with us. Thank you guys. Have a great day and stay strong.