You Want To Get Faster: Three Things To Focus On

Ready to unlock the secrets to athletic speed? Discover how you can transform your athletic performance with three essential elements: force production, ground contact times, and creating force in the right direction. Whether you're an athlete striving for a competitive edge, a coach aiming to fine-tune your training techniques, or a parent looking to support your aspiring athlete, this episode is packed with practical insights. We break down the importance of building strength and how to apply it effectively on the field. Learn about the role of plyometrics in enhancing your ground contact times and why being strong in the gym isn't enough if you can't translate it to speed in sport.

But that's not all. We'll delve into the art of sprinting technique and why many athletes fail to capitalize on their strength due to poor form. By listening to this episode, you'll understand how to direct your force efficiently, ensuring that every ounce of effort propels you forward and keeps you injury-free. Plus, don't miss our bonus tip on the critical aspect of speed control. Tune in, take notes, and don't forget to follow HansenAthletics on Instagram and Facebook for more expert tips and updates!

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:27

What is up, fam? Welcome to another episode of Hanson Athletics Radio. It has been a minute, but going to be getting on these more frequently. Today's episode we are going to cover three things that you need to know to get faster. I made an Instagram post on this. If you are not following yet on Instagram or Facebook, just hit up Hanson Athletics, give us a follow, covering these three main things that you need to know if you want to get faster. We get athletes in all the time asking these questions. This is going to be great for coaches, it's going to be great for parents of athletes and this is great for athletes themselves.

Speaker 1: 1:00

What I wanted to share with you guys today is the three things that you can focus on as you go on and develop your speed as an athlete. Number one things that you need to improve is obviously force production. So this is going to be a very common thing that most of you already know you need to get stronger, to get faster, but then we have to look at the force production related to your mass or your body weight. So a lot of times, we'll have athletes that we get that we see are super strong in the weight room, but they actually aren't good at applying this force based on their mass or in the right direction, which we'll get to in a minute. So, pound for pound, just think you need to be able to create high force and be able to do it smooth and energetically into the ground and not be an athlete that might be strong under a barbell but has a hard time moving quickly. So this is a combination of what you talk about when you say that's a powerful athlete. They might not be the strongest in the weight room, but they are very efficient, they're able to produce power quickly and therefore we classify them on the field as a powerful athlete.

Speaker 1: 2:03

Now, number two ground contact times. This is really important. So the ability to attack the ground and get off the ground quickly, that's what we just talked about a little bit. This is going to really come down to your development with your plyometrics extensive and intensive, extensive being your very small low intensity plyometrics, where we're just bouncing off the ground and work on elasticity in the ankle and the lower legs, and then your intensive is going to be the ones that people like to see on Instagram. So jumping really high and landing on the ground from a depth, drop, hurdle, hops, things where you have think about just more intensity, similar to a barbell. If you're loading up a bar heavy, that's going to be more intensity. The more force we're putting into the plyometric, the more intense it is. So you need to be well versed on both sides of those, with an emphasis again of creating force quickly so that ties back into the force production. So if you're doing a lot of plyometrics but you're spending a lot of time on the ground, odds are it's not going to carry over to what you're trying to do on the field. So, keeping that in mind, as you do that training.

Speaker 1: 3:09

Number three creating force in the right direction. This is a lot of what we spend our time on with our athletes teaching athletes how to properly sprint, but also to be able to create force in the right direction that works with their body versus against their body. I'd say a majority of kids that come in in the beginning probably 90% are not good at this, and it has to do with technique. It has to do just with understanding of how to sprint. A lot of times we joke that athletes are asked to sprint quickly. Coaches want them to be faster, but they've never really been taught how to get faster, or how to run correctly and use all the force that they are producing up. In the other two categories, okay, I'm producing a lot of force based on my mass. My ground contact times are good. I'm getting off the ground quickly, I'm bouncy. Now the last piece of that is is it going in the right direction? So, is it efficient? Is it something that's going to allow me to be healthy over time, or is it something that is inefficient and is going to beat me up over time? So those are the three main things that you can definitely do to get faster, or thoughts that you should have in your head.

Speaker 1: 4:16

Um, as you are going on this journey. Um, I want to add a bonus one. So this is a. The bonus tip is being able to control your speed. So that's where agility comes in. Um, that's where learning how to accelerate, decelerate, be efficient with your footwork I'm not talking about agility ladders we don't really love those but, um, working on your cuts and being able to go from different speeds, accelerate and decelerate.

Speaker 1: 4:40

This is a huge separator on the field as well, if you want to see carry over and, uh, honestly, sport is played at a very certain uh mile per hour? Um, we have some GPS data on that. Um, certain mile per hour, we have some GPS data on that. So, as we train our athletes and we know when they get proficient enough in speed based on their sport, and then it's, how can we control that speed and create fluidity within that so that they can be quick on the field and create separation? So, appreciate you guys listening. Again, if you are interested in coming in for an intro assessment, schedule it on our website. We have online training, we have onsite training. We have a bunch of different education out. So definitely follow, you know, the Instagram, the Facebook, the Tik TOK and subscribe to the YouTube channel. Thanks guys.