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Myth #3: “It’s too risky to train”
We’ve actually found that not training speed is a higher risk. If you’re not telling your system to reach those max capacities, when they are called on in a game or high-intensity situation, the body won’t know what to do with them.
This is when athletes tend to get soft tissue injuries since the contraction rate isn’t there.
A better method
If you’re having your athletes hit maximal capacities within the training program frequently enough, there won’t be a big spike in intensity when the athlete is faced with those situations in a game or scrimmage.
If an athlete is exposed to 20 mph in a game but has only been exposed to 16 mph in training, that gap is a spike in intensity which could cause a poor performance after the fact (the nervous system can’t recover in time) or some sort of injury.
When training, we like to give athletes high exposure to reduce these spikes in intensity when faced with them in high-pressure situations.
Old Approaches: Speed Training is Not Conditioning
Stop doing conditioning with your athletes. After a long practice, running kids til they can barely move, this is what I’m calling “conditioning”. Gassers, stairs, miles, etc.
Feed the Cats does not do conditioning. Instead, they get fast, explosive, and strong. Then they practice. If your practices do not resemble games then you’re not having a good practice.
How do you get in shape for the game? Specifically practicing your sport.
When we condition:
Athletes don’t like it (most hate it)
Bad mechanics create bad sprinting habits
Athletes are checked out
Athletes have bad thoughts
If you don’t condition, you’ll have athletes that will go harder in practice. Athletes know it’s coming, and those athletes will coast on you. Coasting is not performing.
Big mistakes that old-school programs make is they will do capacity work and think it’s sprint work. They’ll do hard running and think it’s sprint training. This could be good, but it’s not speed training. Running repeated springs with short rest up a hill is pure capacity work, not speed development.
Non-Negotiables
Never let training interfere with the sport
Never let the weight room interfere with speed. Do your speed work before the weight room, not the other way around.