 |
| Drills for Speed Development |
By Christopher Lyke
Texas HS Football Chief Editor
Now that you have read our article on sprinting and acceleration techniques and how you can improve your speed to your maximum ability, we will go over some of the drills that you can do in a small space that will help you get accustomed to those techniques we discussed. If you have yet to read our first article on speed and acceleration, it is highly recommended that you read that article first by visiting the links that are available in this paragraph.
Let's go over some of the drills that are designed for speed development. These drills include the fast arms drill, ankling, a march, skip, butt kicks, fast leg drills and downhill running.
Fast arms drill
The fast arms drill can be done in both a standing and seated position. You should stand erect with your arms at your side. Now you must swing your arms from the shoulders while keeping the arms straight. Then you gradually bend your elbows until they reach 90° and go through a normal sprinting action.
The seated version of the drill requires you to sit on the ground with your legs out in front and keeping your knees straight. If executed correctly, then your hips should bounce off the ground due to the movement of the arms.
Ankling
The ankling drill is designed to develope the springboad action at the ankle joint in proper sprinting techniques. You use a forward quick shuffle of the feet with good running posture and steps over the opposite ankle as quickly as you can.
You should pick up your toes as soon as the ball of each foot strikes the ground. Apply the force into the ground by using a springboard action from the ankle along with a good arm action.
The March
The march drill isolates the recovery and ground preparation mechanics in a marching action. While maintaining a good sprint posture, you should recover your heel to your buttocks with the ankle dorsiflexed. At the same time you will lift your thigh to the thigh block position or thigh parallel to the ground while keeping the foot tight to the buttocks and ankle dorisflexed. Then return the foot to the ground and repeat the action with the opposite leg in a marching action. Make sure you use good arm action during the drill.
The Skip
The mechanics of the skip drill is very similar to that of the march drill with the addition of a rhythmic skipping action. This emphasizes recovery and ground preparation (heels up knees up and toes up) and the skip occurs when the recovery foot hits the ground.
You should keep the skip low to the ground because the emphasis of the drill is to develope recovery leg mechanics and simply add a quick skip when the recovery foot hits the ground. Make sure you use proper arm action in this drill.
Butt Kicks
This drill teaches you the sensation of a good active heel recovery. Bring your heel to your buttocks, alternation legs in a rapid-fire motion with the ankle dorsiflexed. Male sure you maintain a good sprint posture and make sure your foot plants are under the hips with the center of the body's gravity along with coordinated arm action. Do not worry about horizontal speed in this drill but focus on getting the heel as close to the buttocks as possible.
Fast leg drills
This drill is an advanced drill that requires good coordination and timing. You have to apply the skills in the previous drills listed in order to work through this drill for a running action. Although the ultimate goal of the fast leg drills are to increase speed of leg action, make sure you start at slower speeds and gradually increase speed after each time you run through the drills.
For the single leg version of the drill, you start with a slow jog while maintaining good sprint posture. In concert with proper arm action, one leg is quickly cycled through the recovery cycle with good thigh lift, heel snapped to the buttocks (ankle dorsiflexed) and accleration to the ground. Perform this cycle once for every two jogging steps so that each leg is involved every other cycle. Make sure you bring your heels tight to the thighs until a full thigh lift is achieved.
The alternating leg version of the drill is the same for the single leg except that the fast leg action alternates from left to right in succession following every three jogging steps.
Downhill running
Like that of the fast leg drill, the downhill running drill is an advanced drill for developing quick turnover and leg speed. FInd a hill that has a gradual slope and avoid ones that are too steep with a four percent grade. The length of the run will be 40 yards, so a long gentle slope is needed.
Start at the top of the hill and run down emphasizing rapid leg turnover. Do not over-stride and keep the feet under the hips. Do not perform this drill when you are tired or recently performed high-intensity or high-volume leg exercises.
|
|
|
PROFILE BASIC LINKS |
|
PLAYER PROFILE LINKS |
|
|
|
FOOTBALL 101 |
|
|
|
|
