What Should Come First? Sprinting or....

Rather than asking the question of "The chicken or the egg" I am asking, "sprinting or multi-directional speed?" My question is; Should they be developed together? Read for my answer and why...

Sprinting

When we are speaking of sprinting we are basically referring to straight ahead linear based running. Obviously it is the most natural and easiest adaptation for young kids to perform. walking, jogging, running, skipping are all performed moving straight forward.

Teaching athletes to run, skip, and eventually sprint with good technique is a fundamental building block to the athletic foundation. But, does it necessarily have to come first or more importantly be taught before multi-directional?

Multi-Directional

Multi-directional speed is the ability to move in any direction with great control, efficiency and eventually power. This includes lateral shuffles, backpedal, crossovers, lateral galloping, etc. These skills are extremely foundational and fundamental to most athletic sports. However, should they take a back seat in the early stages of development to linear based sprint education (all forms of linear skills)?

My Personal Belief

I am a firm believer that both sprinting and multi-directional training can co-exist in the foundational stages of development. As a matter of fact, they each help the other develop faster.

In order for an athletes to sprint well and maintain the stability of the hips, ankles, and core musculature, it is important to have great frontal (lateral) plane stability. This stability allows the body to move more efficiently straight ahead. One of the best ways to develop this lateral or frontal plane stability is to train laterally. Put the body in positions were it must apply force laterally and control force laterally. This strengthens the all important frontal plane stabilizers and prime movers which once again helps control linear running.

Rather than compartmentalizing the development by doing one before the other why not develop these skills together. There are obvious stages where one skill will need to be developed before the other but in essence each will benefit the other. It is also important to understand the more abilities the brain/nervous system has stored in the early stages of development the greater the cross over from one skill to the other. Basically, if an athlete is able to move efficiently laterally they can certainly have the coordination to move linear. You should be trying to build as big a warehouse of skills and abilities as possible.

Summary

There is no doubt situations occur where compartmentalizing the skills is best but for the most part I have always developed my athletes through the use of multiple patterns of movement. Why? If I asked the athletes to go out and play in the yard or playground they would move in all directions, levels, speeds, and intensities with no instruction at all. I am simply going to follow their lead and make them better at what they already do.

Yours in Speed,

Lee

PS: Attention All Speed Insiders Members...Please pay attention in November. I have planned a special tele-seminar and you won't want to miss it. If you are not a Speed Insider and want to take a Free 2 month test drive it...go to http://www.speedinsiders.com/ and join us.

Saturday Weekly Blog Tip: Be Patient!

Washington DC

Good Saturday Afternoon.

Let me give you a quick update on the Washington DC field trip I went on this week with my daughter Jae and her class.

We left Monday night at 7 pm on three big tour buses. And let me just say, they were not comfortable, especially when your trying to sleep through the night!

I won't go into all the detail of the entire trip, but we did TONs OF STUFF! It was great to see all of the memorial, historical sites and how Washington DC is designed. The only issue I had was we visited so many site and didn't have enough time to enjoy any particular one for any lenght of time. For example; we visited to the Pentagon and Capitol Building. We were put into lines, walked through, and walked out. I understand the security issues but it really wasn't much of a sight seeing adventure.

All-in-all, I must admit I really enjoy the trip, mostly because I spent quality time with my daughter. We had a great time together.

Weekly Tip: Be Patient!

In this day of FAST RESULTS, true foundational training often is lost. There are just some things that cannot be rushed. Building a foundation of training for young athletes is one of them.

When you want an athlete to perform at a high level, they must have the foundation of solid biomotor abilities to do so- and not just the biomotor abilities that are most used in a specific sport. Tennis players may not need flexibility training or balance training to the extent of a gymnast, but if flexibility and balance training are ignored and never trained during the early stages of development optimal development will never occur.

Even though it has been shown perfroming specific training can get you results faster, the downside is the lack of general foundational training never allows for optimal development. Not to mention these issues; injury occur more due to over specialized training, burn out happens more, and eventually drop out. Of course this side of sports doesn't always make the paper. Only the success stories of how some 8 year old is the number one ranked player in their sport in the country.

My tip to you is work hard and give great direction with young athletes. Keep them involved but be patient and allow them to develop over time. Rushing does not end well in most cases.

Yours in Speed,

Lee

PS: If want to receive consistent information on how to work properly with athletes and information dedicated to this goal...then Speed Insiders is just your resource. Go to http://www.speedinsiders.com/ to sign up for 2 FREE months.

Why Is Lee In D.C?

Greeting from Washington D.C.

I am in here with my daughter and about 150 other 5th and 6th graders and their parents. I am tired, but excited to spend the next couple days checking out our nation’s capital. Let me give you a quick overview of how this trip started out.
Monday evening 7 pm we all boarded three charter buses and drove through the night. We arrived in Washington this morning around 7 am. Yes, it was about as fun as you are imagining. I have to admit though; it was nice being spending time with my daughter on the bus. Now that we have arrived, we have a strict schedule of site seeing and events that will lead us into Thursday night were we get back on the bus and drive through the night, arriving home Friday morning around 7 am. As you probably guessed, I have limited internet access. I hope to send out tomorrow’s training journal, but if I don’t be watching out for Saturday’s tip blog for sure.

Even though I am not keen on the traveling schedule, I am really excited for the rest of the trip. I have never been to D.C. and love the opportunity to share this experience with my daughter.
There’s more to come a few days on my D.C adventure….

Speed Insiders Is More Than A Membership

I recently received an email from a man who gave me a rave review on my Speed Insiders program, but felt he didn’t need to stay in the program. In the email he explained he owns some of my products and knows all the information I talk about. I totally respect his view, but he couldn’t be more wrong.

First of all, Speed Insiders is an exclusive club in which only those people who belong receive discounts to seminars (BTW, be on the look out for my ‘09 national tour), free tele-seminars, discounts on products, the opportunity to communicate directly with me by asking concerning questions, and so much more. I have shared many of my techniques, strategies, training methods, etc., but there is still so much more that I have not even touched on in my products, mainly due to the specific or advanced nature of them. However, Speed Insiders receive all information first hand.

You certainly can make up your own mind as to if you should be a member of my exclusive Speed Insiders program and don’t need me to persuade you. However, I do want you to be fully aware of the vastness of the membership and the numersous advantages. As I have said before and I will say it again; you should always practice the principle of “Slight Edge.” I am in several monthly membership programs I could easily quit. But, I can not stand the thought of missing that the ONE idea that changes how I coach my children, my team, run my business, market a new program or anything related to growth and development. I have become more successful in life because of this attitude and I wish more people with choose the same.

There is not a day that goes by in which I don’t think of new ways to improve in all areas of my life. This means how to develop more efficient training programs and techniques to help coaches, trainers, parents, and athletes. I am constantly looking for just one idea. Speed Insiders was spawned off this concept. I strategically design Speed Insiders on a monthly basis and plan out quality information in many forms (CD’s, Hot Sheets, articles, video’s…) in a way you can use immediately. The goal of any successful team, program, business, or venture is the ability to sustain effort and have “stick-to-it-ability. Those who are successful always exhibit these qualities.

If you are a current member I congratulate you for joining a program that is results driven. I know you understand the concept of staying in tune and not giving in. But if you have not joined yet, I truly feel you need to take me up on my FREE 2 month trial and see the immense value you will receive.

Yours in Speed,
Lee

P.S. - Sign up now and get your FREE 2 month trial, http://www.speedinsiders.com/.

Saturday Blog Tip: Failure Is Good???

Hello.

I hope you have a great weekend planned ahead of you. For us living in more northern states the Fall season is upon us and cooler weather is creeping in. OK, Let me get on to my Weekly Saturday Tip.

Boy do I know this one well- Failure. I have had my share of success and will continue to but I can honestly say it is because I have never been afraid to fail.

Failure can be good if it is properly managed. If you don't learn from your failures then it is a bad thing. If you fail because you keep doing the same wrong things over and over- failure is bad. But if you fail, like I have, trying to do something good for yourself, team, your program, your family, or what ever the situation may be failure can be a great thing. The key to turning failure into a positive is to learn from why you failed.

Any time you have to make a decision that has a risk of failure you need to ask yourself some questions:

1. What are my chances of success?
2. How bad can the failure hurt my situation (family, team, self, business...)?
3. Have I done all that I can to reduce the chances of failure?
4. If I do not succeed can I come back from the failure and make it right or do I move on?
5. Am I going to be able to handle failure?

There are other questions you can ask yourself but these 5 will give you an idea of what you need to do when entering into a situation that can go either way.

The most important message and tip I can give you is don't EVER not do something worth having because you are afraid to fail. Failures give us our greatest lessons and therefore our greatest success.

I like to say to my business members, athletes, and coaches I mentor: "Start Failing Now- This Way We Can Fix It And Have Success Faster."

Yours in Speed,

Lee

PS: Some of the worst failures I have personally had and have seen are when action was not taken. If you want to have a resource that increases your chance to succeed you need to become a Speed Insider private member. Go to www.SpeedInsiders.com so you can get more success.

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Be Careful How You Manipulate The....

Effective Body Position- and therefor speed

I am going to get to the point. You have to understand the influence external loading has on the body position when training multi-directional speed.

I am preparing to do a Bonus video for my Speed Insiders members to show them the detrimental effects of pure multi-directional speed when external loading is improperly used (If you want to get your hands on this video go to http://www.speedinsiders.com/).

I just recently viewed a clip of a video of a coach doing lateral speed work holding a medicine ball out in front of the body with arms fully extended. The effect on the athletes body position was glaring. The weight of the medicine ball creates a counter-balance situation. The athlete had to straighten up the spine and shoulders in order to hold the m-ball up. This creates a chain reaction that is devastating to lateral speed; here is what I mean...

1. When the shoulders and spine are too erect the hips have to suck under the shoulders.

2. This causes the important mechanical advantage of stretching the posterior and lateral chain to lessen, causing a weaker body.

3. The athlete tend to get pushed too high on the balls of the feet reducing the dorsi-flexion of the ankle therefore reducing stretch reflex of the lower leg.

4. The athlete is no longer in a great position to quickly change directions and accelerate forwards out of the stance.

I could go on and on. If you want to train shoulder strength and endurance in posture do it another way. But don't manipulate the important multi-directional speed mechanics- especially for lateral speed.

Having said that. If you completely understand what the effects are and can re-establish proper lateral posture after doing the above mentioned drill then go ahead. But if you don't understand the effects you need to be careful.

I have said it before and will continue to say it; multi-directional speed is a skill. There are learnable techniques. If you treat it this way you will increase performance immensely.

When you understand the innate abilities the human body brings the "game" and can attach the programmable skills to it, you have one powerful machine.

Action Steps:

Take one day and look at the exercises you use for coaching Multi-directional speed and see if they positively or negatively effect the positions of the body to produce explosive, quick, and controllable speed. This will allow you to make adjustments so you can help your athletes even more.

I am always studying how the body reacts to it's environment so I can make sound decisions regarding training. I hope this information helps you to do the same.

Yours in Speed,

Lee

PS: Hey if you are more of a basketball person. Maybe you play it, coach it, or train for it, I want let you in on a fast moving program that might be perfect for you. Plus if you want to get in on the ground floor and get the advantages of being a charter member go to http://www.basketballspeedinsiders.com/ now.

I Bet You Never Thought Of This...

I recently did a tele-seminar on program design for multi-directional speed training. It made a lot of people think. I basically described 5 concepts that must be considered when designing your strength and conditioning program.

By no means am I discounting the importance of the commonly thought of components of program design like; rest periods, cycles and phases, tempo, intensity... I simply wanted to bring to light the importance of not so commonly thought of components.

I am not able to go into great depth here but let me share with you what they are:

1. Compartmentalized training versus non-compartmentalized training- basically, you need to consider if you are going to breakdown all the biomotor abilities into separate training sections or combine them into free flowing training. There is a time to do both, but most coaches never consider using non-compartmentalized training. They always break the sections apart and train independently of one another.

2. Building from a Needs Analysis- When you learn how to use this tool you can take your program to higher levels. You need to look at what your sport demands in regards to biomotor abilities (speed, quickness, balance, flexibility, strength...) and train them in a priority. And with different attention. You even need to be able to break down certain positions within the sport. An example of this is; How much speed training does a wrestler need versus explosive power training and balance training? Now how much speed training does a forward in soccer need versus the wrestler? If you go through all the area of athleticism you can clearly understand what you need to put into your training.

3. Planned skill versus Unplanned skill training- Far too often we spend time on training our athletes with drills that are pre-planned and easily rehearsed. There is a time and place for this, but athlete need to learn to move in random settings. This is how we as coaches can evaluate true movement, plus it prepares the athlete for sport situations better.

4. Sets and Reps- This seems simple enough-but it really isn't utilized correctly. I feel you need to understand if your focus is skill based training or if it is metabolic training. In skill based training I am not as concerned with exact sets and rep schemes because I am simple trying to grove a motor program pattern in which the athlete becomes more efficient. It might take me 3 reps or 15 reps in a session to accomplish my goal. However, when we are performing metabolic training in which the goal is to push beyond comfort to attain a higher endurance capacity I need to be more exact with my number of sets, reps, tempos and rest periods. I always separate my program design when dealing with these 2 entities.

5. Include actual game speed performance when training athletic speed. In other words, you need to schedule in times when your athletes learn to move at a pace that allows them to be under control and perform the sport skill well. So not always do we want to train at 100% speed. I want to see my athletes be efficient and under control when positioning themselves to make plays. Example; A tennis player attacking the net should not be sprinting- they should move under control but quickly to prepare to hit a volley or stop and chase down a lob.

Hopefully this kind of gives you an understanding of the not so common areas of program design that must be considered. Love to hear you comments.

Yours in Speed,

Lee

PS: I will have more indepth information on this topic in my Speed Insiders monthly packages. To try it out for 2 months FREE go to http://www.speedinsiders.com/.

True Character Is Coming Out

Quick Family Update:

What a busy day. Jenn and I just got back from an all day business meeting with a business coach. I am heading over to the school for a meeting to get organized for the D.C trip that I am going on with my daughter Jae and her class. Bailee has girl scouts and both Jae and Bailee have an event at the school- I think it is kind of like a Bizzare or something like that. Brennen is just hanging out biding his time.

True Character Shows It's Face

Character. This is not a political statement this is a statement of what's really going on in my opinion. This certainly is evident in the presidential campaigning but is true in any situation. The great thing is that anyone can change who they are even in the heat of battle when their ugly side comes out.

If you are following the presidential debate at all you have noticed how ugly it is getting. One party is stretching the limits of human decency because he feels the pressure. He isn't using the issues that are most concerning the people. I could go into a 2 day long post of what is wrong with how this campaign is going and what is really needing to be heard. My point in this is to tie it in with how ahtletes, coaches, and parents handle tough situations.

I have to admit I have done some things when I played sports and coached in my early days that make me cringe now. I let the heat of the moment get to me and I acted poorly toward officials and athletes (nothing real bad, but behavior I certainly would not condone now).

I think one of our roles as a coach is to teach our athletes how to handle their emotions in tough times. How to show restraint. I can remember playing in a tennis tournament one year and I was playing poorly. I missed an easy shot and simply had enough. I turned and threw my tennis racquet against the fence. Now my parents and some friends were there and saw the entire thing. I can remember in the heat of the moment I didn't care who saw it. But shortly after the match was over and my rational side started to creep back in I was so embarrassed and ashamed. I can recall being in many other tennis tournaments from that point on, playing poorly again, but never allowing myself to reach that level of poor sportsmanship and ugly display.

When I was a young head basketball coach at the age of 23- I was full of excitement and enthusiasm, but I didn't always channel it well in some games when I felt officials were calling a bad game. Not only did I not show my players how to act properly during bad calls, I didn't represent myself or my school real well. My point is I let my emotions get the best of me and realized I had to work hard on changing my behavior when things were not going well or when in difficult times during a game (this could apply to non-sport situations as well).

Over the years I have been put in some pretty tough situations that caused me to be extremely angry. Some I handles better than others, but for the most part I really used my past experiences to display the type of control and character I would want my players, children, or peers to display. My point is I have learned from my past and have made important changes to try to always display the type of behavior that is important during the heat of battle.

So, I guess my point of this bpost is that we all have an opportunity use what is happening in the presedential campaign to teach our children and athletes what is right and wrong. Using political strategies to help your party that are truthful and important is good. But the campaigning strategies that have been used lately are frankly poor choices of human behvior toward another human being.

I have learned so much from my personal past and have been able to apply it toward the type of behavior I want to always display, and it has given me a good foundation to help teach my children and athletes of how to handle situations when they are angry.

I am certainly not trying to preach, I am simply sharing my observations and personal experiences and hopefully it helps you or someone you know.

Yours in Speed,

Lee

PS: Hope you have a great weekend! And good have fun cheering for you post season baseball team. GOOOO Yankees! Oh wait, scratch that. I forgot, they are sitting home watching the games just like me:)

Fun Equals Learning?

Because I am such a big advocate for kids I commonly search out ways to make their learning experience better. When I am coaching youngsters I do anything I can to make sure they have a positive experience- because I believe that ignites their desire to stay involved.

I am running the 3rd and 4th grade girls intramural basketball program at my daughters school, and in about a month will start the girls 5th and 6th grade intramurals. I have to tell you- it is a ball. I love working with these kids because they are fun to be around.

Let me paint you a picture. I have about 23 girls, many have never played basketball before, I have some wonderful help from parents as well. Know you all know me- so the first thing we do everyday is some fun agility and coordination exercises. Just to give you an idea of how quickly kids learn; I asked them to perform a basic skipping exercise the first day- many could not skip well. I didn't go crazy trying to explain how to perform it- I just gave them some simple cues and told them to practice when they went home. Fast forward to our next practice when I asked them to skip again- 22 out of the 23 were outstanding. the one little girl that didn't skip well was close. This to me is why it is so fun to coach youngsters- they learn quickly and they appreciate it.

OK back to the painting a picture thing... So I have 23 low level beginning basketball players. I have 2 main goals with this level. The first is to keep them moving so they don't get bored and lose focus and the second thing is to have fun activities that excite them to want to keep going.

To accomplish the first goal of keeping them active I do as much as possible with every girl having a ball or at least with one partner so their isn't a lot of standing in line time. Some exercise require a short 3-4 person line but not much. When each girl has a basketball I can work on good fundamental skills yet put a little challenge to it to make it more interesting and FUN. For example; I had them do a seemingly simple exercise where they were asked to spin the ball back toward them with one bounce catch the ball and get into triple threat position. I asked them to do it 5 times without having to chase their ball- it should come back to them. Well I found out quickly that most of them didn't know how to spin the ball backwards. It was a challenging coordination skill they didn't get. So I told them to imagine they were picking up a big pitcher of lemonade with both hands and going to pour it on their face. I told them to look at how their hands and thumbs were moving and facing while doing this. I now asked them to do it with the ball in their hands, then I asked them to quickly move the hands in that same pattern and let the ball go- bingo- they all were able to spin the ball. Of course they thought that was the coolest things since sliced bread. I then started the exercise over again and asked them to do it 5 times without having to step forward to get the ball. It might seem simple but just the fact that I have a number of reps and I challenged them not to move forward became a fun challenge for them.

When we moved on to dribbling I had each girl with their own ball. I gave them one real important rule though- No bouncing the ball while I was talking. Ok. the next thing we did was to have each girl practice various dribbles- I gave them some things to think about like; imagine a opponent was trying to steal the ball. I talked to them about their guard arm and how it helps to protect your ball. I talked to them about moving their feet and turning their body so they can keep the ball away from the opponent. This all seems simple enough but the key I am trying to get across is I always give them something to imagine or think about which keeps them focused, plus it can be fun for them.

Then to make sure they attach lots of fun with dribbling I do a game called "Pacman Tag" while dribbling. I choose 3 girls to be it. Their job is to tag the other girls making the tagged girls go outside the boundaries and do 5 jumping jacks and them get back in the game. The man rule is that all girls must dribble on any line on the basketball court. If they get off the line it is like being tagged. After a couple minutes I choose 3 new pacman. The girls love this game- so to them dribbling is associated with fun.

I try to follow this same concept of teaching a skill, giving some arbitrary number to accomplish, which gives them something to focus on and have a little competition, and I always attach some form of fun activity with it.

I see my role in working with this age group to make the game of basketball fun, give them some basic skills so they can get better, and try to keep them involved so they don't want to quit when they get older.

In a month I will be working with 5th and 6th graders who have had some experience and will need more attention to detail, but still inspired to have fun and love the game. If this approach could be used with all youth sports I think we would see the drop out rate do down and more healthier kids go up.

Yours in Speed,

Lee

PS: To get more information on my coaching strategies and the strategies of other top experts in the field go to http://www.speedinsiders.com/ and try it out for 2 FREE months. You will receive so much quality information to continually build your training programs you will mark your calendars as to when the next shipment arrives.

Weekly Blog Tip...Control The Ball

Welcome to my Saturday weekly blog tip:

I want to talk about something we often take for granted and that is controlling the ball. I don't care if you are a soccer player, volleyball player, basketball player, or tennis player, if you can't control the ball and do with it what you want to do you will never be as successful as you can be.

Controlling the ball means doing something with the ball that allows you to go where you want to go, hit it where you want to hit, or pass it where you want to pass it so the play is in your favor. we often see young player not able to control the ball well therefore not able to make great players. This is common is volleyball. Most young players do not pass the ball well so the play never really turns out well- it all starts with controlling the ball. Have you ever seen the commercials where they show the Brazilian kids playing soccer in the field? It is like the ball is stuck to their foot. They can make great players because they can control the ball. Let me give you my tip...

What I feel all young athletes should do it practice controlling the ball (any game or any ball) with as many different challenging tasks as possible. Get so you can do things with either hand or foot and also in any position. If you are a basketball player you should be practicing dribbling, passing, shooting with all kinds of drills that challenge you to control the ball and accomplish the task at hand.

Pete Marovich was one of the greatest ball handlers of our time. But this was because he constantly put himself in situations that forced him to control the ball to pull of the task. The best volleyball players can dive after a ball and dig it up directly to a teammate so they can make a play.

My challenge to use is to create situations for young people to be creative but challenge so they can control the ball in any situation and make reactive plays with the ball. They should be able to pass the ball directly to a target even if they are in a challenging situation. They should be able to control the ball and make a shot no matter what the defense does to them. It is all about having control of the ball. Don't stray too far from fundamentals but it can be important to try trick shots or plays to develop challenges. Have fun.

Yours in Speed,

Lee

PS: If you are a basketball player and want to get non-stop information on how to build your game or program then you need to go to this brand new website www.BasketballSpeedInsiders.com. You will get weekly and monthly access so much great basketball information. Enjoy