According to Bill Parisi, founder and CEO of the Parisi Speed School in Wyckoff, N.J, speed is the most integral element in improving athleticism among teens. In most cases speed equals strength, so it’s important not just for sprinters, basketball, soccer players and the like, but virtually every high school athlete.
Check out the following tips and exercise recommendations for training your athletes for speed:
• When conditioning your athlete for speed, begin with an active warm-up that builds core strength, increases flexibility and enhances stabilization for the shoulders, hips, knees, ankles and spine.
• Use calisthenics and body weight exercises.
• Make sure the exercises aren’t sport-specific (unless an athlete is competing in a sport that requires it).
• Use resistance-training exercises that emulate natural human movements.
• Focus on technique. Have your athletes concentrate on executing just a few movements impeccably.
Essential Tips
Recommended Exercises
• Incorporate basic jumps, such as the pogo jump, jumping jacks and seal jump. Make sure that the athlete’s feet hit, but don’t pound, the ground on every jump, and monitor how long their feet stay on the ground.
• For hip mobility, have the athlete perform the following exercises with hands and knees on the ground: hip rotations; bent-knee hip circles; “paintbrushes”—in which the athlete imagines the knee as a paintbrush and uses it to draw the greatest number and variety of strokes possible; and cobra stretches.
• Utilize acceleration and deceleration exercises that involve controlling one’s body while running, stopping and changing directions. Klika favors a 10-yard dash during which the athlete must stop when the trainer blows a whistle. The athlete should end up in a position with hips low, knees bent and chest up.
• Increase speed with weight training. Parisi and Klika agree on the primacy of deadlifts, pull-ups, squats and a variety of lunges (e.g., multidirectional, walking). Klika also emphasizes various forms of the bench press, rotational exercises such as cable, dumbbell and medicine ball chops and, for injury prevention, single-leg lateral lifts and hops.
Exercise &
Training
Helping High School Athletes Maximize Their Potential
www.acefitness.org/certifiednewsarticle/2388/six-essential-keys-to-helping-high-school-athletes/
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