A New Breed of Speed CoachLatif Thomas: In order to get faster, we have to learn how to apply force to the ground. And without resistance, sometimes it's hard to know which muscles to use. Woman: Latif Thomas is a new breed of coach teaching athletes across all sports how to maximize their potential for speed. His company Athlete's Acceleration offers video courses and training camps like this one on Attleboro for high school athletes.
Latif Thomas: So the more force we can apply to the ground in less time, the faster we're going to go. Woman: Thomas says these days there's a growing emphasis on speed in all sports, and it starts at the high school level. Latif Thomas: Athletics, especially at the high school level, are far more involved and more competitive here in 2010 than they were five, ten years ago. So you can be naturally fast, but it's only going to get you so far. And at the high school level, you can make it through but everything is relative. So you might be a good that's fast, but how much faster could you be if you had better technique? Lower the shoulders, drive the arms down and back. Woman: Thomas has been working with high school football player Brady Shorey. Shorey is naturally fast, but he knows learning how to accelerate properly may be his ticket to a college scholarship. Latif Thomas: Brady, not too bad. You kind of were – you just more flicked your hand up instead of drove your arm up. Man: I guess people are realizing more and more that size only goes so far. A guy's a lot of weight, he's big but he can't catch you, then what's it going to do for him? Woman: If the need for speed is important for high school athletes, it's even more so for college athletes hoping to make it to the pros. Mike Lynch: Speed, speed, speed.
Woman: News Center 5's Mike Lynch. Mike Lynch: It's the number one thing everybody wants. Everybody wants speed. Give me somebody who can run fast. The National Football League has a combine camp in Indianapolis. They have all the college seniors that are coming out for the National Football League draft and they have all these drills they put them through. But the number one instrument they use is a stop watch. If you've got speed, you're going to be a high draft choice and you're going to make a lot of money. Woman: Lynch says Patriots wide receiver Wes Welker is an example of a guy who go to the NFL in large part because of speed. Mike Lynch: Wes Welker is like the Ever Ready [sic] bunny. He keeps going and going and going. He's got speed. He has quickness and he has smarts, but he also has speed and he just can't be caught. He's a little guy and you say, "How'd he get there so fast?" He uses speed. Woman: As for basketball, if you don't have speed, you can forget the NBA. Just ask the players who've tried to out run Celtic Rajon Rondo. Mike Lynch: One of the great highlights in the NBA in recent years happened this spring in the NBA playoffs when Rajon Rondo used his speed to out run a member of the Orlando Magic and hunt down a basketball, got it, got up to his speed, and dribbled and put it in. But speed won that race and speed enabled him to get to the basketball and speed enabled him to score the hoop. Woman: In baseball Lynch says players like Jacoby Ellsbury become superstars not only because they can fly to first but because they can steal second and third. Mike Lynch: The Red Sox won their first World Series since 1918 in the fall of 2004 because of speed. They were down three games to nothing to the Yankees. Dave Roberts was up in the ninth inning with two outs. He used his speed to steal second base. His speed enabled him to score. His speed enabled the Red Sox to win that game. Woman: For years scientists believed it would be impossible for anyone to run one mile in under four minutes. But British runner Roger Bannister proved them wrong in 1956 when he ran the first recorded four-minute mile. In the last 50 years that one-mile record has been lowered by almost 17 seconds. Man: The time 3:59:04. Woman: Jamaican Usain Bolt as in lightning bolt now holds the world record. During the 2008 Olympics he ran an astounding 28 miles per hour. Mike Lynch: Yeah, there are a lot of monikers in sports, but the number one universally-accepted biggest honor is fastest man in the world. Speed. Usain Bolt. You saw him in the Olympics and there's nothing like it. And that's a title you wear for the rest of your life. The fastest man in the world. Woman: Now scientists claim that in the future we can expect to see someone running as fast as 40 miles an hour. Mike Lynch: Absolutely. Absolutely. You look back over history, everything has increased over the years because of the use of different training, the emphasis put on speed, and there's no question in my mind it's going to happen some day. Latif Thomas: I don't think we know how fast people can go as training gets better and coaching gets better. So people are almost continuously re-writing their expectations for how fast people can go, and I think a lot of that is just a mental thing. Drive, drive. Get those arms – drive those arms down and back. Push, push all the way through. Man: Athletes' Acceleration you saw there offers video training programs, also on-site clinics. More information on our website, TheBostonChannel.com.
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