Complete Speed Training

Maximum Velocity-Top Speed Running

Today I want to talk to you about top speed training or maximum velocity training. Now, one thing I want to address before I even begin is the whole topic where a lot of people say is I coach whatever sport and my athlete don't need top speed training because I play soccer or football. We just burst for ten or twenty or thirty yards and so top speed training is not necessary for me. You know what, I'm not gonna necessarily and entirely disagree with that statement.

There is some validity to that fact. The reality is there are going to be points where athletes break away or have a break away and they need to learn how to take that speed that they gained during their good acceleration that we covered yesterday and they need to be able to maintain that. At the same time we're trying to make kids better athletes so learning how to run at full speed and learning how to flow because when they're tired at the end of the game, they're gonna get up to full speed, ten, fifteen, twenty yards sometimes and maybe they'll need to know how to relax when running. We talk about top speed training and we talk about max velocity training athletes need to learn how to float as we call it. Floating is a difficult skill to learn. You're gonna drill the proper way to float or the key ways of floating in your kids heads and they're gonna look at you and nod their head but they're not gonna do it because their brain always keeps telling them try harder, run faster, try harder. The reality is when it comes to floating and comes to that, you can only hold top speed. Once you accelerate properly. You can only hold top speed for one to two seconds maximum.

When you see an athlete getting run down or whatever, the key is the athlete that slows down the slowest is actually going to be the one that wins. We have to learn how to slow down slower and that comes from being able to run at top speed and practice that. That's really the point I want to share with you today is that we can only hold top speed for a second so we have to learn how to relax when we're running or athletes are going to very quickly run out of gas.

What athletes try to do is try to keep getting faster for the entire duration of their running so this is especially the case when we talk about track and field athletes in particular because they'll go out and try to run a 200 and sprint the whole thing. Well, that's just not physically possible. That doesn't work so we have to make the change to allow the best opportunities to succeed to take place. That's what we talk about with maximum velocity training so there are some cues that you can use that teach the float at least conceptually and athletes have to experience it and we don't have time to really get into that whole game today.

Of course it's covered in the program, but what I want to do today is I want to show you exactly the type of workout that I do to develop the float. We're gonna show you some fly thirties. A couple athletes running who are new to running flies, who are new to training at top speed and I'm gonna show you a couple of common mistakes that you're gonna see because what I like to do is film my athlete, break the film down, send it to them, review it so they kind of get an idea and see what's going on.
Let's take a look at some of some video tape right now. Some of my athletes running that are new to us so you can see the kind of mistakes that your athletes are gonna be doing when you go out there and do these fly runs and teach them how to float and how to relax while running at top speed. There's a cue I like to say is called maximum speed, minimum effort. Heard that from John Smith at a clinic I was at. I think that's a great cue. It sounds like an oxy moron. It sounds kind of intuitive but that's really the way it has to be done.

Let's take a look at the video clip. I'm gonna break down some athletes, give you an idea and perfect workout you can do with your athletes when you teach them how to float. Again, this is not just for track athletes. You should do this with your other athletes in other sports as well. They're not gonna need to focus on this nearly as much as the stuff I talked about yesterday with the acceleration but this is something that athletes should learn how to do if your goal is to make better overall athletes.
So let's take a look at the male athlete going at full speed here and hopefully it's not too choppy on your computer depending on your internet speed and your computer speed but here's an athlete with good acceleration but he backs way off during his flow phase. We look at this in slow motion it will become more pronounced to you.

Get a 35 Page Speed Training Report and Over 2 Hours of Cutting Edge Video… FREE!

2+ hours of Video showing you EXACTLY how to improve speed, power and sports performance
Exclusive 35 page report exposing the Top 7 Training Secrets leading to superior speed
Audio Interviews with Expert Coaches, Training Articles and Resources and much, much more

First Name
Primary Email

We resect your privacy! We will Never share your email with anyone for any reason. You’ll receive a no-hassle free removal link in each email.Privacy Policy

His acceleration is pretty good. Feeling the hips. We can see the foot driving down and back like pistons. Driving down and throw. As he gets to the set of orange cones, watch his body from a good forward lean and becoming for vertical. Now, see he's reaching. Now all of a sudden that foot strike is taking place out front. He's over striding. He's trying to be pretty. He's not trying to be exquisite anymore. You can see that foot strike taking place way out in front. His shoulders are coming back behind his hips. His head is coming back a little bit. This is not good floating. This is what you're gonna see from your athletes almost across the board. This over striding and overreaching. That's an athlete who's taking his foot off the gas and has now continued to maintain good mechanics with good posture.

Of course I explain how to fix all this in the complete speed training program. Here is another athlete coming up who is again only been doing this for a couple of weeks really doing top speed training. She is having a little bit of a different set of problems that I want to address with you.

Here her acceleration not as good as the male athlete. Not getting good extension off the drive leg. We won't break down the rest of her technique, upper body posture issues that she has for this moment in time. As you can see she's continued to drive down but her issue as she gets up to full speed is sort of the opposite of the other athletes issue whereas the other athlete had too much front side mechanics. Too much reaching and breaking. This athlete as you can see now her at full speed has a lot of backside mechanics. No heel recovery. So she's not getting any force to the ground. All she can really do is catch her balance as a swing that comes forward because she has so much going on behind her with those backside mechanics.

This is another type of problem that you're gonna see when teaching your athletes how to do this because they're not really good at it. Max velocity training is an important critical factor for you but you have to make sure you know how to teach it to your athletes.

Click Here to Go Back to the
Complete Speed Training Program >>