Improving Your 60 Yard Sprint Time Is Not About Running 60 Yard Sprints
With many baseball showcases and tryouts occurring right now I find myself observing a lot of “speed training” on social media as athletes prepare for the 60 yard sprint piece of these showcases. Many times it is a video, the setting is a football field, with a stop watch in the foreground and an athlete set up 60 yards away. You see the athlete accelerate and the stop watch begin. The athlete crosses the 60 yard threshold and the video is over. I will see ridiculous captions spouting the importance of speed training and acceleration work, however, I never seen any coaching in these two areas. As far as I can see the audience is receiving a tutorial in the use of a stop watch.
IF your idea of speed training includes running a full 60 yards in preparation for the 60 yard test then you need to rethink your plan.
Allow me to explain…
There are multiple issues with this philosophy of training…
1) Little attention is paid to the technical aspect of this event
2) The means of training is exhausting the body’s ability to get the most out of the session
3) The opportunity to cues and instruct is limited
Little attention is paid to the technical aspect of the event
The 60 yard sprint can be broken into 3 basic parts. First, the acceleration, which occurs for the first 12-25 yards (depending on the strength/ power of the athlete) of the sprint. This section of the event is important in order to reach maximum velocity as quickly and efficiently as possible. Many agility-based athletes rush this phase as they are quick to get their eyes up. This may make them a good baseball or basketball player, however, it makes them a terrible sprinter.
Next, the 10-15 yard segment in the middle of the event is the transition. This phase is crucial for force transfer and speed maintenance. This is the section of the event where I see many self-described “fast” athletes lose. As I mentioned this is a key area for force transfer. In this section of the event many of the forces the athletes are creating are shifting from horizontal dominant forces to vertical dominant forces. If this transition is rushed or incomplete then the second half of this raise will be anything but desirable. Many athletes struggle to get into a tall position, here. These athletes, which rely on change of direction for their sport, struggle to get their hips under their shoulders in the upright position in order to become truly efficient through their run. This is understandable as much of their success on the field relies on the fact that they can lower their center of gravity quickly. Regardless, we must be able to get them out of this habit for this event.
Finally, we have the upright position (achieved around 15-25 yards from start). In this position, the key is deceleration prevention. At this point, athletes are currently at their top speed so there is nothing left to do but hold on. That’s the challenge, HOLD ON. Believe it or not, most athletes cannot hold their top speed for more than 10 yards prior to deceleration occurring. This is why, in the next Olympics, you will see all competitors in the 100 meter dash accelerate at roughly the same rate, however, around 50 meters through the race someone will “pull away”. It is not because they are getting faster, it is because they are able to maintain for longer.
The means of training is exhausting the body’s ability to get the most out of the session
You can imagine that after running 2 or 3, 60 yard sprints an athlete would be exhausted. As they should be.
Sprinting is a highly neural event. This type of training taxes the body’s signaling system. The signals that are sent from the brain to the muscles is happening at an extremely fast rate. Once this system goes into exhaustion the ability to sprint is greatly hindered. At that point you are practicing your ability to run slow.
For this reason, speed training should be done in short distance with a significant amount of rest.
The opportunity to cues and instruct is limited
The final and most obvious reason. If I, as a coach, am watching my athlete sprint 60 yards I have one opportunity to coach/ teach/ instruct them. This happens in the short amount of time that they are walking back to the start line. At that point, what do I say? I have 60 yards of movements to diagnose, analyze, digest, and correct in a short amount of time. Where do I begin?
By breaking this event down into smaller more manageable pieces I can tackle each issues separately.
No matter what sport you play, if you are looking for a coach to help with speed and agility training be sure to look past the guy that makes everything look like the event itself. There should be some coaching and teaching of the parts prior to training the whole.