Need for speed

So was listening the other day to a NSCA podcast on speed development for young athletes. Was a good listen, with a few key principles standing out for me.

At the moment my swimmers that i coach is coming off 2 competitions that were important for them, but within the next 2 weeks a few of them will be competing in the SA Youth & senior nationals competition, where the need for speed is paramount.

Speed is somethung I realise cannot only be developed in just the last phase of preparation for the major competition, but rather something that needs to be constantly developed over the entire season & athletic career. It is something my swimmers doing weekly, otherwise they will never know what it feels like when they expected to do it.

So here are the principles they highlighted:
¤ Use logical progressions. Progressive overload is key
¤ Don't turn your back on a young athlete. That is when bad habits are learnt
¤ Slow to fast. Learn the techniques slowly then speed them up
¤ FUN is critical. Young athletes need to have when training especially whilst learning about speed development.
¤ Simple to difficult. Don't start complex, start singular & progress to more difficult components.
¤ Back to basics. We often forget what the basics are by trying to complicate things.

So hopefully this will challenge your thoughts and processes on speed development especially when dealing with younger developmental athletes. This principles can also be applied to older more advance athletes.

SB

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