Collegiate Strength and Conditioning

[James_Smith]

@svass

I moved to the high school setting a couple of years ago. Previously, the team had been hand timed for their 40s. First thing I did was order a speed trap II. Our school would probably equate to a top AAA or mediocre 4A school in the US. Using the touch pad and electronic finish, all of the ‘4.6x’ hand timed guys immediately went into the high 4.8x to 4.9x category running on a mondo surface with flats or spikes.

Our team speed is no where what you would see at most top US schools (we’re a 750 student catholic boys school with mainly white/asian population). I usually get a couple in the 4.8x, and 5-6 in the 4.9x category. The remainder of the starters are in the low 5.0x-5.2x category.

Players complained at first, but now have accepted the stats and understand the reality of the situation.

Fastest time I have had this year prior to the start of training was a 6’2" soccer player who ran a 4.76 the other day.

I’ve used James’ hand time start method, and the times are usually close, or about 0.05-0.1 seconds faster at most if I miss the timing.

The results I had when I coached at the high school level were very similar to yours (using the speed trap with touch pad on synthetic track with spikes) although I did have 4 guys who were sub 4.7 and my population at the time was almost 100% rural Caucasian.

My players, and head coach, actually fully adopted the system and became proud of the fact that their times were much closer to being the truth and soon viewed stop watch times as science fiction.