lr1400
November 9, 2010, 10:05pm
39
Personally, I would never advise not doing any accel work. I think it need be trained year round. I work to make sure my athletes strength isn’t an issue, but never at the expense of some movement. In cold weather places it is tough to find places to run, but even if it is just a gym doing repeat 10’s is better than doing zero accel. It is my experience that waiting for April is too late. My guys are just starting to take distances out to 30-40 yds by May. We do very little distance over that. We do a lot of tempo to get fitness levels very high. Remember, Charlie said he thought Ben’s tremendous squat strength was a result of his speed work, not the other way around. My football players are always at the top in speed, strength and conditioning on their respective teams. It is the end result of simple basics. 5/3/1 is not very taxing on CNS when done properly. Only a few sets per week are being done in the 90% max range and that every 3rd week.That’s why there is a back off on week 4. Only squats and bench are neural, the rest is 8-10 reps, sometimes higher depending. Trust me, the pace gets kids fit for football. The bench part takes 15 mins, the rest of the remaining 15 sets and core get done in 45 mins.
Agreed. To me start and accel is a skill so while it can be enhanced through other means, in most people it needs to be performed regularly in conjunction with whatever else is used to enhance it. Obviously, some rare rare individual may be able to get better without actually running, there’s a reason most every track coach does a minimum of one and usually more start/accel sessions 11 months out of the year.