0

VELOCITY 101
KEY FACTORS IN EFFECTIVE SPEED TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT

Contents

INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................................................................... 2

I. SPEED IS THE TIP OF A PHYSICAL ICEBERG ........................................................................................ 3

II. FOLLOW THE “3 S’S OF SPEED”: SPECIFIC, STIMULATING, SOCIAL ...................................... 5

III. PURSUE SPRINT-SPECIFIC-FORCE ....................................................................................................... 9

IV. GO “3D” (BE A HUMAN, NOT A ROBOT)......................................................................................... 10

V. RIDE THE (TRAINING) WAVE.................................................................................................................. 13

VI. HARNESS THE POWER OF PLAY ........................................................................................................... 15

VII. LEVERAGE NATURAL LEARNING FOR SPEED SKILL DEVELOPMENT...................................17

CONCLUSION ...................................................................................................................................................... 20

1
Speed is the most commonly desired athletic quality in physical training and is one of the
simplest and clearest ways we push our human limits. Speed training is also fun. It’s just a
rush to sprint as fast as possible, as a primal movement pattern.

Sprinting is a “riddle” of sorts, being faced with one’s own “speed limit” in the body because
simply “trying” to run faster (such as trying to swing the arms harder or lift the knees higher)
typically doesn’t work.

Speed isn’t forced, but rather, speed “happens”. When we improve our speed, it’s generally
the result of multiple processes happening simultaneously, many outside our conscious
thought.

Coaches’ ideas on speed training are everywhere. There is more information out there today
than ever before. As such, it can be hard to determine what will help solve that “riddle” of speed
and what won’t.

That’s why I wrote this eBook; to help unwind the sea of information and clarify the most
fundamental elements of getting faster. I’ve been a strength and speed coach for nearly 20
years, have read every major book and text on the topic (along with the one I’ve written, “Speed
Strength”), and have been through countless methods, with 100’s of athletes, and in my own
training. I also run a podcast with over 250 unique experts on speed and athletic performance
topics.

This resource will give you a greater understanding of the primary components that power
sprint and speed ability and how to move forward in training it effectively. We’ll cover the
following 7 areas, which dig into the heart of getting faster and improving explosive athletic
skills.

I. SPEED IS THE TIP OF AN ICEBERG

II. THE “3S'S" OF SPEED: SPECIFIC, STIMULATING, SOCIAL
III. BUILDING SPRINT-SPECIFIC-FORCE
IV. GO 3D (BE A HUMAN, NOT A ROBOT)
V. RIDE THE (NEURAL) WAVE
VI. HARNESS THE POWER OF PLAY
VII. NATURAL LEARNING VS. “MANUFACTURED” MECHANICS

2
I. SPEED IS THE TIP OF A PHYSICAL ICEBERG

You’ve probably seen videos titled: “Do THIS Drill to Get Faster” or something similar. The
workings of the information age suggest that achieving speed is as straightforward as
practicing popular "technique drills" or emulating a specific technique, such as "running tall
and lifting your knees."

The truth is, speed is a little “ deeper” than that.

Many coaches and sprint teachers don’t understand or communicate that an individual’s
sprint speed and ability are the product of many underlying abilities and physical qualities.

For example, an individual who is fast on the field has, underneath that observed speed, the
physical strength and power needed to support the sprint actions, developed tendons,
connective tissue, and even bones. They also have a library of basic athletic movement
abilities (including many rotational abilities).

3
For speed specific to their sport, they have a lifetime of perceiving and reacting to bodies and
flying balls on the field, with rapid decision-making.

Speed is certainly a skill, but it’s a skill that is supported by a lot of other qualities underneath,
and if those underlying qualities aren’t developed well, or at least heavily considered,
then trying to do fancy sprint drills purported to improve sprint ability is kind of like putting
spinning rims on the family mini-van, especially for athletes who have low levels of power,
and a poor movement-skill library.

Figure 1: When we understand everything that goes into speed and draw from the major
fields of movement training (PE, S&C, Motor Learning), we can design training that spans all
levels of athlete function.

Although athletes can learn aspects of speed, speed is not “just a skill” where you can do a few
drills or instructions and be magically faster. Instead, speed training is a total, integrated
process that spans and encompasses an athlete’s abilities, including strength, alignment,
coordination, prior learned skills, nervous system qualities, and more. In many cases, younger
athletes who haven’t yet achieved an “ideal” sprint technique will begin to do so naturally as
they mature and become physically stronger.

4
II. FOLLOW THE “3 S’S OF SPEED”: SPECIFIC, STIMULATING, SOCIAL

With all the factors that make up speed, you may ask: “Where in the world do I start?” It is
easy to get overwhelmed when looking at the many labels in the “iceberg” illustration,
bogged down by digging too far into the minutia of sprint biomechanics or precise training
setups too early in the training process.

Instead, the best starting point is to work with what the body already does naturally and do
that exceedingly well. Three simple, natural, non-negotiables in the speed training world are
being specific, stimulating, and social, which we’ll now cover.

SPEED TRAINING IS SPECIFIC

It is common knowledge that training should be specific . If you want to sprint fast, you need
to practice sprinting fast or perform exercises that strengthen specific facets of sprinting
intensely. Training specifically is easy to understand, but with that in mind, you also don’t want
to put too much emphasis or get carried away with too many fancy or complicated drills that
take the focus away from actual linear and game-speed development.

5
Specificity in sprinting checks the following boxes:

• Actually sprinting. This doesn’t include speed drills or even many plyometric exercises.
• Sprinting with various environmental constraints, such as uphill, with sled resistance,
stride ladders, or in towed/over-speed type situations as examples.
• Running at maximal or near-maximal velocity (92-100% speed).
• Running in a fresh enough state to achieve these velocities.

The following methods, as much as many believe are specific to sprinting, are only supportive
of sprinting:

• Marching drills and high-knee running

• A,B,C skips and Mach Drills
• Wall drills and sprint dribbles

Figure 2: Many sprint drills are very robotic and don't reflect the timing and 3D nature of
actual sprinting. They don’t train the actual “wheel” action of the feet and corresponding
rotations seen in horizontal running.

Techniques such as sprint marches and dribbles primarily condition muscles and tissues
involved in sprinting and aren’t as closely related to sprint mechanics as commonly thought.

6
SPEED TRAINING IS STIMULATING

When it comes to the specific training one is performing, it must be stimulating in nature. As
much common sense as this is, this is often not the case. For speed training to be stimulating,
it should be at least one of the following:

• Competitive (Racing/Chasing)
• Timed
• Solving a movement “problem” at speed

When speed training checks these boxes, athletes run faster because they have an external
stimulus to motivate their bodies to their fullest potential. Ironically, when speed training
becomes too much about “technique,” it can quickly become less stimulating to the more
“innate” portion of an athlete’s engine.

Figure 3: Austin Jochum's training sessions capture the essence of the "3S Model". A
competitive roll into a sprint acceleration is shown here, with timing gates often used to give
data points.

At some point, athletes must be doing speed training with a meaningful, competitive feedback
loop. When speed training is stimulating, it checks off more possible boxes from the bottom of
the iceberg figure on page 2 of this book, such as fast-twitch fiber and nervous system outputs.

7
SPEED TRAINING IS SOCIAL

Speed training benefits heavily from a social element. The social factor works similarly to the
“stimulating” aspect of speed and can feature elements like the following:

• A great training group

• A coach who brings positive energy to the training
• Competing and having fun
• The coach has a successful history in speed training
• An environment featuring record boards, banners, etc.

Figure 4: The Bio-Psycho-Social Model in health also fits with what we see in training results.

Although some athletes may need to train alone (such as in many master’s track situations),
having a community or even a coach online can bring motivation and accountability.
Humans are social creatures, which has been epitomized by the “bio-psycho-social”, or “BPS”
model, that has been applied to medicine and pain science. A person’s health comes from
their biology (direct health choices), belief system, and social support network! In the same
way, a person’s training results doesn’t just come from only the nuts and bolts of their
training program but also their training culture and belief system.

8
III. PURSUE SPRINT-SPECIFIC-FORCE

Getting fast and being physically powerful go hand in hand. Technique is critical, but one’s
technique is also strongly impacted by one’s ability to produce powerful, sprint-specific forces
that facilitate that excellent technique.

If you have athletes who are weak and not physically well-developed, putting a significant
emphasis on sprint drills and “technique” will fall on deaf ears as far as the body is concerned.
No athlete with an 18-inch vertical jump (a general lack of power) will sprint a 4.3 in the 40-
yard dash. Not only this, but they will be incapable of the technical aspects of those athletes
who run a 4.3 second 40 (it’s all connected!).

Building “sprint-specific-force” is a critical part of the speed equation. To develop this

capacity, one can apply the following methods:

1. Timed sprinting at maximal or near maximal velocity (builds power in the most specific
manner)
2. Playing sports that involve intentional, fast sprints and direction changes
3. Strength training using the big, compound movements (i.e., squats, cleans, deadlifts)
4. Doing resisted and assisted sprint variations (resisted or overspeed sprinting)
5. Performing plyometrics and oscillatory work that work sprint-specific paterns (e.g.,
bound varia�ons, oscilla�ng hip flexor training)

9
Figure 5: Where the big compound lifts can transfer more to acceleration speed, muscles
that are strong determinants of top-end sprint speed, such as the hip flexors, tend to need
more specific, high-speed training.

When it comes to the specific forces for sprinting, things like weightlifting apply more to
acceleration than they do to upright, top-end speed running. In acceleration, you will be
leveraging relatively more muscular output in the quadriceps and lower back in particular
(muscles heavily trained in the gym). Upright sprinting relies more on explosive power in the
hip flexors and lower legs, which can certainly be trained in the gym to a point, but
ultimately, are optimally covered via sprinting and in many plyometric methods.

Although a balanced program typically has all of the above modalities, 1-5, in some form, some
gifted athletes can reach their maximum force potential for speed by simply playing sports,
running track, and lifting weights occasionally (these athletes are often naturally strong). Most
athletes need to do more specialized plyometric and strength training to maximize the fullness
of their force production abilities in conjunction with their sprint technique.

10
IV. GO “3D” (BE A HUMAN, NOT A ROBOT)

One of the “riddles” I would wrestle with in my coaching (and training) for years was why I saw
so much rotation show up in sprinting, and yet, I never would see coaches talk about it.

Figure 6: I would see great accelerators looking like this, coming out of their crouch or block
starts, and it took me years to understand why.

Most instruction in speed coaching is related to driving limbs front to back or perhaps up and
down. But yet, we watch the body, and we see rotations. We see this in upright sprinting but
even more so in early acceleration (see Figure 6). Correspondingly, we see the rotations in the
upper body during sprinting and running in the form of side bending and spiraling of the arms.

We see these rotations extensively in the movements of the world’s best sprinters, and
especially, accelerators. These appear in both team sport (such as with Kylian Mpappe or
Erling Haaland) or elite track sprinters (such as Usain Bolt, Christian Coleman, Sha’Carri
Richardson, and many others).

Most coaching methods are the product of what is mutually accepted, and the coaching world
just hasn’t had enough exposure to rotation for this to be the case (yet). Sometimes, this can
even become a fear of rotation, where coaches attempt to eliminate it because it isn’t
understood. In this sense, so much of the sprint drills, cues, and even literature would have
athletes looking like a “Lego man” type robot (Figure 7), just moving around with “2D”
movements, everything being straight from front to back.

11
Figure 7: Athletes are coached as robots whose limbs only move from "front to back" in the
majority of situations.

So, how do we use this information to improve speed? There are many effective ways to
facilitate 3D motion and spiraling action in the body. Still, the first rule of thumb is simply not
to discourage 3D or the related side-to-side motion we see in athletic movement because
this often happens naturally. Instead, observe and become familiar with it when you see it.
There is a good reason that athletes run faster in 40 or 20-yard dash tests when they “warm
up” doing something more multi-lateral, such as a pro-agility test or even playing a pickup
soccer game.

Noticing the impact of multi-directional work, as well as curvilinear work, on one’s linear sprint
times and related technique is a helpful starting point to begin interfacing with the “3D”
component of training before moving on with specific constraints and exercises to facilitate
rotational capacities in sprinting.

There are many constraints that can be used to help athletes feel more rotational power and
connection in a sprint.

12
V. RIDE THE (TRAINING) WAVE

One of the interesting things I see in modern training is a need for more awareness of the
rhythm and flow of a training session. Everything in life runs in some “wave” based format.
Whether it is the stock market, crop cycles, or circadian rhythms, humans operate primarily in
“waves.” A typical “wave” we see in life that applies to training is called an “Elliot Wave,” which
depicts the upward trend of performance happening in an undulating (up and down) rather
than linear fashion.

Figure 8: “Elliot Wave”

Training also operates on the level of waves and cycles. The most common training session
uses a single wave, such as warming up, doing a block of maximal sprint efforts, or plyometrics
(the wave’s peak), and then cooling down.

The drawback is that in any movement or exercise, the body and brain will get “bored” after
3-4 rounds of doing the same thing in a row. For example, if you did 4x40-yard sprints as fast
as possible, the body will get “bored” of that specific task as it moves through the rounds with
the exact same parameters. At this point, it may need either a different variation (further or
shorter), a different task (i.e., swapping the 40-yard dash for a plyometric exercise), or a
different intensity (i.e., going 80% instead of 100%).

13
Beginner athletes can undoubtedly make solid gains without “planned” waves in a training
program, as the waves will tend to emerge somewhat organically in a linear workout. For
example, what often happens in something like a “4x40-yard dash at 100% workout” is a
natural, albeit slightly erratic “wave” of results. An athlete may run a fast 40, then a slightly
slower one, then a slightly faster one, etc. as they move through their sprints, based on their
own mental and technical strategies for each run, in addition to the natural variability that
exists in the body’s movement patterning.

Speed sessions for more experienced athletes work kind of like the “Elliot Wave” in Figure 8,
where training contains multiple “mini waves” leading up to a peak effort of the day. A
workout that comes in “waves” might look something like the following:

• Do a short warmup, and then the following circuit x 2-4 “waves”:

o 30m x 2 (1x easy, 1x fast)
o 150m x 1 (fast) OR 30” single leg line hops as fast as possible

In this manner, you are starting the wave off “easy” with a slower sprint that can provide a
different awareness of the sprint rhythm. You then move to a “fast” sprint to provoke a potent
training stimulus, working the “upward” aspect of the mini wave. You then sprint a fast 150m or
line hop to provide an extensive and varying training stimulus that also “recovers” the short
sprint from a metabolic and even neurological perspective, so the athlete is more ready for the
next wave in the cycle.

Remember this fundamental principle of nature regarding training, whether it’s a simple, single
wave, or something more complex.

14
VI. HARNESS THE POWER OF PLAY

Regarding sound, solid training, an essential factor that dictates effectiveness down the chain
is “stimulus” (back to the 3 S’s of speed training).

Figure 9: Children (mine) playing tag: The "original" speed and agility activity.

To optimize “stimulus,” we can and should tap into the power of play in movement. One could
define play as practicing something for the enjoyment of it rather than a serious purpose. The
irony with “play” in athletic performance is that using it can improve the “serious” markers and
outputs coaches are trying to attain. Simply playing, as opposed to “training” (where
everything is objective, measured, specifically coached, etc.), has the following benefits:

• Feelings of social and emotional well-being

• Brain benefits, such as stronger synapse connections, better plasticity, and improved
executive control center development
• High stimulation of the body due to increased outputs from the emotional state of play

In short, play helps us connect socially, learn better, stimulate high outputs, and have more
fun along the way!

15
In speed training, we can bring a spirit of play into multiple aspects of the workout, and even
the main chunk of training, through some of the following methods:

• Play “small-sided games” (versions of one’s sport with a smaller or non-traditional

boundary) while manipulating the type of the field to elicit either lateral ability (more
of a small, square space) or more top-end sprint speed (a long rectangular playing
space).
• Play chasing games with sprinting. Give athletes various head-starts and set up
different chasing situations. Have the pursuer hold a pool noodle and try to whack the
athlete they are chasing. Give the athlete being chased a good head-start, but start
from a disadvantage, such as lying on their back.
• Use different starting positions to race, such as starting from a pushup position, doing
a forward roll into the sprint, doing three tuck jumps, and then sprinting, or any creative
variation.
• Sprint over hurdles and obstacles in a chasing or racing situation and throw frisbees
and see if athletes can sprint to chase them down, facilitating both incentive and
randomness.

The above methods are great as a stand-alone and an incredible warmup for the “meat and
potatoes” of a sprint session, such as doing 3x60m fast sprints with full recovery times. I’ve
found that using games to warm up for sprinting or working training in a “wave” where you
perform maximal sprints between bouts of games repeatedly facilitates personal best sprint
performances!

16
VII. LEVERAGE NATURAL LEARNING FOR SPEED SKILL DEVELOPMENT

It happens regularly: We intake a lot of information, yet how much do we learn?

In sports and movement, many systems are rich in so-called “perfect form” (reciting
information back to a teacher) but poor in leveraging the actual athlete learning process. Think
of it this way: Do you learn better when someone tells you the answer to a question, or if you
have to figure out the solution, critically thinking on your own, learning through failure, and only
receiving help when you become stuck?

The answer is the latter, and the process of skill building and related coaching and instruction
should be the same!

At the core of it all, the ultimate way to learn skills is to “solve problems”. Doing a sprint in the
“exact” way a coach told you to (such as lifting your knees, running tall, keeping your arms at
a certain angle, or “driving back”) is not solving a problem so much as it is reciting an “answer”
back to the person who gave you the instruction. Humans are built to move, adapt, and learn.
We have been “problem-solving” our way through movement since birth. We had to learn to
roll over, crawl, and take our first steps ourselves. We learned to jog, skip, grapple, and throw
by ourselves. We eventually learn to run independently and adapt to it based on our internal
and external environments.

Figure 10: Athletes jump higher when going for an external target, not when focusing on
"how" to jump.

17
External goals and our environment are a huge part of our learning process. Research shows
that skilled athletes do better with goals based on outcome versus coaching interventions,
whereas novice athletes improve more with external based cues (Singh and Wulf 2020).
Beginner athletes learning new skills will need more of a framework to help them get started.
Once an athlete is experienced, learning and advancing in skill is much more of an
individualized and autonomous process. For example, motor learning expert Frans Bosch has
noted a discus throw study where advanced athletes who had only feedback on how far they
threw did better over a multi-week block than athletes whose primary outcome was direct
coaching feedback.

The thing with sprinting is that it is not a novel skill for an athlete. There may be a few “new”
aspects to speed when it comes to, say, working a 3-point start in the 40-yard dash or an older
team sport athlete with no track experience sprinting as fast as possible on a track surface for
100-400 meters. There is even a “newness” to an athlete working up to their maximal speed
and sprinting through timing gates since the framing and feedback of the task differs from
chasing an opponent down the field. However, athletes sprinting, as they typically do in sports,
is not “new” to them, and this changes the coaching dynamic considerably. For example,
research by DiBella (2023) showed that advanced rugby players sprinted 20 meters
significantly better when being timed or racing versus using coached sprint instruction while
being timed.

The question then becomes, how do we leverage the learning processes to optimize something
athletes are already familiar with and have been self-organizing for many years?

WHEN TO AND HOW TO FACILITATE SPRINT TECHNIQUE (LEARNER-CENTERED)

Rather than continually trying to idealize a so-called “perfect” technique, we learn through
exploration. Two fundamental ingredients in that exploratory environment are that of
variability and constraints.

Variability is simply experiencing different variations of a skill versus repeating the exact same
motion repeatedly (similar to the “wave” principle). Variation helps humans experience many
movement possibilities and then integrate all those experiences into one’s individual optimal
form. Variation can be strategically planned to help athletes bring up low-hanging fruits in
their movement or simply experience their sprinting in a new way or with a different focus.

18
The most experienced athletes at a skill have solidified the critical skills of their motions (called
“attractors”), but outside of that, they tend to have substantial built-in variability with each
repetition (within the “fluctuation” points). Better athletes even have more variability between
each heartbeat versus less successful ones. It’s as if the human body uses every rep as a
chance to explore new possibilities and keep things fresh.

The ideas of exploration and variability lead us to the “constraint” led approach, which is
simply training using a set of parameters that “constrain” any given sprint and force an athlete
to problem-solve a solution. Examples of constraints are:

• Sprinting up a hill or pulling a sled while sprinting

• Sprinting being towed by a band or pulley
• Sprinting over small mini-hurdles
• Chasing an opponent or sprinting to intercept a pass

Many of the constraints above have been proven by research to improve speed effectively,
and there are many others that can be used (especially when getting rotation involved). Given
these parameters, the goal within these constraints is to find (problem-solve) a way to sprint
well. Everything is also “linked,” so technique and specific power are impacted if speed
improves.

Where “dictating” sprint instructions constantly can limit learning, problem-solving, and
exploration are fuel for sprint adaptation. A coach can come in and offer encouragement,
feedback, analogies, and occasional cues on the navigation of those constraints. Still,
ultimately, the learning process for an athlete is a primarily internal one.

19
CONCLUSION

Understanding how the human is meant to train, learn, and adapt will lead to not only
tremendous results, but also a deep enjoyment of the training process. As I’ve learned to study
human movement and learning on a deep level, I’ve found this has trickled down to my sprint
constraints, special exercises, and overall training program. The results have been nothing
short of phenomenal, and I hope this guide provides you with the basic information to
understand both speed and skill training in general in a new and compelling light.

ABOUT JOEL SMITH

Joel Smith is the founder of Just Fly Sports, and hosts the Just
Fly Performance Podcast. He was formerly a NCAA DI strength
coach for 8 years at Cal, and is a track coach of 17 years. Joel
coached for the Diablo Valley Track and Field Club, as well as
having trained sprints, jumps, hurdles, pole vault, and multi-
events on the collegiate level, working at Wilmington College
and the University of Wisconsin, LaCrosse.

He currently coaches online and trains athletes and clients locally in partnership with
Evolutionary Fitness in Cincinnati, Ohio. He also is active in his community, working with youth
soccer (LYSA).

Joel has coached 2 national champions, multiple All-Americans, and school record holders in
his time as a college track coach. Working as an online coach, Joel has trained Sondre
Guttormsen (NCAA DI Pole Vault record holder), Birgen Nelson (NCAA DIII 60m hurdles record
holder), Masters track champions and age-group record holders Craig Beecham and Alison
Wood, and has worked with over 100 other athletes to high levels of physical success. In the
realm of NCAA strength and conditioning, his programs have assisted 5 athletes to Olympic
berths that produced 9 medals and a world record performance at Rio in 2016.

Joel is the author of the books Speed Strength and Vertical Foundations. His evolving mission
through Just Fly Sports focuses on teaching athletes to realize their full physical potential and
achieve the highest joy in their training, competition, and in the community.

20
Citations

Di Bella, Larissa, et al. “The acute effect of various feedback approaches on sprint
performance, motivation, and affective mood states in highly trained female athletes: A
randomized crossover trial.” International Journal of Sports Physiology and
Performance, vol. 18, no. 3, 2023, pp. 313–319

Singh, Harjiv, and Gabriele Wulf. “The distance effect and level of expertise: Is the optimal
external focus different for low-skilled and high-skilled performers?” Human Movement
Science, vol. 73, 2020, p. 102663

21