Being able to accelerate quickly and powerfully is probably the most important skill that needs to be improved in all athletes. Athletes in every sport need to be able to run as fast as possible as quickly as possible. From getting off the line fast in football, to beating your opponent to the ball in soccer, to exploding out of the blocks in track; each of these athletes need to be as efficient as possible to be able to generate speed in a short period of time.



Acceleration development is a major focal point in our training program and we spend a lot of time working on proper acceleration mechanics. The reason being that most sports never really need their athletes to sprint over 30 meters. How often do you see a football player break away for a 50 yard gain or a field hockey player need to sprint at top speed from mid field without breaking stride? Not often at all, most plays happen at short bursts of 10 yards or less. Even for a 100 meter sprinter, the acceleration phase consists of 64% of the race (from a time standpoint).

First: What is acceleration?

Acceleration is the rate at which the speed of an object is changing. Acceleration takes place the first 0-30 meters or to about 3-4 seconds from the start of a sprint. After approximately 30 meters acceleration turns into maximum velocity and top speed is hit. Workouts to improve the acceleration of an athlete will follow in the same distance parameters. Running repeat sprints of 20 meters for example with full recovery is an option for an acceleration workout. Instead of giving you some basic running workouts, I want to give you some of my favorite acceleration training drills that will not only create faster athletes but also help develop proper acceleration mechanics at the same time. Before giving you the acceleration speed drills, let's go into what constitutes proper acceleration mechanics so you know what to look for with your athlete. Being able to cue and make corrections to your athletes form is what is really going to make these drills successful.

A Breakdown of Acceleration Mechanics and Other Considerations

1) Stride Length = Short to Long Starts off short and increases until maximum velocity is reached (when the stride length is optimal)

2) Ground Contact Time = Long to Short Ground Contact Time is the amount of time each foot spends on the ground. It is longest at the beginning as the body is trying to overcome inertia, (the weight of your body fighting gravity) to try and create velocity through force application. This takes a great deal of strength.

3) Shin Angle with ground = Small to Large The shin angle is going to determine the force application to the ground and the projection angle that the athlete is going to drive out at (roughly 45 degree projection angle is ideal). The shin angle opens up and increases throughout acceleration and into maximum velocity.

4) Velocity = Slow to Fast Velocity is both the speed and direction that the body is moving. As the athlete accelerates, the rate and distance will increase with time.

5) Stride Frequency = Slow to Fast Like ground contact time, it starts off slower (though still quite high) and increases until stride frequency reaches optimal level at maximum velocity.

6) Heel Recovery = Low to High Heels should recover quickly, with limited backside mechanics and shouldn't involve large amplitudes of motion behind the hips. During acceleration, especially the first 6-8 steps, you want to minimize your backside mechanics. Backside mechanics in sprinting, are movements occurring behind the center of mass. To put this more simply, think of the drill 'butt-kicks' as having a lot of backside mechanics and a drill like 'high-knees' will have little amount of backside mechanics but a lot of frontside mechanics. Coach Latif Thomas likes to use the 'running on hot coals' example to give people an image about how to quickly recover their heels to their butt.

Body Position

Foot strikes on forefoot- foot should strike directly below or slightly behind the hips Looking for Triple Extension of the driving leg- ankle, knee, hip The body is driving out at a 45 degree angle to the ground (a straight line from your head to your back leg). Keep the heel recovery low Drive the lead arm (same as front leg) up as you begin to sprint. Step over the opposite knee and drive the foot down into the ground to create maximal force (Ankle steps over the knee) Face and neck relaxed Tight stomach, flat back, hips forward Arms - elbow is approximately at 90 degrees

**** Quick Acceleration Tip - Often in the acceleration phase, athletes are concerning themselves too much with trying to be quick with their legs. Instead of trying to drive out and be powerful, athletes are 'spinning their wheels' and not getting triple extension (ankle, knee, hip). We want the athletes to 'feel their feet behind them'. If you are getting the sensation of your feet driving well behind your center of mass, then you know you are finishing off your leg drive.