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Making The Speed Triad Work For You!
On Tuesday, we went over all the reasons why you MUST address the Speed Triad and its 3 key sections when it comes to YOU getting faster, specifically for the 40-Yard Dash (or the 60-yard dash too).
When I first started training for the 40 after Cory challenged my motivated ass, I found a MILLION different ways to train for the 40: different techniques, different exercises, different workouts, different training schedules, different everything.
I started at the top of the list and began to try and test out all the best ones, until the ones that seemed to work the best and most often rose to the top and all the other stuff began to get DROPPED. But along the way…
…I noticed a pattern in what worked and what didn’t.
What exercises needed to be in there and what wasn’t necessary…
What techniques needed to be in there and which ones actually slow you down…
What stretches need to be in there and what muscle do NOT need to be stretched…
What things need to be said, and what things need to be focused on most.
And I was able to put it all together in a cool little system I call “The Speed Triad” that allowed me and everyone who uses it to seriously decrease their own 40-yard dash. I want to show you now how you can use it for your own workouts and training…
We talked on Tuesday about the 3 corners of the Speed Triad:
1. 12-Step 40-Yard Dash Mastery Course
2. Sprint Training (done the RIGHT way…you’ll see what I mean below in a second why I put right in all caps…)
3. F.A.P.
Now, here’s the cool part…I’m going to go over all the corners of The Triad and how you can use it yourself to get faster, more explosive and lower your own 40-yard dash time:
The 12-Step 40-Yard Dash Mastery Course
Before I go ahead and tell you what makes up the 12-Step 40-Yard Dash Mastery Course, I think one thing should be cleared up about it…I’ve received an influx of emails from excited people waiting for “Destroy The 40″ to open up who have asked me specific questions about the 12-step course…here’s the deal:
It’s not like Step 1: Put your foot here, Step 2: Put your arm here Step 3: Drop your shoulders here…
…every last tried and tested piece of learning and applying the 40 stance and technique has been broken down into 12 chewable parts (each a different video)…Part 3 goes into a lot of the starting stance, Part 7 talks a ton about a KEY piece of everything after the 15-yard mark a lot of coaches or athletes don’t talk about and Part 12 talks about several different “Testing Day” strategies that you can use on the day of your 40 test to lower your 40 time THAT DAY…make sense?
That being said, let’s go over some of the key points of the 40-yard dash technique…here are 8 key points for you to remember:
1. There is NOTHING more important than absolutely mastering the first 10 yards of the 40-yard dash. How do you master the first 10 yards? Get your starting stance perfect. What’s that look like? See Key Point 2…
2. Master the starting stance. Here are the most important things to remember to really become a starting stance expert:
- Find your starting foot (the foot closer to the line… how do you choose? Easy, which foot do you jump off in a running one-legged jump? That’s your starting foot).
- Crowd the line. Start as close to it as you comfortably can (some coaches tell you to start a couple yards back…that just makes the race longer for you…start close and comfortably).
- Feet shoulder with apart, with the back foot an inch or two behind the front foot.
- Hips are higher than shoulders
- Knees slightly benefit to get some stretch-reflex going
- All the weight is on the front half of your feet
- Fingers are soft and open
- Strong side hand is at your hip, elbow bent at 90 degrees (other hand on the ground)
In the 12-Step Mastery Course, I’ll go into a lot more detail into all of these key points, PLUS a really smooth way to seamlessly get into the right stance.
3. Always remember to keep pressure on both feet as you push off from the start…you’d get more power from doing a squat on two legs than on just one leg, right? So make sure you do the same with your start…push off and get power from BOTH legs.
4. Take a giant step with your first step of the race. Whoever takes the fewest steps in the race is going to win. Set the tone for the rest of the 39 yards right with that first step.
5. During your acceleration, your upper body should be ahead of your lower body (but you want to make sure you’re not getting your forward body angle just from bending over at your hips…it should be a straight forward angle through your body). Focusing on that forward body angle will make sure your acceleration mechanics are there.
6. Throughout the race, your elbows should be locked around 90 degrees. Why? A shorter lever is a faster level and an elbow locked at 90 degrees is just right for optimal speeds.
7. Top speed is all about extension. But it’s not something you should be thinking about…it comes naturally as you get stronger and more flexible.
8. Remember how the race is supposed to go: Starting stance is right, you accelerate through the first 15 yards or so with the positive forward body angle as you start to stand up into that “perfect posture” position and smoothly work your way into your top speed until your blazingly close out the race with that awesome 40 time you’ve been training for….that’s it.
Sprint Training
Moving on, the next corner to the Speed Triad is sprint training (huge surprise, right?), but you’d be surprised at all the mistakes that are made with a lot of athlete’s speed training programs. Those mistakes usually fall under one of these categories:
- Rest Periods
- Frequency
- Distance/Volume
- Periodization model
- Intensity
Let’s take a closer look at how to ensure it’s not YOU that makes any of these mistakes and ends up speedless or hopeless in the process…
Rest Periods- These are the rest periods between your sprints. If your workout calls for ten 20-yard sprints, the amount of time you’d take between those sprints would be your “rest periods” (by the way, if you were wondering, you’d want to take about 120 seconds between the first 5 20-yard sprints, rest 4-5 minutes, then rest another 120 seconds between the next 5 20-yard sprints).
Here’s the deal on rest periods in sprint training: When you run sprints, it forces your Central Nervous System to recruit a ridiculously high percentage of HTMU’s (high-threshhold motor units). These are your most powerful muscle fibers, so it makes sense that a power-based event like sprinting would selectively recruit its most powerful muscle fibers. But here’s the secret…
For your body to optimally and consistently recruit these enormously awesome muscle fibers, rest periods need to be HIGH. How high?
A good rule of thumb is about 60 seconds for every 10 yards sprinted. So if your last sprint was 30 yards, you’d take about 3 minutes rest between that and your next sprint. If it was 10 yards, you’d rest 1 minute. Easy enough, right? Here’s the issue though…
Lots of athletes take much shorter rest periods between their sprints when they’re training. Those shorter rest periods stop their bodies from recruiting their highest-threshhold muscle fibers, which means they end up running slower each and every sprint.
Do you know what we call that in the awesome and mysterious training world? Conditioning…also known as not actually getting faster.
If you’ve been sprint training and not taking ample rest periods and been wondering to yourself why you haven’t been getting faster, THIS IS WHY.
Also, sprint training is very much a mental thing — it takes serious focus and mental energy with every sprint…by taking longer rest periods, it’s much easier to get your mind right and in the best state for serious gains to take place.
Frequency – Frequency is just how often you train. Different athletes of different levels need different training frequencies, but here’s the take-home point: Most athletes train with sprints too often…remember how I said your CNS needs ample rest time between sprints? Well…
…it also needs ample recovery time between training sessions (usually around 48 hours, but there’s lots of factors at play with this one too). So if you have a sprint training session on a Monday, don’t sprint again until Wednesday for best results (this will also keep you healthy, perpetually motivated and consistently improving).
Distance/Volume – How far each of your sprints are, and the total amount of yards sprinted with your training sessions. Here’s a good rule of thumb for distances and volume:
Since the first 10-yards of the 40-yard dash are the MOST IMPORTANT, it’s probably a good idea to focus a lot on that. Additionally, I would strategically throw in sprints up to 60-yards throughout the training program to maximize results throughout the entire 40-yard race.
And for volume, I would try and keep it under 500-600 yards sprinted per week…I’m well-aware that sounds like a small number, but wouldn’t you do less if you knew it could get you more? That is EXACTLY the case here…when it comes to sprint training, less is usually more.
Periodization Model – The point of a periodization model is to ensure that you keep making gains in your training and never hit a deflating plateau. It’s also designed to make you peak out at a certain, pre-determined time.
Through lots and lots of different testing and tweaking, I’ve found the best periodization model for the 40-yard dash to be a “short-to-long” model, which really just means the early focus of our training is mainly on the “shorter” parts of the 40-yard dash (shorter sprints, starts, acceleration, etc.) and as time progresses, the focus turns to the “longer” parts of the race (explosiveness, reactivity, longer sprints).
It also works out so that as the day of your 40-yard dash testing comes by, your 40 is peaking out…meaning because of the short-to-long periodization model, your running faster than you ever have on the DAY of your race or combine (this is a major component of the training in “Destroy The 40″).
Intensity – I’ll let you in on a little training secret…”intensity” is NOT how loud you scream when you lift weights or how loud you blast Weezy on the speakers when you train. It’s actually this…
…it’s the percentage of your maximum that you’re training at. For instance, if you’re lifting a weight that’s 75% of your 1-rep maximum, that weight is at 75% intensity.
If you run a sprint at 90% of your top speed, that sprint is at 90% intensity.
Why Is That Important Alex?
It’s uberifically-important because SPRINT GAINS ARE MADE ALMOST EXCLUSIVELY ABOVE 90% INTENSITY.
Any running you do at below the 90% threshold might get you in better shape and speed up your metabolism, but it won’t MAKE YOU FASTER.
If you’ve been training at intensities below 90% and have been looking to get faster, make this switch immediately.
The Final Corner To The Speed Triad…
The F.A.P.
The Forward Advancement Principle came almost out of necessity…I was in a period of razor-focused training towards my 40-yard dash and one day, I was laying down in my living room, just relaxing with a tall glass of cool lemonade while listening to a motivational audio I had download online when I heard a certain quote that hit me like a ton of “harder than normal” bricks:
“In every day of your life, with every decision you make, you’re either moving towards your goals, or you’re moving away from them.”
I immediately applied this knowledge nugget to my training and saw that I was training 3-4 days a week, which meant that on 3-4 days a week, I wasn’t moving forwards, closer to my end goal…I was moving FURTHER AWAY from it.
Sure, sometimes doing nothing on your off-days is actually good for you and does move you closer to your end goals, but those are rare and you really have to be aware of your body to know when to do that…but there are definitely things you can be doing on your “off days” to PUSH yourself and keep yourself moving FORWARDS (and if you’re moving forwards, you’re not moving backwards AWAY from the outcome you want).
And these certain exercises, drills and techniques that are done on your off-days keep you moving FORWARDS by:
- speeding up the recovery process
- working on muscular strength
- clearing your mind
- improving your 40-yard specific flexibility points
- improve your core strength specifically for the 40
Cool! How can I use the F.A.P. in my own training?
You want to take about 10-15 minutes a day on your off, or “lower” days, to implement these simple, but potentially really powerful tactics.
Here are some different things I really like to use (remember that these might be different for you depending on what you’re training for):
- Glute Activation drills with low-intensity bodyweight exercises (glute bridges (1 and 2 leg), side lunges, standing hip flexor drill)
- Core Strengthening (ALL forms of planks, high-rep medicine ball drills, supermans)
- Hip Mobility Drills (fire hydrants, leg swings, mountain climbers, groiners)
- Flexibility Drills (long-duration stretches or hip flexors, rectus femori, pecs)
- Visualization Techniques
- Meditative Techniques (corpse pose preferably, close your eyers, breath from your solar plexus/diaphragm area, relax your mind, relax your muscles and let go)
So you’d pick out some of those methods and drills (the ones that best fit your needs) and start doing them on your off-days in short, 10-15 minute sessions.
You’ll start to find your muscles feeling looser and lighter, your energy will begin to increase and you’ll find your mental focus to be stronger as you get into the F.A.P.
Now, as I mentioned a few days ago, I’m finally ready to release and teach all of this awesome 40-yard dash training to you, my VIP Game Speed Insider Subscriber in my brand-new “lower your 40-yard time” program, appropriately named “Destroy The 40″.
DT40 is an all-out, 12-week assault on your 40-yard time.
Through private video coaching, it goes through the entire “12-Step 40-Yard Dash Mastery Course” and simultaneously contains the most specific, most potent 12-week, 40-yard training program I could have ever designed (I spent 27 days writing out the workouts in DT40…there isn’t a single detail I left out!).
On top of that, it also comes with off-day training, 40-yard specific stretches and even a few, potentially game-changing visualization techniques (all part of the “Forward Advancement Principle“).
The whole program is online-based and entirely done through video, hosted on private webpages that you’ll get exclusive access to as a charter member of DT40.
And because of the amount of individual time I’ll be spending with each member, spots are obviously limited…the first 100 anxious sign-ups are in, and after that, the doors are shut (you’ll actually hear them slam closed…they’re the big, red-oak type with some really cool engravings).
KEY POINT TO KEEP IN MIND
When “Destroy The 40″ goes live, it’s FREE to start (you’ll see exactly how on the day it goes live, but I’m obviously not trying to pull any fast, slow or medium-paced ones here …just making you fast, lol)…simply put, the first 100 people to sign-up are in and they get in for FREE for the entire first month (of the 3 month program).
The doors to “Destroy The 40″ are opening up on Tuesday March 9 around 8 AM EST and I am THRILLED and how well it came out. Those 100 competitive athletes that get into the program are going to go through some serious training explosions…I can’t wait.
I went over this for a second last week, but who do I think “Destroy The 40″ is the right fit for?
- Football Players
- Baseball Players (improve your 40-yard dash and your 60-yard dash time goes OFF the charts)
- Weekend warriors looking for an unreal program to guide them for 12-weeks so they can finally figure out the speed equation, get BLAZING speed and blow their friends away…I love it when friends say things like “Dude, WHAT have you been doing?” LOL
- Basketball Players (but ONLY ballers who have the SKILL part of their game down and need more power and explosiveness…if your skills aren’t quite there, focus on those first before entering something so advanced as “Destroy The 40″)
- Soccer Players (Thanks Shawn for pointing this out for all of the foot-ballers out there)
If you have any questions about The Speed Triad or getting there in time for Destroy The 40, leave ‘em below…I’ll be there to answer them for you.
Excited and motivated,
Alex
Why You MUST Address The Speed Triad For A Faster 40-Yard Dash…
Quick story:
“Two little mice fell in a bucket of cream. The first mouse quickly gave up and drowned.
The second mouse, wouldn’t quit. He struggled so hard that eventually he churned that cream into butter and crawled out.
Gentlemen, as of this moment, I am that second mouse.”
-Frank Abignale, Catch Me If You Can
I first heard that story in one of my favorite movies, “Catch Me If You Can”…it’s powerfully delivered by supporting actor superstar Christopher Walken and with it comes a great lesson.
I really find it really interesting though when I think about that second mouse and running the 40-yard dash (or any athletic endeavor for that matter).
The way I see it, to drastically improve your 40-yard dash time, you have 2 options:
1. Be like the second mouse, and fight, kick and push your way until you get your 40 time down to a respectable number (which is going to take insane amounts of effort, time and patience — the last 2 being things I personally always seem to be running short on)
2. Be like the third mouse.
The THIRD Mouse?
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Speed Training For Sports
I’m sitting in here at Barnes and Noble right now cranking out this blog post and I have to say, I’m really impressed with the set-up they have here.
There’s a whole series of large, open desks with soothing, calm music playing, not to mention the nice aroma of coffe beans and “new book smell” all around…I think I just found my new “get lots of work done in a short amount of time” spot (I guess it’s fairly obvious at this point the smaller, overlooked things like this make me happy, LOL).
OK, enough of that, let’s talk about getting you super-duper athletic.
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The Number One Mistake (and my damaging realization)…
Wow, this is big…
It all started just about a month ago (this story is game-changing, and more *real* details are coming later, but this part is crucial). I was answering some emails from athletes all over the globe: A soccer player from Finland, a baseball player from Nevada, a basketball player from Germany (why doesn’t anyone from the Caribbean ever email me and invite me to come visit, by the way?).
So like I said, I was answering all these different “athletic training” questions about getting faster, jumping higher, adding muscle, getting stronger, getting more flexible…everything under the sun.
But I started to notice a pattern as I started getting deeper and deeper into my inbox. It seemed like most of these athletes biggest problem wasn’t their exercise selection or diet or anything like that…it was bigger, and A LOT worse:
They couldn’t stay focused and stick to a plan, completely MISSING OUT ON LOTS OF RESULTS.
They’d find a workout program, do it for a couple weeks, then find another one that looked “more fun” and jump to that one. Then, they’d read something in a magazine that had to be their “magic potion” and they’d jump to that program…they were Stage 5 “Program Jumpers”!
And all of their jumping around was leaving them without any results, any gains and accomplishing nothing…it left them “frozen solid” in the same place.
Then, I spoke to a Platinum Athletic Coaching Client of mine who had gotten loose and done some program jumping of his own (that is a “chock-full-of-secrets” story that I am going to reveal THIS Thursday)!
All of this truly shocked the heck out of me (was I seriously this out of the loop?). Athletes, literally WORLDWIDE, were and are missing out on GINORMOUS RESULTS because they didn’t and don’t stick to a plan…
…so armed with this brand-new realization, I knew I had to find a solution.
I racked my brain.
I talked to my colleagues and mentors.
I called my old college coaches.
And then I racked my brain some more….and one night, lying restlessly in my bed (just a few weeks ago now), I discovered the breakthrough solution I had been looking for.
And now I’m almost ready to get it to YOU.
It’s so darn exciting because it solves so many of these damaging solutions I’ve been seeing:
-It doesn’t force you to stick to the plan, it defies common sense and actually makes YOU WANT TO stay focused (so, so, SO cool)
-It challenges you to make DRASTIC, DRASTIC improvements (in a very short amount of time)
-It gets stunning results time and time again (in minimal amounts of time)
-It viciously knocks out all of those “routine, mundane” workouts you’ve been rotting through
And I am almost ready to release it to you, but not quite yet…
…we’re putting some final touches on the new webpage that’ll tell you more about it, and we’re also trying really hard to figure out just how many copies of this bad-boy we should release….but like I said, be ready on Thursday, I’m going to tell you all about that story of my own Platinum Athletic Client who was “Program Jumping” (not embarrassing for me, let’s call it a “lesson learned”!).
This is exciting…
-Alex
What’s Your Speed Bump…
Thursday’s always bring some interesting revelations for me…
I found myself last night discussing some intense psychology stuff with a couple friends. If you knew me personally, you’d know how interested I was in the psychological aspects of not just training, but life in general: Social dynamics, human influence and body-language related stuff all dominate my bookshelf when I’m not reading about training.
Anyways, like I said, I was discussing some deep psychological ideas last night. We were talking about how certain people can learn to associate different feelings and emotion with almost anything, and when they hear, see or feel this “thing”, those emotions can be brought to the forefront.
Easy Example #1- You’re driving in your car, and all of the sudden
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I Have No Time For Speed…
It’s getting colder up here in Michigan, and today kinda feels like the day where the switch was flipped and it’s going to continue to get cooler and cooler…
…oh well, at least we have speed, quickness and free gifts to keep us happy.
Depressing weather aside, today I’m going to answer another question from one of our very own Game Speed VIP subscribers.
It’s from Claude, and he wants to know about getting faster, quicker and more agile WITHOUT going to the gym:
“Hey Alex,
What do you recommend I do if I want to increase my quickness and explosion but I don’t have enough time in the day to use the gym?
-Claude”
COOL. Good question Claude, and a problem I am SURE a lot of people out there struggle with…
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The Top 7 Most Common Training Mistakes
Just got back from a killer workout, and I have a couple quick questions for you:
- Are you getting everything out of your training that you could be?
- Do you ever feel like your results don’t match the amount of time, effort and hard work you put in to your training?
- Are you *truly* doing everything you could be to become the leanest, meanest, fastest, most successful athlete you could be?
To help you out, I recently put together this really cool PDF report called “The Top 7 Most Common Training Mistakes…Why You *Might* Still Be Slow”.
Get it, FREE, here:
The Top 7 Most Common Training Mistakes…Why You *Might* Still Be Slow
In the report, you are going to find:
- If your “core” training is doing what it’s supposed to
- If your speed training is actually making YOU slower
- If your “injury prevention” is potentially leaving you susceptible to more injuries
- Lot and lots of more, cool stuff
Plus, it’s free for you, as a Game Speed Insider VIP Member.
Get it here, NOW:
The Top 7 Most Common Training Mistakes…Why You *Might* Still Be Slow
Enjoy.
-Alex
Saving Time And Kicking Butt In The Gym-Part II
I spent last night at a Dave Matthews Band concert. I’m not a die-hard like a lot of the people that were there, but I somehow ended up with tickets in the 3rd row and the whole show totally rocked.
But, when I went there, I had no idea that it would be Dave Matthews who would actually be the one who came up with the content for Part II of Saving Time and Kicking Butt In The Gym.
During the show, between songs, they’d shut the lights off on the stage so most of the 15,000+ in attendance couldn’t see, but since I was so close to the stage, I could see exactly what was going on. And between each song, Dave would be moving around like crazy.
He’d grab a new guitar, he give fist-pumps to Carter (the drummer), he even danced around. The point is he didn’t just stand still and do nothing.
So when I saw that, I knew exactly what today’s blog post would be about:
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What The Heck Is Game Speed?
I was watching an old basketball game yesterday.
Although I would never admit it in a public forum, it is possible I have an entire box of taped NBA basketball games that I used to watch and re-watch, learning, studying and absorbing everything I could to help my own basketball game 
And it’s also possible I popped in one of these old tapes yesterday, just to check it out and watch some good basketball. Now, I don’t actively play basketball anymore. Ten years of non-stop work, dedication and competition was enough for me. I enjoyed the heck out of it, but I now have other goals.
Anyways, I was watching an old Phoenix Suns vs. Dallas Mavericks playoff game. It was from the 2005 playoffs, and Steve Nash had just polished off his first MVP season with the Suns.
As I watched Mr. Nash completely dominate this game, weaving in and out of the lane, disrupting the entire Maverick defense with the slipperiness of a stealth snake, a huge smile developed across my face. Why?
Because he was demonstrating exactly what GAME SPEED can do for YOU.
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