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

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?

Yup…I just added another mouse into the mix (I actually have permission to do that because one, this IS my website, and two, I’m kinda sorta awesome!).

Anyways…the third mouse…what would he do?

Instead of just giving up and dying like the first guy, or blindly working and getting by on unparalleled effort like the second mouse, he’d work SMARTER.

He’d deduce some way to quickly and efficiently get out of that bucket, and make it home in time for supper to boot.

Is the third mouse any better than the second? Maybe. They’d both make it to the point they want to (out of that damn bucket), but one would do it a lot faster and easier than the other…I know which one I’d rather be.

And it’s the same thing when it comes to reducing and decreasing your 40-yard dash time…you can try everything under the sun, and work your ass off and sure, you’ll see some results eventually (if you don’t kill yourself first).

Or, you can train smarter, more efficiently and effectively and make serious improvements to your own 40-yard dash in a matter of weeks (a la the third and impressively good-looking mouse).

What’s the FASTEST way to train smart, effectively and efficiently for a faster 40-yard dash?

The Speed Triad

Do you remember from “The Fraud Story” how I drastically reduced my 40 time after my buddy Cory challenged my manhood and reputation? I know I didn’t go into much detail as to HOW I did it, so I’ll go into a lot more detail right here and now…

As I began to figure out this whole “lower your 40 yard dash” equation, I started to see a lot of patterns in what was working and what wasn’t. It seemed like certain things seemed to always work for me and the athletes I was testing stuff on, and other things that supposedly were breakthrough and extremely effective for lowering your 40 time didn’t do anything at all for me or my clients.

So, being the inherent reverse engineer I am, I started to put the pieces together and I started to realize there were 3 CRUCIAL pieces to lowering your 40 yard dash time (and ignoring or not efficiently training any one of them meant mediocre to poor results).

Those 3 factors make up something I now call “The Speed Triad”. They are:

1. Technique Training (best results using the “12-Step 40-Yard Dash Mastery Course”)

2. Sprint Training

3. F.A.P. (the Forward Advancement Principle)

Let’s start with part 1, technique training…

As I started to research all the different thoughts and ideas on the BEST technique for running the 40, I came across a ton of different view points: 2-point stances, 3-point stances, crowding the line, starting farther back, giant first, choppy first step, head down, head up…it went on and on.

So, I started testing all of them and fortunately, I pretty quickly found one that worked really, really well. But here was the problem…

The way it was being taught was CRAP! People knew what they needing to be doing, but real coaching is all about communication, and if athletes can’t get the technique down just right, then what the heck’s it matter if they know what’s supposed to be happening, when they can’t actually do it (because the teaching process wasn’t there)?

So I went to work, kinda cracked this “communication” code and developed something called “The 12-Step 40-Yard Dash Mastery Course”. It fixes this technique learning issue in a series of 12 parts to “fix” the 40-yard dash technique portion (and we all know how important the technique of the race is for REAL success).

The 12-Step 40-Yard Master Course is in “Destroy The 40″ in a 12-part video series, but in a couple days, I’m going to go over even more detail as to what it includes.

Now, part 2, sprint training…

Here’s the REAL issue with sprint training when it comes to 40-yard dash training:

For sprint training to really work for you, you need to be managing several different and equally important things:

• Rest Periods
• Frequency
• Distance/Volume
• Periodization model
• Intensity

If your rest periods are too short between sprints, then your sprint training doesn’t end up making you any faster; it just puts you in better condition.

If you train with sprints too often, then your frequency is too high, you over-exert your Central Nervous System and leave your body weaker than when it started, not to mention much more prone to injury.

If your sprint distances are too short, too long or just too much (especially for yourself as an individual with unique needs), then you might end up getting faster at distances not in the 40-yard range or overworking your body and pushing it beyond it’s healthy limits (this is key and fortunately, there are ways to gauge how much and how far you should be going, which will be covered in “How To Make The Speed Triad Work For You”).

If you don’t periodize your training, then you’re inevitably going to end up hitting a plateau pretty quickly and indefinitely stagnate. Following the right periodization model allows you to plan ahead for all potential “roadblocks” and easily scoot around them by manipulating a few, fairly simple training variables.

And lastly, if you’re not completing your sprint training at the right intensities, then you’re not getting faster. Period (nothing’s more important than training intensity, IMNRHO (in my not really humble opinion)).

If you’re not taking care of all of these different sprint training factors, it could very easily be why your 40-yard time hasn’t been improving…

Two days from now, when I release the next part in this 40-yard special, “Making The Speed Triad Work For You”, I’ll go over in detail as to how to handle all of these factors and strategies so they work best for you, but at least now you have an idea as to why your speed or 40 yard dash time hasn’t been improving.

Triad Part 3: The F.A.P.

F.A.P. stands for the “forward advancement principle” and it’s probably the most under used component to decreasing your 40-yard dash time. Adding it into your routine could be the difference as to whether you hit that 40 time you’ve been dreaming about for years or not…

I came about the F.A.P. during that period when I was preparing to royally say “screw you” to Cory. My workouts had me training 7 times every 14 days, which meant I had 3-4 days each week where I wasn’t doing much…

It was around that time I heard a quote that’s stuck with me even today. It said, “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 took a look at my own training and saw there were 7 days every two weeks where I wasn’t really moving towards my goals — therefore, I was moving away from them…I knew I had to do something to reverse that. And that’s where the F.A.P. came in…

I looked at what things I could do on my off-days (those 7 other days every 2 weeks) that would:

• speed up the recovery process
• work on my muscular strength
• clear my mind
• improve my 40-yard specific flexibility points
• improve my core strength specifically for the 40

And I was able to put together a ton of drills, exercises and other strategies that would have me moving FORWARD toward my goals on my off-days, instead of backwards and further away from them so that EVERY day I was lowering my 40-yard dash time, not just half the time or 75% of the time…100% of the time.

And that principle made a HUGE difference in my results. So if you’re following Triads Part 1 and 2 perfectly, but not abiding by the F.A.P. principle, that right there could be exactly why your results aren’t there.

And that to me is probably the number ONE reason why the “Destroy The 40″ Program always seems to work so well. Anyways…

I hope you learned a lot about The Speed Triad, how important it is in drastically lowering your 40-yard dash time and you’re going to love what I have ready for you on Thursday. It’s called “How To Make The Speed Triad Work For You” and it’s going to show you exactly how to use all of these principles in your own training…I’m excited!

Talk to you soon,

Alex

Hey! First off, I hope everything in your life is as awesome and exciting as what’s going on in mine right now (SO much goin’ on!). I have a pretty rare story I want to share with you today…

….it’s a seriously embarrassing story about me and the FIRST time I ran the 40-Yard Dash, cleverly titled “The Fraud” story.

The Fraud Story

As you’re probably well aware, I am naturally a very SLOW athlete.

While I was certainly hard-wired to be a smooth-talking, slightly cocky smart-ass, my speed and explosiveness were sadly NOT.

The first time I made a competitive basketball team, the coach told me after, “..the only reason you made this squad is because everyone on this team likes you and you’ll be a good person to have around…but don’t think you’re gonna be playing a lot…you’re 3 steps slow.”

Sidebar: SCREW that guy, lol. </sidebar>

Anyways, I am completely aware and understand what it’s like to be slower, weaker and less gifted….I also know exactly how exciting and damn rewarding it is to overcome that bullshit and end up being faster, stronger and more unstoppable than any of those genetically-gifted dudes.

So…why “The Fraud” story? Here we go…

As a stone-cold basketball player in my youth and teenage years, my focus was always on quickness and acceleration…not necessarily explosiveness or top speed. That’s what I trained for (I studied the hell out of both, but it was the first ones that were a ton more important for me in basketball).

Now you should know that the 40-Yard Dash requires several types of speed and strength to be really damn good at it: Quickness and acceleration off the line, explosiveness through the first 20 yards or so and reactivity and relaxation as you enter top speed and finish out the race…so while I had the very first part of it down, I hadn’t really ever trained for the strength and speed characteristics it required after.

Picture this: it’s about 2 years ago, I’m training at the local high school football field on a scorching summer day, with a couple friends of mine, one a college basketball player, the other a college football player.

We’re doing some dynamic warm-ups and naturally, our egos start coming into play as we start talking trash to each other…I tell Cory (football player) that basketball players are better athletes than football players.

He says that while I like to think I know everything (kind of ironic, since I actually DO know everything), I’m straight up wrong about this.

So we continue bantering about this, until he finally sets me up for the one thing I was hoping he WOUDLN’T say: “Then let’s see you blast out a 40-yard dash…if basketball players are so athletic, you should have no problem crushing out a good 40 time.”

Crap.

You see, even then, I still had a really good understanding of the 40-Yard Dash and all the pieces and parts that go into putting out a good time.

And I knew that while I could probably crush the first 10-yards, my time from the 10-yard mark to the 40-yard mark would be absolutely atrocious, like you knew Susan Boyle would be an awful singer (except my abysmal performance was actually about to happen).

But, my ego is still the size of a small city in the Caribbean, so naturally, I said, “Hell yeah…let’s do this.”

So I calmly walked over to the line as Cory set up next to me stopwatch in had.

I got into my stance and on the count of 3, I was off!

I sprung out of the gate just right, getting power from both of my feet, positive shin angle, giant first step…everything was just right.

I must have ran like a 1.75 second 10-yard split (that’s pretty good, if you’re not in the know).

Then It All Came Crashing Down For Me…

I hit the 15-yard mark and my quickness and acceleration were no longer such big factors; instead (at that point in the race), it’s more about power and explosiveness and my weaknesses showed.

To imagine what it looks like, you know in those old Looney Tunes commercials with Speedy Gonzales where his legs would move a million and one miles and hour for a second but he’d go nowhere, then suddenly, he’d dart off into another stratosphere?

That’s what I looked like, but the OPPOSITE.

Instead of me going nowhere at first then exploding away, I covered a ton of ground immediately, THEN everything would start to slow down (again, because my basketball training had only focused on mainly quickness and acceleration, and not really with any focus on the other side of the strength curve, where power and explosiveness lie closer to).

So, once I hit past that 15-yard mark, I was TOAST.

I think I made it to the finish line of that 40-yard dash at a snail’s pace of 5.24 seconds (and as a well-known speed coach, Corey started calling me a “fraud”, LOL).

To put that in perspective, THIS mammoth below ran a 5.12 the 40 at the NFL Combine last year:

And he probably weighs at least 120 more lbs. than me.

So, what were the main reasons why I ran the 40 so slow? Let’s recap it:

• No power-focused work in my training
• Lack of maximal strength
• No real technique training (later fixed this by developing the “12-Step 40-Yard Mastery Course”)
• Poor starting stance
• Lacking explosiveness

Now, since we now know each other, you probably know that I wasn’t about to let this poor showing be the last Corey and all them other haterz saw of me! So I went to work on my 40…

I began researching all the different technique methods out there (technique is HUGE in the 40-yard dash) and tested out all of ‘em on me and the football players I work with.

After a lot of testing and tweaking, I was able to put together a 12-step formula that seemed to work incredibly well for mastering the technique of the entire 40-yard dash (now known as The “12-Step 40-Yard Dash Mastery Course”).

On top of that, I figured out all of the things that were most important to *training* for the 40-yard dash:

• which exercises to do…
• what type of sprint training to do…
• what type of quickness training to do…
• what type of stretching to do…
• what type of periodization model to use when you only have a short amount of time to get someone ready for the 40…
• what to do on off-days to maximally decrease your 40 time…

Putting that together with the “12-Step 40-Yard Dash Mastery Course”, I had an UNREAL model for DRASTICALLY decreasing 40-yard dash times in really short periods of time…

Now, before I tell you what happened with my own 40-yard dash time and whether or not I eventually made Cory eat his words, I want to take a quick second to give credit to the people who I learned the most from about the 40-Yard Dash…here’s a short list of the guys who had the greatest impact on my 40-yard dash training ideas and strategies:

Joe DeFranco

Joe is probably the best NFL Combine specialist out there today. He runs an awesome gym out in New Jersey, and every year before the Combine, sports agents send him their players (and their trust) so he can train, teach and prepare them for all of the Combine tests.

He even has an awesome DVD called, “Mastering The Football Combine Tests”. You can see his website at http://www.defrancostraining.com.

Charlie Francis (right, with Ben Johnson on left)

Olympic trainer to the world’s formerly fastest man, Charlie Francis is known around the world and the Interwebz as one of the most knowledgeable and experienced speed trainers out there. I’ve been through all of products 3 times through and learn something new every single time (he’s also a straight-forward cat, just like me, so I totally get and dig the guy).

You can see more about CF at http://www.charliefrancis.com.

Kelly Baggett

What else is there to say that hasn’t been said already? I’ve made 2 products with KB (http://www.truthaboutquickness.com and http://www.jumphigherin4weeks.com) and they both turned out even better than I could have imagined.

I have no problem admitting I’ve stolen more ideas from Kelly than anyone else…his speed training manual, “No-Bull Speed Training”, even today, still stands as the best book on sprint training I’ve ever read (and I’ve been through like 87,000 sprint training books).

You can see all about Kelly at http://www.higher-faster-sports.com.

Back to me…

So, what happened? Did I use all of these breakthrough training strategies to cut down my own 40 time and make Cory feel like the doofus he is?

Heck yeah I did….

Using everything I learned from the “12-Step 40-Yard Dash Mastery Course”, from all of my unique, but strategic 40-yard dash specific training and workouts, from all of the off-day training and 40-yard flexibility focus, I was able to shave more than .5 seconds off my 40-yard dash and run a DAMN respectable 4.67 40-yard dash.

You listening, Cory? LOL.

And now, as I mentioned last week, I’m finally ready to release and teach all of that unbelievable 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.

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, doors close (really hard too…I’m a notorious door-slammer).

Oh yeah…KINDA IMPORTANT

I totally almost forgot to tell you this one HUGE nugget of info…

…when “Destroy The 40″ goes live, it’s FREE to start (you’ll see exactly how on the day it goes live, but obviously I’m not trying to pull any strings, or cats out of hats, or any other bad analogies)…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, but for now, I’ve got some really helpful 40-yard specific newsletters coming in the next week or so, including:

• “The Speed Triad: Why You MUST Address It For A Faster 40″

• “Making The Speed Triad Work For YOU!”

• Behind The Scenes Of “Destroy The 40″

If you can’t tell, I am SO DAMN EXCITED about how good “Destroy The 40″ is and how many athletes are going to benefit from it…who do I think it’s a good fit for? I think there are 4 types of people it’d be GREAT 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″)

I hope you enjoyed everything here today…I’m PUMPED!

Talk to ya later,

Alex

Tell me, what’s the issue with the current state of speed and sports with athletes?

More and more, the only athletes I see out there on the field or the court who have game-breaking speed or unreal acceleration are the ones who were born that way — the ones with the genetics that had them pre-determined to blaze around like gazelles in an open field on a scorching hot Friday afternoon, after a quick meal of Red Bull and wheatgrass!

What about the rest of us? The ones who aren’t born with obnoxious speed or explosiveness, who actually have to work for the results we want?

When I was younger, I was S-L-O-W. Heavy feet, weak thighs and glutes that couldn’t even imagine cracking a walnut between them (sidebar: if anyone now needs to open up a walnut…lol, I digress). It reminds me of when I was playing in that big AAU tournament as a teenager in front of all those college coaches down in Kentucky.

It was a weekend tournament and it was called a “D-1 Certified Tournament”, so all the major college coaches could come, watch and scout. All the big boys were there: Tubby Smith, Tom Crean, Billy Donovan and lots of other big names from the college mafia.

Knowing it was my one major shot to impress someone and turn it into a college scholarship, I really gave it all I had that weekend. Hitting shots from all over the court, penetrating the middle whenever I wanted, locking up on D full court, leading my teammates on…I couldn’t have dreamt it any better.

So when nothing came of it, I was naturally crushed.

And then when I found out WHY nothing came of it, I had to come up with a new word to describe how that made me feel: quadtoppled (quadtoppled – the intense infinite demolishment of hopes and dreams).

So, WHY did nothing come of it? Why did quadtoppled have to be born?

I was too slow.

I wasn’t fast enough, quick enough or explosive enough…the fact that I had more skillz than the Beastie Boys paying the bills and the self-infused drive of a Fast And The Furious car (from the Tokyo version, not the one with Paul Walker and Michelle Rodriguez) made no difference…too slow = no scholarships.

“Screw that.”

So I went to work with my training, my research, testing stuff out, eventually did play college basketball, and kept on discovering new tricks and strategies and nowadays, speed is easy…ya know, “ain’t no thang”, like Outkast on Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik.

And that’s where we’re at now. It’s time to for everyone else to know the truth about getting faster, getting more explosive and furiously grabbing your dreams by their imaginary horns.

And on that note, here are some tips to get you started:

To instantly improve your game speed (game speed being how fast you are in ACTUAL games…not what a stop watch says or what you can do on a track…it’s how fast and quick you are in your sport), check your feet out. Most people spend so much time heavy, clunky shoes, all their little and potentially really powerful foot muscles become dormant.

To overcome this easily fixable issue, find a better pair of shoes to walk around in all day (I like Nike Free’s).

When you train, do your warm-ups barefoot (yup, I said that right…barefoot).

And try doing some quickness type training drills barefoot too…basic exercises like “Lateral Line Hops” or “Pogo Jumps”…you should start to see some serious results in a week or two.

If you’re training for the 40-Yard Dash, remember there is nothing more important to the race than the start and your acceleration mechanics. There’s something called “Forward Body Angle” (which is just the angle between your body and the ground in front of you). You want your body angle to be less than 90 degrees at the start and during the acceleration phase of the race.

And then, as the race continues and you begin to shift from the acceleration phase to the maximal speed phase, your angle then naturally starts to move closer to 90 degrees (to figure out what that looks like, think of top speed as having “perfect posture”).

There’s going to be some more info on the 40-Yard Dash soon, what with the NFL Combine not too far away AND since I’m going to be releasing a very limited “40-Yard Preparation” program very soon…I’ll keep you posted on that (it’s called “Destroy The 40″).

My time was so slow the first time I ran the 40-Yard Dash, you could have whipped up a tune-casserole before I finished. It’s funny to think about how amazingly slow I was when I first started, as nowadays, I help and coach clients all over the globe get faster, quicker and more explosive now.

There’s a stupidly funny story (called “The Fraud Story”) behind that first time I ran a timed 40, maybe I’ll tell it sometime…

The TOP 3 exercises you MUST be using in your workouts to rapidly improve your speed are:

1. Squats or Deadlifts - These can be done with a barbell, dumbbells, a squat-flex, milk jugs, with your lazy grandma on your back, whatever, and even with one-leg or two, but with everything we know now about training and how important strength is, nothing will help you more than these two kings of the hill.

Add them to your workouts today by doing 3-4 sets of 6-12 reps of any type of variation of your choice for maximal benefit.

2. 1-Leg Glute Bridges - This simple bodyweight exercise is terrific for activating your glute muscles, teaching proper hip extension and building glute power. It’ll also build up your backside and give your guy or girl something nice and firm to grab on to, ’cause, come on, who doesn’t want some good booty to grab onto?

Add in a couple sets throughout the day of single leg glute bridges for sets of 8-15 reps on each leg for best results.

3. Pogo Jumps – A really effective plyometric exercise, straight from the FREE Quickness Chronicles, that’ll teach your potentially very powerful and reactive achilles tendons to speedily propel your body all over the court or field at high-octane speeds.

Do 3 sets of 15 reps 3 times a week for best results.

I hope you enjoyed today’s post…I plan on coming back in a few days with some really powerful speed and 40-Yard Dash content, but ONLY if we get at least 25 comments on today’s post. If you wanna comment, just answer this question:

What’s the best thing you’re doing right now for your own speed and athleticism?

And when you answer down below in the Comments section, try and insert a joke if you can…I wanna laugh later when I read ‘em.

Take care,

Alex

I hope you’re in the process of killing it right now using Kelly’s free report, “The 7-Day Vertical Jump Cure”, preparing and setting your body up for massive vertical jump gains when you start using any of the THREE breakthrough vertical jump programs in our new program, Flying in Four.

Also, please remember that Flying In Four finally goes live this Tuesday February 16th and for the first 3 days until next Thursday February 18th, it’ll be yours for a full $20 OFF the normal price to celebrate it’s long-awaited release…4 inches in FOUR weeks is coming for you VERY soon….

…definitely make sure you get ready next week to get there within those first 3 days so you can save yourself some money and start blasting your vertical jump skyward immediately.

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WHY WE’RE HERE

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Free copies of Flying In Four!

Here’s the deal: Leave your answers to these questions below in the Comments section.

On Sunday at 5 PM, Kelly and I will go through all of them, pick the best THREE answers and deliver the first 3 copies in the world of Flying in Four to those 3 lucky people.

NOTE: Deadline has been moved until 10 PM Sunday night due to some email newsletter issues…so you have  until 10 tonight to get your entry in.

Make your response as short or as long as you want…we’re not just gonna give longer answers more points because they’re longer, we’re much more interested in what kind of passion you show and how good we feel that you’re going to “take action” with your free copy.

Here are the two questions, read through them, then go ahead and write your answers below in the Comments Section.

1. What will 4 inches on your vertical jump in 4 weeks from Flying in Four do for you? for your sport? for your performance? for your confidence? (i.e. Four inches in four weeks from Flying in Four will…)

2. There are more than 23,332 people seeing THIS contest right now…why are you 1 of the 3 athletes that want it the most? Be specific.

And that’s it. Go to the Comments section now and win your free copy of Flying in Four.

Good luck!

Alex (and Kelly)

PS – If you want to tell us about your current results with The 7-Day Vertical Jump Cure or how much you’ve learned from either me or Kelly about the vertical jump, we won’t mind

Lots of positive, helpful stuff will be coming to you in the next 3 months so, yeah, be kinda excited.

2. My friends have taken to calling me “The Situation” the past couple weeks (totally hate you guys too), in reference to the dopekiller MTV show, “Jersey Shore”, mainly because it seems like there is usually a “situation” surrounding me (clearly never my fault) and probably because of my general gravitation towards being a little cocky, ya know, like all the time.

They even decided to put it in writing:

Is this a good thing? LOL…if only I could tell you…

3. I watched the South Carolina-Kentucky basketball game last week and couldn’t help but notice some kick-ass little dude out there just totally rocking out for SC and single-handledly leading his team to a victory over the number one team in the country, Kentucky.

His name’s Devan Downey, he’s 5-9 and he’s quick as a cat on 3 espresso shots from Starbucks.

This was the only video I could find for you from the game on YouTube…check out this kid:

4. I considered not even putting this in here, but whatever…it feels like the right time for it now. The more my brand and company continues to grow, the more I notice that a small percentage of people are just going to hate …why they hate really isn’t important, everyone has their reasons.

And even though 99% of the now 12,000+ Game Speed Subscribers are benefitting from and enjoying what I’m trying to do here, when you’re doing something on a bigger scale and speaking to large amounts of people at once, there’s always going to be that 1% of the population that you rub the wrong way and feel the need to talk shiznit about you.

So, to that 1% of the people who think it’s actually cool to talk crap about people you’ve never even met and to do it hiding behind your computer screen, I calmly say “screw you” and valiantly salute your ignorance and overall negative attitude you bring to the online training community.

<end venting>

Now, back to you getting faster, quicker and more athletic…

5. Here’s a great “oldie” article I forgot about from Kelly Baggett. It’s called The Difference Between Running and Jumping: Why Some People Can Jump But Can’t Run.

Here’s the link to the full article: Difference Between Running and Jumping and here’s an excerpt from the article:

“I’ve mentioned several times in the past that running and jumping are very similar from a motor quality perspective. If you have what it takes to jump high you can usually run pretty fast and vice versa. It’s fairly rare to see someone with a 4.6 or better forty yard dash who can’t vertical jump 30 inches.

It’s also rare to see someone with a 30 inch or better vertical jump who can’t run a sub 5.0 forty. However, there are some exceptions. The differences are even more significant when dealing with numbers from either end that could be considered fairly high level.

Over the years I’ve seen and heard from quite a few dunkers and jumpers who wanted to convert their explosiveness into speed on the track and many of them weren’t initially all that fast. I’ve also seen some sprinters that you would think would be able to jump out of the gym not be able to get up as good as some might think. Sometimes the numbers don’t match up.

So, What’s Going On?

Well, in my experience, research, and real-world observations I believe the answer is relatively simple…”

6. In the past 4 days, I’ve gotten a free pair of $20 socks, a free burrito from Panchero’s and got out of a parking ticket (a parking space which I clearly violated — I know, I know…such a bad-ass)

How did I get all that cool stuff?

By talking to people.

I went to a running store to get some new socks, and I ended up talking to the guy working there for 20 minutes about his recent trip to New Zealand, his broken washing machine and my new fixation on not wearing white socks anymore unless I’m training.

By conversation’s end, he just took me to a closed off section of the store, handed me a pair of unreal wool socks (SmartWool.com …totally recommend these dope socks to anyone in the market) and was like “You’re  a cool dude, take these, try ‘em out and if you like them, just come back in for more.”

When I was at Pancheros for my daily chicken burrito, one of the guys who works there and I hadn’t seen in a while was back.

I remembered that he was originally from Costa Rica and his girlfriend still lived there and he was going there for a month to visit her.

So I asked him how it went, joked about how he probably was *this* close to not getting on the plane to come back to Michigan and told him that, “..on behalf of the sometimes decent state of Michigan, we’d like to welcome you back.”

By the time the burrito was done and we had reached the register, he was like, “Don’t worry about it — see ya later.”

I didn’t do any of this to get free socks or free Mexican cuisine, just to be friendly and outgoing, but, voila…free footwear, free food.

And for the parking ticket, well…let’s just say I had to use my sparkling charm and UTR (under-the-radar) persuasive abilities to the nth degree with that friendly parking employee to avoid that ticket that I totally deserved.

The point is that by talking, being genuinely interested in what’s going on in other people’s lives and being an overall confident, positive person is going to go a long way for you in your life and sport. It’s been the main reason for my success at a young age, and my social skills are always something I’m actively working on — success and happiness  isn’t a destination, it’s a journey.

7. Word of the Week- Splacktacular

I’ve used it here before a couple times, but in case you missed it, splacktacular just means “really freakin’ awesome, but because I just said splacktacular instead of “really freakin’ awesome”, I’m that much cooler.”

Example: “Hot damn, this zucchini bread is splacktacular.”

Feel free to use it in your day-to-day…tell ‘em Alex sent you.

8. Leave a quick comment below if you have any input on anything above and I’ll holler back at ya when I get a chance. If we get 10 comments, I’m going to re-release a 17-page free report called “The Top 7 Training Mistakes” to you…but, we gotta get at least 10 comments.

Laterz,

Alex

Now, I’m from Michigan. My dad spent some time back in the day with the University of Michigan football team (at 5-9, 170 lbs., he was a beast of an O-linemen…ok, he was actually a punter), when good ‘ol Bo Shembechler was coaching and it rubbed off on me growing up…we always cheered for the Wolverine football team on some fun, fall Saturday afternoons.

So as I was watching the Cardinals mollywamp the Packers, a familiar name kept coming up from the Cardinals…Steve “hands off my” Breaston.

Breaston played at U of M (and absolutely dominated special teams for them…sidebar: watch the guy run, no, GLIDE, around the field when he plays and that should probably re-iterate to you the importance of stride length when it comes to serious top-end speed) and coming out of college, Breaston was pegged as middle-round draft pick…he ended up getting picked up in the 5th round.

Watching the playoff game today, you would have never guessed the guy was a late 5th round pick.

Making guys miss left and right and walking around the field with a confident, undeniable swagger (not to mention more than 1,000 yards receiving in just his 2nd year in the League), he simply looked like a guy who belonged at the absolutely highest level of the professional ranks, on the brightest stage around.

Now, why am I telling you about Steve Breaston?

Because the guy represents something a lot of athletes are missing out on; something you can’t buy, or sell; something that continues to hold a lot of athletes back; something that you can’t even really talk about (although I sure as hell am about to try): it’s that C-factor (confidence), that unbreakable, unwavering and unstoppable belief in one’s self, with complete disregard for what everyone else says, thinks or projects.

Athletes with real confidence:

* Believe in themselves, ALWAYS

* Forget about the mistakes they make, and instead, focus on their successes

* Sometimes write down their goals, sometimes they don’t, but they ALL know exactly what outcome they’re looking for and KNOW that they are going to make it a reality

When I set that giant goal for myself to be the absolute best basketball player I could possibly be years ago, I was completely and consciously aware of what everyone around thought about me as an athlete. I knew they thought my head was in the clouds…I was cool with it, because I *knew* what I was going to be.

It was a never a question of “Can I do it?” or “Will I do it?’; it was “This is what’s going to happen, and nothing is going to change that. You can believe whatever you want, you can think whatever you want, hell, you can even say TO ME whatever you want, but it absolutely has no effect on me…this my journey, my goal and my life.”

A guy like Steve Breaston is the same way…how many 5th round picks end up either getting the axe or never contributing in the NFL? The answer is a lot…Breaston could have been the same way, but like I started to talk about before, he has that C-factor, that unbreakable wealth of confidence that seems to always separate the cream from the rest of the crop.

While it’s likely that success in whatever sport it is that you play is largely based on how you do relative to other people and other teams, YOUR success starts with you.

You have to concretely believe in yourself and your goals, above all else.

And only when your goals have already been achieved inside your head can they began to unravel around you.

Because who’s gonna believe in you, if you don’t even believe in yourself?

So how do you up your confidence?

Here’s one trick that might help you:

Think back to a time where everything went right for you in a game. You felt great, your team played great and you kicked some serious butt out there. Really visualize it and go back there…

(seriously, STOP, take 15 seconds and visualize it right now)

…now come back.

You may feel a little bit better already.

You’ve proven to yourself that even if you don’t always feel insanely confident and amazing, you have been there before, your body knows exactly what it feels like and you’re clearly capable of being there again.

So the next time you’re feeling a little passive or under-confident, go back to that time where it was the complete opposite and you were the baddest dude in the game. Re-live it.

Then come back to the present, but carry that same swagger back with you and use it to your advantage (you do deserve the advantage, right? I mean, how many of your teammates or colleagues are reading about confidence and sports right now like you are? You clearly have that extra passion and motivation for success…TAKE advantage of it!).

Here’s to confidence…

Laterz,

-Alex

PS – Note that I’m not actually this deep in real life nor do I necessarily believe in new-agey, mental magic type stuff, lol…but I sure as hell believe in confidence….straight-up, if you ain’t got some, go get it.

PPS – When I said in the email that it “…makes coaches and teammates like and respect you more,” I wasn’t implying that they don’t already, lol…I was just saying that if you like it when people like and respect you, here’s a good way of getting that.

I don’t know if you’ve ever seen that show How I Met Your Mother (CBS Mondays at 8 PM Eastern Time), but I watch it all the time, own all the seasons on DVD, quote my favorite characters….you know, the whole nine.

Anyways, there was an episode I watched for the <totally lost count> time the other day where it’s New Year’s Eve and the show’s main character, hopeless romantic and narrator Ted Mosby decides to take New Year’s Eve into his own hands.

See, earlier in the episode and throughout the entire thing, Ted and crew say something like “New Year’s Eve is the most overrated night of the year…with all the hype and pre-planning it gets, there’s no way it can ever live up to its billing.”

So Ted decides to actually make New Year’s Eve good…he rents a limo and makes a plan to go to the 5 most splacktacular NYE parties in New York…naturally, buku problems arise for all of them, hilarity ensues and, well…watch the rest of the show to find out what happens (lol, am I talking sports and athletics here, or being a hype-man for CBS? …probably both).

Anyways, my New Year’s Eve celebration reminded me of that How I Met Your Mother episode…between myself and a group of friends, a mode of transportation was rented, more than one party was attended and the night didn’t end until dawn (Coaches Blatant Recommendation: Don’t stay out that late if you have anything more to do the next day than watching college football. It’s not good for your, umm, circadian rhythms.).

The point is though that it was the first NYE that I can remember where the night actually lived up to its billing (and if you want details, be on the lookout for my next DVD, “How To Beat The Odds and Actually Enjoy New Year’s Eve: A Look Inside The Work Hard/Play Hard Mentality” …JUST kidding).

Anyways, I wanted to make today’s blog post as straight-forward and inspiring as possible…

————————-

HERE’S THE DEAL

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A good friend of mine recently did a thing on his business website where he had all of his readers write their favorite quotes in the Comments section…

…this is the ONE quote that you’ll always remember, the one, when times might be a little tough, you calmly say to yourself and everything just seems to look a whole lot better, the one that makes that major obstacle standing in your way look not so “major” anymore and instead, a lot more “doable”.

I mean, you’re probably like me, and choosing just one quote out of all the million friggin’ awesome quotes out there seems like an impossible task, but you gotta trust…pick the one that means most to you, share it with the rest of the Game Speed Insider community and let’s see how powerful this can get.

To recap:

1. Choose your favorite, most inspiring, most motivating quote

2. Share it right now below in the Comments Section

3. Take a look at what the other Game Speeder’s have to say

(by the way, that friend of mine got 104 comments on his blog post…we got 75 on a post about “The World’s Fastest Athlete“….I KNOW we can top his 104….let’s make this happen)

-Alex

All week, it’s been great to hang out and clown around with a lot of the people you don’t get to see that often. I saw Sherlock Holmes yesterday with the whole family and it was pretty darn good.

Robert Downey Jr. is my FAVORITE actor (Iron-Man was so dope) and he did a killer job portraying Sherlock Holmes, while holding down a wicked British accent throughout the movie. The rest of the film was good, not great, but if you like action or mystery type movies, you’re definitely going to enjoy this one!

Now, a  surprising question (well, it used to kinda surprise me…I guess I’m just used to it now) I get a lot regarding getting quicker, faster and more athletic goes something like this:

“What can you tell me about this program, Complete Speed Training? How is it different from The Truth About Quickness? Which one is better?”

In case you didn’t know, Complete Speed Training is a speed training program from coaches Pat Beith and Latif Thomas. It’s been out for several years and has been sold in 70+ countries during that time (Truth About Quickness has not yet been out for 6 months and has already been sold in 30+ countries, so we are on an absolute tear right now…anyways, I digress).

Now, let’s quickly talk about the differences between The Truth About Quickness Insider’s System and Complete Speed Training.

The Truth About Quickness is geared specifically to improve the quickness and agility for speed and power athletes (basketball, football, soccer, baseball, etc.). The training in there is going to make you quicker and faster for your sport and in your games (hence, GAME-SPEED).

Complete Speed Training isn’t entirely exclusive for, but more geared towards track and field athletes (or athletes training for anything involving an all-out, straight ahead sprint — like a 40-Yard dash). Your agility and quickness will probably improve to an extent, but you’re going to learn a ton about sprinting faster for a 100m dash or a 40-Yard dash, for example.

That is the biggest difference:

TAQ is going to improve your quickness and agility, Complete Speed Training is going to improve your straight-ahead speed.

I know it kinda sounds like I’m recommending another product here against my own, but it’s not about out-selling anyone or anything like that — I just want you to have a clear understanding and awareness of everything that’s out there.

I understand that out of the 10,000+ people subscribing to Game-Speed Insider, The Truth About Quickness can’t be the right fit for all of them, so it helps to know what else out there is genuinely good.

And for speed training, outside of Truth About Quickness, the Complete Speed Training system is a really good (albeit a little expensive) alternative and I’d give it serious consideration if Truth About Quickness doesn’t really fit your needs right now:

Complete Speed Training

And I think I’ll end today’s newsletter with a really interesting quote (that had my brain on hyper-drive for hours, not sure if I’m quoting it perfectly here though) I heard the other day that should offer you some serious perspective:

“Think about how many days go by in a lifetime that have no real effect on a life.”

That’s as deep as I get.

Talk soon,

Alex

Interesting story…

I was talking to one of my Platinum Athletic athletes a couple days ago (which is, btw, shutting down…just a little too much demand compared to the amount of time I’d like to to give to it…everyone currently in it, no worries, you’re still in for as long as you want), and through our emailing back and forth, he was telling me that while he was feeling quicker and faster, he wasn’t any stronger.

He said he was still using the same amount of of weight on all his major exercises, and his bathroom mirror was telling him he hadn’t gained any muscle either.

Hmm…

So I started to back and look through all of his training, his workouts, his sets and reps scheme, his rest periods, his frequency of training…that’s when it finally hit me to ask him the MOST OBVIOUS question that I should have asked him before I spent almost 2 hours going over his entire training history:

Have you been adding weight to your exercises?

His response: “Well…no.”

And so I told him about my favorite, most dependable and most important training principle I know of: Progressive Overload.

What is progressive overload?

Progressive overload is the principle that in order to get stronger or to improve, you have to progressively increase or amplify the stimulus that you’re throwing at your body, so that it will grow stronger, tougher and better.

Defined in easy terms: Make <stuff> harder (we have a lot of young, motivated people reading this blog…we’ll keep it PG for now).

Your body is an “adapting-machine”. It’s sole goal is to survive, so it constantly takes a look at what you’re having “it” do and then tries its best to adapt (since if it adapts to what’s going on around it, it’s chances for survival improve).

So, it makes sense that this applies majorly to your workouts and training…your body grows stronger and bigger when you lift weights because it’s trying to adapt to the weight lifting you’ve been doing…and growing bigger and stronger is a pretty solid way to adapt to lifting weights.

The issue my Platinum Athletic athlete was having and the issue a lot of athletes and everyday gym-goers seem to have is they conveniently forget this principle and do the same workouts, with EVERYTHING the same, every time they go to the gym.

And that’s probably why most of the people you see at your local gym always look the same, year after year, even though they seem to be in the gym 6 days a week!

So you can avoid “staying the same” and continue to get stronger, faster and quicker, just remember to consistently make <stuff> harder.

Here are just a few ways you can continue to challenge your body in your workouts:

-Add weight

-Add repetitions

-Add sets

-Decrease rest periods

-Add in partial reps to the end of sets

-Add in isometric contractions in sets (if you did 10 reps of something last time, add in a 2-second isometric pause in each rep at the hardest point the next time)

-Do all of your training standing on one leg (kidding! Seriously…don’t do that)

Like I told my Platinum Athletic guy, keep it simple and  “just add weight.”

Later,

Alex

P.S. I hope you have an awesome holiday season! I know I don’t say it enough, but THANK YOU for everything you do as a Game Speed Insider and email subscriber. You guys freakin’ rock for everything you do and I appreciate it to the absolute utmost.

I am constantly thinking of ways I can help you guys out, and I KNOW 2010 is going to be an incredible year…just wait until the beginning of January, I already have a MAJOR surprise lined up for you, and let me tell you…it’s BIG!

Lastly, here’s a free report I put together a few months ago that a lot of you might not have been able to get your hands on. Get it here:

The Top 7 Most Common Training Mistakes <—Learn and apply!