Aaron King (00:03):

Welcome back to the modern old school training podcast. I am Aaron King. It's been a minute, but I am back with coach Bob King. We've been, we've been out, we've been working on building the app. So today's topic that we want to get back right into kind of our bread and butter. And that is what does speed or just speed developed? Why is it a challenge? Why is it important? Why do we spend so much time working on it? Why why is it something that just seems hard for people to crack, but I don't really think it's as complicated as it is made to be, but it's hard for a lot of folks

Coach Bob King (00:33):

To the major sticking point for a lot of people is like, you can't, you can't improve speed as the number one thing that people object to is like, you cannot improve a person just as fast as they are. Okay. This is a little tricky, but understand what genetic potential is. That means you're only going to be as fast as your genes will allow you to go. But the coach has his dilemma is how do I get that out? Because if you just say, we can't make a person faster than you stop trying and they just don't get fast.

Aaron King (01:00):

Yeah. And so talking about that concept right there, how can you make a person faster? I think that when you, when you talk to these coaches say speed is such a challenge, you know, we're doing great in the weight room, but the speeds on it, and we're seeing the growth in the numbers but you know, it's not transitioning. So making, when we say, can you make a person faster? We've talked about that in the past, but how much faster can you really make someone? Is it when you talk about the splitting hairs between the technical side, the strength side, the, I mean, we know it's comprehensive and I'm gonna kind of play devil's advocate, but in order to make someone faster, how much, really, how much space is really there,

Coach Bob King (01:40):

I'm in a room. I've always felt like the weight room is the easiest part of training because you just, you have your script, you put the weight on the bar and you increase it. And then you go to the speed work, coaches and athletes get frustrated because it's like, it's just not coming along. And I tell everybody, I said, when you come in, you're going to come in one day and all of a sudden you wake up and it's there, what's there. The technique that we've been teaching kicks in the strength that we've been providing, you kicks in. And it all comes together because it's a unified effort between strength and technique. We always say, yeah, mechanics produce efficiency and efficiency produces speed, speed, exposes, flaws. And when we see those flaws, we're correcting them and then we increase your speed again, mechanically. So it's a, it's an ongoing process timeframe. I have no idea, but someday you walk in, and all of a sudden you're a new person.

Aaron King (02:27):

Yeah. And, you know, jumping in on that, that speed exposes flaws. You know, if your squad and X power cleaning bench everything's through the roof, but then you get into the field, whatever sport, it doesn't matter what sport, if you can't get to the bowl if you can't get to the player, doesn't matter. We all know that. I mean, that's kind of thing. Yeah. And any knucklehead can go out there and bench the world. But yeah. What will they ever touch? Put their hands on anyone? You know, that's the

Coach Bob King (02:55):

That's great, great point because speed separates levels. Right. And there I mean, there are kids and young athletes who are developing a skill it's undeniable, but then they run into somebody who has the equal skill they're faster. And that's what separates them.

Aaron King (03:10):

Yeah. And the breakaway speed and being able to not only get a get ahead but then stay ahead. You know, and I think back to some times when my numbers were good, either in the weight room or on the field it, obviously the health is a big factor. Cause sometimes I'd be crushing the weights, but maybe I'll be tweaking something. But really when we, when we take a step back and say, how can coaches and parents that are trying to help their child or athlete increase and improve their speed? Where's that cohesive kind of balance. So if you're starting from, so, you know, we're, we're trying to help the folks with this podcast, especially for the kind of the do-it-yourselfer that's out there trying to like get that edge. Where, where should their head be when they're trying to think about speed training?

Coach Bob King (03:53):

Well, you've got to a fundamental level, you've got to go with the biological aspect of it. So if you're 10, 11, 12, you just better learn the language of speed training and how the mechanics work. And you missed something on the way by a minute ago that I want to jump on is that, you know, the weight room numbers are good and the, and the strength is there. But what you run into a lot of times is you'll go out to a workout in a field or a track or somewhere. You'll see guys doing their drills and everything like that. And boy, I like to say the man they drill great, right? And that is so important to understand because if the drills don't translate over to the speed and what you're going to be doing at high speed, then when I say speed, exposes, flaws, those drills, just go out the window and you look like a train wreck.

Coach Bob King (04:35):

And now in the timeframe of biology, you're going to have 10 to 12, maybe 13, that's just learning. And what we say is we're training you how to train now, you know, those, those aspects of puberty when 13, 14, 15 started kicking in, it's a wide range there someday. It just, all of a sudden, all that speed training we've done early. When we think we should be doing it, it goes out the window because they hit 13, their long bones start growing their shoe size doubled overnight, and they can't walk and chew gum and you go see told you that can't make them faster, give me a year. And so that's, that's really the dilemma. Parents and coaches have to understand, don't quit, don't give up on it. Just keep moving forward. 16, 17. Now we really start seeing things change and that speed does improve. Right?

Aaron King (05:19):

Yeah. And so when you're ramping it up from that age, what kind of is that, that ramp up? So from that technical development into saying, okay, now we're gonna start loading the weight. You know, obviously, we always spend a lot of time teaching mechanics, teaching, just know the drill and know how to do the drill and that way when you load it's good. But what is that a kind of progression as you, as a teenage athlete develop?

Coach Bob King (05:43):

Well, the teenage athlete or anybody in that like we, we use tennis kind of around the number of safe places to start. We like to start the technique and the mechanics like I said already, but what we'll do is just keep watching and when they're starting kind of get it, it's really a bit emotional, a mental connection. They start to understand, Oh yeah, I see what we're trying to do. And I tell people all the time, the distance from the ear to the brain, to the foot is enormous. It's a long way to go. And so we still have to be able to get them to own the program that maturity just enough to own the program. So they know why they're doing what they're doing.

Aaron King (06:19):

Yeah. And so when, when we go from right now, it's, it's you know, fall. And so we'd be getting a lot of athletes coming on. They're trying to get ready for the winter and we're, we're getting ready to go into some holidays. You know, that wintertime is a lot of, a lot of weight room focus, folks and summer kind of has a, natural more conditioning and just cause it real-time. But not every athlete that we work with is these traditional sports over the seasons kind of year-round development. So if I'm a tennis player or you know, competing in another more individual sport, but we're talking about year-round development, you don't really have an offseason to focus on it. No.

Coach Bob King (06:57):

W w what's important to understand is that all the training elements are inter intertwined and are subject to the same laws of physical stress and training. That is why we cycle the speed too. We just don't do the same amount and distance and intensity of speed year-round, same principles in the weight room. You're going to blow something up and it's gonna, it's going to have a negative effect. Yeah.

Aaron King (07:19):

Not maintenance, you know, kind of separating also the stride and the quickness.

Coach Bob King (07:24):

Well, I was getting ready to hit onto that because we come back almost a day, one, a beginner speed in the, in kind of the offseason transition where we'll go a lot of zero to 10, our ladder or foot work, our hurdle stuff tends to dominate. We never get away from it. You never leave the basics. The fundamentals are always in play, but we just kind of shift more to that and use a little more variety in those, those tools, because we want to let you kind of recharge and refresh, let the nervous system kind of get ready for the next bout of extended training, where we start running out further,

Aaron King (07:56):

Talk a little bit in another podcast, more about the different types of sprinters and types of speed. There is. But for, for right now, you know, we're talking about why we focus on speed, why it's important, what is the challenges and why is it, you know, why, why is there such a lack of understanding of how to develop it? But yeah,

Coach Bob King (08:13):

It's so let me say this though. It takes so long to develop that speed. You know, how are you talking about 10 to 12 to 13 and 13 to 15 is, so now we're talking years. And if you decide when you're 17 as a junior in high school, you really want to barely, you are so far behind that speed may not come. We know it's there. We know we can bring it out, but if you wait, it's too late.

Aaron King (08:33):

Right. Right. Okay. So, you know, takeaways, practical takeaways for anyone listening what, what are some misconceptions that they can look for? So obviously we've kind of hit on. Yes, you can teach speed. But what are some misconceptions that you see? You know, cause I, I hear just talking online on the app and what not to, to athletes certain things they're doing that may not be as productive as they think they are, but what are some just glaring misconceptions that are just wrong?

Coach Bob King (09:05):

Well, the first thing that comes to my mind that is, is kind of just, Oh, irritates because it's not true. Well, I'm just a, don't fill in the blank with what you think you are and lock into that. Yeah. I'm not a sprinter, I'm not a long-distance person. I, and just whatever that is, and get over that, because I think we can teach the mechanics of that quick foot the mechanics of that good sprint technique, and the conditioning that gets you extended distances. So don't, don't fill in the blank with something that's not true. Right.

Aaron King (09:33):

And so the parent is working with their kid and they are, they're trying to,

Coach Bob King (09:38):

Okay, let me, I got the jump in right there because that is enormous. Okay. Okay. When you say a parent working with their kid and they're, if any of you out there listening, don't over-correct right. Don't over coach. That will be the biggest roadblock to that individual, that child learning, because, you know, we try to use language that communicates, like flush out the mistakes. Secondly, don't try to do everything in a session. Okay. And so if I may, it depends on the athlete's particular problems where I start, I may start at the head and work my way down that chain, or if it was just a glaring problem at the foot knee, hip area, I may concentrate on that ankle and foot until I get it cycling like I needed to, but you only need one or two things at a time because a lot of times, and we discovered this and just over the volume of training, you correct? One thing, it may just run up the chain and correct. A bunch of other,

Aaron King (10:28):

Yeah. I hear that a lot too when it's, it's always the first step, you know, we always step one and two are good. Three, four, five, six, seven, eight, and 10 would be good. And so for that parent that says, you know, you know, Jimmy needs to get off the ball load better. He's just a little slow, you know, Sally, she's just not quite getting to the ball, any names, but you know, they're, they're always looking for that first step and there's difference between the, and we'll talk about this later, but the difference between the types of sprinters, but developing that that's that short burst, you know, that that's straight strength, really the power. What a, what are you looking for? So if I got a young athlete,

Coach Bob King (11:05):

It's always the foot always, always foot now. What we always talk about, you mentioned a minute ago and we have two types of sports speed, really that separating that breakaway speed. And then the other end of it is the closing speed. And if I'm in the chase or in pursuit, I close on the, on the athlete or on the opponent. But if that foot swings low, when we have that saying low slow, and we'll keep the foot to the theme here, but that foot's just shuffles and swings low to the ground, you don't have a chance. So that's where a lot of our drills come from, pedal the bicycle pedal the tricycle, so that, that we can communicate what the foot is supposed to do to get faster, sooner or quicker pun intended. Yeah.

Aaron King (11:42):

And so some of this stuff we'll do is, you know, teaching starts from the very, very get-go. And so we'll go right into you know, working with the athlete and just, you know, watching, observing, but, you know, we're trying to help them do it yourself. Or like I said if you're out there training by yourself we always try to get the lead-up drills. It all starts with the warmup. So we're always developing from a comprehensive approach. Strength is included. But if you're really just trying to get faster on your own and improve your speed, you know, we're always going to start with the technical side of things, the pedal, the bicycle, those drills. So if you need that stuff, that's all available on the app, KingSportsTraining.com to create a free account and look around there. But anything else before we go is there anything that I missed and when we're talking about, because I might've just gone totally off course, cause I want to hit some of these like takeaways, but no,

Coach Bob King (12:35):

It's really, it goes back to you know, we, we say this all the time, especially the coaches and, and anybody that's in front of a group is you never go back to basics. Cause when you leave, you are in trouble. And so if you can, and we do that with all our athletes. I don't care if I have a pro in here, we go through the same warmup lead up because they need to know that that body has to do this to be fast and effective. So you're not looking to have one of those trains, like pro things you want to look, you want to do the fundamentals and basics because its mechanics produce efficiency. And so,

Aaron King (13:06):

All right, that's all the time we have today. So if you have any questions, make sure you tweet at me or message me @DeepSnap, coach Bob Kings @CoachBobKing And we'll get those questions answered. Talking about speed training, sports performance, see you next time.