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speed drills

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by NumeroUno » Tue Aug 26, 2008 9:55 pm

What are some of the best ways to improve speed?

Is their ways to make slow kids faster?
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by 3Bsnag » Wed Aug 27, 2008 12:00 am

You can absolutely make a slow kid faster in just a few short weeks. For the past 2 summers, mine has done a 3 week speed/agility camp and it's helped tremendously. Not that she's super fast and she will never be that kid who runs H to H in 11 seconds, but she's in the 2.95 to 3.03 range from H to 1st. Trust me, that's a huge improvement from where she was.

Here's what I noticed from their training (assuming the kid does not have weight issues)
1. Technique- how to take off, using balls of feet, correct arm movement, posture, etc
2. Lots of core work, mostly with weighted balls
3. parachutes, cones, and all the other SPARQ gadgets
4. fun games that require short bursts of speed, like "man in the middle" and flag football
5. every day had short (20-30 min) of weights/strength training

IMO, a small part of what made her take it more seriously was that she wasn't in there with girls she already knew. The "I'm better than you" girl thing proved to be good for her training.

As a last side note, if I had to do this all over again, I would have encouraged her to play at least rec soccer. Man those girls can fly!
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by papabird » Wed Aug 27, 2008 8:54 am

My daughter is tall (16) and this summer we hired a plyometrics (?) instructor. Every week he focus on something different. Week 1, Running, Week 2, side to side.

He breaks everything down to the core, for instance, running, she does little exercised, ankles, calves, etc etc to train and stregnthen and the maintain correct form. After the first week, her straightline speed increased tremendously. He confidence went way up. We do the drills almost everynight.

The other good thing, is we meet him at a park and do everything there, no gym required.

These trypes of things are great to help your daughter be more athletic and seperate her from the rest of the girls.

On a side note, at her teams tryout (even returning player had to try out and earn there spots) some of the girls were a little lazy (wow it has been 2 weeks since nationals) but the coaches immediately noticed her focus and speed.
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