Here is part 2 of my QnA with Mark Watts, the director of strength and conditioning for Denison University.  He had some great information to give in the first part and I think you are going to enjoy these last answers he gave.    I saw Mark this past weekend as he hosted the Central Ohio Strength and Conditioning Clinic and things couldn’t be better for him.   Take a read and feel free to post your comments below.

What is the one thing you think a speed program absolutely has to have to be successful?  Why?

At the collegiate age:  Competition.  I feel the best way to help an athlete improve their speed is to put them into competitive situations when sprinting.  We place our athletes in speed groups and make them sprint a certain distance.  We always call out a winner and adjust groups accordingly.

In your field, you have the opportunities to work with all sorts of incredible athletes.  Is there one athlete that really stands out from the rest, not only because of the athletic ability, but work ethic?

I have been blessed to have worked with athletes at all 3 levels that have achieved a great deal.  Several athletes I have had the pleasure to work with have been drafted in the NFL and MLB.  One of the best athletes I have worked with is also a tremendous strength & conditioning coach, Derek Fry.  Derek was one of the best Division III football players I have coached.  He was an NSCA All-American, has qualified for the Pan-Am games in Olympic Weightlifting, and was a funded athlete with USA Bobsled/ Skeleton.

What is the best thing you like about your job?

Being a college strength & conditioning coach is the best job I could have.  It is the perfect job for my personality, strengths, etc.  It can also be one of the worst professions.  The pay, the hours, the assumed irrelevance from some and the over-hyped importance by others.  With that being said, I love being a College Strength Coach for the 3 words in the title:

College – I sincerely feel most young people develop into the person they are going to be in life while in college.  I feel between 17 and 22 is an incredibly important time period.  My personality definitely helps me relate to people of this age.

Strength – In sports today, far more things are objective than subjective.  Numbers don’t lie, especially in the weight room.  The weight weighs the same for everyone and it has and will always weigh the same.  You can’t hide from the numbers.

Coach – Coaching is Teaching and there is nothing better.  Young coaches miss the boat on this sometime.  People don’t become a teachers because they love kids.  After a day of teaching, you may not like kids as much. Become a teacher because you love teaching.  No different for a coach.  Don’t get into this business because you love working out. You have to love teaching, coaching and mentoring.

Anything else you want to add about speed training, your job, etc.?

I guess I would go with my top 5 reasons athletes are slow.  I’m making these up as I go so, bear with me.  Maybe a future article.

5.) Poor Running Form

—- This is pretty obvious but the problem lies in at what age you actually start with speed mechanics. At the college level , you have several factors against you.  Most research would indicate that although you can improve the inter-muscular coordination and neurological efficiency; there is not much you can do to change muscle fiber-type configuration and trainability for the neurological system decreased after puberty. The prime window for training is between 7 or 8 and puberty.  With this being said, by the time athletes get to college, speed mechanics, whether good or poor, are ingrained in the athlete.  It is difficult to fix mechanical discrepancies, but the effort must be made to improve.

4.) Tight Hip Flexors

—-  This seems to be an issue with a great number of college athletes and it stems from the same issue as anterior vs. posterior muscle imbalances.  What is sometimes referred to as an anterior pelvic tilt in which the hip flexors pull down on the front of the pelvis and the glutes and hamstrings are not strong enough to pull the pelvis back in alignment.  Mike Robertson explains this very well in his article “Hips Don’t Lie:  Fixing your Force Couples.”  Basically, tight hip flexors limit the range an athlete can triple extend, thus inhibiting stride length.  Tight hip-flexors also mean that the antagonists (hamstrings) are elongated and have a greater chance of injury.

3.) Poor Body Composition

—-  Fat people and skinny-fat people are not fast.  Regardless of sport or position.  Elite sprinters are muscular and have low body-fat.  That is all.

2.) Not Sprinting Full Speed

—-  Don’t let your linear speed work and your conditioning become one in the same.  Sometimes, we coaches think that more is better and rest is bad.  Ensure that athletes have enough rest in between sprints and keeping the total volume reasonable.  Whether it be too many sprints or not enough rest in between sprints, both can have a negative effect of performance. Remember, if you are not running full speed, you are not developing speed.

1.) Being Weak (especially in the glutes & hamstrings)

—-   Being strong means moving more efficiently.  Sprinting, planting, and changing direction are all based on the athletes ability to either a.) rapidly decelerate force when stopping and b.) explosively applying force against the ground when accelerating.  Verkoshansky has stated that strength is the one fitness quality that all other qualities are based on.  Being strong, especially in relation to your bodyweight, directly correlates to sprinting speed when all other factor are equal.