I get clients all the time who want to utilize our speed training program so that they can run faster on the playing field.  These same clients initially have no idea what the feeling is to win a race.  What the feeling is to run so much faster than your competition, it looks like they are in slow motion.

Do I think knowing what that feels like is a prerequisite to being a speed coach?  Not really, but it certainly doesn’t hurt.  I think an important part of the speed program I created is based on the fact that I’ve felt that feeling many times in my sporting endeavors.

Knowing what that feeling is has helped me to analyze what I’ve done before in my past to get to this point.  What were the training methods?  Was it all genetic?  Was it all hard work?  Were there certain exercises I’ve done that I think could help my athletes improve their speed?

Let me share a few examples with you and then I think I can answer the question.  These are all memories from my athletic performances from high school and beyond.  Understand, I wasn’t a sprinter at the world class level, but my speed took me to places I probably wouldn’t have accomplished otherwise:

  • Do you know the feeling of running a deep post route in football and as you are sprinting for the ball, a wider and wider gap is developing between you and your defender, completing the catch and scoring a touchdown?
  • How about the feeling knowing if you are a quarterback and the defensive end is rushing, you have the speed to get around the defensive end and buy yourself enough time to complete a pass?
  • Using your speed, have you been able to get back to defend a fastbreak in basketball and have the leaping ability to pin a shot against the backboard?
  • Do you know what it feels like to dunk a basketball on a 10 foot rim?
  • Or how about the ability to have an alley oop to you in basketball?  I never completed a dunking one in a game (only screwing around), but was able to get up to the rim, catch the pass, and drop it in.
  • The ability to hit a softball into the gap so it goes towards the wall, round the bases for a home run, before the ball ever gets thrown back into the infield.
  • My speed and jumping ability got me many awards and medals in track, culminating onto the podium for the Ohio State Track and Field Championships.

I know the feeling for all those items.  It is an awesome weapon to have.  Most of the time, you feel like you are running so effortlessly.  There were times that I competed against faster opponents so I know the other end of the spectrum.  One quarterback was so fast, the ground shook when he ran.  I was running so hard to catch him, I felt out of control.  I dove to tackle him and was able to grab his flag for the tackle (this was in my early thirties playing flag football).

I’m trying to get you fast enough where you feel the former.  You want to be moving fast and hard, but it seems effortless.

So here’s my point to all this.  My training focuses on one thing – getting you faster.  Whatever I need to do mechanically, strength wise, power wise, whatever it is, I can get you faster.  I was fast, I’m still fast for my age, and I’ve lived it.  I will provide you with the tools to get faster.

Now, I know about other aspects of lifting and could probably help you there, but I don’t have experience in some of those areas.  For example, I’ve read all sorts of articles about bodybuilding routines, but I’ve never competed.  Could I train you to be a bodybuilder?  Possibly, but that isn’t my niche so I don’t try to.

I’ve watched those strongman competitions.  I’ve never competed.  I could possibly put together a routine, but wouldn’t you want a routine from someone who has been through that?  Someone who knows what it feels like to lift those rocks and throw the kegs?  I would.

If you need to get faster, wouldn’t you want to be taught by someone who was fast?  Someone who knows what it feels to run fast and leave your opponents in the dust because they are slower than you?  Someone who has been teaching speed to athletes young and old for over 18 years?  If you do, then maybe I’m your man.

To answer the initial question, I think my experiences with everything I’ve talked about is my speed program.  My own experiments with my workouts to see how I can run faster and stay injury free.  My talkings with not only my track coach, but other speed coaches out there to learn their philosophies, take what I like, and discard the rest.

Mix all that up and you get my speed program, which I’m constantly tweaking and improving.  Obviously, there are great speed coaches out there who haven’t had some of those experiences I’ve had.  But, like I stated earlier, if I wanted someone to teach me how to be fast, I might give that slight edge to the person who has run fast before and wants me to have that same ability.