Today, I wanted to share a speed training case study of one of our clients, Ethan Myers.  To some the title of this post might seem like I’m cutting him down, but I’m actually going to be doing quite the opposite.  By the end of the post, you will understand exactly what I’m talking about.

Ethan is a baseball player at a high school here in Columbus.  He is a senior this year and hopes to continue playing baseball in college.  He came to us in November 2011 and like a lot of athletes was hoping to get faster for his sport which was baseball.

Here are Ethan’s first testing numbers when he came to us:

  • 10 Yard Dash – 1.71
  • 20 Yard Dash – 3.08
  • 20 Yard Shuttle – 5.17
  • T – test – 8.67
  • Vertical Jump – 24″
  • Broad Jump – 7′ 4″ (this was first taken in December 2012)
  • Planks – 4:09

We have a record board that we post on our wall.  If you had told me that Ethan would have had a shot at any of those records, I would have said, “probably not.”  As of March 11, 2014, he has 5 of these 7 records for his age group.

How did Ethan improve his scores so much to set these records?

First thing I will say is yes, it has something to do with the fact that he is 2.5 years older now than when he started.  But, I don’t care who you are, that only accounts for a small fraction of the improvement.  I will touch on this a little later.  Here is the real reason that Ethan has transformed himself into such an explosive athlete.

Ethan Myers works as hard, if not harder, as any of my hardest working athletes I’ve ever trained.

He is constantly challenging us to challenge him.  On our plyometric drills, he wants to use the heaviest medicine ball we have and see if he can jump over the highest broomstick setting we can get.  He wants to cover our 50 foot space in as fewest horizontal jumps as possible, with the heaviest medicine ball.  This really tests his leg strength.

He may hate certain exercises, but he will do them.  Go heavier on the weight for Bulgarian squats.  He dares you.  This constant theme of hard work and pushing his body to the limits is what got him to where he is today.  We have to battle with him to hold back that intensity on weeks we want to go a little easier for recovery purposes.

Here is what his testing results showed when we took them in February 2014.

  • 10 Yard Dash – 1.43 (started at 1.71)
  • 20 Yard Dash – 2.63 facility record (started at 3.08)
  • 20 Yard Shuttle – 4.38 (started at 5.17)
  • T-test – 7.29 facility record (started at 8.67)
  • Vertical Jump – 33.6″ facility record (started at 24″)
  • Broad Jump – 9′ 7″ facility record (started at 7′ 4″)
  • Planks – 7:36 facility record (started at 4:09)

His initial numbers were alright as a sophomore, but he wasn’t going to light the world on fire.  You might be able to tell he had some fast twitch fibers, but you never know how an athlete is going to respond to training.  That is why I said he had no business being fast.  He wasn’t naturally superfast to begin with, but he made himself into a very explosive athlete.

30 inches is a benchmark for high school athletes to get in a vertical leap.  If you can get higher than 30 inches, you have some explosiveness.  He is at 33.6″ and in 2.5 years almost improved his vertical by 10 inches.  So, yes, he did get older and mature physically in those 2.5 years.  But, it is the combination of him getting older plus the hard work to challenge his body and constantly grow that got him his numbers.

Ethan’s willingness to work separates him from a lot of athletes.  Some are just talented and could get those numbers putting in a fraction of the work Ethan does.  If they had Ethan’s work ethic, who knows what they could do.  In my opinion, Ethan has put himself in that extraordinary group of athletes.

I’m sure as long as he is playing baseball that he will continue to challenge himself to be a better athlete.  It is easy for me to say that if YOU work as hard as Ethan does, you too could see big changes.  But, I know how hard Ethan worked.  Are you willing to make that sacrifice and do what it takes?  That is the question and only you can answer it.