People get dejected when I tell them I improved their 10 yard dash time by a tenth of a second. Do you realize that if you were to run against your old self, you would beat your old self by a little bit over 2 feet (25 inches)?  

This could be the difference between out and safe at first. Missing a deep bomb or getting your fingers on the football and hauling it in. So a tenth of a second is a big improvement.

I think what confuses people is the fact that somewhere they’ve seen a website that will suggest you can improve your time by seconds, minutes, or hours. Of course this all depends on the distance you are talking about, but a tenth of a second for a 10 yard dash is great!

Same goes for the vertical jump. “Get 10 inches on your vertical jump doing this method.” If you improve your vertical jump by 10 inches, you were either an untrained athlete or you were doing everything absolutely right in your training with the perfect mix of plyos, strength training, and “supplements.”

I’m going to go over a few of our athletes (I’m excluding their last names because I can’t remember if they said it was OK to share their test results) and their improvements over a three month period. Overall, I feel that these will be your average improvements for athletes who are junior high to high school age and getting in training 2 maybe 3 times a week due to their busy schedules.

Tye is a seventh grader who plays football and runs track. After just talking about vertical jump improvements, you will notice his improved by almost 7 inches. That is rare, especially for someone his age. We had Tye on a plyometric program and did do some basic strength training for his legs and core.

  • 10 Yard Dash – 1.84 to 1.73, .11 seconds improvement
  • 20 Yard Dash – 3.20 to 3.05, .15 seconds improvement
  • 20 Yard Shuttle – 5.66 to 5.26, .40 seconds improvement
  • Vertical Jump – 19.4” to 26.1”, 6.7” improvement
  • Standing Broad Jump – 77” to 84”, 7” improvement
  • Planks – Went from holding the plank for 53 seconds to 135 seconds, 82 seconds improvement

Zach is a high school football player who has the potential to play collegiately. He plays defensive end and is a big boy. He is on a weightlifting program through his school, so all we did was complement it with a few posterior leg exercises, but then mixed in our plyometrics and resistance running. Since his body is used to lifting and plyos, you really need to fine-tune your training with him to make sure his body will respond the way we want it to. As you can see by his results, it did.

  • 10 Yard Dash – 1.61 to 1.57, .04 seconds improvement (The time is taken with a video app to get it down as precise as possible.)
  • 20 Yard Dash – 2.76 to 1.66, .10 seconds improvement
  • 20 Yard Shuttle – 4.92 to 4.67, .25 seconds improvement
  • T-Test – 8.21 to 7.37, .84 seconds improvement
  • Vertical Jump – 28.8” to 31”, 2.2” improvement
  • Standing Broad Jump – 104.5” to 116”, 11.5” improvement

Joey is a junior high soccer player who hadn’t done any strength training before. An untrained athlete, he was ripe for a great response if we did the program right. And we did.

  • 10 Yard Dash – 2.03 to 1.83, .20 seconds improvement (This would be hard for someone like Zach to get based on Zach’s experience and where he was starting at, but awesome for Joey.)
  • 20 Yard Dash – 3.69 to 3.43, .26 seconds improvement
  • 20 Yard Shuttle – 5.82 to 5.16, .66 seconds improvement (Another great improvement!)
  • Vertical Jump – 15.3” to 18.7”, 3.4” improvement
  • Standing Broad Jump – 63” to 76”, 13” improvement
  • Planks – 112 seconds to 150 seconds, 38 second improvement

Anne is an 8th grade track girl who wanted to get faster for track season. And we did help her do that as she got PR’s in her events. She probably would have gotten faster just by being a year older, but having worked with track athletes her age that doesn’t necessarily always happen.

  • 10 Yard Dash – 1.89 to 1.81, .08 seconds improvement
  • 20 Yard Dash – 3.26 to 3.14, .12 seconds improvement
  • Vertical Jump – 19.1” to 22”, 2.9” improvement
  • Standing Broad Jump – 66” to 76”, 10” improvement
  • Planks – 72 seconds to 110 seconds, 38 seconds improvement

Finally, Sydney is an 8th grade soccer player, who has had some bad luck with knee injuries. She needed to improve her strength around the knee to help her get faster, stronger, but also build her confidence. She did a bang out job. After 3 months of work doing the same thing as the others – plyos, some lifting, mechanical changes – this is where we got her:

  • 10 Yard Dash – 2.01 to 1.84, .17 seconds improvement
  • 20 Yard Dash – 3.71 to 3.34, .37 seconds improvement
  • 20 Yard Shuttle – 5.74 to 5.19, .55 seconds improvement
  • Vertical Jump – 15.6” to 19.6”, 4” improvement
  • Standing Broad Jump – 63” to 79”, 16” improvement
  • Planks – 102 seconds to 465 seconds, WOWW!!!!

What I’m trying to show you is that athletes of all ages can start a speed/strength program and see improvements. How much of an improvement is very dependent on the athlete’s physical maturity and how conditioned they have been to any training like this before.

So Zach’s improvement in the 10 yard dash (.04 seconds) might have been a big deal since he has been really conditioned to training and he is going to make smaller gains. But, if Joey had that same improvement, it might have been a reflection that his training should have been better.

At the end of the day, showing you these improvements was to give you an idea what you can realistically expect over the course of a 3 month training cycle. If it seems too good to be true, then it probably is. Take a peek at these results the next time you are promised big gains and then make a call if that program will be worth it.

Photo courtesy of Official U.S Navy Page on Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/usnavy/