What makes a faster football player?

What makes a faster football player?

There are many things that make a football player fast. Some of them directly affect speed others indirectly affect it.

The direct things are fitness and training. This is what I help you to improve as a coach. This includes strength, power, plyometrics, running mechanics, reaction times and endurance.

Within any training that involves either one or all of the types of training above there’s one thing that is required to make that training increase your speed. That thing is that you have to be working at high intensities on every rep.

To increase speed you have to push yourself to improve your maximum performance in any training or movement and that will improve your top speed. If you’re giving 80% on sprints in training then you’ll rarely improve your top speed, you’ll just get really good at running at 80%.

The next time you train for speed focus on maximum effort (100%) sprinting over 10-20 meters or when strength training lifting above 75% of your 1RM or 8RPE.

Part of that high intensity training is to rest in between. You can’t run at high intensities if you’re struggling for breathe and your legs feel like they’re made of concrete. You have to give yourself plenty of time to recover so the body can keep working at high intensities and effort.

There are lots of different things that need to be programmed in for a true speed session and that includes how the training is planned over 4, 8 or even 12 weeks.

If you want help in this go to the website and fill out a coaching form and let’s talk about how we can get you running faster on the pitch and make you a fitter, faster and better football player.

From coach Tom.