Can a drill and/or movement actually make you slower??
Doesn’t make sense does it? You would assume that any form of “speed” drill would in some way or another be beneficial, right? Wrong. Here’s why I have scrapped these two drills from my programming as I see little to no value in either of them in enhancing game speed.
First and foremost, every exercise and/or drill should always have a purpose and your coach should always have a specific reason as to why it is included in your programming. I always welcome questions to my programming as it gives me a chance to teach and educate my athletes. Second, I used to include both of these drills in my programs, specifically in my warm ups. It only took some anecdotal evidence, reported feedback, and research to realize these drills are actually ruining my athletes’ gains. I’m never ashamed to admit my past mistakes as I think it shows a sign of continuous growth. I would be concerned as an athlete to hire the coach who is set in their ways and closed off to new concepts as they may pose a threat to their identity or worse...they might actually have to admit they were wrong. Without further ado...our first drill:
1.) Butt kicks.
This is a movement that I used to include in my warm ups that I honestly never even understood why I did. It was just kind of there. “Okay now let’s go butt kicks down and back” is a phrase you hear on most fields across the country. Butt kicks in a warm up is almost at the point where it is just implied to do them because they’ve always been done. It’s like potato salad at a picnic, it’s always there for some reason but does anybody even eat that s@#t?! Time to toss the butt kicks to the trash right next to that warm bowl of soggy mayo potatoes (seriously who likes that stuff?) But why? Watch anybody run. Literally anybody. Even Tom Brady’s infamous 40 yard dash at the combine. At any point does that person kick their butt deliberately? If there was a loose ball going across the court and you were to go after it, is your natural instinct to kick your butt? I sure hope not. And if you are kicking your butt, I doubt you would be on the court in the first place... And what is the warm up drill that is usually proceeded by butt kicks? High knees. So first we kick our butt and then we focus on bringing the knees up? Seems counterintuitive. There is only one time I program butt kicks and that is with my athletes in therapy, specifically with my knee patients when reintroducing bipedal movement patterns. Outside of that, I find zero value in them and actually think it reinforces improper running mechanics. Which in turn can make you run inefficiently which in turn...makes you slower.
This next one may come as a shock but hear me out...
2.) High knees.
Okay before you bust out the pitch forks and torches and march towards my ivory tower of training, let me explain. Remember...don’t be the close minded individual unwilling to hear anything that doesn’t align with your personal views. Here’s my first major beef with high knees: it is WAY over cued. Want to run faster? Just bring your knees up. Running form is out of whack? Just get your knees up higher. Insert literally anything that has to do with correcting or teaching running? You guessed it...bring the knees up higher. If all you have is a hammer everything looks like a nail.
Before we go any further, let’s introduce a very important concept in regards to sprinting. Force is king. And if you remember our buddy Newton and his 3rd law: every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Force and sprinting begin to make a lot more sense and over cueing high knees little sense. When you sprint and the foot (the moving object) contacts the ground (the stationary object) there is a certain amount of force that is put into the ground. In return, the ground acts on the foot with the same force that the foot originally applied to it. Equal and opposite. The more force you put into the ground to counteract the force of gravity pulling your body back down to earth, the more it is going to propel your body and allow you to reach higher speeds. In a nutshell: more force more speed and less force less speed. Although, it isn’t necessarily this simple...but for the point of this post, this will suffice. Why is this important? What happens when you see coaches warming up their athletes with high knees? “Get the knees up! More more more! Get as many reps as possible!” Essentially what happens is you see athletes taking a ton of steps and not progressing forward at all. So you’re teaching them to move their legs quickly and move nowhere. Furthermore, the knees coming up when you run are a result of the ground reaction force. If you apply a lot of force into the ground, the knees will naturally come up because of Newton’s 3rd law. When you over cue athletes to pick their knees up excessively, you are discouraging the most important concept which is putting force into the ground. Once you understand this concept, you can watch an athlete run and easily see if they are being over cued to pick their knees up or if they are being properly cued to put force into the ground. The former looks forced and unnatural where as the latter looks fluid and athletic. High knees should be taught from the ground up, not the knees down.
This does not mean I don’t have my athletes do high knees though, because I do. However, I program them a little differently to capture the concept of force application. In effort to teach the athlete to put force into the ground, I only have my athletes perform high knees with band resistance. The band gives the athlete a resistance to try to “break through” which reinforces putting more force into the ground. This is why I cue my athletes to literally “break the band” when performing these. Not “more more more reps”.
So, there you have it. Two drills I have scrapped from my programming but are widely popular. I hope this challenged you to think outside of the norm and gave you greater insight into your own programming.
May the force be with you!
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