hey what's up everyone morey croson here and one of the main things i do here at the performance
lab is help people in getting faster and so today i thought i would go through my step-by-step
process and exactly what i do when i have somebody that comes in with the main goal of trying to get
faster and hopefully by being able to see my process that will give you a little bit more
of an understanding of what you can do in order to either get faster or get your clients faster
in a very consistent manner and so as always if you like the information go ahead and like
the video down below if you have any questions or comments you can go ahead and leave that down in
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really really appreciative from our side and we'll go ahead and hop in the video right now
okay so the first step in really probably the most important step and something that i think
is missed a lot of times by you know coaches or athletes is just going through a general movement
assessment and these movements are very simple in nature they're they're different shoulder
range of motion tests fine range of motion tests there are squats single leg squats different types
of jumps different types of lateral stability test for where you have to land and just overall
balance and what this does is it gives a great understanding from a overall athlete perspective
in where they're at what is the overall capability of the athlete that you're working with and some
of the main things i'm looking for is fine range of motion just because if the spine is lacking the
necessary range it needs in order to perform that ends up being a big hindrance in obvious overall
performance and will also really put the athlete at risk for having some type of injury as they're
working with you the next big thing i would say is going to be balance and making sure that that
is locked in once an athlete's out of balance it's going to again make a big impact on their ability
to perform and also increase the likelihood of them getting injured asymmetries are another big
thing so if they're able to work really well on the right leg and then not well on the left leg
or vice versa or if there's a certain joint that ends up not being able to work effectively that's
again going to put a big hamper on your ability to make results as fast as you can another thing
is power production so overall when it comes to athlete that's trying to sprint at a high velocity
if they don't have the necessary power production to get there we want to be able to get a clear
understanding of exactly what it is that we need to change up the next is going to be the ability
to just bend at the ankle of the knee at the hip and the back where in many more places really but
those are going to be the main places and where does the athlete really lean on to create a bend
are they more of a hip hinge type of an athlete or more of a knee bend type of an athlete and how is
that impacting their anatomy and then how can we make changes within the programming to be able to
make sure that we're leaning on their strengths but also addressing their weaknesses is there any
compensation that's happening from maybe one joint maybe one leg maybe you know using some part of uh
maybe their quads or their hip flexors instead of using their glutes uh and hamstrings you know is
there anything like that that's happening we want to be able to identify that and address that and
then the last thing lateral stability is there any type of pronation happening is there any
type of valgus happening how well is the athlete able to just control themselves in space okay
part two is gonna be gate or walking mechanics and notice here that with helping somebody get faster
in the first two parts we haven't even had them sprint yet so um looking at the walking mechanics
there's a couple basics that we want to be able to understand first is going to be the different
phases of the actual mechanics so there's going to be a foot strike there's going to be a suspension
phase there's going to be a transition phase there's going to be a shift there's going to be
a propulsion and then there's going to be a swing the foot strikes obviously when the foot first
hits the ground and the swing is going to be when the foot is off the ground and then the suspension
so these four parts are when the foot is actually on the ground they're very very important to be
able to understand what should be happening when we're looking at the game mechanics so how well
is the person able to actually kind of transition or load onto that that foot um is that suspension
phase and then yeah in the transition phase is going to be how well can they absorb that weight
then be able to transition it from one part of the foot to the other and then how well can they
shift now they're going to begin to shift their weight forward and then propulsion is going to
be actually pushing off and so just being able to see the ranges as the body is able to go from
these different phases and how well the the body's actually able to to do that on one side compared
to the other and again is there any different types of compensation so that's where the
timing and the ability ends up being very very important here and really there's going to be
three key movements that we're looking for so when the and that's where the l and the r
comes so when let's say the left foot is striking the right foot should be shifting when the left
foot is suspending the right foot should be um proposing or pushing off and then when the left
foot is transitioning the right foot should be in the swing phase so you know just being able
to again make sure the timing is right here in these three different phases that making sure
that when this is happening this is happening when this is happening this is happening so uh you want
to have a good balance of exactly what needs to be happening within the body in order to ensure that
the correct mechanics are happening and if there's any type of compensation here
there's any different types of issues then being able to address that notice that just
make sure that we have a keen sense of exactly what's going on within the athlete in order to
make sure again that there are going to be healthy primarily so this is really mostly
injury prevention here just because again for when we go with sprinters we want to make sure
that they're going to stay healthy the worst thing that could happen is some type of you
know hamstring injury groin injury that just puts you out for weeks because now it's hard to get you
back okay so part three is going to be actual sprint mechanics so when we're looking at
somebody sprinting some of the key things that we want to make sure that the athlete is able to
maintain and achieve is going to be adequate foot contact time so typically we want to be in about
0.1 here turnover speed so making sure that the legs are able to turn over pretty effectively
when we're looking at turnover speed it wants to be somewhere between you know 0.3 to 0.36
depending on the height of the athlete and so you know really most people are going to be closer and
closer to point three when somebody gets taller you can get closer closer to point three six but
again point point three is really going to be the goal for both that most athletes in terms
of turnover speed hip flexion angle how high are you able to get your knee when you're sprinting
we don't want to end up having somebody that gets their knee too low as they're going through the
actual top end speed but you also don't want to end up getting your knees too high or getting too
stuck in knee flexion so making sure or sorry hip flexion so making sure that's good the ability to
access ankle knee hip and back extension so how well are you able to get up onto your toes when
you're going and pushing off how well you're able to extend to the knee especially during the start
phases that's really when it's important to be able to extend through the knee and then hip and
back is going to be most important when you're in top end speed and how well you're able to access
those hamstrings glute lower back muscles is going to be based off of how well you're able to
extend in those areas and really this goes a lot into the flexibility of the athlete and ability to
actually achieve achieve active ranges of motion which is very very important when it comes to
sprinting just because you know there's so much power so much strength within sprinters that if
they lack any type of flexibility or mobility you can really see that in that top end speed
and their ability to hold top end speed for a long period of time next thing's gonna be posture
a lot of athletes just lose their ability to maintain top end speed or get to top end speed
because of the loss of posture so just being able to stick to a specific posture that is with the
start that's with the transition that's with the top end speed most times posture really impacts
people again with the start and the transition but we also see people that are not able to achieve
their best top end speed because of a lack of good strong posture next thing is arm swing or you lose
them somewhere within the arms when it gets to more advanced athletes the arm swing doesn't
seem to be as big of a thing but there's a lot of athletes that also struggle with being able to
get a very very active arm screen that's helping them and running faster a lot of times people will
get to a certain speed and will not be able to get over that speed because of the the lack of ability
to maintain a great arm swing and i can fall um into that category as well in a lot of senses so
that's a super important one to address especially because it could be something that that prevents
you from getting to that next level of speed that you might be looking to achieve the last
thing is going to be your breathing patterns how well are you able to stay consistent with
your breathing and is there anything within your breathing patterns that are is holding you back
from a sprinting perspective is something that we really want to look into won't really want to be
able to understand so these are the seven as i call them in terms of being able to understand
what are the the main thing within 3d mechanics that we're looking at and i think these are going
to be the most important seven things that you got to be able to accomplish in order to run
faster and achieve top speed the last two here i ended up putting together because i think they're
probably the most important things that you need to be able to do in order to and really improve
your speed and so those go into a training program and uh proper nutrition or diet for the training
program what i really put a big focus on is going to be core strength it's going to be hamstring
strength and it's going to be lower leg strength and if you're not able to really build yourself up
in those three areas it's really difficult to be able to make consistent improvements within your
speed and so making sure that you're always making specific goals and specific gains in those three
areas is super super important as a sprinter so i highly highly recommend you always working and
the things that i would say are probably the in order of the the least train is going to be lower
leg strength is probably the most overlooked thing um and then core strength and then hamstrings so
there's a lot of people that i know that that will work a lot on deadlifts and different things to be
able to build the hamstrings i still think that the nordic hamstring curl is the best way to be
able to build that strength and then there's a lot of people and that just goes into a lot of times
building up like um you know with you do deadlifts it's going to be a lot more lower back focus
but there's going to be some hamstring strength as well and so you want to make sure that you have
uh the strength within your lower back which is important but you also want to make sure you have
the strength within the obliques and within all the different parts of your abdomen in order to
really maintain a high level of production from a sprinter perspective and then we go into the lower
leg strength and making sure that you're building up the anterior tibialis you're building up all
the different muscles that go through extension within the lower leg and then also making sure
that you're building up the muscles within the foot the range is within the foot the big toe
again that's the most overlooked thing is going to be that lower leg strength so making sure that
you address that is super important next big thing is going to be plyometrics making sure that you're
landing and you're doing single leg jumps and single leg bounds and power skips and different
things that are going to help you in building overall force production power production out of
your lower body is going to be built through the plyometrics balance that goes into control that
goes into landing that goes into overall building of strength you're not going to be able to
achieve your maximum strength outputs if you don't have a balance within your body and so
being able to achieve better and better balance is going to make it so you can become stronger as
a athlete and also more powerful as an athlete and then different sprint variations so making sure
and different sprint drills so you know doing downhill sprints uphill sprints sled starts
top end speed development and all the different things that go in between working on specific
drills that may be able to help you whether it's different types of wall drills whether it's
you know different things that will help you and getting a better push off and making sure that
you're landing correctly whatever you need to do from a specific framework to be able to make
sure that your sprinting mechanics are improving and your ability to achieve a higher speeds of
improvement so i'm always looking to see what are the big things i need to work on is it lower leg
is it core is it you know what part of it is it turnover is a contact time and then i add those
variation or drills into my actual workouts and then also the nutrition and the diet again this
is going to be a super important part depending on who you talk to um you know they talk about
how diet is somewhere between 70 to 90 percent of your overall fitness and so um the the people that
are able to sprint the fastest in the world are also in the best shape and have their bodies so
well uh refined that they're able to actually produce that amount of force and so if if fitness
comes from 70 to 90 percent of your diet and your nutrition then obviously that's going to be a
super important part in being able to achieve your best overall potential and so making sure that you
have the the right protein sources i'm always changing up where i'm getting my protein from
uh whether it's chicken or turkey or fish or you know beef and and red meat uh so just making sure
that you're getting different types of protein sources and you're getting protein in each one
of your your meals adequate amounts of fat and the correct fats right so avocados and nuts and and um
the right types of butter can all be great sources of fat and then also healthy carbs those things
that are more vegetables and fruits you have to have a lot of vegetables a lot of fruits in order
to actually get the amount of carbs that you're looking for where if you have rice and spaghetti
and things like that you don't need very much in order to actually achieve the amount of carbs
that you're looking to do so a lot of times people will over eat the the carbs because they're eating
unhealthy carbs but will under eat the amount of healthy carbs that they need in order to
make specific gains within their ability to achieve maximum amounts of fitness and
really have the right amount of energy in order to achieve higher amounts of fitness
next is going to go into and i know you know nutrition diet doesn't necessarily go into this
but i still think it's super important to consider is having specific times that you're consistently
training and specific times of your specific that you're you're actually eating and getting on some
type of regimen for that i think is really really important as an athlete you don't want to just be
you know sometimes training at 6 00 a.m sometimes training at 10 sometimes training at
10 p.m um you want to be you don't want to be too all over the place you want to be pretty specific
and how you're eating and or when you're eating and when you're trained just to give your body
the right time periods to be able to recover and the right time periods to be ready to actually
work out next is going to be sleeping patterns just making sure that you're staying consistent
with when it is that you you go to sleep when it is that you wake up that gives you again
your body the right type of capability and being able to recover and so if you end up
you know being very inconsistent with your sleeping that will really have a big impact on
your recovery which will then make it so you don't get the most out of each one of your workouts
and then just being consistent with your rest and recovery so um you know some people will
take a day a week some people will take a couple days a week however it ends up working for you
um and how how hard you're pushing yourself just making sure that you're able to get some type of
recovery in there you don't want to be always going going going going or else you're going
to end up over training so you have to have some time to be able to recover but it's going to be
different for everybody there will be times where i'll push myself for two or three weeks in a row
and then take a couple days off after that or you know just go with one day where i'm going
to just rest every every week and just making that a consistent thing so just make sure that you're
able to have some type of plan behind this you're not going and just winging it here we'll make sure
that you're able to get the best results out of your training program and get the best results
for your athletes alright thanks for watching the video if you have any questions or comments go
ahead and leave that down below or if you have any recommendations for what type of videos you'd like
to see in the future you can again leave those in the comments down below in the description we have
a few different things that should be able to help you out if you're looking to get faster we have
some things that will help you in the breakdowns and just being able to get an analysis on your
sprinting mechanics we have an actual speed program that has training it has nutrition
has everything that you need that will help you in being able to get to the next level
within your sprinting uh we also have a few different ebooks and things like that that
could help you if you're just looking for a better understanding of what we do here to perform plans
that's all down in the description down below and if you want to look a little bit more in
or have any questions for me or want to look more into the company um we have the website
down below where you can contact us and also see a little bit more of what are some of the things
that we offer so as always thanks for watching these videos guys and we'll talk to you soon