At Atlas High Performance, our Speed School sessions are all about getting athletes faster, more confident, better able to change direction and also improving their movement abilities on the pitch. We've taken the best parts of coaches like Les Spellman, Tony Holler and the guys at Speedworks and structured our sessions around that to give young athletes exposure to the best programme you can find. Here are 5 of our top exercises for increasing sprint speed and learning how to accelerate better.

After discussing energy systems as a whole and briefly introducing the phosphagen system - read about it again here if you missed it - we move onto part 2. This, in my own opinion is where things get confusing. Our main priority here will be to introduce the glycolytic system. This series of reactions happens WITHOUT the presence of oxygen. Here's where we introduce the famed lactate for the first time properly and talk about it - it is your friend not your enemy. If you can get a handle on this section, the rest of it is easy. This article is a bit biochemistry heavy so if you're not a fan of it, I suggest you look away now!

To be fit - "of a suitable quality, standard, or type to meet the required purpose" . So, before we can think about getting fitter, we must first define the required purpose effectively.

As a strength and conditioning coach & sport scientist, I'm well aware that people perceive my main role within a sports team or with a client is to improve 'fitness'. While this is true, the term fitness itself means so much more. Very rarely do people specify which part of fitness they want to improve or how they are going to do it. Getting stronger, faster, leaner, more powerful could also classify as getting fitter. For the most part though, and it's going to make up the majority of this article, we'll be talking about the commonly thought about 'fit'. Being able to run further, being able to run faster for longer, being able to do something for longer before being tired, also known as 'work capacity'. What is it, how do we define it properly but most importantly, how can we train it properly.

If there's a silver lining to be found in anything, I'll find it. Having the extra bit of time during lockdown has been a god send for me (and you). Extra time to absolutely nerd out on reading research papers and brush up on some of the stuff that I haven't particularly looked at in quite a while. Recently I've been looking into isometric muscle contractions and their role in maintaining/developing strength and including them in a programme with plyometrics and speed work. No matter how far I go down the rabbit hole , it all ends up back in one place, The Brain & The Nervous System. In  reality, when we talk about sports performance from a physical and a technical/tactical perspective we can't get away from the fact that The Brain rules everything. This article should help shed some light on that!

In the majority of field sports, the victor is usually the athlete who can get from A to B in the shortest time possible. Being able to get to the ball before your opponent, getting into position quicker, making a 40 yard defensive run to win back possession, all critical moments in a game. These are the moments that can decide whether you're on the winning or losing side, I know which side I'd prefer to be on. Understanding how different factors can affect your overall speed is crucial for developing an effective training programme.

The second most important thing to understand is that there are vast difference between elite level sprinters and field sports athletes. Think about the amount of times that you will reach top end speeds? The likelihood is that you probably won't, and if you do, it will probably be because someone made a mistake on the pitch and you're bustin' your ass to try and recover for them. Everybody remember the time Cristiano Ronaldo raced a Spanish sprinter and was quicker than him around slalom poles? Is Ronaldo quicker than the sprinter? No he's not. But is he more efficient at accelerating, decelerating quickly and then accelerating again? Absolutely yes, and it's what makes him one of the best athletes in the world. Anyways, the point is, that instead of looking at top end speed improvement, the majority of your focus should be in the acceleration phase of sprinting. Everything less than 40m should become your sole focus. Anything outside of that would be a waste of precious training time to produce meaningful improvements in your specific sport. Accelerating, decelerating and changing direction is what will determine your success in your chosen sport. Not becoming a world class elite sprinter.

Now that that little introduction is out of the way, we can get into the meat of the dish. What factors affect our ability to accelerate quickly, what can we affect and what can't we?

Injuries are the worst - at least for those of you who are consistently active and train regularly. It might be an over-exaggeration but that's how it feels. Obviously, there are many things happening in the world on a daily basis that are far worse than being injured for a smaller period of time, but we tend to not think like that.

82 Days & Counting​