Optimizing Speed: Training to Steal Bases with Indiana Softball
Optimizing Speed: Training to Steal Bases with Indiana Softball
As an Athletic Performance Coach, I am fascinated by questions. Not because I like to ask a boat load of them, mostly because they lead to THE PROCESS. The Process is my profession. It’s asking the right questions, and developing the plan to find the answers. The process is why I wake up every day, and being a professional in a science based field means, that there will always be questions to ask, and there will always be a process that it takes to find the answer. Of course with every question, there is always research, methods or tactics that professionals have used to find the answers and that is the best place to start. The longer I have been in the athletic performance field the more I have realized it’s not about re-inventing the wheel, it’s about taking that wheel and finding ways for it to spin more efficiently. It’s about measuring, testing and evaluating and continually progressing on what you have learned. In today’s article I want to talk about the “wheel” and how I have helped it spin, through my speed programming for Indiana Softball.
When you watch the Indiana Softball team take the field, what you are witnessing is something different. It’s an incredibly aggressive, small ball approach. From the outside looking it, it may look like chaos, but if you’re in the dugout looking out, what you know it is all part of the plan. Our team takes bases, I would use the term “steal “, but that implies that your lose something without with knowledge that is going to happen. After watching Shonda Stanton’s offense through the years, one thing is for certain everybody knows it’s coming; she just keeps getting better at creative and innovative approaches to take bags from teams throughout the country.
When accessing the need of the Indiana Softball team in the approach of our weight room training, the trait the pops out, screaming with red sirens flashing is SPEED. That is absolutely essential to keep this team doing what is does best. Year after year we continued to break school records and rank nationally in stolen bases, so the questions that I ask myself after each offseason is, how do we get faster?
That is where my yearly programming starts, and in this article I am going to give you the skeleton how I give our softball athletes the competitive advantage here at Indiana University. The first step to any successful training cycle is a pre-test/post-test. If you are not measuring your progress, you are doing yourself and your athletes a disservice. The test that I use here at Indiana is the 20 yard Sprint. For me here at Indiana this test has been gold. For one it tells me how fast an athlete can get from base to the next (sport specificity). Two, it allows me to see what area of “speed” the athlete need to work on. Three, it determines how my athlete trains in the weight room.
We will start at one; this one is pretty self-exclamatory. How do I know that I’m doing my job as an Athletic Performance Professional? But having hard evidence that I am increasing my athlete’s ability to get from one bag to the next. At the end of the day that is what is most important. Yes, I do know that there are a lot of other factors that tie into base running that I can’t measure, but knowing that I decreased this time, allows both me and the athlete to know, there is new confidence and numbers to show they can get to that bag FASTER than they did in the previous year.
Moving on, looking at number two: it allows me to focus on what specific area that my athlete needs to work on, in terms of sprinting. During this 20 yard time, I measure the athletes 0-10 yard split, as well as their 10-20 yard sprint. So in this one run I am not only get how fast my athlete can accelerate, I am also getting a 10 yard Fly (max velocity) number as well. Depending on which of the two is the higher number, determines my athlete’s area of need. Lower acceleration time and high 10 yard fly time means, my athlete need to work on top end speed. Higher acceleration time, and lower 10 yard fly time determines that my athlete’s area of need is acceleration. Over the span of the training week I categorize my athletes in two groups, and that is the area where we work in terms of speed training. The athletes either work on top end speed or acceleration. The goal is to get every athlete 20-30 reps of sprinting each week, micro-dosing it into every training session, keeping our focus on quality work over quantity. There are times where the quantity is a good thing, but in this case the goal is to train speed so that is always in the back of my mind. The goal to here is to stimulate the nervous system and not to fry it completely. Doing it this way has ensured that numbers that we see when sprinting are done close to an athletes max velocity every day. Methods that we use to train max velocity extend out through a majority of methods like, form running, over-speed training and many more. Individuals that are in our acceleration group use various methods of running against resisted loads, as well as various types of unloaded starts. The combination and timing of these methods is what leads to the improvement in the athlete’s 20 yard time.
Thirdly, I would like to address how my athletes train in the weight room, to help them improve on their 20 yard testing time. For starters my programming in the weight room is approximately 80% unilateral movements and about 20% bilateral movements. The reasoning behind this when thinking of speed is yes there is a time and place for bilateral movement, I use and it provides an incredible bang for its buck, but what it can also lead to compensation patterns. I know through research, that one of the biggest limiting factors in speed is co-contraction. I love bilateral movements, don’t get me wrong, but at the end of the day I want an athlete that functions and moves well, and that is why I program the way I do. Bilateral movement’s great tool for maximal strength and power devolvement, but it is easy for the athletes to compensate during these movements because of the stability that they provide. That is why I like to utilize and emphasize unilateral strength and power in the weight room. I believe is that is how we can counteract the compensation that we get from the exercises that we know and love, and teach the correct firing patterns and train movements that our athletes are more likely to see in competition. What I have come to find is, the more you emphasis these single joint movements, the less asymmetry there is when you compare the athletes left to their right side. The less asymmetry there is from the left to right, the more efficiently an athlete moves. With this asymmetry number there is a direct correlation to maximal speed. You lower that number your speed will go up. I know this because it has happened in 95% or my cases here at Indiana University.
How I program in the weight room is catered improve the result that I see in the 20 yard test. In terms of how I categorize my athlete’s area of need, they are the same as their running group. The athletes need is either max velocity or acceleration, and when go into the weight room that doesn’t change. The method that I use to periodize is combination of triphasic and velocity based training (VBT). For my athletes that need to improve on their acceleration time, the weight room emphasis for them is strength/power. No matter the tempo or variation of the movement these athletes are looking to move the barbell in our primary exercises at average speeds of anywhere from .3m/s to .6m/s. This all depends on the season my athletes are in. For my athletes that are looking to improve their max velocity time, we train strength-speed/ speed with their primary exercises. Movements that are done at average speeds b/w.7m/s-1.2 m/s once again depending on the training cycle and the time of year that the athlete is in. Theses primary movements are performed in complement with appropriate accessory movements to meet my athlete’s specific area of need. Doing this alone and doing it well can lead to major changes in speed itself, but the combination of both of speed and weight training is where the magic lies.
Like I stated before, my intention is not to re-create the wheel, when it comes to speed. It is simply to share the success that I have had making mine spin more efficiently. This process is data driven, and that is what has led to the result. As a performance coach, I am looking forward to improving the system and the challenges that come with it. Until next time…
Work hard and BE GREAT.
-JD O’Brien