I want to start by saying this is the article that generally doesn’t get written. Nobody writes about their failed experiences. I think that’s something that needs to change. How many quotes have you heard that say something along the lines of “failure is only an opportunity to learn”? Yet when that failure happens, no one publicizes it. Why? Probably because it looks bad and they don’t want that failure on their record. However, progression is never linear and if we don’t share the failures we create a perception that it is. I hope to help change this trend. The more people talk about their failures, the more we will learn about what works.
This article will essentially be a case study on a sprinting experiment I performed over the course of 4 weeks. I will detail what I did, why I did it, and what the results were.
At the start of the summer one of my goals was to improve my 60 yard dash. The previous year I had been recorded at a 7.0 and I knew that needed to get better. As a corner outfield guy, I wanted to be in the 6.8 range. I came up with a program and went to work. My first month looked like this:
-general lower body warm-up
-some variation of sprint specific warm-up (high knees, skipping, bounding, etc)
Then I’d get into the speed specific work:
-tennis ball accelerations 4-6 reps, demo:
-falling cone accelerations 4 reps, demo:
-flying 30’s 4 reps, demo:
I did this program for three weeks, and I would do this three times per week. Twice it would be before a lower body lift, and once on a Saturday by itself. My lifting program included heavy strength training, plus some plyometric work. At the end of the three weeks I ran a 6.84 and then a 6.94. It seemed I was well on my way to achieving my goal of sub 6.8.
The following three weeks I did the same program, however I also added a lateral day in replacement of one of the days above. My lateral day looked like this:
-general warm-up
-sprint specific warm-up (a skips, b-skips, shuffles, etc)
After warming up I’d do the following:
-tennis ball accelerations, 4 reps
-shuttle run with tennis balls 4 reps, explanation:
Set up at a cone with 5 or more yards of wide open space on either side of you. You should have a tennis ball in each hand. Toss the tennis ball in the right hand to the right of you, then the one in the left hand to the left of you. When the tennis ball lands to the right of you, immediately go get it, planting as you grab it to accelerate the opposite way. Grab the other tennis ball which you tossed with your left hand, immediately plant and run the opposite way to finish through the cone. It is just like the 5-10-5 shuttle, but instead of going specific distances, you are getting tennis balls. I did this because I wanted to make the environment more open and chaotic, as that is how it is going to be during games.
-lateral cone chop to sprint with tennis ball 4 reps, explanation:
Set up 3 cones about two feet apart from one another. Start at one end of the line of cones. Throw the tennis ball out in front of you roughly 10 feet and then immediately go laterally over the cones. After you plant your foot over the third cone, immediately reverse your direction to go back to where you started. Once you return to the place in which you started, immediately plant and go get the tennis ball.
As I said, this workout would be performed once per week, usually in the middle of the other two workouts. This was the only variable that changed from the previous month of speed work. After three weeks I retested my 60 and ran a 6.87 and 7.1. There may have been some stopwatch error in the second run, but I also felt as though some things were off so 7.1 is plausible.
I was somewhat disappointed and began looking deeper into what I could do to break the 6.8 mark. I came across an article by Ryan Flaherty that made things appear very black and white (you can read it here). Essentially, Flaherty claimed that you needed to be able to deadlift 3.2 times your bodyweight in order to run a 4.5 40 yard dash. On top of that, what a 3.2 times deadlift should do is allow you to cover the first 11 yards in 7 steps, due to your improved power output. I immediately went out and tested my first 11 yards. 7.75(ish) steps to cover the first 11 yards. My deadlift (high hex bar, which is what Flaherty recommends), was 530 for two reps. I was at a bodyweight of 194. This put me deadlifting 2.73 times my bodyweight. I saw what I needed to do.
The following is the sprint programming I followed for the next 3 weeks:
-general lower body warm-up
-sprint specific dynamic work
-right, left, right, land bounding (alternate starting leg) 5 reps each leg, demo:
-tennis ball accelerations 4 reps
-11 yard accelerations with cones 4 reps, demo:
The important part about this particular drill is that there are 7 cones spread out along 11 yards. The last two cones are 7 foot lengths apart, the next two are 6 foot lengths, and so on all the way down to 2. My goal with this drill was to force myself to get 7 steps in 11 yards, and also learn how to slowly rise up (with the torso) during my acceleration, due to the spacing of the cones.
Once a week I wouldn’t do the bounding and would finish the workout with a flying 30. I would also do one lateral workout per week, as I did the month before. Essentially, I had three workouts, two that varied slightly and one that varied a lot, the lateral day.
My lifting also changed a tad over this period. Whereas before I would use a traiditional hex bar during my deadlifts, I now was using a slightly higher hex bar. I did this for two reasons. One, it could hold more weight. Two, Flaherty recommends a higher hex bar. I followed a 5, 3, 1 progression for my deadlifts, made famous by Jim Wendler (if you don’t know what it is, look it up!) I also began supersetting my deadlifts with single leg leaps onto box with single leg lands, also prescribed by Flaherty. I ended up getting up to 31 inches in 3 weeks. Demo:
Following this 3 week period of training, I again tested my 60 yard dash. First, I ran one with the cones set up. I wanted to see if I could artificially improve my 60 by ensuring I got 11 yards in 7 steps with the cones. The result? 7.2. I then took away the cones and ran a normal 60. 7.0. Afterwards I looked back at the video and saw that I hadn’t really increased my stride length in the first 7 steps when the cones weren’t there. I was still covering that ground in roughly 7.75 steps. On top of that, I had not done as much maximal speed work due to my focus on the start, so I was a little bit slower there. So my acceleration had not gotten better, and my top speed had decreased just a tad, leading to the 7.0 60.
I also increased my deadlift by 20 pounds, getting it up to 550 over those three weeks, while also losing 3 pounds. In all theory, my 60 yard dash should have improved, yet it didn’t.
I plan to continue testing different methods out over the next month and I will keep you all updated on the progress. I am planning on including more maximal speed work with the flying 30’s, and also coming up with some variation in which I am using the tennis ball instead of cones, but also tracking my steps over 11 yards. I am hoping this will lead to better transfer during an actual 60 than just using cones did.
I will write a follow up article in a month or so detailing my program and where it took my 60 time.
One last thing we need to consider is that this is only a case study. Nobody else performed this with me, so it very well may have worked for someone else. I am not discounting the cone drill, I think it can have value in showing the distance you need to travel in a certain number of steps. However, I hope to find a slightly different variation that will allow for better transfer onto the field.
That’s all, if you have any questions or want to talk further about this leave a comment below or shoot me an email at brady@dacbaseball.com.