Over Speed Training For Young Athletes

There are many different methods that you can use to perform over speed training for young athletes. Since we are dealing with the youth athlete, one of the safest methods is down hill sprinting.

Down Hill Running
True sprint training is done from 2 to 8 seconds. Anything longer then 8 seconds of speed work, at one time, starts to cross over into different energy systems. This means to be able to stay within those guidelines you must find a hill that is approximately 20 to 80 meters long. Ideally, you are looking for a hill with a slope that is 20-80 meters long, but you want to try and reach maximum velocity (top running speed) before the downward part of the hill, so if you have a 20 meter flat area to accelerate before the hill, it would be best. Also, a flat runway after running the slope of the hill helps for slowing down or you can use it as part of the workout. I recommend any where from 20 to 50 meters of flat area after the downward slope if you can find it.

The slope of the hill that we are looking for is between 2 – 3 degrees. If you use a hill with too steep of a slope, this will cause a change in your young athletes running form. Their upper body will start to lean backwards, and their ground contact will be way out in front of their body.

With their foot contact landing out in front of their body, this will cause a braking action which will try and slow the athlete down and cause unneeded stress to their hamstring which could led to injury. Also, since they are in that braking action, your athletes will not be able to produce a forceful push off of the ground that you are looking for when they are sprinting. So basically, if the slope of the hill is too great, you are not getting a benefit out of the workout and you could possibly injure your athletes so be careful.

An added benefit of down hill sprinting is stride rate. If you pick a perfect hill with a 2 to 3 degree slope, the tendency of your athlete running stride rate will shorten up and be quicker. Again, if the slope is too great you won’t be getting this benefit. So, the natural movement, without your athletes even realizing it, is to have a faster leg turnover and your athletes will develop a faster step (stride frequency).

When performed correctly using the right degree of slope of the hill, over speed training for young athletes can be safe and affordable (without needing to purchase any expensive equipment).

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