Speed Kills, From Process to Outcomes with an MiLB Athlete: Part One

Speed kills within many contexts in the sporting world, defined by the rate at which someone or something is able to move. In physics terms: the rate at which something covers distance - Speed = distance/time. Yes, there is a difference between speed and velocity. Speed doesn't take direction into account; velocity does. I’m not going to turn this into a physics paper, I just wanted to briefly cover some terms. In today’s article, I will be writing about an MiLB athlete who improved his side start 30-yard sprint from 4.05-seconds to 3.89 seconds while overcoming knee issues using my Function➡️Force➡️Form Framework. He jumped from the 57th percentile to the 84th percentile out of 533 qualifying candidates according to the 90ft running split processed by Statcast. At 6’3" 220 lbs, that's no easy feat and shows the amount of work and consistency he put in. He did this turnaround in 2 months. Now, let’s dive into the vision, strategies, and tactics utilized to achieve these improvements.

Vision

Initially, it's essential to establish a vision. I have adopted a three-step process from James Clear, which is an adaptation of Simon Sinek's framework of Why, What, and How. The vision is initiated by defining the Why, which is determined through the initial portion of the evaluation. Below is the sequence and thought process behind these components. 

Jace came to me in December of 2024 for an initial evaluation. While I won't delve into every detail, here are a few key points relevant to our vision.

• Goals:

  • Get faster to steal more bases

  • Get stronger to hit more home runs

  • Improve overall movement

  • Alleviate knee pain

    
    

The main focal point of this article is how we increased speed but I added a few of the other goals becuase the later components play into him getting faster.

For context to expedite the discussion, Jace has a wide infrasternal angle (video demonstrating how to measure infrasternal angle), is dynamic, and is a left anterior interior chain (AIC) candidate. That's advanced stuff, so athletes focused on improving speed should not be overly concerned with these factors.

Here is an overview of the evaluation process. I categorize my evaluation into two main principles: input and output tests. Initially, I conducted several movement assessments, including a few for the lower body (upper body assessments will be omitted for simplcity sake). Although I do not solely rely on assessments, as training itself is an ongoing evaluation, I find it beneficial to begin with some assessments to tailor the training approach. Coaching is a constantly evolving practice, and while nothing is absolute, failing to plan is planning to fail.

Given that one of his primary objectives is to enhance speed, here are my five key performance indicators (KPIs) I focus on.

The two main drivers of speed is stride length and stride frequency. The issue is that these are by products of what actual creates these variables. One key drive of stride length is strength (or what i consider force). This is a big reason for why relative force is my first KPI. If you notice him wanting to get stronger will be a key component to getting faster if his relative force is subpar. Movement quality and getting healthy will also be key factors because as we know the best ability is durability that leads to availability. During the evaluation, I don't focus on getting maximal force numbers because training will naturally produce that for me. I can quickly determine if we need to focus on max force by the jump assessments and some of the table tests I do.

Following the conversation to see what direction the eval needed to go, I started with some movement assessments. These can be seen as the strategies that will lead to the exact tactics used.

Strategy

Movement Tests:

OH Squat Assessment from the front angle

OH Squat Assessment from the side

With this assessment I saw he had a hard time getting depth. He initially told me that they put a slant board under his heels because of a lack of ankle mobility but that didn’t translate. When I did his ankle ROM he had plenty. This led me to thinking about how much space he is creating in the hips to allow the pelvis to descend into position (A slant board helps an internal rotation biased athlete create more space in the hips to descend into position). So I wanted to check how much internal and external rotation he had in each hip. That led to the pictures ⬇️

IR (Internal rotation) of right leg. about 15-20 degrees of ROM (Range of Motion)

IR of left leg. About 40 degrees of ROM

ER (external rotation) of left hip. About 30 degrees of ROM

ER of right hip. About 15-20 degrees of ROM

If you can see the right hip has significantly less ROM then the left hip. He also has right knee pain. Usually hinge joints (the knee and elbow) are the solution to the problem actually occuring, which in my experience, come from the joints with more degrees of freedom such as the hip and shoulder. I made a note because this could be what the issue is with his knee. This by itself doesn't tell me the full story.This is a passive test. This can tell us some good stuff but there is more to it.

Activation Tests:

I went a little further and did some tests I learned from the guys at Reflexive Performance Reset. Here are those test ⬇️

Left psoas activation test

Right psoas activation test

The psoas were weak and not functioning. One of my main KPIs for sprinting, as we can see in the figure above, is the switch at the hips. By following my Function➡️Force➡️Form Framework we start with function. The main function of the switch is dependant on the psoas creating hip flexion (yes, the quad and other musculature play into flexion) and the other one is the glute for hip extension (yes, the proximal portion of the hamstring and other musculature play into extension) 

After knowing the Psoas needed work, for the most part this creates issues down stream. So I wanted to check the hamstrings & glutes also. Here are couple more tests I did ⬇️

Glute activation test

The glutes are firing on all cylinders. This is good and reveals he is using them like I’d like. The glutes are the powerhouse of the body and we want them to initiate movement sequences. If you look at functional anatomy, fascial slings, PRI, RPR they all start with the diaphragm, glutes, & psoas. This is for a lot of reasons but that's an article for another day.

Next, I wanted to test the hamstring to see if they were firing on all cylinders.

Hamstring activation test

As you can see the hamstring has some size to them but not functioning on all cylinder's. I was able to pull his hamstring down with barely any force. This is telling me he’s probably not utilizing them as much as I would like while he is running. The hamstrings become a main player in sprinting as velocities start to reach 90 to 95% of max velocity.

The last test I wanted to run was a lateral sling activation test. This will give me an indication if the lateral hip is contributing to other movements. The camera messed up when we got to this part but here is a video of Cal Dietz doing it, Co-Founder of RPR.

Lateral Sling test, skip to 1:53 if you want to see the actual test. The rest is the explanation behind the test

When I performed this test on Jace his lateral hip didn't do anything. I could push in the leg toward the midline with ease. This was also an indicator toward his right knee pain.

Now, you can look at these activation tests as the amount of braking force the musculature has, but I like to use them as a way to see if the muscle is activating and how fast does it activate. It allows me to be more direct with the impulse of certain musculature.

At this point I've seen how he moves and how he's activating in a controlled manor, now I want to see him do somethiing athletic.

Jump Tests:

The last part of the assessment was the jump tests.

I utilized four jump tests. I wanted to do the broad jump but didn't want to put that much stress on the knees since he was having pain. The standing vertical jump doesn't put near the stress that a broad jump does on the knees in my experience. 

• Four jump tests:

  • Standing CMJ (countermovement jump) w/arms

  • Standing CMJ w/HOH (hands on hip)

  • Standing NCMJ w/HOH

  • 4 Jump test

Through these tests I will be able to see jump strategy, impulse, utilization of the SSC, eRFD and relative force. Although many factors play into how high someone jumps, in my experience, everyone can jump high when they are relatively strong. This is obviously different for a 300 lb lineman in comparison to a 160lb wide receiver but nonetheless still true. If I get a 300 lb lineman jumping 25” on the jump mat, I know he can produce a lot of force and generate a ton of momentum.

Let's get back to the various jumps I listed earlier. I did a counter movement jump w/arms to show how well he is transfering energy through the upper half. Here’s a video of that jump.

Standing CMJ w/Arms

Here he got 26.8. This is a good starting point for us. From here I won't worry about getting this again.

Next we did a Standing CMJ w/ HOH. Here's that.

Standing CMJ w/HOH

He got a 24.1. After this we did a NCMJ w/HOH That you can see below.

Standing NCMJ w/HOH

Here he got 21.6.

I use the CMJ and NCMJ to assess if he is utilizing the stretch shortening cycle. This will tell me if he is using his eccentric strength to build his concentric. This will provide a strength deficit developed by Verkoshansky to help profile this specific athlete. It will also give me insight toward if we need to use certain methods in training.

Now, we saw earlier the hamstrings didn't do much so regardless of if he is utilizing the SSC, I already know we need to do some ISO's and Eccentrics to build proprioception in them and include them in the sequencing of athletic movement. As stated earlier, we know that the hamstrings play a part in sprinting. This was a side note but I’m trying to add more detail that is relevant so you can see my thought process through this.

If we plug this into Yuri Verkoshanskies strength deficit equation which is as follows:

Strength Deficit = CMJ/NCMJ

Or by using a movement that uses full range of motion and divide it by one that uses the same movement done from the bottom position with at least a 3 second pause. A jump can be one. A variation of a squat paired with an Anderson squat can be also.

We see that he has a score of 1.12. According to Verkhoshansky anything with a small ratio 1.0-1.15 isn't using the cycle well and anything from 1.15-1.3 is. This helps with deciding what methods to use going forward. I also want to take into account how high the person is jumping in comparison to their body weight as previously explained. This tells a story of if I need to add different types of force or if I need to focus on various plyo's to allow for faster speeds.

This post is long enough for today. In part 2 I will discuss the tactics used to get the outcomes stated earlier.

Hope this helps, until next time.