Is Our Football Team Fast?

[Moro]

There’s an old saying that you can’t teach speed.

This is not true. By minimizing wasted motion and employing proper footwork, track and field athletes have been building speed and burst for centuries.

Why football players should also run track and field. Here they are:

Find your form. Track coaches know the ins and outs of speed and how to limit the variables at finding top acceleration. One small mistake in form can make or break a race, just as it can be the difference between running away from tacklers – or catching up to a ball-carrier. Refining technique on the track carries over to the football field.

Build better burst. A runner’s speed out of the blocks has a great influence on finishing times. Trimming a fraction of a second off the start can be huge on a 40-yard dash time. For football, the action of coming out of the starting blocks is similar to getting off the line of scrimmage. Both require generating speed and power from a dead stop. Flying starts – used mostly by relay runners – are a common track drill and translate directly to how receivers and defenders must go from half-speed to full speed in the blink of an eye.

More speed, less effort. Many football players are all about force, running like bowling balls trying to knock pins down. Track athletes seem to glide effortlessly down the field. Track teaches runners to relax the body and exert the minimal amount of energy to attain top speed – not only increasing productivity but conserving energy.

 

[canes614]

There’s an old saying that you can’t teach speed.

This is not true. By minimizing wasted motion and employing proper footwork, track and field athletes have been building speed and burst for centuries.

Why football players should also run track and field. Here they are:

Find your form. Track coaches know the ins and outs of speed and how to limit the variables at finding top acceleration. One small mistake in form can make or break a race, just as it can be the difference between running away from tacklers – or catching up to a ball-carrier. Refining technique on the track carries over to the football field.

Build better burst. A runner’s speed out of the blocks has a great influence on finishing times. Trimming a fraction of a second off the start can be huge on a 40-yard dash time. For football, the action of coming out of the starting blocks is similar to getting off the line of scrimmage. Both require generating speed and power from a dead stop. Flying starts – used mostly by relay runners – are a common track drill and translate directly to how receivers and defenders must go from half-speed to full speed in the blink of an eye.

More speed, less effort. Many football players are all about force, running like bowling balls trying to knock pins down. Track athletes seem to glide effortlessly down the field. Track teaches runners to relax the body and exert the minimal amount of energy to attain top speed – not only increasing productivity but conserving energy.

. I thin track causes injuries for some during weight training others it works out great. I personally like speed training with sleds, bands, launchers etc....sparq training is the best...IMO

 

[WestEndZone]

There’s an old saying that you can’t teach speed.

This is not true. By minimizing wasted motion and employing proper footwork, track and field athletes have been building speed and burst for centuries.

Why football players should also run track and field. Here they are:

Find your form. Track coaches know the ins and outs of speed and how to limit the variables at finding top acceleration. One small mistake in form can make or break a race, just as it can be the difference between running away from tacklers – or catching up to a ball-carrier. Refining technique on the track carries over to the football field.

Build better burst. A runner’s speed out of the blocks has a great influence on finishing times. Trimming a fraction of a second off the start can be huge on a 40-yard dash time. For football, the action of coming out of the starting blocks is similar to getting off the line of scrimmage. Both require generating speed and power from a dead stop. Flying starts – used mostly by relay runners – are a common track drill and translate directly to how receivers and defenders must go from half-speed to full speed in the blink of an eye.

More speed, less effort. Many football players are all about force, running like bowling balls trying to knock pins down. Track athletes seem to glide effortlessly down the field. Track teaches runners to relax the body and exert the minimal amount of energy to attain top speed – not only increasing productivity but conserving energy.

You know how to use copy and paste. Nice.

 

[Pentagon Cane]

Please explain why running track is not a positive thing?

Yeah, I'd be curious to hear about this as well.

Frankly, football guys particiapting in track used to be a regular occurrence through the 80s, 90s, 00s. It probably was more to do with the fact that JJ, DE, Butch recruited guys that ALSO happened to be great track athletes.

I should have written an explanation with my original comment; and I'm sorry for the delay. Personal life has been pretty hectic lately.

The only players who should participate track are the ones who could do track exclusively (and win championships/break records). Generally, at this level you're either a track guy or a football guy. Very rarely do you see someone who can do both and not hider their football development. And if you're really that talented at track, then only do track.

If you're participating in track, you're not with your team participating in mat drills/workouts/practice. You don't need track training to "get fast." You're fast or you're not fast. Track kids always show up after the track season weak, light, but in really good condition. Their long speed might improve a few milliseconds, but who cares. We want football players who can win a fistfight, change direction, AND run really fast.

The most important thing is that they're with their teammates as much as possible. Nothing builds team like group-shared hardship. The team needs their best players to be the hardest workers--they need to be present in order to do that.

I don't think anyone is saying our guys should do track in order to get fast. Heck, the track coach probably has no interest taking on guys who can't contribute to his teams.

Using this logic, if you have football players littered on the track team, that means you have some athletes on the team.

The gist of my point is that fringe players should just focus on football. I'm borderline paranoid with track and field talk at this point. Been hearing it for years and everyone seems to think it's a beneficial thing for a football player. Your logic assumes that people are making the right decision to run track. A player like Duke Johnson has no business running track, a player like Artie Burns did.

It's only a good indicator if all those players participating in track have business participating in track. Every year there's a herd of track and field pretenders going out there to avoid football workouts.

I agree that it is not beneficial to players per say, but if they can compete at a very high level then I'm all for it. Artie was an All-American hurdler. Njoku was All-ACC second team as a high jumper. At most we have two or three kids doing track. I don't think our dual-athlete kids are avoiding football workouts.

 

[Moro]

You've got to love this:

Richt on his team's speed:

"We've got team speed or at least it looked like it today. They were really penetrating and doing a good job of getting after the quarterback on the pass rush. There were two or three picks today on guys just really doing a good job of breaking on the ball and using their quickness, speed and skills.''

Receiver Lawrence Cager on what he needs to improve on this year: "Speed and explosiveness. Coach [Ron] Dugans has been trying to get everybody bigger, faster and stronger.''