Five Rules For Speed Development for Female Athletes
By Emily Neff (Pappas), Ph.D. student
Here are five-speed Rules we use every day at Relentless that are guaranteed to get your athletes FAST!
!!!WARNING!!!
Following these rules regularly may cause extreme speed and performance upgrades that could have your coaches and peers wondering WHAT THE HECK YOUR GIRL HAS BEEN DOING!
SPEED RULE #1- GET STRONGER.
Adding strength is like adding horsepower to a car.
The more horsepower, the faster the acceleration.
If you are training with a coach, emphasize trap bar deadlifts, full-depth squats, lunges, push-ups, and pull-ups.
Add in some weighted carries and crawls for your core.
For girls who lack TYPE II muscle fibers, adding in explosive lifts like weighted jumps, pulls, cleans, and snatches can help them develop fast-twitch fibers that lead to explosive sprints on the field.
Aim to train 3x/week when sports volume < 15 hours per week and 2x when it's>15.
These “Old School” exercises are still new ways to get strong, especially for female athletes who lack strength after puberty.
SPEED RULE #2- SPRINT WITH WEIGHTS
Running with a sled or pushing a prowler helps you to “lean in” to your sprint, improving leg drive and force expression.
It also helps girls learn how to recruit more muscles when sprinting.
This is key for girls, who lack the same recruitment pattern and explosive fiber types as boys, making them slower in the first 5-10 yards of a sprint than boys.
Weighted sprints help engage more muscles and train your daughter to bring more muscles to the party so her first step is FASTER as she hits the field or court.
SPEED RULE #3- ADD PLYOS TO HER SPRINTS
Plyometrics helps trains the body to recruit the strong muscles built in the weightroom to perform powerful tasks like jumps.
When plyometrics are added before a sprint, they help train the female athlete’s body to engage more muscles so they are “primed” to sprint.
This helps train your daughter’s body to be more EXPLOSIVE at the start of her sprint.
With this type of drill paired with weighted sprints and strength training, your daughter will not need 5-10 yards to gain momentum and reach her top speed. She will be EXPLODING during her first step.
SPEED RULE #4- JUMP ROPE
After puberty girls lack stiffness in their lower limbs (knees, ankles) that are needed for FAST sprints.
The fastest way to build stiffness is by doing small jumps like those you perform in Jump Ropes.
BUILD HER BOUNCE just 5-10min 3x/wk
SPEED RULE # 5: FILL HER TANK
If your daughter is running on empty, it doesn’t matter how fast she is….
She will ALWAYS hit a wall by the end of her game.
The body requires fuel, and muscles want quick carbs before and during your game.
FUEL UP before practice or games with protein & carbs
Add in some extra carbs during games or practices > 1hr long
and her engine will be REVVING from the start to the end of the game!
CLOSING THOUGHTS
Parents who aspire to see their daughters excel in speed should make sure their training implements these five rules consistently.
The key is that she has to do them consistently every week for a few months, and then BOOM, you will see an explosion in her speed.
It’s not just our recommendation— it’s science!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
In 2015 Emily opened Relentless Athletics to build a community for female athletes while educating their parents and coaches on the necessity of strength training and sports nutrition to optimize sports performance and reduce injury risks in the female athlete population.
Emily holds a M.S. in Exercise Physiology from Temple University and a B.S. in Biological Sciences from Drexel University. She is currently pursuing her Ph.D. at Concordia University St. Paul with a research focus on female athletes & the relationship between strength training frequency, ACL injury rates, and menstrual cycle irregularities (RED-s). Through this education, Emily values her ability to coach athletes and develop strength coaches with a perspective that is grounded in biochemistry and human physiology.
When she isn’t on the coaching floor or working in her office, she is at home with her husband Jarrod and their daughter Maya Rose, and, of course, their dog Milo (who has become the mascot of Relentless)!!
