What do cats and track & field sprinters have in common?
Both are incredibly fast and powerful. Sprinters need a healthy dose of speed development and other explosive movements to maximize their potential. However, the biggest challenge coaches face is determining how much training is needed and what types of training will have the biggest impact with the smallest risk.
In the video below Tony Holler,Plainfield North High School (IL) Head Boys Track & Field Coach and
2015 ITCCCA Hall of Fame Inductee, discusses the use of wicket drills a speed development.
Coach Holler shares these coaching points on the wicket drills:
1. Be big in the front – keep knees-up
2. Be short in the back – do not let your spikes face up. Hit the ground and get them back up
He offers the following fix for athletes that get their spikes up in the back. Begin by Fast Marching them and then Fast March them some more. Follow that with having them Fast March over wickets 3ft apart and then get progressively further. Video the athletes and show them when they start showing their spikes.
Coach Heller shows 6 versions of wicket drills that he utilizes.
1. Hands High
2. Airplane
3. Pistol
4. Hugs
5. Raise the Roof
6 Full Arms
For all drills he uses a full run in for drills 1-5 the wickets are placed 5 feet apart and for the Full Arms version, he uses 6ft spacing (7ft if in spikes). He also offers the following tip. Lay the wickets down. He states that the athletes fun over them as if they were up and you don’t have to waste time picking them up when they knock them over.
The clip below is just a sample from Coach Heller’s full instructional video entitled Feed the Cats‘ : Sequencing & Programming.
Click Here to learn more about the full video
The YouTube video below has audio so please make sure that your speakers are turned on
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