I had a question from one of my clients this week about how to go about training to increase speed.  Speed is one of the ultimate factors involved in the conversation about gaining more yardage.  But is it as simple as trying to do things faster?  Or lifting heavy weights to get stronger?  There are so many ways to answer this, but ultimately, I will always contend that in order to produce more speed, you must be able to stabilize it.

Here is a great drill that accomplishes that plus as an added bonus, it challenges your posture!

The Change of Direction Lunge

• The first priority with this exercise is to establish that you are ready for it.  That means you have solid form in your lunge and can maintain your core stabilization throughout the movement.
• Start in a standard lunge position with the Med Ball positioned in front of you.
• To initiate the movement, lift the ball over your head while quickly changing your direction and switching the foot position on your lunge.
• The higher you lift the ball and the faster you move, the more difficult this exercise becomes.
• As with any dynamic motion like this, do not feel you have to do a high amount of reps.  I like keeping this to no more that 20 at a time, although typically I end up doing less reps than that.  The second your form fails, it’s important to stop so that you are not ingraining poor movement patterns and posture.

As you can see in the video, I got overzealous on one of the reps and the result was a loss of balance.  Once you get more comfortable with the exercise you will be able to gauge where you are at with producing speed while still being able to maintain form and balance.

Enjoy!

-S