What is the first step for sports performance? Recently been seeing a lot of social media posts showing fancy drills for middle school athletes. “Ways to make your athlete faster” is what the hook says. And you see middle school athletes running through a speed ladder or carrying a med ball running up a hill. All of these drills and social media posts fail to actually tell parents and athletes what they need to do first!
First step
Improve your athletes strength. That’s it. You want your athlete to be faster as a middle schooler – they don’t need speed coaching. They need to get strong or stronger.
Second Step
Track your middle school athletes success. How we do this at OC Sports Performance is by measuring and keeping track of key performance indicators.
Vertical jump, Broad jump, Box squat, Bench press, Sled drags and many others.
Middle school athletes and all athletes in general have a strength to weight ratio. As that ratio increases their speed will increase if their training is correct.
Example:
Johnny weights 90# and is a 7th grader. When he started he could box squat to a 12” box and foam 45#s for 5 reps.
Three months later Johnny’s box squat to the same box and foam is 90#s for 5 reps.
He is now doubling his old 5 rep max and he has gained 5 pounds to his body weight.
During this same period of time his body weight vertical went from 14.2 to 18.9 – measure on the same just jump mat.
His broad jump went from 6ft 1″ to 7ft 2”. An improvement of almost a 1ft!
What changed?
Johnny got faster. He stronger. But he also got faster. The foundation for middle school athletes has to be built around strength. Not conditioning.
What about his sprints?
Johnny wanted to get faster. His parents said he needed to get faster. Here are the results.
Starting 40 yard dash: 5.85
40 yard dash 3 months later: 5.60
A reduction of .25 in three months alongside his increase in body weight of 5#s.
Don’t skip the first step for sports performance
The first step for middle school athletes is lifting, learning the correct technique, building confidence and being consistent. Middle school athletes and high school athletes don’t need fancy methods they need a healthy environment of support and guidance.
OC sports performance has helped thousands of Bend, Oregon athletes reach their athletic potential. Experience the difference.
