We know that many injuries happen during a phase of deceleration (IE, stopping yourself or slowing down in order to make a cut on the field, landing after jumping for a ball, at foot strike during a run, etc).
Or in the case of the title of this article, an injury happened when Spaceball One made the jump to Ludicrous speed and needed to slow down quickly once they realized they overshot Lonestar and his Winnebago (poor Lord Dark Helmet!).
Learning to stop yourself is a critical element in sports performance and, with everyone so concerned about trying to go faster, we often overlook this component of training. Due to its importance, I tend to place deceleration training first in my program design. While this is important for any athlete, I find this extremely important for youth athletes; who typically don’t have great mechanics on the field and a low level of strength to handle the forces that are placed upon them during competition.
Parents are always concerned about having their kids in the gym training for two main reasons:
- The kids will get hurt, as lifting weights can be dangerous.
- If the kids are lifting weights then they aren’t practicing or competing in their sport. Which means they aren’t getting better.
Obviously both of these statements are inaccurate. The first one was discussed in my article on resistance training for youth athletes, and the second was broken down when I talked about the Long-Term Athletic Development Model.
However, there are some other things that one must understand with regard to that second statement and training deceleration. Mainly, the time in the weight room or offseason conditioning should be a time to learn how to appropriately move and perform the tasks that are required of you in competition. When kids go out onto the field to play, there is not 50% or 75%. There is only 100%. They are all out, all the time. Practicing at 100% is to fast of a pace to actually learn what is going on. The weight room and offseason training is a wonderful opportunity to slow things down and allow kids the chance to actually learn how to do things right. As they become more aware of the proper form and technique, you can begin to speed things up, until they are working at competition pace with great technique.
The two things I like athletes to learn right away are
- How to land
- How to stop themselves
How to land is taught by using low level plyometric exercises and working on sticking the landing. Typically I’ll have the individual hold the landing position for a 2-3 count before repeating the jump. The focus is not on how high the athlete jumps in this phase, but rather, on how proficiently they land – Is the landing soft? Are the joints in good alignment? How balanced do they look? – This should be performed both with bilateral and unilateral plyometrics and in vertical (up and down – think traditional jumps in place), horizontal (forward and backward) and lateral (side to side) planes. I use low repetitions (4-6) so that fatigue does not compromise technique and the ability to understand how to land properly. Remember, “Practice doesn’t make perfect, it makes permanent. Only perfect practice makes perfect.”
Learning to stop (decelerate) is taught on a 10-yrd field. The athletes stand at the start line and run out to the 5-yard line and attempt to decelerate themselves by breaking down into an athletic position. They then back pedal 5-yrds to the start line, and then re-accelerate forward through the finish line, which is 10-yrds ahead. The key points to make are that the athletes need to first learn the mechanics of slowing down before just running through the drill. The goal isn’t to just make kids tired and exhaust them, but rather to foster a learning environment, where they can develop useable skills. To do this, I start by just having the athletes walk through the drill several times. Each time we start to walk a little faster until we are at a jog. Once the athletes can jog through the drill proficiently, we can begin to speed things up to real time and develop that skill in a more competitive environment. I teach the athletes to decelerate themselves in this drill in a few different ways:
- Breaking down to an athletic position
- Breaking down to a position where one foot is slightly in front of the other (similar to a lunge position but the feet are slightly closer together). Remember to work on this with both the dominant and non-dominant sides
- Breaking down to a lateral position, in which case the athletes will lateral shuffle back to the start line (rather than back pedal) before turning and sprinting towards the 10-yrd finish line. Again, remember to work on this with both sides
Putting it into practice
Putting these techniques into practice are not hard and should not be overly complicated. Remember to have the athletes walk through the tasks slowly at first to learn and understand what is expected of them in each position. Coach them through the movements and don’t just let them go through the motions, as this does nothing to enhance the developmental process.
Last week I had the opportunity to work with a group of junior high and high school lacrosse athletes (33 kids on the field and me!). All were worked on were fundamentals. We did some easy warm up and mobility exercises and then worked on basic bodyweight movements like squats, lunges, push ups, and planks (since we were on the field and not in the gym). We then did some low-level plyometric exercises with a deceleration emphasis – squat jump to stick the landing and ice-skater hops with a landing stick. We then finished with the 10-yrd deceleration drill. You would be amazed at how many athletes had a hard time stopping themselves in a balanced position. But, we slowed it down and walked through the drill several times to help improve their understanding of what was supposed to take place. Things as simple as this can go a long way for sports coaches. It doesn’t have to take a huge chunk of practice time. You just need to be consistent and specific with a few of the drills and really ensure that the kids are learning them properly. Teach deceleration first and reap the benefits.