Derek M. Hansen - January 2025

As you approach the latter years of your career, you begin to review many of the decisions, philosophies and methodologies that you adopted in your younger years, wondering if you made the right choices and how circumstances could have possibly turned out different.  Did I attend the right schools?  Did I train too hard and fall short of my potential?  Did I choose the right career?  Should I have travelled more?  Am I a good parent?  It certainly is odd that you may find yourself with more questions than answers despite all of your accumulated wisdom and experiences.

The same goes for all of my coaching decisions over the past three decades.  Have I followed the correct philosophies and protocols?  Did I get the results I was hoping for?  As such, I am now reviewing a good deal of the training principles that have formed my approach, including the high-low approach to sprint and speed training that I have put into practice for the past 25 years.

One o...

Derek M. Hansen - September 2024

As more and more coaches and organizations are placing an emphasis on movement speed as part of physical preparation, strategic planning and athlete recruitment, we are seeing a greater commitment to protocols and programs directed at profoundly improving acceleration and sprint abilities.  Speed development has become an industry in itself in the last decade with new ‘experts’ arriving on the scene every year.  However, in the pursuit of enhanced performances and an expanded industry, we often see the pendulum swing too far to one side, with prior conventional wisdom potentially left behind as new ‘innovations’ are introduced.  The hype around an approach or new exercise protocol often precedes and overwhelms the true path to high performance and sustainable results.

In the case of improving sprint acceleration and top speed, it appears the last 15 years has seen an overwhelming shift to resisted acceleration methods being used as a primary stimulus ...