Customer Reviews

Sports Speed: #1 Program for Athletes

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

As the title suggests, this is a book about improving your speed. It is a general book applicable to any sport. And so the authors go to great lengths to generalize their program. I expected to read about the latest in exercise physiology concerning speed, recommended training, and exercises. We do get that sort of thing in a manner of speaking, but to put it very bluntly, this book is one of the most jumbled, mixed up, illogical presentations you are likely to read. Hard to believe three college graduates put this together. In order to get anything out of this book you kind of have to trudge all the way through it and improvise your thought process as you go. The authors give absolutely zero help. Do we get titles to the latest studies on sport speed--in the negative. Do we get information on the latest persons doing research on the subject--in the negative. Do we get a logical, understandable training program--in the negative. What we get instead is kind of a hodge podge of information coming from all directions without hardly any logical organized presentation. Oh--there is the seven step speed training program presented in 7 different chapters. And to give credit--it does look like this is a good speed improvement program. However the information the seven chapters (and you have to get through 3 almost imconprehensible chapters to get to the program) seems to rain down from the sky in a very disconnected fashion. There are few explanations of the whys and wherefores; there are zero explanations on where the program comes from or how it was put together, or where it fits in anywhere in what is being done by any one. It is just there, presented, and I suppose we are supposed to swallow it all on faith. There are presented many descriptions and photographs of useful looking exercises. I do know more about speed improvement after reading the book. But the information was gotten by pulling teeth.

The book deserves some credit because it does list contemporary training techniques in a comprehensive fashion, but it does not bring them together in a practical manner. There are also certain errors: 1) That you should do plyometrics last in a training program. Yeah right, high intensity training when you're tired. That removes the benefits and sets an individual up for injury. 2) Not mentioning true periodization for strength training. 3) Presenting impractical programs, especially for high school athletes. 4) Giving credibility to a fad diet (i.e. The Zone). That's almost shameful. If I had time, I'd list some other complaints. It's sad, but I have to admit that this is the best book out there for speed training. Just read it critically!

Unfortunately this book ignores periodization issues with the 100-200 meter runner. Excellent ideas are presented here for the track athlete, but the focus of this book is on the football, basketball, and baseball players of the world. One good thing about this book is that it does not believe in the defeatest attitudes of many coaches: "Speed can't be taught", "Sprinters are born, not made". Houston McTear, being the exception, most sprinters have to be developed.

If anyone wants to see results in sports, they will have to work at it very hard. this book helps you with this. It breaks up the act of moving as fast as possible from a to b into segments and then tells you how to improve these segments. The book gives you advice and encouragement like only Americans can convince you to be as great as you can possibly be. The book is written for multiple sports and gives examples for several sports. As a sprinter, after using the book for a few weeks, I was running as fast in training as I had only done in competition . great book.

This book is mostly a kitchen sink approach to speed training methods and is a sure fire perscription for overtraining. And as previous reviews have pointed out, the book does not provide an overall logic that helps the athlete or coach properly integrate the training elements. The book does not properly explain how the components of its sytem interact with each other and how they should be balanced against each other when determining the needs of a given individual athlete. In addition, many of the techniques, most notably overspeed training, are highly dubious and most likely counter productive. For those interested in proven speed training methods, I highly recommend Training for Speed by Charlie Francis, which is light years ahead of SportSpeed. Also be on the lookout for Charlie's new training manual which should be released by the end of 2002 and will make every other book on speed training obsolete.

The training advice to improve sprinting speed, until this book, was to sprint a lot and hope that you have it in your genes. "Sports Speed" is the first book to develop a systematic method for developing sprinting speed. The techniques are used by professional and college teams nation-wide. If you have ever been frustrated by working your *** off and not seeing results in your running speed, this book will be a refreshing source of knowledge. It includes several example 3 month programs that can be used to create your own program. Be prewarned that to get any results from this book takes patience and dedication, but you WILL see results. A must book for all those serious about improving in football, basketball, baseball--any sport in which agility and speed are important.

I'm a defensive back (6'2, 205) who has been trying to take it to the next level and find a team. I don't have the luxury of trainers and fancy equipment. All I have is all I get. This book helps me get more than I know I have.

I never knew why all that stuff was important until I read this book. Now when I work out, I know what's happening to me and what I need to do in order to make it happen more. They even get down to the mental aspect of training as well as breathing techniques. The exercises they illustrate are definitely speed and agility powerhouses! Believe me I know!

This book proves that sprinting isn't just running, but a complex science and it has "Dumbed It Down" for all who read. They say that sprinters are born not made, well this book proves that sprinters are born on the track as well and not just in the womb. The scouts are going to love me come May 13th in Atlanta. Thanks for the insights fellas!!

The book does have some good drills which can be helpful. Unfortunately, the text based descriptions of those drills are hard to understand, and only a few pictures are provided to support those poorly-written sentences. It's obvious that different authors wrote different portions. For example, in the early portion, we are told that an athlete who wants to gain a pound of muscle only needs around an extra five grams of protein per day, since 70% of muscle weight is water. Later on, when the Advocare (TM) system is being promoted, the number goes to the more standard .8 grams of protein per pound of lean body weight.

It covers plyometrics drills, increasing stride length, increasing stride frequency, and other essential areas. However, as others have noted, it does not give any information about how to really integrate this into the training program. As well, some of the tables are just plain confusing.

Bottom line, read through it, (and this is going to be some dry reading), copy some of the drills down, and then read other books which cover a more integrative training approach towards periodization and hitting peak cycles.

This is a much needed training reference, not only for pure running athletes, but also for any sports training requiring speed training and running drills. That would pretty much be every sport I can think of, aside from the non-sport competitive video gamers of today.
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I have used this book in training miltary personnel and police cadets, as well as my martial arts students, since I got my first copy back in 1998. Finding that some of my MA students could not be trusted to simply run around the block without direct supervision, I switched to having them run sprints. Therefore, the subject of speed became more important to our training. This book helped me to be a more knowledgeable and intense instructor to all the different students that I had.
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I have been a runner, competitively or personally, for 30 years now. This is one of the best resources that I have found, and one of the few quality books that has stayed on the market this long. AS long they keep updating it, it will continue to be a powerful resource for each new generation of runners and trainers.

This is an excellent book for backs who need more speed, like me. There are many, many ways to improve speed. All of which are helpful. Any athlete needs to read this book, it will take them to the next level of performance.