If you can’t do it STATIONARY, you shouldn't do it MOVING at full speed.

One of the biggest flaws I see when teaching speed, is that coaches are not using their Active Dynamic Warm-ups to teach athletes the skills you are going to demand/expect them to be able to accomplish in their technical movement section. This is the first post where we are going to be progress on how to teach athletes how to shuffle more efficiently. There should to be a few things covered and accomplished prior to performing the task of shuffling.


Squat Lateral is an exercise we use to start strengthening an athlete in the frontal plane for Acceleration and Deceleration Laterally. The term “Athletic Position” is pretty popular, we teach our athletes to make sure your knees are just outside their hips, and their feet are just outside of your knees, with the weight shift forward on the ball of the foot with a “Credit Card Rule”. That puts them in a place where the NSCA would arrange as Shoulder width apart. I line them up this way, because in my experience if you tell them shoulder width they will always fault and move wider. If you explain a little more in-depth where you want each individual joint it holds them accountable during training.













In the above picture you can see I set up the start point to run from where the head of the femur articulates with the acetabulum in the pelvic bone forming the hip joint, and ran the line down through the femur through the tibia to the floor to show the contact floor angle.


I explain to athletes that in architecture triangles are used in the design of buildings and other structures as they provide strength and stability. When building materials are used to form a triangle, the design has a heavy base and the pinnacle on the top is capable of handling weight because of how the energy is distributed throughout the triangle. The sturdiest of the triangles are equilateral and isosceles; their symmetry aids in distributing weight. (Read more: Triangles Used in Architecture | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/info_8746538_triangles-used-architecture.html#ixzz2KbLuUNUH)

Once an athlete is able to perform this exercise and maintain proper hip, knee, and shin angle also while maintaining an upright torso we progress to a lateral lunge. The exercised has only progressed to stepping into the movement and pushing out of the movement.

Add these exercises in your Warm-up or movement to prepare your athletes for the demands of multi-directional movements. Stay Tuned for Part 2, where I will discuss Side Shuffle with Arm Swing, to Lateral Deceleration.






Work Harder, Work Smarter, Keep Coaching Speed


-Adam Szuch