426: Ken Clark and Cory Walts on Applied Speed Profiling and Training Methods

This week’s podcast is with Ken Clark and Cory Walts. Dr. Ken Clark is an Associate Professor of Kinesiology at West Chester University, specializing in the mechanical factors of athletic performance and injury prevention. With over a decade of hands-on coaching experience across various levels, Ken also teaches Biomechanics, Kinetic Anatomy, and Motor Learning. Cory Walts is the Director of Strength & Conditioning at the University of Pennsylvania, where he has led successful sports performance programs since 2019. A finalist for the NSCA College Strength and Conditioning Coach of the Year Award, he is highly certified and experienced in the field. Speed training, for team sports in particular, is an evolving method, specifically in how athletes are profiled and bucketed into training needs. There are more and less complex ways to do this. With the increased emergence and leaning into technology-assisted models, starting with a basic understanding of speed development principles across groups is essential. On today’s podcast, Cory and Ken discuss speed training for team sports in light of "low-tech" solutions and simple bucketing systems. We discuss critical differences between team sports and track and field athletes and the appropriate expectations for technical models. Ken and Cory discuss various speed training methods, including mini-hurdles, resisted sprint variations, stride frequency variations, environmental training considerations, and more. This was a great, practical show on developing methods in sprint development. Today’s episode is brought to you by TeamBuildr’s Gym Studio and Athletic Development Games. Use the code “justfly25” for 25% off any Lila Exogen wearable resistance training, including the popular Exogen Calf Sleeves. For this offer, head to: Lilateam.com TeamBuildr is an online software for coaches and trainers. Use the code “JUSTFLY” for a free 30-day trial of the TeamBuildr software. For a Gym Studio 14-day free trial, head to gymstudio.com To learn more about the Sprint Acceleration Essentials or Elastic Essentials courses, head to justflysports.thinkific.com View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Main Points 11:32- Optimizing Speed Training for Team Sport Athletes 17:40- Gamified Speed Training for Athletic Motivation 22:05- Tailored Training through Sprint Profiling Analysis 24:02- Optimizing Performance through Lumbo Pelvic Control 35:37- Dynamic Resistance Training with Bullet Belts 53:37- Enhancing Athletic Performance with Wearable Resistance 54:37- Angular Velocity Enhancement Through Flex Leg Training 56:41- Movement Variation for Optimal Running Mechanics 1:01:00- Balancing Intervention for Effective Coaching Results Quotes (12:00) “So the slow track and field athletes were still kind of like, you know, pretty front side, pretty short contact times and contact lengths, etcetera. But the team sport guys were not. They had longer contact times, longer contact lengths, like less, you know, more backside thigh, less frontside thigh mechanics. And so kind of the really cool thing that emerged from this data set was like, hey, our fast team sport guys can hit really fast top speeds as fast as some of the slower track guys, but with a different strategy. And frankly, a strategy that makes sense from a team sport standpoint” Ken Clark 22:25: “We just looked at relative to the others, the first zero to ten versus the 30 to 40, and then we bucketed them, and we had an acceleration group that needed to work on acceleration. We had a top speed that needed to work on that, and we had a balanced. So if you just think of a bell curve, majority of the team was in this balanced, and then the certain amount was in the other two” Cory Walts 40:00: “We're not going to be able to set up like individualized sled loads, which I think is great, but, you know, just was not, and I've done it with other teams, Corey and I both have, but it was not realistic for this setting. So in this setting, like, hey, we got these bullet belts, we can get them on in 30 seconds, get in some good quality reps. It's engagement for each guy. That's where these, like, really fit the bill for this particular application” Ken Clark 47:00: “One of the interesting things we found was that actually when we had guys in, like, their assigned lanes, and then towards the end of the fall semester and then also in the spring, we'd kind of bump them down a lane and then just kind of emphasize higher frequency turnover, that sort of thing” Ken Clark 56:41 “So one of the things that we like to do in our warm up phase is contrast the lever arm length. So we would do a straight leg variation. Sometimes we would put the arms over head to emphasize posture. Sometimes we would use the arms naturally, but we would alternate. We do the straight leg variation, and then we do like a, you know, just a high knee build up run just to change a lever arm” Cory Walts About Ken Clark Dr. Ken Clark is an Associate Professor in the Department of Kinesiology at West Chester University in Pennsylvania. Ken's research focuses on the underlying mechanical factors in athletic performance and injuries. Ken teaches Biomechanics and Kinetic Anatomy at the undergraduate level and teaches Motor Learning at both the undergraduate and graduate level. ​ Ken played collegiate football and has more than a decade of hands-on coaching experience including working with teams and athletes at the high school, collegiate, and amateur/professional levels. About Cory Walts Cory Walts is the Director of Strength & Conditioning at the University of Pennsylvania, a position he has held since 2019. Before Penn, he spent 12 years at Haverford College, where he led the strength and conditioning programs for multiple varsity sports, helping teams achieve significant success, including conference titles and NCAA tournament runs. Walts is highly respected in the field, having been a finalist for the NSCA College Strength and Conditioning Coach of the Year Award in 2013. He holds degrees in clinical exercise science and kinesiology and is certified by several leading industry organizations, including the NSCA and USA Weightlifting.