Texans strength and conditioning coach Dan Riley has compiled a ...

grade, he held school records for the short-shuttle, the mile run, and pull-ups. He
had no special training or coaching, nor was he in better shape than most of the
other kids, yet he was quicker and faster than any other student in the school.
His speed dominance continued through junior high school and high school. He was
the fastest player on the baseball team when he arrived as a freshman at James
Madison University.
He didn’t do anything special as an athlete but lift weights and practice his skills. I
had nothing to do with how fast he could run. He didn’t spend endless hours
performing speed and quickness drills.
In my 30-year career, I have trained thousands of athletes with varying degrees of
genetic potential for running faster. I have never claimed I was the reason for
improving anyone’s speed. You cannot make a person run faster than his genetic
predisposition for speed will allow him to run.
We plug all of our players into our running program. Eventually, some will run faster
than others. There are no special exercises that magically improve speed. If there
was, every athlete would be fast.
You can’t alter your genetic pool or the characteristics you’ve inherited from your
parents. But you can develop the potential speed you do possess by exploiting those
factors you can control.
Listed below are some items you can control that contribute to your ability to play
fast.
1. Eliminate excess body fat.
2. Strengthen the muscles used to run.
3. Develop adequate flexibility.
4. Refine position specific stance/start techniques.
5. Practice the exact skills you want to run fast and quick.
6. Develop a level of conditioning needed to run you’re fastest.
7. Practice running your fastest.
Athletes spend too much time and energy trying to improve straight-line speed. The
speed needed to play any sport is specific to the demands of each position. The goal
of any athlete should be to develop specific speed and quickness used to play a
position, and develop a level of conditioning to sustain that speed and quickness for
an entire game.
Our running program begins in March and ends with our conditioning test the first
day of summer camp. Our goal is to get our players in good enough running shape to
allow them to practice and let football get them in shape to play football. We will
post our running program in the near future.