Improving Pace in Soccer/Futbol

Acceleration: We do 1000 acceleration every single game, around 1000 accelerations every game. It's not the legs, it's the body. The entire body needs to support to be as fast as possible. Most athletes would move the foot bak first. Don't do that, the foot stayed on the ground. If left foot stands in front, the right hand has to be in front and the right hand on the back in the straight position. You should be in a complete straight position.

 You have to be very explosive, jumping into the acceleration, very powerful. Then frequency is also very important. Usain Bolt has 42 steps in 9.58 seconds, which is 4.58 seconds, with every single step becoming longer. It doesn't mean the smaller the steps, the faster you are. Taller people have longer and less steps, and you need a combination of steps per second multiplied by the length of the step. You can use an agility ladder to increase the frequency of the steps.

There are some drills in the agility ladder. Drill number 1 is having 2 feet contact in each box, and the ladder is only the preparation for the sprint 4-5 meters, since on the pitch there's no ladder. Don't be as fast as possible in the ladder, be as fast as possible outside the ladder. Give 2 contacts from each box then accelerate. Don't try to go as crazy as possible in the ladder. You really need to stretch your leg, and that's what you need to do in the sprint.

The stretch needs to go into the nervous system, in which you shouldn't think about the frequency. We need to have it subconscious so we can just focus on the game. There's a transition phase between the ladder and the sprint. The less of a break we have, the faster we move. We only need to train, since the brain will do this for you. Repetition, repetition, repetition, this is how you improve this.

Rule number 2, you do 2 boxes forward and back. 2 boxes forward, 1 box back, then the sprint. You can come a bit more into the stretch in the extent of going to the ladder. You try to be in the full stretch of the leg. When you are in stretch, you will also start sprinting in a particular postition. So 2 steps forward, 1 step back. There are also some exercises to improve power. 

#1 Jump squat, taking a normal squat and jumping into the air.

#2 Jump Lunge. Make sure to straighten both the legs. 

#3 Lateral bounce, bounding from side to side using a single leg. You can see change of direction quicker.

#4 A skips, like in cross country. One knee up and the opposite leg drives up as well. 

#5 Revers lunge knee drive. Perform a reverse lunge and as we push up we  drive the knee of the opposite leg up as well. 

#6 Tuck jumps, Use arms and lifting both hip flexors, both knees are 90 degrees parallel to hops.

#7 High knees, technique, and knees, have arms and legs in harmony

#8. Heel flicks, bring heels behind us towards ourself, really engage FAST TWITCH FIBERS and remaining explosive and coordinate arm movements.

#9 Kneeling jumps. Starting from knees and swing arms  to explose and land on our feet. Combination of  hip flexors and the core gives you enough momentum to jump off your feet. 

#10 calf jumps. Don't bend the knees, load the lower legs instead of the quadricepts, just use a slight bend to absorb impact, make things more explosive. Full workout is 10 reps 1-10 do them 3 times. 3 days a week and you will improve. 

Superior sprinting depends on precision based on precise relaxation. Tendons are energy efficient, they return more than 90% of the work. Tendons recoil much faster than muscles, so we need to get spring-like forces. However, even the slightest over-pushing have slowdown and resistance. You need to enhance your neuromuscular coordation, become more skilled and relaxed. Speed = strength + relaxation. Learn to relax like a bat. Relaxation is essential. 

Professional fighters mastered the skill of relaxation to perfection. For example, keeping muscles tense when throwing down, a good striker has a whip-like punch. A sprinter can apply foot only on the ground. A sprinter spends around 40% of the time on the ground. The maximum happens during the 1st round of the contact and the tendons spring during the other 60%.  Don't push to run, this is called overpushing, making the next time slow. Think about spinning a bicycle wheel. 

You should have the slap of the hand. Make some quick touches. You need to slow the wheel down. So sprinting is 40% hard work and 60% rest, and impulse like strides similar to boxing punches.

Sprinting we want to land flat foot, getting the dorsiflexed movement. We get some drills but we want to land on our hill. Kind of like the A skips but exaggerated. A longer foot swings slower, Land flat footed do the b-skips landing on the heel, calves close to the hamstring, hit the calve close to hamstring. 

We  should have an acut angle before landing back. Calves to z, and push directly down.

We should also do A skips staying tall and hand on the heel. Great dorsi flexion, Z, great body verry efficient. Calf close to hamstring forming z, foot dorsiflexed, tall posture, not breaking at the waist. 

The neurological system is responsible for the human  body. Try to tap the toes o both feet for a period of 10 seconds. Don't have the opposing muscles trying to contract at the same time. Turn on the muscle and simultaneously turn off the one opposing it. 

Contractions alone is severely limited. Curl off dorsiflex before going to the ground, putting stretch on the muscle. Recoil, don't attempt to cover more ground, especially near the finish line. The longer your foot is on the ground, the more speed you lose. You need to develop neuromuscular coordination more, through nerves to contract and relax, this is neuromuscular coordination. You need intramuscular coordination and intermuscular coordination, do within a single muscle and interaction between muscle groups. To improve this,  you can hop on a bouncy ball, as the picture above. You still should land your heel on the ground.

maximum power, minimum energy. Precisely timing efforts. 

Downward fall of body, propulsive.

No muscle can do 8m/s greater.

Stretch and recoil with archilles tendon

large vertical force during initial touchdown. Maintain leg stiffness when foot Dont push when you are in air. 

Relaxation is secret to speed and winning. Fighting, don't keep muscles tense the entire time. Loose, whiplike punch squeeze just before impact. tendons release. So push the ground as hard as you can. don't over push as it weakens elastic recoil. Spinning a bicycle wheel (the faster the wheel, the harder and quicker the slap of the hand should be. 

40% hard work 60% rest, very short precisely timed strides. Try to sprint like a bat. Relax, contract, relax, contract. Achilles' tendon + ankle plantar flexors. When to push, when to ease off. Don't have extra tension or over pushing. Muscular strength also helped. Product of strength, and coordination. The secret to greater speeds is relaxing like a bat. 

Running economy is the energy use efficiency. Don't start out excessively fast acceleration, it burns the most fuel for a given distance, and as a result runner loses more time in the home straight than gains in the first steps. Running economically is being as smooth as sensitive as possible. Human body is designed for endurance, not sprinting. Endurance is more natural, sprinting is learned requiring practice. 

When leg moves forward the foot is travelling almost twice as fast as the body. Strike the ground at near 0 horizontal velocity. Keep your back straight. Negate horizontal braking. Think of running on a track like on a treadmill. Allow for faster backswing and proper landing of the foot. Put a bigger engine in the car. Spend the least time in the ground with applied force. Preload with a moderate stretch every time before you hit the ground. This is how you take advantage of elastic recoil. The upright sprinter has the advantage since he can hold his running form with minimum muscular effort. In contrast a forward lean will negate the strength from the hips. Have proper knee in touchdown knees together. Reaching your top speed, just trust your form. Balance contradictory impulses. Think of playing the piano.

Work on intermuscular coordination. ONE CANNOT CREATE A BIGGER FORCE BY TRYING HARDER. You should be able to smile when running at maximum speed. Achilles' tendon only dissipate 7% as heat. Move foot backward faster than body is moving forward. Move legs up and down without thinking how vertical speeds translates to horizontal. Accelerate very smoothly and uniform rate. 50-100m top speed run smooth and related in last meters. 100-150m consistent speed. Run first half of race under control, keep a pretty even pace. 200-250m try a little harder. 250m-300m consistent. 

The last 100m arms and leg go up and down while legs goes down. Broad jump is directly related to 40 yard dash. Running on a curve takes extra energy, feels very easy early on. 400m do smooth and uniform acceleration. Steep and inefficient acceleration prevents sprinter for reaching full potential. Being focused on baton exchange means accelerations happen in a very economical way. Strength is the main component of speed. 

Stronger muscles don't produce force quicker due to physiological limit. Long and smooth acceleration increasing speed all the way to second turn. Minor injury forces relaxation which means people can even go FASTER with injury. Long bouncing stride, steel springs. Smooth and relaxed acceleration. 

Sprinters with better top end speed always eventually do better. Never run 100%, do 95% effort. Again, long smooth, and relaxed acceleration. Too hunched in blocks. Your first step should land right under your hip. Your shin angle should match your torso angle

One thing I notice is your back is hunched in your start position so I’d way watch a few videos and keep taking videos and Compare your positions to pictures of pros. Your contact time will decrease the closer you get to top speed as your muscles can’t contract fast enough beyond 8 m/s. Before you reach top speed, you’re pushing the ground behind you with as much force as possible. 

Project out more your kind of crunching your back and stepping out. Imagine your doing a broad jump but simultaneously getting your foot on the ground as fast as possible! Also for the MaxV one, the knee bend looks too deep so work on getting stuffer lower limbs through drills and skipping and skipping variations for warm ups.

At that point you should have you back up right…full extension on your legs powering down the track. Your arms should be pumping just as hard as your legs as your arms are the tools that people use to balance themselves when walking…it is even more important when sprinting. Need to work on arm muscles as leg muscles to give you greater power when driving down the track. Other than that can’t see much else.