#speed development

Athletes rely on strength and speed in nearly every sport. Sprinting, jumping, cutting, rotating, and reacting quickly all require the body to generate force while maintaining control. Conditioning exercises help athletes improve these physical qualities through structured movement and progressive training.

Conditioning programs are often designed to improve movement efficiency rather than focusing only on intensity. Athletes may use strength exercises, sprint drills, agility work, and recovery methods together to support overall performance and long-term development.

Why Strength and Speed Matter Together

Strength and speed are closely connected in athletic movement. Strong muscles help athletes produce force, while speed training teaches the body to apply that force quickly and efficiently.

Athletes commonly train these areas to support:

Faster acceleration

Better balance and coordination

Improved jumping ability

Stronger directional changes

Greater movement control

Athletes interested in learning more about structured athletic performance training for strength and speed can explore how movement-focused training supports athletic development.

Foundational Conditioning Exercises

Conditioning exercises often focus on athletic movement patterns rather than isolated muscle training. These exercises can help athletes improve body awareness and movement efficiency.

Common exercises may include:

Squats for lower-body strength

Lunges for balance and coordination

Sled pushes for force production

Box jumps for explosive movement

Sprint intervals for acceleration

Core exercises for stability

Training programs are usually adjusted based on the athlete’s age, experience level, and sport-specific needs.

Sprint and Acceleration Drills

Many sports require athletes to accelerate quickly over short distances. Sprint mechanics and acceleration drills are commonly included in conditioning programs to improve running efficiency.

Examples include:

Short sprint bursts

Resistance sprints

Cone acceleration drills

Shuttle runs

Reaction-based sprint work

These exercises help athletes practice body positioning, stride control, and explosive movement.

The Importance of Recovery

Recovery is an important part of athletic conditioning. Without proper recovery, athletes may experience fatigue that affects movement quality and training consistency.

Helpful recovery habits include:

Hydration

Sleep

Dynamic stretching

Foam rolling

Mobility work

Rest days between intense sessions

Balancing training and recovery helps athletes maintain steady progress over time.

Training With Proper Technique

Conditioning exercises should prioritize proper movement mechanics. Athletes who focus on posture, balance, and controlled movement often develop better body awareness during training and competition.

Important areas to monitor include:

Knee alignment

Landing control

Core stability

Hip mobility

Foot placement during sprinting

Movement quality is often more important than simply increasing speed or weight too quickly.

Long-Term Athletic Development

Athletic conditioning is typically most effective when approached gradually and consistently. Long-term development programs often emphasize:

Progressive training

Balanced movement patterns

Controlled strength development

Recovery awareness

Consistency over intensity

This approach supports athletic growth while helping athletes build sustainable movement habits.

Conclusion

Software development is a complex process. And it’s constantly reimagined or repurposed with new features. Unlike the production industry or manufacturing industry, increasing the number of people/resources won’t increase the speed of software development proportionately. The reason being, no other engineering discipline uses Intellectual capital as much as software development. Software development is perhaps the most knowledge-intensive engineering branch. So how does one increase or optimize the speed of an engineering discipline which is more abstract than concrete?

Software development as an activity comprises people, processes, and technology. To increase the speed of development, the math is simple. Assuming everything else is normal, reduce the variables which drag the project down or reduce the speed and increase the variables which speed up the process.

What are these variables which can increase/decrease the pace of development?

Project Management Activities

Clear requirements

The clearer your requirements, the lesser the unknowns. And hence certainty in what needs to be done. Precise requirements are the first step in faster development. It is difficult to freeze requirements because change is inevitable. Therefore, what needs to be done might still be challenging to achieve and, hence, time-consuming. But it’s a known challenge. Hence with precise, documented requirements, there is no avoidable delay in development.

Availability of resources

With precise requirements or defined goals, the next step is to ensure the availability of resources. Resources can be material, people, tools & frameworks, etc. As with requirements, it may not be possible to have the right amount of resources. Or even know what are the right resources at the start of the project. But what is important to realize is that the right resources can make or break the project. Experienced people, the right tools, the proper process can accelerate the execution of a project. Being short-staffed might make economic sense, but it’s a guaranteed way to delay your project.

Project Plan – Backup/Schedule/Risk

A well-defined project plan goes a long way in executing a development project faster. A project faces risks of many types at different stages. Schedules can go awry for a variety of reasons. Data loss because of catastrophic events is a possibility. A well-planned project mitigates all of these risks and has a plan B for all scenarios. By taking out the unknowns in a project, development can be done uninterrupted. With well-defined, realistic schedules, slippage and the delay associated with that are overcome.

Well defined communication points

Modern development projects are cross-functional. There are many departments involved. Not all the departments would be technically savvy, mainly when we are dealing with enterprise projects. Software development has always suffered this problem of business-engineering communication during development. Hence the need to have a clear, single point or channel of contact. Speed of execution gets affected when people across a team are left searching for answers from another department or unit. This might be due to awareness or simply lack of knowledge about who to reach out to. If there is a single source of information or a single point of contact, development speed is greatly improved. This is especially true when the project involves cross-functional teams.

Evaluation of requirements; Feasible-Doable

We discussed precise requirements earlier. Parallel to that is feasible, doable requirements. Far too often, project initiation happens and with clear requirements as well. But some of the requirements won’t be feasible or doable in the current context. Maybe the technology is not yet there, and perhaps compliance is an issue. Maybe the relevant standards do not permit it. Once a project starts, and the discovery of such a non-feasible-doable requirement is made, teams usually try to “band-aid” a solution that is relative to the original feature leading to further delays. Hence it is essential to choose only those features which are possible in the current context. This reduces technical debts.

Engineering

Agile Development Methodology (Tools & Automated Testing)

The software engineering process in the early days was pretty simple. Hence a linear flow of development worked fine. The requirements were given ad-hoc. It was developed as a whole. After testing, it was deployed or delivered. But as technology and the digital world evolved, complexities increased as well. The linear flow or waterfall model could not scale or adapt to these complex requirements. Hence the Agile development methodology became popular. With agile development methods, tools, and automation, development becomes faster. Products are built iteratively. Agile development helps in faster development because of this. Changes, which are a leading cause of delay, are reduced to a minimum with iterative development. The stakeholders are given a periodic review, and hence the final goal is always evident.

DevOps CI/CD

DevOps and CI/CD are a must for fast development. DevOps and CI/CD, which comprises automated development, deployment, and testing, reduce the bottleneck in communication between various stages of development. For example, the development team need not generate or deploy separate builds for quality analysis or other project stakeholders. Thanks to well-scripted and defined pipelines, deployment is faster, and hence feedback is more instantaneous. With automated testing, every commit to the code is tested and verified. With tracking and monitoring also automated, development speed is increased dramatically.

Right Tech Stack

Over the last couple of decades, technology has evolved rapidly. Many tech stacks have become obsolete. Many have become suited for specific applications, and some have become popular with the development community. The right tech stack can make a difference in the development process through greater speed, third-party support, developer community support, vendor support, etc.

Human Centric

Focused time for work and dedicated offline time

Ultimately all software projects or software engineering is done by people. At least that’s the state currently! Skills, intellect, and knowledge vary from person to person. Similarly, emotional attributes like curiosity, temperament, patience also differ from one person to another. People clearly cannot work 24 hours a day to deliver some output. Getting the best out of every person in a beneficial manner to the person and the project is an essential skill for a manager. Motivational programs, skill upgrades, learning opportunities, dedicated downtime, work-life balance, meaningful work go a long way in encouraging an employee to do his best. Ultimately leading to faster output

Finally

Software development projects are unique, diverse, have different scales and complexity. Hence it’s safe to say that what works for one project won’t work for another. The trick to increase the speed of development or optimize the process is by having well-defined goals, eliminating risks, having the right amount plus relevant resources, and planning in the best possible way. Any activity in a particular project which helps these should be encouraged. It is essential to realize that the velocity of the execution can be improved at any stage.

Developers are an interesting lot, and their processes through which they make mobile apps available for us is even more commendable. Let's see some tricks and tips for fast mobile development!

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The hands clap and the huddle breaks. It’s third and twelve because of that damn holding penalty. So, now we have to throw the ball. I know they’ll be keying on me and this defense is prepared. Must have been one helluva scouting report! Ya, look at the corner; he’s talk’n trash already. Can’t see his eyes because of the face shield he is wearing. I wish this play was play-action to give me some more time, but the coaches opted for shotgun formation and me to run the postcorner route. Beginning of the fourth quarter; my legs still feel strong, hands feel great. This is what makes me – ME! I’m on the line, the ball is about to be snapped and the corner has moved up to press me off the line and the safety is rolling over. The ball is snapped!

So, what happened next? I’m sure that most of you reading this article have been in that similar situation or have dreamed about. So, to answer you…….I don’t know? You tell me.

With the current development of football strength and conditioning programs in full affect we must examine the quality assets of wide receivers. First and foremost you better have “GREAT” hands and a mentality that demands the “rock”. (Of course in a respectful manner unlike some of our “initial named” pro’s!) Next you better be fearless and tough…because you’re going to be hit. And additionally you better possess fluent and fast movement. Now some of these qualities can be developed and perfected during your practice and / or skill specific work.

The focus of this article is to examine the fluent and fast movement patterns of a wide receiver. Now I know what everyone is thinking. I’ll just run long distance road work a couple of days for “cardio (see also waste of time)” and then run 40 yard sprints to “get me real fast.” Well, if that’s your plan; the D-back we just read about is going to bust your ass off the line and any thoughts you had of catching that third down conversion pass are definitely incomplete. Now don’t get me wrong the sprint work coupled with agility drills will have a significant carry-over to your speed work if performed “correctly.”

When you slow down the videotape and analyze the initial movement progressions of a top-level wide receiver; you should notice that the most vital component is his first step. How fast can he get off the line? Because we all know that timing is everything! Now if we slow the tape even more, and perhaps press pause when the ball is snapped.  The arms will engage and help to propel the body forward preparing for the push-off phase of running. This short transition is considered a stretch-shortening cycle that is a very familiar term in plyometric training.

I would like to focus and suggest five great movements that can and should be added to your training programs to develop that starting-strength necessary to drive yourself off of the line of scrimmage. And they will make you a more explosive player. Take special note that the training loads utilized are in the ranges of 35% to 45% of the maximal effort of each specific movement. If we want to become fast wide receivers, then we must train fast. Rest periods between each set are recommended at 45 seconds, but may vary. You should also pay direct attention to posture and back angle that is displayed in the photos. It is vital that the athlete or trainee has developed the adequate core stability and strength to maintain proper positioning during each movement. Just as it is important to maintain proper posture and positioning cues while on the field, this is also quite important within your training.

MOVEMENT A: Dead-Stop Squats: The dead stop squat is a great lift for building acceleration strength as it focuses directly on the concentric motion (driving up on the bar) of the lift by starting from the lowest part of the movement and initially eliminates the eccentric loading (lowering of the bar). The key to this lift is getting under the bar, having the correct torso angle and driving through the floor and up with your legs. Set the rack pins at the lowest level of parallel and dig yourself underneath the bar. Explode up out of the bottom position and then return back down to the pins resting for 1 to 2 seconds before exploding up with the next repetition.

MOVEMENT B: Russian Split Jumps: Stand in a deep, wide lunge position. Jump as high as possible alternating feet forward as to land in the opposite deep lunge position. Repeat to desired reps for each leg. This can also be performed while holding onto a medicine ball, wearing a weighted xvest or elite level athletes can make use of a loaded barbell. Please take special note on the proper body angle during the movement. The Russian Split Jump will develop a quicker and forceful takeoff, which is crucial for wide receivers. This exercise is much more difficult than it appears.

MOVEMENT C: Step-Pops w/ bands: This movement will require the use of a resistance band and some type of secure anchoring device; i.e. heavy dumbell or preferably a training partner. Place the resistance band around your waste and have it anchored or held by your training partner and applying just enough resistance that you maintain proper posture. It is also ideal that you have a power rack or object to hold onto to keep from being pulled back by the applied resistance. Simply step onto a box or bench in a very explosive manner causing you to pop onto your toe and achieving full hip extension of the plant foot and swing the opposite leg up driving into hip flexion. You should be recruiting the glutes and hamstrings on the plant foot. Remember to focus on the explosive step, just as you would come out in the drive phase of running. Also take note the height of the box is roughly 8 to 12 inches.

MOVEMENT D: Dumbell Ankle Pops: This movement isn’t pretty. In fact it’s quite simple, but very effective at developing ankle-joint extension and proper stiffness required of the Achilles tendon. Start by standing with proper posture, dumbells at your side with your feet directly under your hips. Your knees should be slightly bent but will incur very little movement. You must focus jumping solely with the activation of the ankle. Explode into the air and upon landing pop back up into the air driving off the ground with proper ankle extension.

MOVEMENT E: Unilateral Vertical Jumps: Now this movement is quite difficult and very beneficial if performed correctly. But, can have adverse effects if posture and / or knee stability in inadequate. Unilateral development is vital considering most of our sports are running based, and we must control our bodies through change of direction, acceleration and deceleration planes. This particular movement will strengthen your ability to take-off and land with one leg. Execution of the movement will have you jumping up as high as possible in a vertical motion and then landing under control and quickly jumping back up vertically. Simply complete the number desired reps per leg. Take special note in your body positioning and when you feel any type of fatigue you should stop the movement. This is not the type of exercise that requires hypertrophy or fatigue.

I’m not going to suggest any particular set / rep protocols without knowing and understanding the readers current conditioning levels. That would be just plain ignorant and incorrect. 

I will tell you, if implemented properly these five movements will create the explosiveness that is essential to fire off of the line. Remember that quality of movement is the focus not the quantity. You should always maintain proper body positioning to obtain correct musculature and neurological recruitment.

   (Me, Kevin Colon on 8-2-2013) Follow me on twitter @moose3124 and @NE_Strength. Instagram moose_31

Whats up guys,,,,,

My name is Kevin Colon,, 22 years old, Business owner and Certified Strength and Conditioning Coach, Food Lover, College football NERD (GO GATORS!) , and the whitest spanish guy you will ever meet. Today I created a tumblr account after listening to one of the best business podcasts that I have listened to. It was called "CRUSH IT! by Gary Vaynerchuk. He explains how you should reach out to the community of what you have the absolute most burning passion for.. and for me that is lifting weights, training athletes, running a business where I do what I love for a living,mentoring people to discover their true potential in life in order to be happy and successful.... oh and of course EATING GREAT FOOD!

 (My gym on 12-13-2013)

I am now beginning a website and brand called STREET STRENGTH. This will be a place that is going to provide the most legitimate information to the GO GETTERS who want to be successful at sports & in life. This will be for athletes of all levels & "street kids" or anyone who has BIG ambitions and goals. I will provide mentorship and help anyone who is willing to work their asses off to avoid mediocrity and failure. My goals are to make you tougher, faster, explosive, goal crushing, organized, motivated, smarter, wiser, healthier and better PHYSICALLY & MENTALLY. There will be articles, interviews, podcasts, t shirts, books, and all kinds of stuff so you may no longer have any excuse to fail at anything you do in life. This will not be a bullshit website where I "con" you into buying things that dont work or are not true. I really want to help people and dont want to see them make the same mistakes I did while in high school as a JOCK or a great athlete but not a GREAT STUDENT. I want people to invest in the right resources and listen to the right people so you dont make as many "fuck ups" as I did on my road to reaching out to my passion and starting my business. So follow me as i begin this website that will help you get the right workout program that will get Division 1 coaches recruiting the hell out of you, give you the confidence to stop being afraid of FAILING and actually start DOING. Maybe you will even learn how to land more girls than you ever did before by tweaking up your "swag" in a few different ways and trying new things. This is all REAL! No scam, no lies no nothing. Stay tuned as I begin creating this website that will change your LIFE!! BE STREET AND BOOK SMART!!!

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