Coach Tee's Corner

  Why Speed and Strength Training Should Be the Priority Over Sport-Specific Skill Training In the world of youth, high school, and even collegiate athletics, there's a growing misunderstanding about what truly sets elite athletes apart from the rest. While skill training, dribbling a basketball, swinging a bat, throwing a football, or shooting a soccer ball, is undeniably important, there is a foundational level of physical ability that underpins every single skill: the athlete’s speed, strength, and overall movement efficiency. This is why performance training, which includes speed, strength, agility, and power development, should be the priority before and even alongside sport-specific skill work. Skill Doesn’t Matter If You Can’t Move Let’s start with a simple truth: the best athletes in any sport tend to be the fastest, strongest, and most explosive. Coaches at the collegiate and professional levels often say, “I can teach you how to play the game, but I can’t teach you how...

  When you go to buy a car, there's usually a sticker on the window showing a picture of a gas pump. On one side, it might say "30 MPG highway" and "12 MPG city." This means you’ll burn more gas driving in the city due to all the stopping and starting, slowing down and speeding up. Similarly, it seems that colleges are more concerned with “highway MPG”,  or how an athlete performs in a straight line than with “city MPG,” which reflects how athletes handle deceleration, acceleration, and changes of direction. Don’t get me wrong , I’m not placing all the blame on strength and conditioning (S&C) coaches. More often than not, the push for more conditioning drills or heavy lifting comes from the sport coaches. But what’s often overlooked is the importance of teaching speed mechanics: acceleration, top-end speed, and proper deceleration, that will help the endurance of the athlete throughout the game and the season.  Take the Manchester run, for example. In this d...