You can coach speed by Chadd Cripe

FOOTBALL4 • SUNDAY, AUGUST 25, 2013

IDAHO STATESMAN • IDAHOSTATESMAN.COM

Boise State: speed

KYLE GREEN / kgreen@idahostatesman.com

You CAN coach speed Th e m ec ha

Cripe • Idaho

Statesm an

Take a lesson in speed and learn about the anatomy behind getting faster from Boise State strength and conditioning coach Tim Socha. FOOTBALL 16-17

by Chadd

Some shop for it. “You can’t coach length and you can’t coach speed,” Utah State firstyear coach Matt Wells said. “You can recruit it and you must recruit it — or you’ll be talking to a new guy in three years.” Others cultivate it. Petersen will take a great player with marginal speed — cornerback

Davis • Text

recruits into NFL Draft picks and helping Boise State become a fixture in the Top 25. “He gets those guys faster,” coach Chris Petersen said. “I really didn’t think that happened. But across the board, our guys get faster.” Speed has become the must-have accessory in college football.

llustratio n by Patrick

hen Boise State strength and conditioning coach Tim Socha began his career 14 years ago, the attitude about speed matched the cliché. You can’t coach it. Now, he does little else. Socha consistently unearths an extra gear in his football players — turning speed-challenged

ni cs of ...

FORCE IN EQUALS FORCE OU T

Boise State streng into the ground. th and conditioning Push one coach Tim way and because Socha gave you go if I’m us a lesson which means standing straigh the other. “Whe in I’m not prope t up and runnin n we talk about speed, which is produced runnin g, I’m lling mysel f forward. putting all my g,” Socha said, “we by exerting force force straigh We want want a forwa to lean in t rd lean the direct into the ground, ion we’re going.”

Jamar Taylor, a secondround pick of the Miami Dolphins this year, is a prime example — and give him to Socha. “I will take the better

player,” Petersen said, “because then I think coach Socha will develop that speed.” See SPEED, F5

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SUNDAY, AUGUST 25, 2013 • FOOTBALL5

Boise State: speed SPEED

FIVE FASTEST BRONCOS

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40-yard dash 1. S Ebo Makinde, 4.24 seconds 2. WR Aaron Burks, 4.28 3. RB Devan Demas, 4.40 3. WR Geraldo Boldewijn, 4.40 5. WR Shane Williams-Rhodes, 4.41

POINT OF EMPHASIS

Socha played offensive line in the Big Ten at Minnesota. Speed was not on his mind. “It was slow, smashmouth football,” he said. He began his coaching career in 1999 as a graduate assistant at Auburn in the heart of college football’s fastest conference — the SEC. The strength coach’s job back then: Build muscle. Speed was an “afterthought,” Socha said. “It was so-and-so walked in the door and he’s a 4.4 (seconds in the 40-yard dash) guy, he’s going to be a 4.4 guy,” he said. “… That mind-set has changed. We know as strength coaches that we can change how fast someone is.” Socha joined the Boise State staff in 2006, Petersen’s first year as the head coach. The Broncos couldn’t match Oklahoma’s speed in the Fiesta Bowl at the end of that season — they won anyway — but Socha said that gap has narrowed in the seven years since. It’s so important that every element of Boise State’s offseason training program is aimed at increasing speed. Socha spends half of his research time on speed. “Even the bench press is centered around being fast,” he said. “That’s the name of the game. The game has changed. Nine out of 10 times when you play a football game, the fastest team is going to win. … It might be in subtle ways here or there, but you hope you have that advantage.” The Broncos’ training focuses on straight-line speed, change of direction and deceleration. Coaches break down the elements of

BURROUGHS RANKS AMONG BEST BoiseStatejuniorwidereceiverDallasBurroughs, left,wassickthedaytheBroncosranthe40-yard dashthisyear,sohedidn’tcrackthetopfive. However, he tied Makinde with a time of 4.28 seconds last year. And Makinde thinks Burroughs is probably faster. “He ran 10.3 (in the 100 meters in high school),” Makinde said. “I wasn’t anywhere near that. I might have to give him that one.” Burroughs, of Rocky Mountain High in Meridian, ran the 100 in a state meet record 10.34 seconds in 2011. That time led CBSSports.com to rank him this summer as the sixth-fastest player in all of college football. And by raw time, Burroughs actually would rank fourth. The website gave an edge to two younger players who ran slightly slower. Ironically, Burroughs didn’t train for speed until late in his high school career. “One day, I became fast,” he said. He traded baseball for track his last two years of high school to get even faster, which helped him earn a football scholarship at Boise State. He has improved his speed in college, he said, but his focus is in a different area. “I’m more fast than quick,” he said. “That’s what I’m trying to work on is getting quicker.” JOE JASZEWSKI / jjaszewski@idahostatesman.com

running — acceleration, deceleration, cutting, upperbody technique, footwork, etc. They strengthen the key muscles — the hamstrings, glutes, calves and quads — through weight-training exercises like squats. And they improve flexibility. It’s a six-month process, from the beginning of the spring semester in January to the start of fall camp in early August. The rigors of the season prevent speed training the rest of the year. “(Socha) knows how to get people in the best shape and get them faster and how to get them to move on the football field, especially,”

senior safety Ebo Makinde receivers and defensive said. backs excel. “That’s such an important TESTING DAY day to them,” Socha said of The Broncos check their the sprint. “It takes a long progress every spring, usual- time because they’re so ly in early May. Players go focused in on it. A 40 to a through a series of tests sim- skill guy is like a bench press ilar to those administered at is to a bodybuilder. If you the NFL Scouting Combine. want them to be confident in They also try to lift their max their speed, they have to weight in three disciplines — have good 40 times.” back squat, hang clean and Makinde ran the 40 in a bench press. team-best 4.24 seconds this Two tests stand out to year. He carries that memory players. onto the football field. The squat — an explosive He has dropped more lift that contributes to speed. than a half-second from his The linemen dominate. 40 time since his junior year And the 40 — a measure of high school. of top-end speed. The wide “I can feel more comfort-

able out there because I have that confidence — I know I’m fast,” he said. Socha figures he can trim up to two-tenths of a second off the time of a fast player during his five-year college career. He can chop up to a half-second off the time of a more plodding linebacker type. That’s why Petersen is willing to take a player with superior skill and intelligence who has a speed shortcoming and trust Socha’s staff to prepare him for college football. “We’ve had a track record of getting that done,” Socha said. “As long as our guys

Chadd Cripe

work hard at it, they’re going to get better at it. They recruit really good guys who want to work hard and that’s what’s allowed us to do it. And sometimes it takes a while. It’s not a process where you can microwave a guy. It’s slow cooking and sometimes it doesn’t happen fast enough for anybody — the player, the coach, anybody. But it does happen.” And since players put so much emphasis on speed, they’re willing to work for it. “It’s easy to convince them to buy in,” Socha said. “What’s hard is more and See SPEED, F6

FOOTBALL6 • SUNDAY, AUGUST 25, 2013

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Boise State: speed SPEED CONTINUED FROM F5

more guys at an early age are getting advice on speed. There are a lot of preconceived notions that they’re coming in with about how to get fast.”

DEVELOPING EARLY

The emphasis on speed has trickled down to the grass roots of football. “Ever since Pop Warner, they’ve always told us you’ve got to be able to run,” Makinde said. “You have to be in the best shape. You

have to be able to run against the best receivers. And if you’re not as big, you have to make up for it somewhere else — that’s in quickness and speed and agility.” Makinde didn’t train specifically for speed until his senior year of high school. He was a two-time regional champion in the 400 meters in Arizona. But he says he didn’t become fast until he began training with his brother, Victor Makinde, who designed his own training program while playing football at SMU. By the end of his freshman

year at Boise State, Makinde ran in the 4.3s. He ran 4.77 as a high school junior. “I actually was surprised,” he said. “I never thought about running that fast. I just wanted to get faster.” Redshirt freshman quarterback Nick Patti began speed training when he was in seventh grade. He grew up in Orlando, Fla., and worked with a trainer at ESPN Wide World of Sports at Disney World. “In Florida, it’s a fast game,” Patti said. “All the kids down there are quick. I put a lot of importance on it.” Treasure Valley high

schools have joined the speed revolution, too. Centennial High coach Lee Neumann, who is entering his 24th season, used videos and sessions at a speed school to learn how to train his players. He teaches a fitness class that is half speed development and half strength training. “The biggest change in the last 10 to 15 years in the Boise area is just the speed factor,” he said. “Kids are becoming so much faster, so much quicker, so much more explosive.” The question now is where it stops.

If the track world is any indication, there’s no reason players can’t keep getting faster. The world record in the men’s 100 meters has dropped from 9.92 seconds by Carl Lewis in 1988 to 9.58 by Usain Bolt in 2009. “We haven’t seen a wall yet,” Socha said. “As long as guys are getting stronger and more flexible and they’re doing it the right way, I don’t know where the wall is going to be. “That’s the neat thing. We don’t know.” Chadd Cripe: 377-6398, Twitter: @IDS_BroncoBeat

JOE JASZEWSKI / jjaszewski@idahostatesman.com

Boise State strength and conditioning coach Tim Socha estimates he spends 50 percent of his professional development time on speed. Nutrition is second at 35 percent. “Early on,” he said, “speed was just kind of an afterthought.”

‘NEXT FRONTIER’ No-huddleoffenseshave takenovercollegefootball. EvenBoiseStatehasdabbledintheconcept—using itextensivelyintheMAACO BowlLasVegasinDecemberandinthetwopublic scrimmagesthisoffseason. “It’sgoodforourdefense,”coachChrisPetersen said.“Everybodythatwe’re playingisno-huddle.” Thefranticpaceofplay hasforcedstrengthand conditioningcoachesto rethinkhowtheyprepare players. FresnoStateforyears emphasizedbulkonits offensivelineundercoach PatHill,whopreferredaprostyleattack.CoachTim DeRuyter,whoarrivedlast year,askedthelinemento shedpoundsforhisnohuddlesystem. “You’vegottobeableto beinshapetodoitwithyour offensiveline,especially,” DeRuytersaid.“Ithinkour guysfeelbetteraboutthemselves.Theylookbetterat thebeachthantheydid before.They’vedropped 20-30pounds.” Linemenaren’ttheonly playersfacinganewreality. Receiversanddefensive backs,whomightrun40 yardsattopspeedona givenplay,areaskedtogo again20secondslater. “Thebigthinghittingme squareinthefaceinthe learningprocessisspeed repeatability,”BoiseState strengthandconditioning coachTimSochasaid.“The abilitytorunafast(40-yard dash)butthendoitagain andagainandagain.Itused tobeyou’dhaveaplayand thenyou’dhave30-35 secondstorest.…Howdo wegetguysfastandhowdo theycontinuetobefast,play afterplayafterplay—that’s thenextfrontier.” Chadd Cripe

FOOTBALL16 • SUNDAY, AUGUST 25, 2013

The mechanics of... FORCE IN EQUALS FORCE OUT Boise State strength and conditioning coach Tim Socha gave us a lesson in speed, which is produced by exerting force into the ground. Push one way and you go the other. “When we talk about running,” Socha said, “we want a forward lean because if I’m standing straight up and running, I’m putting all my force straight into the ground, which means I’m not propelling myself forward. We want to lean in the direction we’re going.”

LEGS

The muscles on the front side of your body, like the quadriceps, provide stopping power. They rarely are injured in football players because athletes train for deceleration. Rec-league softball players don’t. “Your quads are the antagonistic muscles — the counter muscles that help prevent injuries and help you decelerate,’’ Socha said.

“The stronger your legs are, the faster you’re going to be. If you have a 240-pound linebacker and the coaches say he’s too slow … there are two variables he can change to get faster. He can either lose weight, which makes him faster because then his legs are strong enough, or he can get stronger.”

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Photo of Ebo Makinde by Kyle Green • illustration by Patrick Davis • Text by Chadd Cripe • Idaho Statesman

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QUADS

GLUTES HAMSTRINGS CALVES “The muscles you really concentrate on when you’re talking about speed development are your glutes, your hamstrings, your calves. Everything on the back side of your body is what propels you forward.”

INJURIES

ARMS

Stride length times stride frequency equals speed — you have to increase one of them to run faster. Boise State wide receiver Aaron Burks is an example of a player with outstanding stride length. “The longer your stride can be and the faster you move your legs,” Socha said, “that’s where you’re going to produce speed.”

The most common speed-related injuries occur in the hamstrings (straight-line running) and groin (change of direction). “A lot of times it’s decelerating. A lot of times it’s putting yourself in a position you’re not normally in. What we do to prevent those is make the muscle as strong as we can and make it as flexible as we can.”

“When you run, your arms and your legs go together. We focus on our upper-body mechanics because your legs are going to follow your arms. As fast as your arms go is as fast as your legs are going to go.”

CORE Socha calls the core — the muscles at the center of the body — the “power plant.” “That core has got to be strong to maintain balance throughout,” he said. “It allows you to put your body in the positions you need to be in in order to be fast.” Socha uses elite sprinters as an example, guys like Usain Bolt and Michael Johnson. “You look at (Bolt) and his core is so strong and so tight. Actually, his whole body is relaxed, the only thing tight is his core. ... That’s how you want to be when you’re running.”

SUNDAY, AUGUST 25, 2013 • FOOTBALL17

STRIDE LENGTH