1st Thing - easiest thing to fix and see an immediate gain is upper body form. Fix this issue and a kid's speed can increase based on how bad their form really is. If a kid has really bad form then the increase is going to be big...small flaws in upper body form then you will see a small gain.
NOTE: If you are looking at a kid for draft purpose/eval purposes if you are looking at a FAST KID with bad upper body form...draft him. Once you fix those issues he will be even faster... Often times coaches draft kids that are fast and assume there is nothing to fix find a kid that is fast and as some flaws get them fixed and you have a faster kid. Often times in drafts I will draft size/athletic abililty first knowing there are several kids that are fast with flaws that I can draft in later rounds.
If I recall correctly a good deal of this is posted in DC's 46 manual under his speed section. This information has been modified a bit over time as I have improved on it but the core of it is still the same.
This all falls under RUNNING FORM:
Upper Body Form:
We do a RUNNING FORM SEGEMENT in our practice at the beginning of pre season/conditioning and we also include at least one RUNNING FORM SEGMENT each week in season as well that we swap out with another segment..
For this age group we do ARMS (upper body),
Start with ARM FORM
1) Have them sit down with their legs straight out in front of them and feet together and facing straight up. Back and head need to be straight but relaxed. Shoulders need to be back and both arms should start with the hands out, elbows in to side, hands relaxed, thumbs flat, fingers slightly curled (not straight but not clenched). Both forearms are parallel (90 degrees) to the ground at this point. Now at your pace (you will be standing in front of them), have one arm drive up so that your finger tips break above the nose line and the opposite hand drives behind the hip. You need to stress that they do both too...most kids will do one and not the other. Go slow and go through the rotation. Stop, shake their arms out, and then repeat it again. This is a very slow pace so that they can feel the arm swing.
Coaching que - thumb to nose - finger to hip
Coaching note - you want them to drive the elbow up and towards their finish point - the elbow when up should not be pointed downward but at the finish mark.
Make sure they keep their bicep against their sides, arms don't cross the body (line from the belly button to the nose)...some kids will have their arms go inside the torso and that is fine as long as they go in and up and never cross the line (Right hand to left shoulder and vice-versa.). By having the bicep stay against the side and brush the side it ensures they are not crossing over. The reason you don't want the arms crossing the centerline is it causes breaking from the body twisting. A lot of kids run using a crossover arm movement. Fixing this stops the breaking which increases their speed (by a lot). A kid that runs fast and is crossing over is probably a very strong kid as he is overcoming his own breaking...fix the breaking increase the speed!
Make sure they fully extend to the nose and past the hip... This drill is to teach the basic pattern, create muscle memory and for you to see exactly what they doing wrong. The upper body and lower body operates in sync with each other and the stride length of the arms as well as the form of the arms affects the stride length and form of the legs. If you fix the arm form often you also fix a lot of problems with the stride length and form. In this case if the are not turning over their arms fullly it will cause the stride length to shorten as well. On that note excessive crossover can cause the lower body specifically the feet to turn in and if the runner is running with those crazy gorilla swinging arms that go outward that can cause the toe to turn outward as well.
Make sure they relax their body when they run.. Tell them to drop their jaw and let it hang. Relax the hands, neck and shoulders. If they stiffen the jaw it causes the neck and shoulders to stiffen.. If they run stiff they actually have to work harder and their turnover and stride will be robotic and stiff. They must learn to breath and relax when they run.
2) Now have them do the same thing, but they will go at slow pace on their own as you watch them. 20 seconds of cranking stop them, correct them, repeat it.
3) Now have them do it hard and fast for 20 seconds. As if they are sprinting to check it at full speed. Some kids will do it right in slow motion and do it wrong at full speed. That is fine that is their body needing to learn the movement pattern and adapt so slow them down to the point they can do it right and work up to full speed.
4) Now have them stand up so that their feet are under their arm pits with good posture. What you now are checking for is excesses twisting. Again they need to relax their upper body, relax their face and hands. Any twisting that is easily noticable/not smooth I would consider excessive.
Repeat steps 1 to 2. Then have them do a 3rd set but this time you have them go slow and on CRANK they crank their arms as if sprinting until you say JOG. Crank them for about 3 to 5 seconds. Go for 1 minute and get about 3 to 5 cranks into the segment.
That is how we work on upper body and arm form.
Jack
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qY-eLrbvbxg
