Fred Duncan Performance Training

People view plyometrics too narrowly.

They see jumps/plyos as exercises to throw in before lifting or in a random circuit. Or they think it’s just “vertical jump “ training.

The best plyometrics do a lot more than that…

They teach athletes how to hit the ground, organize the limbs, manage timing, redirect force, etc

That’s why speed bounds, hurdle hops, single leg bounds, and other plyometric tools are such a big part of how I prepare athletes.

They’re preparation for the forces, contacts and timing sport demands. They are also tremendous assessment tools.

Speed Kills is a full 8 week program & ebook that shows you how to blend speed, plyometrics, lifting and more. Used by over 1,100 coaches and athletes worldwide.

GPP Reloaded gives you a full 4-week bridge to build the base, tissues, work capacity, jumps, med ball work, lifting, and general qualities athletes need before higher outputs.

Force and Expression goes much deeper into acceleration, max velocity, plyometrics, agility, speed endurance, and how to actually organize all of this into a complete system of preparation.

If you want to stop treating plyometrics like random warmup filler and start understanding where they fit, both are on sale now.

In Mendiguchia et al, soccer players were split into 3 groups

- regular soccer training
- regular soccer training + Nordics
- regular soccer training + a sprint focused program

Both the Nordic group and sprint group improved biceps femoris long head fascicle length, but the sprint group improved more (16% vs 7%)

Only the sprint group improved both the hamstring architecture side AND sprint performance/mechanics.

Another recent paper helps explain why this makes sense. Alt, Clark, etc compared maximum sprinting to several eccentric hamstring exercises, including explosive razor curls, decelerated Nordics, and eccentric isokinetic hamstring testing.

- Peak knee power during sprinting was 3914w
- explosive razor curl was 438w
- Nordic was 288w
- isokinetic eccentric test was 300w

Sprinting produced roughly 8–14x higher peak knee power than the exercises they analyzed, mainly because the angular velocities were completely different.

So…

sprinting can help make the hamstrings stronger

sprinting can increase fascicle length

repeated high speed lengthening exposure can contribute to structural changes in the muscle

But that also means high volumes of sprinting are already high volumes of extremely difficult hamstring work. So how does that alter the rest of your programming?

This is why sprinting sits at the center of Speed Kills, and why the program doesn’t just throw random drills, sprints, lifts, and plyometrics together.

I also just bundled Speed Kills with GPP Reloaded, so you can get my 8-week speed program plus my 4-week general preparation block together.

GPP Reloaded builds the base.

Speed Kills takes that base into higher-intensity acceleration, max velocity, resisted sprinting, plyometrics, lifting, and recovery.

Together, that gives you 12 weeks of programming that shows how these pieces actually fit together.

Links in bio.