TopSpeed Strength & Conditioning

K-State 🏈 TE Lawson McGraw knocking on the door of 37 inches after Monday’s new standing PR 🙌

Want to take a sec and highlight the incredible progress Blue Valley DB Austin Ramthun has made…

1) After adding 20 LBS the dude is now built like Captain freaking America 💪

2) After missing the entire 2025 🏈 season with a severe knee injury the 2027 recruit worked his ass off to not just to get back to baseline, but blew his old marks out of the 🌊

2025 40 Yard Dash = 4.97 👉 2026 40 Yard Dash = 4.63
2025 vertical = 27” 👉 2026 vertical jump = 33.6”
2025 5/10/5 drill = 4.78 👉 2026 5/10/5 drill 4.31
2025 broad jump = 95 inches 👉 2026 broad jump = 110 inches

3) His recent performance in front a college coaches earned him his 1st scholarship offer 🤝

Way to go Austin 👏👏👏

Day 1: Sunday - Top Speed Emphasis: Max speed output is super sensitive to fatigue, and top-end speed development needs to be at or above 95% of your max, put it early in the week when the legs are likely to be fresh. Exercises like Flying-10s with 20-30 yard leads and those that build elasticity/stiffness work well on this day.

Day 2: Wednesday - Acceleration & Power Emphasis: that build power work well on this day. Hill sprints, sled runs, loaded jump variations or the Olympic lifts typically work well on this day since they fall into the realm of Speed-Strength when loaded correctly.

Day 3: Thursday - Special Strength: This term was popularized by current Detroit Lions S&C Coach Cam Josse, essentially they are exercises that have a very high carryover to sprinting. Methods we we typically use include heavy sled pushes, run rocket drags (…our version of Joe Defranco’s HASDs), really any high-intensity resisted march works well, and I like to pair them with a 10-20 yard sprint.
One added bonus to this type of is they tend to be concentric dominant so recovery is typically faster than when we use their eccentric-dominant counterparts. That way we’re ready to sprint again at max effort 48–72 hours later.

PS - all KC area athletes looking to get better are welcome to join in on our hill sprint workouts for free, simply follow myself or and pay attn to the IG story for days & times