Speed Science 101
By Charles Peeples. Photos Courtesy of Charles Peeples

Above photos from left to right:
1. Shannon “shoots the duck.” 2. Shannon works with a junior athlete. 3. Swiss ball stuff.

One, March 2002, “The Dungeon:” In a gym deep beneath Villanova Stadium’s north-side seats, Shannon Grady, a petite track athlete in her early 20s, crouches on a weight-bench, one foot on the bench, the other suspended in the air. With both hands she holds a dumbbell straight out in front of her and lowers herself into a squat. It’s not a flashy move, yet it’s so kinesthetically demanding that you’d be hard put to find many in the gym — any gym — who could do it. Surrounding her and watching this demonstration are the women of the Philadelphia Charge. Advanced athletes, they’re no more strangers to the weight room than to the playing field, but you can see by their uneasy expressions a recognition of something beyond routine.

Only Duane Carlisle, the Charge’s head strength and conditioning coach, is smiling. He’s just put the team through several days of testing and evaluation — or trials, if you consider that the women here are competing for a limited number of slots — and now he’s handing them off to his protégé. Most of the Charge’s practice time will be on the field, under the eyes of the soccer coaches, but for a few hours each week they’ll belong to Shannon and her boss, Duane, Sultan of Speed, founder and executive director of Lightning-Fast.

Nothing’s simple anymore. Today, with tangible rewards greater than ever, athletic competition at an elite level requires more than the mental stasis of rote and repetition. Even passion alone isn’t enough. Gone are the days when running laps and “hitting the weights” were sufficient adjuncts to scrimmage and practice-attempts. Speed-science has trickled down from the Olympian heights to bring a focus to professional and amateur athletics undreamed of only a few years ago. “Explosive,” “quickness,” “agility,” “specificity” and “core-stability” aren’t just words. They’re highly defined, quantifiable concepts — approaches. How about “ground-contact-time-reduction?” Wow! Well in the vanguard of this movement, Lightning-Fast is credited with countless success stories — real and measurable results — with NFL stars and high-school ballplayers alike.

Duane’s not blowing smoke. An all-American field and track star at the University of Maryland, he served as the assistant sprint and jump coach at Penn State University, head strength and conditioning coach to all sports at La Salle University, and the Tampa Bay Devil Rays hired him as their speed development coordinator, the first ever in pro baseball. In addition to his position with the Charge, he’s head strength and conditioning consultant to the New Jersey Pride (men’s professional lacrosse team) and speed development consultant to the Philadelphia Eagles. As director of the strength and conditioning program at the prestigious Lawrenceville School in New Jersey, Duane works year-round with 22 athletic teams, both male and female. And he offers many training camps… Enough already! As you might guess, this guy’s always on the move. Fortunately Lightning-Fast has three centers (Lawrenceville, Cherry Hill and Downingtown) and a highly qualified crew, nearly all former star athletes, to keep it all in motion.

Like Duane and the rest of his staff, Shannon’s got impressive credentials; her resume, thick with coaching, administrative, laboratory research and clinical experience is... well, let’s just say it’s not something you’d want to be competing against in today’s job market. For a 26-year-old, it’s downright scary! And Shannon’s a professional track athlete who’ll be competing, among other places, in the Penn Relays. So let’s ask her what Lightning-Fast is all about:

Philly Health and Fitness Magazine: What are the innovative principles behind Lightning-Fast’s sport-specific training approach?
Shannon Grady: Our training is functional training — we start with the basics required for all sports movements (balance, coordination, core stability and strength) then move to dynamic strength then to static strength all the while being specific to the individual’s sport movement.

PH&FM: How does this differ from other sports-conditioning programs?
SG: We have training programs designed not only for each sport but many categories within that sport (such as age, gender, level and position).

PH&FM: How does the Charge’s training differ from what you’d give to the younger athletes?
SG: Younger kids — say 12 and under — will receive a very generalized program targeting mainly stability and balance. Training for elite/pro athletes differs mainly in the dynamic movement exercises. There are specific exercises that require not only advanced skills but also advanced movements, more impact and explosiveness. The intensity level for pro athletes is greater, but also the training program is specific preparation for performance in each game throughout the season. In pro sports every game counts!

Shannon and Liu

PH&FM: And how do their responses differ?
SG: Responses of both pro and younger athletes are highly individual, but for the most part you’ll see greater improvements in youth strength and skill development (this is mainly due to neural stimulation and learning to use more of their muscles during activities) than you will for an elite/pro athlete. Most of the work you do with pros, especially in season, is fine-tuning.

PH&FM: Do your programs differ for male and female athletes?
SG: Yes, they do, even within the same sport such as soccer or basketball. Most of the males’ programs will be slightly greater in load or total volume. [Women’s training is] also depending on focus, on targeting particular areas that might be weak in a female, such as muscles supporting the knee (vastus lateralis and medalius). Females are highly at a greater risk for knee sprains and ligament tears due to their knee structure and the weaker supporting muscles.

PH&FM: What nutritional guidance do you offer?
SG: Lightning-Fast offers full comprehensive nutritional consultation. Depending on the individual’s current eating habits and activity level, we do a full dietary breakdown of calories, carbohydrates, proteins, fat, vitamins and minerals. We will let you know whether you are deficient — or in excess — in certain nutrients.

PH&FM: What evolution do you see in sports conditioning from when you were a scholastic-level athlete?
SG: The biggest change I see is high-school coaches realize that they aren’t the experts in everything. They allow their athletes to get sports-specific training by experts in sports physiology, such as with strength and conditioning, off- and in-season training, and nutritional counseling. I also see kids devoting more time and effort into the things they can do outside of regular practice to enhance their game. I don’t want to date myself, but when I was in high school we really didn’t have many sports-training facilities or training outside of school practice. I hope this says a lot about the future of U.S. sports and the level of athletic achievement on a world level for both men and women in all sports, not just our Big Three. Women are now getting the opportunity to make it to the pro level in almost as many sports as men, and I see many of them taking advantage of the opportunities. In fact we did have more females registered in our last program than males!

PH&FM: Describe some of the unique exercise movements you have the Charge doing.
SG: They include:

Lateral bound to box jump: a one-foot lateral jump, then explode onto a box or bench.
Depth jumps with turn: jump down from a box, then explode up and do a complete turn.
Shoot the duck: go down into a single-leg squat position but the leg that isn’t on the ground is straight forward and the arms are straight out holding a weight or medicine ball.
Medicine Ball Heel Toss: take a medicine ball between both feet and then quickly bring your heels up toward your butt and catch the ball over your shoulder.

PH&FM: Whatcha doing tonight? (Just KIDDING, Shannon... wanted to see if you were paying attention! ;>)
SG: Sleeping!

PH&FM: What sort of programs do you recommend for the off-season?
SG: We incorporate periodization into our programs mainly by dividing up the program into phases, but this all depends on the athletes’ sports and whether they are in or off-season. Most off-season strength-training programs are more generalized and geared toward overall body strength, more volume. This is called the hypertrophy phase or muscle-building phase. Conditioning programs follow a similar premise but do more base or aerobic work than anaerobic or sprint training. Off-season training serves as a foundation: you can’t gain specific strength and power without general strength and muscle mass, and you can’t gain speed without an aerobic base to help get rid of lactic acid during speed training.

PH&FM: How do the workouts change once the games begin?
SG: Less intensity, less eccentric contractions involved, but not the in first couple of games. We need to peak toward the end of the season. Come play-off time, we really decrease the volume.

Duane says, “This could save your life one day…”

PH&FM: What sports have you played?
SG: I was a gymnast for eight years, played softball (got four teeth knocked out), field hockey (my favorite), lacrosse, basketball, swimming, did a triathlon, street hockey, flag football... oh yeah, and track!!

PH&FM: How many different sports have you trained others for?
SG: I’ve trained others in probably over 20 sports: track and field, soccer, rowing, football, softball, baseball, skiing, field hockey, lacrosse, canoe/kayak, volleyball, basketball, tennis, ice hockey, wrestling, archery, figure skating, gymnastics, water polo, speed skating and synchro, to name a few.

PH&FM: The other night a woman brought in her 10-year-old! What’s the youngest you’ve had brought to you?
SG: The youngest I have worked with personally is a few 4-year-old ice skaters. But at Lightning-Fast we have some 8-year-olds — that’s the youngest we take them.

PH&FM: What sort of “parent issues” do you have to deal with?
SG: Some parents want to do the programs more than the kid does… they’re living their dreams through their kids... the “pushy-parent syndrome.” It’s kind of annoying because you know the kid is being forced to come, but usually the kids end up having fun and wanting to come back on their own.

16 April 2002, “The Dungeon”: Even at nearly 8 p.m., it’s in the mid-80s outside and the team, drenched as they finish the day’s exertions, are as red as their uniforms. The gym’s jammed with far more equipment than the available space really allows (very little of it used by the team) so the women squeeze out their dumbbell and medicine-ball work wherever they can do it without braining each other. Shannon’s itching to get them out of there, into greater spaces where she’ll have them doing more exotic work, including that balancing-proprioception-”kinesthetic awareness” stuff on those big fun-looking Swiss balls. The other drills will continue throughout the summer, but it’s fine-tuning time now, as Lightning-Fast’s science sharpens the Charge’s art. The home opener is only weeks away, but the season is already in full swing. A few days ago, the girls went down to Atlanta and avenged last year’s post-season loss to the Beat with a 2-0 beating. Yesss! Let’s hear it for the Philadelphia Charge… and Lightning-Fast’s “speed-science!”

For more information about Lightning-Fast visit http://www.lightning-fast.com/