Many athletes have performed poorly because of a simple training mistake: cross-country.  Countless athletes cannot figure out why all the miles they ran never paid off.  Some even have said they feel like they have lost a step, don’t have that burst—quick, explosive movement—when they needed it.

            Here is a fact for you….NO TEAM SPORTS ENTAILS RUNNING FOR MILES AT A TIME.  Even if you do run miles in a game, especially in soccer, those miles are a series of sprints interspersed with a series of walks or jogs.  In hockey an athlete performs a short series of sprints, sit down a few minutes, and then repeats.  Running long distances does not prepare an athlete to run short distances, and certainly not to sprint repeatedly.

            There is a concept called sport-specific training.  As the phrase suggests, it holds that the best way to condition for a sport is to mimic the energy systems demanded in playing that sport.  If the sport is a sprint, jog, walk, then the training is sprint, jog, walk.

            There is another very important concept to grasp here:  Train slow, get slow.  The reality is it is very difficult to make someone fast and very easy to make someone slow.  If you want to get someone slow, simply ask him/her to run slower, longer.  They may be in shape, but it is the wrong type of shape.

            Athletes who dominate in their sports are those who run the fastest, jump the highest, and have the quickest bursts.  Don’t get me wrong, conditioning matters, but train for the sport you are playing.  Lift weights, jump, and sprint.  The key here is to gain strength and power in the off-season.

            Simply put, an athlete who is not running cross-country shouldn’t run cross-country.  Athletes who want to get faster and get in great sport condition need to TRAIN THE WAY YOU PLAY THE GAME—using a combination of strength training and interval training to prepare properly.