SST's Top 10 Myths About Baseball Training

6. "Players that are fast are born that way, speed cannot be taught"

How many times have you heard sport announcers say that such a player is so fast that there is no way that can be taught. Well, I have news for you. Speed is a skill and can be taught. The definition of speed is basically distance over time like miles per hour or feet per second. Let’s say for example that you schedule a race with another teammate, and you bet to run 100 meters within a month. What do you do to prepare yourself? You hire a coach to work with you during the week. You tell your friend that your time is 14 seconds, and your friend says he runs 100 meters in 12.9 seconds. You may think that he’s got the bet in his bag, but you train day in and day out, and your time starts to drop. The special day comes in and you beat your teammate by 2.5 seconds. Guess what, you just learned speed.

Now that we know that speed can be taught, there are some factors you should consider when learning speed. One of them is technique like learning how to use your arms while running will help improve your time. Strength is another factor for speed. It is obvious that the stronger you are, the more force you can generate for speed. Flexibility also helps improve range of motion as well as strength. Body composition, the leaner you are, the quicker you can move. To sum up, it is obvious that speed can be taught, and the only thing that might be holding you back is the incorrect assumption that it can’t be taught.

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