Any recommended SPEED training / coaches in Richmond Area?

With out a doubt, Reed Kagan is the best in the biz. http://www.sportsperformanceplus.com

Rich
www.playinschool.com

Reed is the best at what he does...in Richmond and probably the whole state

ditto, ditto to PIS and hsbaseball comments

No doubt about it. Reed Kagan -

Okay I looked him up, found his site and shot him an email. We'll see what he says.

Does he do training and also give drills / workouts that the player can do on his own?

[QUOTE]Originally posted by ctandc:
Okay I looked him up, found his site and shot him an email. We'll see what he says.

Does he do training and also give drills / workouts that the player can do on his own?[/QUOTE

Yes and yes

Thanks for the info. I'll let you guys know how it goes.

Reed does one on one sessions...his approch at the session is evaluate progrss, demonstrate drills, and show the student some things about running form -
In fact last time I spoke with him he said he is opposed to doin group or clinic type work.

The key to improving speed isnt so much what happens in the session as it is what hapens BETWEEN the sessions when the student is instructed to perform the drills he is taught.... No one has a magic wand that will make you faster...how hard you work on your own is what can help you improve.

If you show up and do the drills once a week you will not get what you want.

Guaratee you will be impressed with his approach

Well after talking with him, that's just about what he said.

He wants to wait until after JV is over to evaluate and work with my son. I agree, with daily practices, running etc, it's better to wait.

He also expressed that REAL gains are made when the player is doing the drills and exercises on his own AWAY from the private sessions. I talked it over with my son and he's actually excited about it.

In my son's case, it's almost like he's "forgotten" how to run. His growth has exploded and it's a funny thing to watch him run. He's not the slowest kid on his team by any means or even on the travel team I coach...but it's OBVIOUS he need to work on technique. I think this is just what he needs.


It'll be almost a month before we go to see him, so I'll update with my impressions later.

Thanks again!

One of Reed's quotes-- "I can't make every kid fast/quick-- but I can show every kid drills that will make them faster/quicker"

He has a great rapport with the kids also.

My son went to see Reed 3 times and did not practice very often - still - the information he absorbed was very helpful. He did get faster and stay faster. After the first evaluation Reed said "The bad news is that you do almost everything wrong - the good news is that I can fix most of it!" My son will never be a speed deamon but he is in the mix now and looks completely different when he runs. I would recommend Reed to anyone - he made the changes my son needed in just 3 meetings!

I think you guys are ahead of the curve when you focus on speed. These days it seems like we see kids so ultra-focused on getting pro coaching for their hitting and pitching, and sometimes their fielding, too. But they forget about speed, or they just assume that what you have is the way it'll always be so you just have to live with it. It isn't so, and Reed Kagen and the few others in his class prove it every day. You can indeed improve your speed, and if you want to go further in baseball, you definitely need to do it. It is a BIG plus especially if you hope to move on to collegiate baseball as a non-pitcher.

If your 60 speed is 7.8, it's tough to excel in baseball. But what if it could be 7.3?

Even if you're a 6.8 guy, what if you could run 6.5? Then you'd be Colton Konvicka.

What if you were a 6.5 guy, but you could lower your time down to World Class level at, say, 6.11? Then you'd be Mitchell Shifflett, who is probably going to get a big fat paycheck in about 2 years.

No matter how fast or how slow you are, if you haven't had a real expert help you yet, you can probably become faster.

having coached kids in football and baseball for several years it is always i teresting to see the different mindset with kids that grow up playing only baseball.
Many baseball only kids get caught up in the pace the game is played at and I found many lack intensity that you may find in a kid who jhas participated in other sports. In addition little attention is given to conditioning.
Some of the best advice I ever got was "if you want to be a good baseball player focus on becomig a gold athlete" ....Reed can certainly help with running form and so on BUT also work on developing core strength...a good core strengthing program and being an overall better athlete will do as much or more for you hitting/fastball than one on one pitching/hitting lessons.

As much as we put down s****r many times we found when it came to footwork and athleticism the s****r players were way ahead of the baseball only kids. Of course on the other side good luck on teaching a 12 year old "s****r only" guy to use his hands to catch a ball or swing a bat!
Cal Ripken talks often about how much other sports helped him develop..particularly s****r.
If you are working with young kids take that message to them and emphasize the importance of bei g good athletes by developing balance,quickness,core strength, and agility...for a kid who dedicates himself to "baseball only" at 8 or 9 years old without some athletic traing it will be difficult to become a multiple tooled
baseball player.

"Many baseball only kids get caught up in the pace the game is played at and I found many lack intensity that you may find in a kid who has participated in other sports. In addition little attention is given to conditioning."

Wow, that opens up a whole can of worms.

When you're referring to the "pace of the game", it sounds like you mean to refer to how slow it can be. That sounds like when people who don't know the game complain that it's slow and boring. To which I say, if it's slow and boring when you play, you aren't doing it right.

And yet, it is true that a whole lot of people indeed are not doing it right.

I wouldn't cast insults at the entire universe of baseball-only kids. But I do know what you're talking about.

The fact is that you can play baseball day after day and never get into shape. That contrasts to s o c c e r or basketball, as examples of sports that whip you into shape in the course of playing lots of games. What this means is that some lazy wannabe athletes get run out of other sports but somehow remain active in baseball. It's particularly prevalent with the "daddy ball" teams, where a kid who can throw hard or who is a heavy hitter remains active on the team because his dad runs it, or because some other kid's dad started a new team out of disgruntlement and took on an unathletic kid because that was all he could find to round out the roster.

Teams like that do tend to play slow, boring games, simply because they cannot play aggressively like you're supposed to, due to lack of athleticism.

What happens to these kids is, they show up to HS tryouts in 8th or 9th grade and they get a rude awakening when the coach has them run a mile or the 60 for time and they get embarrassed. Because while playing the game won't get you into shape, those who work away from the field to get into top shape so that they can perform at their best in games will blow the doors off you when the time comes.

For the kid who doesn't like running a lot, s o c c e r and basketball offer nothing to keep them active in the game at all. In baseball, though, you see a lot of these kids being egged on by parents, and all too often it's the "helicopter parent" who wants to argue with you about how good their son is even though anyone with eyes can see that he won't survive at the high school level. Then the kid gets cut a few times and the next thing you know there's a lot of whining about "politics" and favoritism for players from certain travel programs. (You know, the programs who have conditioned, athletic players who play hard all the time. For some reason coaches have a bias in favor of those kids. It is a mystery!)

Bottom line in my mind is there are way too many kids specializing in team sports at too young of an age. As a result, particularly with baseball, they miss out on alot of training they need in order to compete.

quote:

Originally posted by hsbasballfan:
Bottom line in my mind is there are way too many kids specializing in team sports at too young of an age. As a result, particularly with baseball, they miss out on alot of training they need in order to compete.

I agree. I think kids at a young age need to be introduced to different sports. If they like it great. If they don't, there are other things to try. My son loves basketball. I've never been a big basketball person. He's played some football, and has been approached about playing JV next year. Although I will let him play if he wants to, I'm hesitant about it. Only because I played in HS...and although I loved playing, I not only remember some really good times on Friday night during games, I also remember being helped to a ice bath the following morning by my Dad...so maybe I'll encourage him not to play linebacker. Maybe kicker? LOL.

My kid asked me the other day about trying out for JV basketball. Told him the worst that can happen is he gets cut. If he makes it and doesn't play much, he still gets to practice, shoot, condition and get better.

When kids were younger and I coached football Mom's used to express concern aout kids getting hurt playing football - I always pointed out they should be more concerned about their kids riding bikes and skateboards than football.

By highschool it is pretty much not if but when and how bad you are going to get hurt...got to be careful. There is however no better experience for a young man than to play high school football on a Friday night! It is what the american high school culture revolves around fron August to Novmber.

Once heard a guy say "the best taught subject in erican High Schools is fotball"

Stats also tell us by far more injuries occur on the basketball court and s****r field than any other sport.

Kind of getting offtrack and letting my passion for HS Football I guess.

The message however is don't get locked in too young!

UPDATE:

Kid had back problems most of the year. Finally cleared by PT. Emailed Reed Kagan and went to see him last week. VERY IMPRESSED.

Gave my son several pointers, told him what he's doing wrong etc.

Actually told my son "You have speed. You just don't know how to use it."

Kid liked him too. We're looking forward to seeing him again.

We send players to Reed Kagen regularly. If you'll pardon the pun, he has a great track record of improving running times across the board. Slow players get less slow, average players get fast, fast players get even faster.

I can't tell you how many players we evaluate who have worked and worked on their pitching and their hitting (primary) and often also their defense (secondary), but not their speed. And yet, speed is a big part of baseball. What Reed proves is that your current speed performance is not necessarily "just the way it is." You CAN do better, with work and proper instruction.

As they say, speed doesn't go into a slump...

My son was regularly running in the 6.8 zone but had terrible form. Through our team he worked out with a SPARQ coach up here in NOVA and in just a few months he had cut .3 or more off of his times.

With the advent of the BBCOR bat I would say that speed has become one of the most highly sought after assets a player can have. Obviously you still need to have the ability to play the game but from all of the conversations that I had with coaches during my son's recruiting time it was obvious that they were all trying to recruit players with speed. One look at the college stats for power etc. show how important small ball has suddenly become.

Agree with Midlo, this is one area that I don't think you can get away with overlooking...

The real question is, why would you overlook it?

You're trying to get your swing just right, to be the best hitter you can be.

You're trying to get your mechanics just right, to be the best pitcher you can be.

Why would you not also try to be the best runner you can be? Or at least, not as bad as you may be right now?

Whether you eliminate a negative, or build on a positive, either way you improve yourself, both for the sake of your current team and for your personal prospects for the future as well.

The kid came home yesterday and told me he's just been working on the things Reed told him he did wrong.

(Where is hands where when he was running, standing to upright, stiff shoulders etc).

He said in PE Monday they were doing Sprints on the track...and several of the kids he's known for awhile were with him. HE said normally these kids are always a good bit faster than him. He said he was only a step or two behind them now. He was REALLY pumped about that.

"you should have seen the look on their faces Dad."

LOL