Fred Duncan (@Fred__Duncan)

I’ve always been a fan of studying the past…the coaches and athletes who solved problems without the tools we have now, then pairing that with current research and with what I’ve seen with my own eyes through years on the floor. That blend is how my system evolved. In Speed ...

Athletes with stronger and longer (fascicle length) hamstrings show more efficient, front-side mechanics, greater hip flexion, faster knee extension, and less anterior pelvic tilt (Ripley et al. 2025) Those with weaker or shorter hamstrings tend to display back-side mechanics, ...

Even though sprinting is something we all can do, few ever master it. It’s not just running fast…it’s learning how to express force, rhythm, and timing through precise mechanics. What always surprises me is how much faster people get when they decide to actually train ...

Not all isometrics are the same. Different types. Different adaptations. What you use and when you use it…matters. We covered yielding, overcoming, and EQIs, but there are other useful variations too - Oscillatory isos, iso-dynamic, etc. Understanding why you’re using ...

Reactive strength is the ability to quickly and efficiently transition from an eccentric contraction to a concentric one. When you think about most sport actions…sprinting, jumping, changing direction, they all come down to how efficiently you apply force. That includes how ...

When you land, you aren’t absorbing force, you’re producing it eccentrically to control momentum and redirect motion. There are different ways to use eccentrics and help develop this quality – Tempo eccentrics - slower lowering submax loads to build control and positional ...

Can Muscle Make You Slower? This isn’t an anti-strength or anti-muscle post. I actually dedicate an entire chapter to this in my latest e-book, Speed Kills. For most athletes, the answer is simple…you do need more muscle and you do need to get much stronger. But at a ...

If we really want to talk about developing athletes, we have to dig deeper into the qualities that make them elite. That’s often a difficult conversation, because some of these things aren’t as easily measurable as a vertical jump, a bench press, a squat, or a broad jump. ...

This follows up on my earlier video about ankle stiffness and where we strike the ground. At its core, sprinting comes down to physics…force vectors, leverages, and how efficiently you can move your center of mass forward. Position and posture determine how effectively you ...