At F5 we do a lot of land based training, but our most challenging workouts involve the high speed treadmill. This isn’t your average treadmill. Our tread goes up to 31 mph and up to 40 degrees incline. This program is designed to be done in 8 week increments with different levels.

The hardest thing for any trainer to do is correct running mechanics when doing a drill. On our tread this is made much simpler due to the fact that the trainer can stand beside the athlete while training and correct improper running movements. Our speed and agility works on a variety of drills while the treadmill focuses on top speed and power.  The treadmill allows us to train beginner athletes where their speed improves drastically, and the elite athletes at the top of their respective sport who have had great success taking the essential tenths of seconds off. In 2009, we had an athlete come to us 3 months after an ACL tear.  This athlete had taken second place the previous year in the 100 meter at the state championships.  After training with us for just one eight week session, he not only competed, but beat his previous best and won first place just 6 months after surgery in the state championships that same year.  His surgeon said was a “miracle”.

Another athletic improvement is in their increase in power. The vertical jump is a direct indicator in power increase. It is very common to improve athletes vertical by inches. Not half an inch or an inch, but INCHES. A group of state champion volleyball players did one eight week session on the treadmill and increased their vertical by over 5 ½ inches. The outside hitter saw a 9 inch increase, and she was an All-State recipient.

The treadmill philosophy is to do about two-thirds of the workouts as running workouts challenging the athlete with increases of both speed and incline.

The other one-third is workouts in the state of the art 360 degrees of motion harness system.

The harness allows us to train athletes using not only linear (straight ahead) running, but lateral and backwards movements. As we know sports aren’t played just sprinting, but a tremendous amount of time is spent shuffling and moving backwards with unexpected changes of direction. With the harness system we can “off-weight” the athlete from 12 to 65 pounds. This allows us to work the athlete at faster speeds with less body weight. When doing this it allows the fast twitch muscle fibers to recruit more rapidly which in result they will do the same thing when playing in a game.