EP2: Lee Taft

Jul 19, 2022

Lee Taft, known as 'The Speed Guy,' is a highly respected athletic movement specialist with decades of experience in training athletes. In this engaging discussion, Lee shares his philosophy on the essential role of natural movements and CNS reactions in achieving athletic speed. He highlights common training pitfalls, such as overemphasizing hypertrophy, and advocates for foundational skills in youth training. Lee also previews his innovative drills and coaching methods that emphasize multi-directional training and effective pedagogy for long-term athletic development.

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ANECDOTE

Origin Story Of Movement Philosophy

Lee Taft started studying false steps after watching his own game film as a college basketball captain and noticing involuntary repositioning of his feet.
That curiosity led him to study biomechanics, physics, and film of great athletes to build his movement philosophy.

INSIGHT

Trust The Nervous System's Intent

The central nervous system naturally produces protective, efficient reactions that coaches should respect rather than fight.
Lee argues movement faults often reflect capacity limits, not bad instincts, so fix posture, strength or mobility to restore natural movement.

ADVICE

Protect Speed When Adding Strength

Balance training and sport-specific strength should support, not replace, an athlete's speed and quickness qualities.
Avoid excessive hypertrophy or heavy training that reduces range of motion and elastic explosiveness.

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Lee Taft, known to most simply as “The Speed Guy”, is highly respected as one of the top athletic movement specialists in the world. In the last 30 years he has devoted the majority of his time training multi-directional speed to all ages and abilities. He has spent much of this time teaching his multi-directional speed methods to top performance coaches and fitness professionals all over the world. Lee has also dedicated countless hours mentoring up and coming sports performance trainers, many who have gone into the profession and made a big impact themselves.

Since 1989, Lee has taught foundation movement to beginning youngsters and helped young amateur athletes to professional athletes become quicker, faster, and stronger. Lee’s entire philosophy is based on one of his most notable quotes, “Learning athletic movement correctly from the start is the foundation for athletic success.”

With the release of Ground Breaking Athletic Movement in 2003, Lee revolutionized the fitness industry with his movement techniques for multi-directional speed. His innovative approach to training has impacted how athletic movement speed is taught. Lee brought to light the importance and fine points of the “Plyo Step”, “Hip Turn”, “Directional Crossover Step” and athletic stance. According to Lee, “Speed and agility done right is about making sure we marry the natural movements athletes have with effective and efficient body control to maximize speed and quickness”.

Lee has been asked to speak at numerous strength and conditioning and sports performance events across the world and has produced numerous instructional videos and courses in the area of multi-directional speed and movement training. In addition, Lee has written several eBooks specifically on movement techniques and speed development.

In this podcast, we talk about where Lee originated his ideas on developing speed and change of direction capabilities. We talk about his early career experiences. In addition to this, we discuss elements related to youth athletic development. Finally, we talk about his upcoming seminar in NYC for July 2022.