Cheetah vs Lion

I was watching a documentary on Animal Planet the other day and I saw some video that was very interesting. The video was of a cheetah actually being chased by a lion. The videographer said that he had never seen a lion so aggressively pursue a cheetah for such a long distance. What I found almost laughable was the fact that the cheetah was clearly much faster and it kept looking back at the lion as if he were crazy. It was almost as if the cheetah was thinking, "Uh, you realize I am a cheetah don't you? You have no chance of catching me. You may be stronger and bigger but when it comes to speed, I am King of the Jungle!"

I immediately thought about some of the athletes I have trained recently. They are high school kids who spend the majority of their training working on getting bigger and stronger. Getting stronger is good and essential to being a great athlete but what was missing was speed development. Speed is arguably the most important factor for any sport from grade school through high school. College and professional sports is where speed must be matched with strength and power.

The fact is that on a football team for example, you really want a balance of lions and cheetahs. You may want to throw in some buffulo as well but my philosophy hasn't changed since high school, "I don't care how big and strong you are. If you can't beat me to the endzone, I WIN EVERYTIME!"

My advice to athletes is to train to be better athletes. That means to not focus too specfically on one thing but to become good at many things. Speed training needs to be one of those focus points. Being big and strong will help you but being fast will make you King of the Jungle.