Shave Time Off of Your 20 Yard Shuttle to Improve Field Speed

Speed is everything in sports, however, if you don't run track, you also need to be able to quickly decelerate and change direction. Ones ability to do this is called field speed. Here I'm going to go through the 20 yard shuttle and how it can be used for a variety of sports to help you increase you field speed.

The 20 Yard Shuttle

The Benefit

Every football player should be familiar with this drill, as it is one of the tests at the NFL combine, however, many different athletes can benefit from perfecting it. This drill teaches athletes to accelerate and decelerate in a very short amount of time. An athlete's time in the drill speaks not only of their ability to sprint quickly but also of their control over their body and their ability to "stop on a dime". This ability could mean the difference between a touch down or an interception for a corner back or the difference between losing the ball or making the goal in soccer.

The Drill

Start by straddling the five yard line on a football field, then on the whistle turn and accelerate towards the goal line, touch it with your hand, accelerate toward the ten yard line, touch it with your hand and then accelerate back past the five yard line. Your time is taken in seconds and compared to other athletes at your position, similar to the 40 yard dash.

How to Get Better

Straddle the starting line in a sprint position in the direction of the first line you will touch. You can't turn completely sideways, but you can adjust enough to shave a few hundredths off of your start.

Touch the line with your outside hand. You wouldn't believe how many athletes I see step over the line and touch with their inside hand. These are wasted steps and lost time. Making this adjustment alone could take a tenth off of your time.

Practice decelerating. The point of a 20 yard dash is to tell how quickly an athlete can stop and change direction. You need to practice sprinting and stopping quickly to have a good time. Split squats and side lunges are very helpful for this. If you ever watch an NFL combine, you will notice that the athletes with the fastest 20 yard shuttle times dip very low to absorb all of their momentum and push it back up in another direction.

The Standard

Typically, an athlete's 20 yard shuttle should be one half second faster than their 40 yard dash. If you find that your 20 yard shuttle time is closer to an entire second faster than your 40 yard dash, that simply means that your field speed is better than your sprinting speed and means you need to focus on sprinting faster. It is also okay if there isn't much of a difference between your 40 yard dash and your 20 yard shuttle. That means that you need to work on more agility drills and learn to decelerate, so that you can increase your field speed. The fastest 20 yard shuttle time put up at the combines this year was a 3.9 by Sabby Piscitelli. NFL prospects should hit these numbers in the drill.

Offensive Linemen - 4.5

Deffensive Linemen - 4.2

Tight Ends - 4.1

Linebackers - 4.1

Receivers - 4.1

Running Backs - 4.3

Defensive Backs - 4.0