Speed isn't something you're born with. It's a skill, and it's trainable. I know because I learned it late — I started sprinting at 31 and I've run 10.89.
Book an assessment — $100It isn't the fault of their coaches. A football coach has ninety minutes to teach a game. Running gets assumed — you either have it or you don't.
So kids spend years being told to go faster without once being shown how. Where the foot lands. How long to keep pushing. What the arms are for. Then somewhere around thirteen they decide they're just not fast, and that's that.
Before the growth spurt, kids pick up movement faster than they ever will again. Show them a pattern and it goes in, and it stays. Once the spurt starts — usually twelve to fourteen for boys — they get taller, less flexible and more prone to pulling things. The same work takes longer to stick.
It isn't a deadline and I'm not going to pretend it is. But if your child is somewhere around eleven or twelve, this is the easy stretch of road, and it only comes once.
Same body, different training. That's the only before-and-after I've got at the moment, and it's mine. I learned this at the hardest possible age — your kid is at the easiest.
I ran 800m professionally in Japan and competed at three national championships, chasing the Olympics until I was 25. My best is 1:48.
After that I spent two years in Melbourne, completing a personal training qualification while learning to coach at FAST 8 Track Club — a program that has produced Olympic finalists and national record holders.
Back in Japan I worked as physical coach at the country's first professional track club, where I contributed to two national distance records. I then coached sprint mechanics and physical preparation for professional footballers, baseball players and sprinters in Tokyo.
I took up sprinting myself at 31. I've since run 10.89 and I'm working toward the Australian Championships. I still train and I still race — which is the main reason I'll never ask your kid to do something I'm not doing myself.
I coach the 11–15s squad at Byron Bay Runners and hold a current Working With Children Check.
I'm new to coaching privately here, so I don't have a wall of testimonials yet. What I have instead is numbers — mine, and the ones I'll measure on your child.
You'll be out of the first three steps before the kid next to you. You'll stop getting caught over the last ten metres. You'll know exactly what your body is doing, instead of just trying harder.
The drills you'll do are the same ones I used with professional footballers in Tokyo. Scaled down, but the same idea.
And you'll be training with someone who still races. I'll do the warm-up with you, and some days you can try to beat me.
Ninety minutes. I measure acceleration with electronic timing, test jumps for power, check left against right, and film how they run. You get a written page before we start anything.
Once a week, ninety minutes a session — sprinting only works with full recovery between runs, and rushing that defeats the point. Between sessions there are three exercises that take fifteen minutes.
Same tests, same conditions, at the end. The numbers either moved or they didn't, and you'll see which. You also get the second page — what changed, and what to keep working on over the next year, written so you can act on it whether or not you carry on with me.
Chest comes up too early, arms across the body, most of what they've got going into the ground sideways. They're quick because they're keen, not because anything is organised.
They hold a position out of the start and keep pushing instead of standing up. Same effort, more of it going forward. Both sides doing equal work.
They win the ball they used to lose by half a step. They stop being the kid who fades.
And there's a quieter one. Australian parents, asked what they actually want out of their child's sport, put confidence first — ahead of winning, ahead of fitness. A kid who can see they're getting better, with the numbers in front of them, carries themselves differently. That's usually the change parents mention before the times.
Eight weeks won't make anyone elite. It's long enough to change how they move, and that change stays with them.
Most parents never receive anything written about their child's sport in their whole life. Selected or not selected, and that's it.
After the assessment: where they are now, which side is producing less force, what eight weeks should change, and the three exercises to do between sessions.
The same page with the second column filled in. What moved, what didn't, and what that tells us about how they're built.
The second page is the one that matters. Half of it isn't about the eight weeks at all — it's about the next twelve months. What to keep training and what to leave alone. What to watch for as they grow, and when. Which side to keep an eye on. What their sport is going to ask of them at fourteen that it doesn't ask at twelve.
Written so you can act on it without me. If you carry on with me, good. If you don't, or you move away, or they switch sports — you still know what your child needs and why. Eight weeks is a start. The page is so it doesn't stop there.
It's for them as much as for you. Kids who can watch their own numbers move stop needing to be told they're improving.
And it isn't a ranking against other children. Two twelve-year-olds can be three years apart physically, so that tells you very little.
Blocks are paid upfront. Eight weeks is the shortest I take, and it isn't arbitrary — it's the standard length used in the research on youth sprint training, and it's the minimum needed for anything physical to change. A floor, not a ceiling.
If there's a trial or a carnival coming up, count back eight weeks from it. That's when we'd want to start.
Measure everything, tell you exactly what I see, and put it in writing at the start and at the end — so you'll know whether it worked, and you won't have to take my word for it.
I work with 8 to 16 year olds. Under about twelve it's mostly coordination, landing and learning to move well — speed work proper comes later. Nobody gets loaded before they can hold a position.
Sprinting is a nervous-system stimulus rather than a fatigue one — short efforts with full recovery, and a much lower load than a game or a full training session. Growing bodies do need care around flexibility and left-right differences, which is exactly why the assessment comes first.
Sometimes, yes. Part of my job is working out how this fits around what they're already doing, and occasionally telling you that it doesn't.
Tell me before we start. I'll measure it and keep an eye on it. I don't diagnose or treat injuries — if something needs looking at, I'll say so and you'll want a physio.
So do most of the athletes I work with. Football, rugby, netball, touch. The first ten to twenty metres decides most of what happens in those sports, and that's the part that transfers.
This might suit them better than you'd expect. One athlete, one coach, one clear thing to do — no sidelines, nobody watching, no being picked, no social dynamics to manage. For some kids that's the difference between dreading sport and looking forward to it.
You get the second page and we talk about it. Some athletes carry on with another block, some go back to their sport with the plan and get on with it, and some move away — that happens a fair bit around here. The page is written so it's useful in all three cases. I'd rather you leave knowing what your child needs than keep booking because you don't.
The re-test will show it either way, and I'll tell you straight. What I won't do is promise a result before I've seen them run.
On grass around Byron Bay and Ballina — I'll confirm the spot once we've spoken. They need running shoes, a water bottle and a hat. No spikes, no gym gear.
Light rain is fine, we run. If it's unsafe underfoot I'll call it and we reschedule — that session isn't lost.
Ninety minutes, $100. I measure, I film, and you get a written page — yours to keep whatever you decide to do next. If you go on to do the eight weeks, you get a second one at the end with the plan for the year ahead. And if I don't think I'm the right person for your child, I'll say so.
One last thing. I'm 34 and still chasing my own times, badly. I know exactly what it feels like to want to be faster and have no idea how. That's the whole reason I do this.