Derek M. Hansen - November 2025

Introduction

Even though I started my career in the sport performance field, working in Strength and Conditioning and focusing on speed development, the majority of my major projects in the last ten years have focused on injury management.  Teams are finding that the biggest challenge in modern sports is staying healthy and ensuring players are available to make an impact in games.  With all the so-called advancements in training, equipment, nutrition and rehabilitation, we still find ourselves at a precipice where the prospects of a team can be thrown into turmoil with a handful of serious injuries to key players at the wrong time.

As such, team staff are scrambling – at all levels including professional, collegiate, national team and high school – to maintain a healthy lineup throughout the season.  While there are new technologies and methods for treating injuries, these innovations have not necessarily contributed to a reduction in the incidence o...

Derek M. Hansen - January 2025

As you approach the latter years of your career, you begin to review many of the decisions, philosophies and methodologies that you adopted in your younger years, wondering if you made the right choices and how circumstances could have possibly turned out different.  Did I attend the right schools?  Did I train too hard and fall short of my potential?  Did I choose the right career?  Should I have travelled more?  Am I a good parent?  It certainly is odd that you may find yourself with more questions than answers despite all of your accumulated wisdom and experiences.

The same goes for all of my coaching decisions over the past three decades.  Have I followed the correct philosophies and protocols?  Did I get the results I was hoping for?  As such, I am now reviewing a good deal of the training principles that have formed my approach, including the high-low approach to sprint and speed training that I have put into practice for the past 25 years.

One o...