Speed & Agility Training for Las Vegas Youth Athletes

Athlete 2.0 is a speed and agility training program for youth athletes in Las Vegas. We coach soccer, softball and baseball players from age 10 through high school and college, and many of our athletes are girls chasing a college roster spot. Coach April Russell, a former Division 1 soccer player with a B.S. in Exercise Science, runs an Official Speed Lab in partnership with Universal Speed Rating.

Speed training makes you faster over a distance. It covers acceleration, the first 10 to 20 yards, and max velocity, the top speed you reach and hold. Agility is the ability to change direction in response to something in the game: a defender's move, a ball off the bat, a teammate's pass.

A good program separates the two and builds both. Athletes get faster from full-intensity sprints with full rest and from the strength to push harder into the ground. Agility work starts with deceleration and change-of-direction mechanics, then adds decisions so the athlete learns to read and react. Conditioning circuits build fitness, which has its place, and they train a different quality from speed.

Each athlete starts with a free 45-minute assessment. The speed and agility assessment uses Universal Speed Rating to measure acceleration and top speed. The strength and performance assessment screens mobility and stability to find where an athlete loses force or control.

Those results set the program and give parents a concrete number to follow. We retest through the program, so you can see whether the times dropped.

Walk past a youth practice in Las Vegas and you will see athletes stepping through agility ladders and weaving around cones. The drills look busy and they tire kids out. They do little for acceleration or top speed.

Sprint speed comes down to how much force you apply to the ground and how fast you apply it. Ladder drills keep your feet close to the ground with short, light contacts, and they reward quick feet at low force. A faster sprint needs forceful pushes with the body in the right position. An athlete can move her feet fast through a ladder and still run a slow 20 yards.

Cone drills have a similar limit. When an athlete memorizes a cone pattern, she practices a planned cut with no decision attached. Game agility starts with reading a cue and reacting to it. We use planned cone work to teach cutting mechanics, and we pair it with reactive drills because a memorized pattern does not train the read that wins a loose ball.

A speed session looks slower than a ladder circuit. Athletes rest between sprints so each rep reaches full speed, and those full-speed reps are the ones that build speed. We walk parents through the rest periods at the first session, since from the sideline the rest can look like standing around.

Small group training caps sessions at eight athletes grouped by age and skill level, so you get coaching attention and teammates who push you. Speed training costs $100 for a single session, $680 for an eight-session package or $250 a month for two sessions a week with a three-month minimum.

Semi-private training fits athletes working toward a college scholarship. The program is individual and targets each athlete's limiters, whether that is a flaw in sprint mechanics or a strength imbalance.

Team training brings speed and strength work to a full roster, with Universal Speed Rating testing for each player. Club and high school coaches get a custom quote based on squad size, training frequency and season length. Strength and performance memberships run $250 a month for two sessions a week or $299 for three.

Athlete 2.0 trains athletes across Las Vegas. Speed and agility sessions run outdoors at Paseos Park and in Southern Highlands, and strength sessions take place at Kaizen. Sessions run weekday afternoons from 3:30 to 6:30 PM and Saturday mornings from 8 to 11 AM.

Pick your sport for a closer look at how we train it: soccer speed training, softball speed and agility training or baseball speed training. When you're ready, text April to book a free assessment.