Most parents can tell when their athlete looks slower than teammates. Fewer can tell when the real issue isn’t speed at all — it’s how the body moves. Here are five signs corrective exercise should come before more speed drills, not after.
1. They favor one side consistently
Landing, cutting, or jumping noticeably differently on one leg versus the other is a movement-asymmetry red flag, not just a quirk — it’s often an early sign of imbalance that more speed work alone won’t fix.
2. Recurring “minor” tweaks in the same spot
A rolled ankle here, tight hamstring there — if the same area keeps acting up, the pattern causing it hasn’t been addressed, only the symptom.
3. Poor landing mechanics
Knees caving inward on landing (often called “knock-kneed” landing) is one of the most common, well-documented risk factors for non-contact injuries in young athletes, and it’s directly trainable.
4. Fatigue changes their form noticeably
If mechanics fall apart late in practice or games, that’s often a sign of insufficient movement-control endurance — a corrective-exercise and conditioning issue, not a “try harder” issue.
5. They’ve never had a movement assessment
Most youth athletes go straight into skill and speed work without ever having someone actually watch how they move under load. That’s the starting point corrective exercise is built around.
At Next Level Athletic Fitness in Pittsburgh, every program — including pure speed and agility work — starts with understanding how an athlete actually moves. If any of these sound familiar, that’s a conversation worth having before adding more speed drills to the mix.
Written with input from Antonio Williams, MS, PES, NASM-certified Performance Enhancement Specialist and Owner/Director of Next Level Athletic Fitness.
