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Ah, suicide sprint drills. The bane of any athlete's existence. They are certainly not fun to go through, but if you play any type of competitive sports, it's basically inevitable that you will have to do suicide sprint drills during your athletic career. There are many different reasons for these drills, some of which are obvious to you as an athlete, some of which become obvious if you do any coaching, or if you are able to look back on your high school career and reflect on these drills.

The biggest aspect of why coaches love suicide sprint drills is because they are great for conditioning. In many sports, you will be doing things like this during games... full-out sprints, then maybe a little break, then more sprinting. This is replicated in suicide sprint drills. You'll sprint, then get a short rest, then sprint again, wash, rinse, repeat. In sports like football, basketball, etc. this is the type of conditioning that is necessary. You might not be full out sprinting all the time in these sports, but you will be for short bursts, just like what you do in suicide spring drills.

Another thing coaches like is it's a quick way to see who is fast, who is the best conditioned, and who's tough enough to keep going. If the same people are finishing the suicides first, they're probably the fastest and best conditioned. These are the types of things that coaches like to know.

Another factor is that they teach discipline to players. It's not easy to do suicide after suicide, but it teaches toughness and discipline. It's easy to just walk away from them, but it shows dedication to be able to continue doing sprint after spring, even after you're dead-tired. Coaches like to see this type of discipline and dedication.

So I would say that these are some of the biggest reasons why coaches love suicide sprint drills. They help to condition the players well, and they can tell you a lot about your players. When you combine these factors, you can see why coaches are so fond of these drills, and why they'll be used in coaching forever. They really do serve some useful purposes for coaches.

Learn more about this author, Juan Leer.
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