“I wanted to take my business to the next level. Thankfully, that’s exactly what happened.”

Darren Hansen, owner of HansenAthletics became a Speed Lab in 2021. A few years later, he’s been able to:

• Level up the knowledge and coaching for him and his staff
• Implement new technology to better track and monitor athletes
• Substantially grow his business (2x year over year)

What is Hansen Athletics?

Located in the western foothills of the Rocky Mountains, HansenAthletics is thriving as a performance facility in Pocatello, ID.

Owned and operated by Darren Hansen, this facility has experienced substantial growth over the past few years.

With a competitive and exciting atmosphere, HansenAthletics serves hundreds of athletes in the Idaho community each year with world class strength training, effective speed training, and a family-like environment.

Lacking On-Field Results

Darren Hansen, a coach with a strength and conditioning background was seeing his athletes get stronger in the years leading up to 2021. Lacking however, were the results on the field.

“Our kids were getting stronger, but here in Pocatello there are a lot of undersized athletes. In order to get an opportunity at a bigger school, they need to be fast too. Adding some strength won’t cut it. I wanted to master the craft of speed because I know this would help propel our athletes and give them a shot they deserved.” Darren Hansen said.

That’s when Darren came across the Universal Speed Rating.

Learn more about becoming a Speed Lab here, or keep reading to hear how HansenAthletics was able to transform their business.

Why Become a Speed Lab?

Darren and the HansenAthletics team had been doing some speed work, but not nearly to the level they knew they were capable of. Darren was already familiar with the Universal Speed Rating’s founder, Les Spellman, but had yet to dive in fully to the world of speed training.

“I came across the Universal Speed Rating on social media and saw they were starting this Speed Lab program. I decided to give it a shot because ultimately I knew I needed to master speed development to take our facility to the next level.”

Darren was one of the first Speed Labs to be introduced into the Universal Speed Rating Speed Lab community. His goal was to master the craft of speed and take his facility to the next level.

Nearly 2 full years later, that’s exactly what happened.

Working with the Universal Speed Rating

The first step in Hansen’s journey was education. The Universal Speed Rating uses speed principles that have been tested and proven in all levels, youth to professional.

As a Speed Lab, Darren and his entire staff received access to extensive educational resources and a dedicated team from the Universal Speed Rating to help them start implementing their speed systems.

HansenAthletics also joined as a Speed Lab with a small group of other performance coaches across the country, giving him a built in network of like-minded individuals. This ever-growing group of Speed Labs now contains over 100 facilities and training businesses across the United States.

“One of the best parts of being a Speed Lab is the community. When I initially joined, and even still today I’ve been able to form connections with some of the top minds in the industry. I’m constantly bouncing ideas off other Speed Lab members nationwide and have even flown out to a few others to continue learning the best ways to train my athletes.”  Darren said.

Darren and his entire staff gained the knowledge to effectively train speed.

Now, they needed to implement it.

Every staff member of Speed Labs get access to their very own Universal Speed Rating community to help implement their speed system, track their athlete’s data, and provide advanced analytics to their programming.

Key ideas from the speed system include frequent testing, technical + physical training, and monitoring each athlete’s output. The Universal Speed Rating platform gives every Speed Lab the chance to effectively monitor and track their athlete’s performance and improvements.

“The platform itself gives our staff and the athletes a continual feedback loop. We’re able to track progress over time which has helped motivate our athletes to keep improving. It also gives us validation on the training we’re providing. If we aren’t making the progress we expect we are able to adapt and make changes to provide the best service to our clients.” - Darren Hansen

As a Speed Lab, HansenAthletics also gets access to Speed Lab profiles that identify each athlete’s physical and technical needs.

With newfound knowledge on coaching speed paired with a technology partner like the Universal Speed Rating, HansenAthletics gained confidence in their coaching, growth in their number of clients, and most importantly, their athletes starting seeing the results in their sport.

Learn more about partnering with the Universal Speed Rating here.

The Results

Since becoming a Speed Lab in 2021, HansenAthletics has doubled their business, growing substantially year over year.

Speed Lab assessments are now a part of what they do at HansenAthletics. Working with the Universal Speed Rating has given Hansen and his team credibility in the ways they’re doing things, in terms of tracking data, and with results on the field.

The number of individual clients isn’t the only place Hansen has seen growth. In the Summer of 2023, Hansen was able to work with 12 different sport teams, with team sport coaches being drawn in by the ability to track and report on the athlete improvement from working with the Hansen staff.

When asked what Darren would tell somebody who was considering becoming a Speed Lab, he responded…

“It’s one of the best investments you can make in your education to speed development and speed training. It’s a network. If you come in ready to work, ready to be driven, and are willing to put in the time and effort, becoming a Speed Lab can help take your business to the next level.”

For HansenAthletics, joining the Speed Lab community gave him and his staff the knowledge, it gave his facility the credibility, and it gave his athletes the results. All of this has led to a transformed HansenAthletics — which was the goal all along.

If you’re looking to take your business to the next level, contact us with the form below, or schedule an introduction call with a member of our team.

Contact us to Learn More

If you’d like to connect with Darren Hansen or the HansenAthletics team on social, check them out here: @CoachDHansen | @HansenAthletics