You’ve Been Doing Speed Training Completely Wrong

Improving your speed will be able to help you out in almost any sport that you play, and in baseball speed is one of the five tools that recruiters and coaches look at when evaluating a player. Every athlete wants to improve their speed, but few understand how to train in a way that will truly make them faster on the field or court. Speed training is one of the most misunderstood types of training. The worst saying that I often hear from sports coaches is “you can’t teach speed.”  Maybe you can’t “teach” it, but you can certainly develop it with a good training program. The problem is there are a bunch of speed gurus that over emphasize the importance of sprint mechanics and sport coaches that overcondition their athletes causing a high amount of fatigue that is incredibly hard for them to recover from. I see “speed training” all over social media where coaches have their athletes continuously run for a long period of time with little to no rest then doing pointless ladder and cone drills. Kids and parents are fooled into thinking that they are getting better because they leave their training session drenched in sweat and out of breath, which makes them feel like they are improving. I see a ton of athletes on social media platforms that work incredibly hard doing drills and workouts that we have been told get us faster. They train as hard as they can over a period of time with little to know results which makes athletes think that speed mainly comes from good genetics. This is simply not true.

The truth is that you can get a lot faster with minimal equipment, and without an excessive amount of running. But what should we be doing to improve our speed if traditional speed training that we see being used all over social media doesn’t work? In this article I will go over scientific methods that are guaranteed to improve your sprinting performance when applied properly, and the two phases of a sprint that the majority of athletes need to focus on training.

To understand how to get faster we first need to understand what makes an athlete fast or slow. Our skeletal muscles are made up of muscle fibers, and the muscle fibers that your muscles are predominantly made out of will have a part in determining how fast or slow you are. (Yes, your genetics do matter, but you can still improve your speed with bad genetics.) Everyone's muscular system has two types of muscle fibers, slow-twitch type 1 and fast-twitch type II. Both types play a role in certain athletic events, but the one that you need to train for sprinting is the type II fast twitch fibers.

If you are out of breath or feel fatigued while running then you are training your type 1, slow twitch muscle fibers which will actually make you a slower sprinter, but will improve your muscular endurance. This contradicts almost everything I was taught about improving my speed when I was an athlete. I always thought that if I was running, drenched in sweat, breathing hard, and left completely exhausted then I would turn into a faster athlete, when in fact, the complete opposite is true. Speed development happens in the absence of fatigue.

When you sprint you want to take very long periods of rest before your next sprint. A good general rule to follow is to rest for 1 minute for every 10 yards that you sprint. This may seem crazy, but it is important because if your body is fatigued at all from the previous work then you will not be moving at your maximum velocity, therefore you will not be improving your sprinting speed, but your overall endurance instead.

Endurance training is overused for most team sports, especially baseball. Think about it. When was the last time you were completely out of breath on the baseball field? Probably not often, with the exception of hitting a triple or inside the park homerun. Yet, coaches still have their athletes run poles or triangles for conditioning. The only thing this does is overtrain their athletes, makes them less explosive and increases their risk for injury. This could turn into a whole different topic, but the main point I want you to understand is that you should take long periods of rest in between your sprints if you want to train to get faster.

The Four Phases of a Sprint

Next we need to understand the four phases of a sprint, and which phases we use most in our sport. The four phases of a sprint are the start, acceleration, top speed and deceleration. The first part of the sprint is the start, this is the first three steps of a sprint. Then you have the acceleration phase of the sprint. In this phase you are trying to accelerate to achieving top speed as fast as possible. The next phase is top speed, this is the part where you are moving as fast as you possibly can. Lastly, there is the deceleration phase, this is where you can no longer hold your top speed and begin to slow down.  In my opinion having a good start and being able to accelerate as fast as possible is more important than having an elite level top speed. In the majority of sports sprints are going to be short with many changes in direction. It will be rare (unless you are a sprinter) that you will have to run at your top speed for a long period of time, so training your start and acceleration should usually be your number one priority. The start of a sprint and having the ability to accelerate fast is incredibly important, it will make or break you in most sports. In baseball if you have a slow start then you will more than likely be thrown out when you try to steal a bag. In football if you can’t accelerate at an elite level it will be incredibly hard for a WR to create separation from DB and if you have a slow start or bad acceleration in basketball good luck making it past JV.

First let's talk about the start. Improving your start is all about being able to produce a high amount of force in a short amount of time. This is also known as rate of force development (RFD). How fast you are able to put an optimal amount of force into the ground will determine how fast your start is. The best way to improve your rate of force development is by getting incredibly strong for your body weight and utilizing the dynamic effort method. The dynamic effort method is a training method where you will perform high sets and low reps with submaximal weight and try to move the bar as fast as possible.

At my gym when we are trying to improve an athlete’s start of a sprint, we will typically do 12 sets of 2 reps at 50-60% of the athlete's max on that certain lift with 25% band tension added for accommodating resistance. (For more info on the dynamic effort method check out my blog on the conjugate method.) There are many different dynamic effort movement variations that you can utilize to help improve your start of a sprint.

Here are some of my favorites:

• Trap Bar Deadlift

• Box Squats

• Reverse Lunges

• Bulgarian Split Squats

If you are currently slow in your start of a sprint add some of these movements into your dynamic effort training day. Also keep in mind if you are weak for your body weight your number one priority needs to be increasing your maximal strength. It won’t help you to increase how fast you are able to put force into the ground if you aren’t able to put a high amount of force into the ground at all.

The next phase is acceleration. The definition of acceleration is the rate at which velocity changes with time in terms of speed and direction, so your acceleration during a sprint is the rate that you gain speed while moving forward until you hit your top speed. The goal of athletes should be to reach their top speed in the shortest amount of time possible.  Athletes can improve their acceleration by adding sprint work, resistance sprinting and plyometric training into their program. 

Doing sled sprints or banded sprints with a partner is a great way to improve your ability to accelerate. It will help you increase your force per stride and stride frequency which will give you a higher capacity to accelerate at a fast rate. Make sure that you’re not using a sled so heavy that it distorts your sprint mechanics. 

Plyometric training is a great way to improve your stride frequency which plays a big role in the acceleration phase of a sprint. Some of my favorite plyometric movements are:

• Broad Jumps with or without a band

• Single Leg Broad Jumps with or without a band

• Kneeling jumps

• Hurdle jumps

• Single leg hurdle jumps

• Box jumps

• Depth Jumps

As I said earlier when you are doing sprint training it is incredibly important that you take long periods of rest. The same rule applies when you add resistance to your sprints and when doing plyometric work. If you are fatigued or out of breath while doing these exercises you will not be improving your speed capability. 

I hope this article has helped you have a better grasp on improving your or your teams’ speed. Remember, at the end of the day mechanics are important but it is more important to be strong and explosive. When in doubt, remember strength is never a weakness so get incredibly strong for your body weight, lift submaximal weights as fast as possible, sprint, jump and you will see improvements in your speed.

If you have any other questions on how to improve your speed or training in general send me an email to jbennett@aretestrengthandperformance.com.