4 Exercises You Should Be Doing to Increase Your Speed

1. Deadlift

Fast athletes are strong athletes. There is no shortcut, speed is built in the weight room. The athletes that can run the fastest are the ones that can produce the most power and put the most force into the ground.

There is no better bang for your buck exercise for developing the posterior chain than the deadlift. Just take a look at elite level sprinters; their glutes and hamstrings are very strong.

We have our athletes do anywhere from 2-8 reps for 3 to 5 sets.

2. Hip Bridges & Hip Thrusts

Another great glute and hamstring developer. These variations are far less taxing on the body than the deadlift and can be performed twice or even 3 times per week. Whereas, we usually only have our athletes deadlift once per week.

I prefer this to RDL variations because it takes the loading off of the spine and is easier for young athletes to master.

3. Single Leg Variations (Lunges, Bulgarians, etc.)

Single leg training is a lot more sports specific than bilateral exercises. For a larg

e majority of the time sports are played unilaterally, we run and jump off of 1 leg.

Also, because of the bilateral deficit humans tend to be able to handle more load on 1 leg than we can on 2. For example, the sum of both legs on a Bulgarian squat equals more than the amount we can handle on a standard squat.

4. Acceleration Drills ( Hill Sprints, Push Up Starts, Sled Pushes/Drags)

Sprinters like to break down the 100m into phases. It’s typically as follows:

Reaction
Start
Drive Phase
Max Velocity
Maintenance

It is rare for anyone other than track athletes to move past the drive phase. As Usain Bolt explains, his drive phase is the first 30 meters.Whether you’re playing football, basketball, or baseball, most of your sprints are going to be shorter than that.

The focus for these types of athletes should be acceleration rather than top speed.