If you play sports (you do play sports, right?), you can probably improve your game by being faster. In fact, I can't think of a single sport that doesn't benefit from increased straight-line speed. In baseball, it's base-running. Ball carriers in football want "breakaway speed," while linebackers need "closing speed". A basketball court may only be 92' long, but it involves constant acceleration out of quick cuts.

You could argue that boxers and MMA fighters don't need a great deal of acceleration and speed and I couldn't argue back, so let's just let that one die. But even marathon runners train for speed.

As such, I've been thinking about how to incorporate additional speed training into the program of a non-track athlete's GPP phase. Of course, you won't become a competitive track and field athlete without some specialization, but that doesn't mean you won't benefit from throwing some real speed training into your workouts.

What Is Speed?

To make it simple, speed is power. A fast athlete is a powerful athlete. You'll rarely find someone that's fast in a straight line that can't also hold their own in other athletic endeavors. Sport-specific skills aside, speed has direct carry-over to most anything you could want to do athletically.

When you look at a sprinter, whether it's Tyson Gay or a 40-year old Master's competitor, what you're seeing is "mass-specific force”—the ability to produce force relative to body mass—combined with "rate of force production"—how fast that force can be produced.

Those two things come together to produce stride length, which is effectively how far you're launching your body with each step. Multiply stride length by stride rate and the answer is how fast you can cover a given distance.

How To Increase Speed

So given what we know about speed, we can either increase stride length or increase stride rate to cover ground more quickly. So do you want to go farther which each step or take more steps? Ideally, both, but if you had to pick one to focus on, which would it be? If you guessed that you should want to cover more distance per step, you're exactly right. If you guessed otherwise, sorry.

Now, they're actually interdependent variables, but considering that elite sprinters are turning over about 4.5-5 times per second and the rest of us are probably somewhere around (just a guess) 4-ish, there's far more to be gained from increasing stride length. If we look at the current sprinting god, Usain Bolt, and compare him to other elite sprinters, we find that he's covering 100m in about 40 strides. It's taking the other incredibly fast guys 44-48 strides. Bolt goes farther with each stride, even though all of them are in the same ballpark regarding stride frequency.

In fact, I'd bet that my stride rate is fairly close to Bolt's. But I don't cover 2.5m per stride, and there's the major difference. He might take an extra half-stride per second, but he probably covers an extra 3/4 of a meter on each stride. Stride length is essentially your power output per step, exactly what we want to improve.

How Not To "Increase" Speed

One thing you absolutely do not want to do in trying to increase your stride length is to reach your foot further out in front of you trying to get that extra foot on your stride. There are two big reasons for this. The first one is your hamstrings. They don't appreciate you altering your stride like that and you will be much more prone to injuries. If you want something that will really slow you down quickly, pull a hammy.

The second reason is that, while you may feel like you're going faster, you're not. The farther in front of your body your foot lands, the more braking action you have. You'll also spend more time on the ground and less time projecting your body through the air. Your foot should strike almost directly below your center of mass, about 6-12" in front.

Increasing Strength Output

Let's jump into the important stuff now—where to focus your time to improve your power output. Since power is a combination of how much force you can output and how quickly you can generate that force, additional strength is of obvious benefit.

Now, I'm no expert on building strength. But I can tell you one thing. You want to increase strength without increasing mass. Remember that we're looking for "mass-specific force".

That means you want to use high weights and low reps. You want to focus strength development through the posterior chain since the hamstrings and glutes are the major drivers in sprinting. Beyond those two facts, I really don't care what you do to get there.

You can use Starting Strength, Jim Wendler's 5/3/1, one of the many flavors of 5x5, or whatever other program you find focusing on the major compound lifts: the squat and the deadlift. Just pick one and get stronger.

How strong do you need to be? Being able to squat and deadlift 1.5 times your bodyweight is probably a good starting goal. Additional strength will definitely help, but if you can't pull off these relatively low numbers, you're leaving a lot of potential on the table.

Don't forget to add in some complex upper body work with the bench press, overhead press, pull-ups, and dips. Supplementary exercises that aid the posterior chain can also be added like Romanian deadlifts and Good Mornings.

Increasing Rate Of Force Development

Having more strength relative to your mass is important, but it's not that simple. If it were, powerlifters would dominate on the track. But that's certainly not the case. Mass-specific force is just a measure of strength. To generate power, we need to convert that strength quickly into propulsive force. But even more so than strength, the central nervous system is the limiting factor for, well, pretty much everyone. Therefore, we need to train the nervous system to fire more muscle and to fire it faster.

Plyometrics

Believe it or not, though you may run horizontally, when your leg touches down, you push off with a vertical ground force, not horizontal. Given that, it makes sense to train the body to fire vertically, quickly and forcefully. Enter plyometrics. There are any number of good plyometric programs out there and at least as many bad ones.

A program that I've used successfully can be found here. I like this program because it has a gradual build-up from low to high intensity.

A word of caution: Do not overdo it on the plyometrics. These are incredibly ballistic exercises and will injure you. I know you think you're prepared and are in great shape and can handle it. So did I before I damaged a hamstring tendon last year, leading to two months of sub-par training. Start slow, do less than you think you can do, and build up over a 4-6 week period.

In fact, if you use the program I linked to above, start at the lowest intensity for three weeks, then move up a level for another three weeks, and so forth. You might laugh at the ease of these early workouts. They might not feel taxing. Do them anyway. That's my caution. If you damage yourself, don't blame me.

Loading: You will be doing plyometrics no more than once per week. This one session will encompass 80-120 high-quality jumps per session. And that's it. Go home and rest.

Olympic lifts

No discussion of force development would be complete without touching on the Olympic lifts: the clean and jerk and the snatch. I don't think that the snatch is really necessary for a non-Olympic lifter. Heavy, low-rep clean and jerk, on the other hand, is a good addition to your workouts. You can probably even limit yourself to the hang power clean for maximum "bang for the buck".

A discussion of programming is beyond the scope of this article. Greg Everett would be the man to ask that question to and his Catalyst Athletics Workout of the Day seems as good as any for ideas on programming the lifts.

And Of Course, Sprinting

No disrespect to Olympic lifters and powerlifters, but all theory aside, the best way to get good at running fast in a straight line is by... running fast in a straight line. The lifts are excellent, but they are supplements to speed training. Specificity of training says that you'll get more out of sprinting. Remember that the limiting factor for most athletes is the rate at which the nervous system will fire. By sprinting, you're teaching the body to fire those muscles quicker and optimizing fast-twitch expression.

Think of sprinting as the ultimate plyometric exercise. As the foot lands on the forefoot, the heel is pressed down, loading the Achilles tendon and calf muscles in just a few hundredths of a second. The quads are loaded during heel recovery and the hamstrings are loaded during the forward leg swing. Once you get to top speed, it becomes a very efficient motion using muscle and connective tissue elasticity to maintain speed. Effort is still required, but not the same amount as during acceleration.

A Couple Final Points Of Training Advice

Mind Your Ankles

I attended a USA Track and Field Coaching Certification back in June and came back with some ideas for improving my own training. One of the big ones was ankle strength. As we know from the used-way-too-often, but very true, cliché, "A chain is only as strong as its weakest link." The ankle is the smallest and weakest joint in the leg. When running properly, you are generating forces of about 4 times your bodyweight, all with one leg. It's a good idea to make sure all of that force is going into the ground, not being lost to sloppy joints.

Some of these college coaches had used ankle strengthening exercises with their athletes to improve their running and attributed at least part of the year-over-year improvement to these exercises. I incorporated some simple ankle strengthening as well and feel that it has helped. Here are a few ideas, but the Internet is full of ways to get your ankles stronger. Yes, there is a place for isolated training.
• Walking in sand
• Standing on one foot
• Standing on the toe's of one foot

Unilateral Exercises

I have also come to the conclusion that since 100% of the time when you're running, you are doing so on one leg, there is a benefit to doing single leg exercises, both loaded and unloaded. The list of choices is long; to name a few:
• Pistols
• Split Squats
• One-leg Deadlift/Romanian Deadlift
• Step-up
Everett and others in the lifting world probably have some additional ideas.


The Key For The Generalist: Carry-Over

So why should you care if you can cut a 12.25-second 100m or 56-second 400m? What is that really going to do for you? Think about the guys and gals that pick up a program like CrossFit after a long time training in the powerlifts or Olympic lifts. After a short adaptation period, they typically have no problem blowing through workouts with high reps, but light weights, like Fran, Grace, and Diane. Why? Because the weights are such a small percentage of their maxes.

Aerobic Capacity

Similarly, a 50-second 400m runner should be able to cut a 5:00 mile with only a little additional training. You're talking about sustaining 67% of his top speed. Compare that to a 55-second 400m runner; he's running at over 73% of top speed to pull that off. A guy with a 60-second 400? He's putting out nearly 80% to pull off the same 5:00 mile (a pace that is probably virtually impossible).

That doesn't necessarily mean the faster short-distance runner will be faster over the longer distance. But he has a greater potential to do so because he has a greater speed reserve.

Take me for example. Two years ago, my best mile was a 6:47 (a very painful mile, I recall) and if I remember correctly, my 400m time then was around a 1:03. This year, I finished the season with a 52.5 400m and recently tested my mile at 5:50 simply by maintaining a set pace. Perhaps I could go a bit faster with someone to push me around the last couple laps, but regardless, in the last two years, I've brought my mile down nearly one minute. How did I do that?

It wasn't by training for the mile, that's for sure. I've done absolutely no training for running a mile. In fact, in my training, I don't recall any days where I ran more than 500m in a single run. But my general speed is high enough that a 5:50 is only 60% of my 400m pace, down from 62% for that 6:47. You see, increasing my speed and glycolytic ability directly affects my aerobic ability, though I'm actually maintaining a lower percentage of my max than I was two years ago.

Adding just a little training for the mile could probably push me to around 5:30. While it's no record-setting pace (and likely not even competitive in Master's Track and Field), it's a time few people that slog miles and miles can do, even with tons of training.

Balance

In the past year, I've also seen an improvement in balance-related activities. For instance, I can now bang out 10 straight pistols on each leg with no problem. Until recently, I hadn't done pistols in probably six months and had trouble getting more than 3 or 4. My first time attempting them a few weeks back, I hit 10 with ease.

When I go trail riding, my control of the bike is vastly improved, though I just hit the trails for the first time in a year recently. I can control the bike around low speed, uphill turns much better and can power through parts of trails that used to have me walking the bike.

Vertical Jump

I've seen an improvement in my vertical jump of 1.5-2", up from 28" about 18 months ago. I can only attribute the improvement to my sprinting and long jumping training since I've done no focused jump training.

Lactic Buffering and Anaerobic Recovery

Going back to that trail riding, I notice that I'm able to sustain power output on longer, steeper hill climbs with relative ease. The acidosis build-up used to have me stopping 2/3 of the way up some of these hills that I can now push through. My legs still scream at me, but my muscles don't give out. Similarly, I can recover from repeated bouts of hill climbs very quickly.

For people that think specialized training has no carry-over to activities outside of that specialization, they're flatly wrong. There are certain skills that transfer very well to other domains:

• The ability to control one's own body (gymnastics)
• The ability to control external objects (Olympic lifting, powerlifting, Strongman)
• The ability to propel yourself quickly (sprinting and swimming)
You won't see a 1-to-1 carry-over, but improving your power output in any of these realms will definitely improve your power output in other realms.


The Two Major Components Of Your Sprinting

Now it's time to get into what you really care about: how do I get faster? When you get down to it, every time you sprint, there are two broad components: maximum velocity and speed-endurance.

Maximum Velocity is just what it sounds like. What is the highest speed that you can hit, even if only for a millisecond? Go back and reread all of my rambling prior to this. Increasing maximum velocity (raw power output) is what I've been discussing.

Speed-Endurance is also pretty much just what it sounds like. It's the ability to maintain a very high percentage of your maximum velocity. This is further sub-divided in the Track and Field world into terms like Alactic Short Speed Endurance, Glycolytic Short Speed Endurance, Special Endurance 1, and Special Endurance 2. But forget all of that... it's not important for what we're doing.

We're basically dealing with energy systems here, primarily the phosphagen and glycolytic systems when dealing with sprints, which is considered to be anything up to 400m. Realistically, however, even a 100m race has a speed-endurance component. In fact, once you get beyond about 40-50m, you're into speed-endurance, a fact that will come into play in programming.

Three Sample Templates

I assume you're not aiming to become a Track and Field competitor and as such your goal isn't to specialize in the sprints or any other event. Therefore, the goal is to work speed training into your general conditioning program, maintaining a good base of general fitness with a focus on speed.

I've thought through some different theoretical frameworks for incorporating a speed bias into your training. Descriptions of these workouts are below.

8-day cycle (3-on, 1-off) 
1 - Speed
2 - Heavy lifting
3 - Short Metcon
4 - Rest
5 - Plyometrics
6 - Heavy lifting
7 - Speed-Endurance
8 - Rest

9-day cycle (2-on, 1-off)
1 - Speed
2 - Heavy lifting
3 - Rest
4 - Plyometrics
5 - Short Metcon
6 - Rest
7 - Speed-Endurance
8 - Heavy Lifting
9 - Rest

14-day cycle
1 - Speed
2 - Heavy lifting
3 - Short Metcon
4 - Rest
5 - Plyometrics
6 - Short Metcon
7 - Rest
8 - Speed-Endurance
9 - Heavy Lifting
10 - Short Metcon
11 - Rest
12 - Tempo
13 - Heavy Lifting
14 - Rest

You can plan longer cycles if you'd like, but if you're not actually competing, it's probably just a lot of wasted mental effort. For someone just wanting to add some productive speed training to their workouts, the basics will get you there without over-planning and too much concern about periodization and all that.

My preference is for the 9- or 14-day cycles. More rest means higher quality work. Higher quality work means better gains. It also allows for sprinting days (speed and speed-endurance) to follow rest days. It's really hard to sprint when you're sore from lifting and I've tried to structure the cycles based on my experience of what works well on following days. Your mileage may vary.

The 14-day plan allows for working in more metCons if you really want to focus on that aspect while still adding some speed work, along with additional max effort lifting days.

Warming Up

You wouldn't just rack up your max squat and jump under the bar without working up in a progression to that weight. (Please tell me you wouldn't do that!) Similarly, it's a bad idea to go straight into sprinting without a proper warm-up. Recall that you're generating and absorbing forces equivalent to about 4 times your bodyweight. That's a lot of stress on the muscles and connective tissues.

Along those lines, it's a good idea to warm-up properly before you start hitting these speed workouts. I spend about 15 minutes warming up with these drills before I get into my workout:

• A-skips (forward and backward) - Asafa Powell demonstrates
• B-skips - Asafa Powell demonstrates again
• Ankle hops - bouncing using only the ankles
• Straight leg runs - And Asafa Powell once more
• Leg swings, forward and side - As seen here and here
• Light Bounding - lighter than this, but the same concept
• Power Cariocas - A simple crossover, but driving the front leg down powerfully.
• Deep lunge holds to stretch hip flexors

I do each of these for about 30-40m, in no particular order, with a jog back to the start, then do 6-8 sprints. With the warm-up sprints, I start at about 15m and work out to 60m, increasing intensity and distance. Basically I do something like this: 15m @ 70%, 25m @ 80%, 30m @ 80%, 40m @ 80%, 50m @ 90%, 60m @ 95%. Then I rest 5 or so minutes to let my heart rate come back down and get into the workout.


These Are A Few Of My Favorite Workouts

Finally, here are some simple workouts I use that target the desired attributes of the day. The basics should work for you if you haven't been training speed, so resist the urge to over-complicate your workouts.

Naturally, you can create your own workouts, but keep the principles of the workout type in mind. Make sure you are actually working speed on speed days and not putting speed and speed-endurance together.

To clarify one term, an "on the fly" rep means to enter the work zone after accelerating to speed with a 15m run-in. You do not time the acceleration zone. If "on the fly" is not signified, you're working from a dead start.

I've put together a spreadsheet that will help you figure out your goal times on each of the speed-endurance and tempo workouts that can be found here. I've focused all of the goal times for speed-endurance and tempo runs on your 400m time as it's easier to maintain timing accuracy when self-timing and it's more appropriate for the generalist.

Speed

Speed workouts are low volume, high-intensity, focusing on running full-out for short distances with full recovery between reps. This allows ATP/CP stores to refill between efforts, keeping the intensity high, and reducing aerobic fatigue. I aim for no more than 10 runs per workout and no more than 50m per run, often far lower on each of these. Rest periods are about 1 minute per 10m, so 4 minutes for a 40m sprint.

• 6 x 40m, on the fly - A 40m sprint with a 15m acceleration zone. Hit top speed at the 0m mark and maintain for 40m.
• 4 x 15m, 2 x 25m, 2 x 35m, 2 x 40m - Just as it sounds, from a 3-point start.
• 8 x 30m hill sprints, alternating uphill and downhill - use a very low-grade hill (3-5%) such that your stride is not altered.

Speed-Endurance

Speed-endurance workouts focus on hitting a desired speed and maintaining it. This is typically done at your pace for a long sprint, such as a 200m or 400m. Rests vary from long but incomplete to very long for full recovery. Yes, you should really rest that long. Speed-endurance work is very taxing and will do wonders for improving your anaerobic capacity.

• 2 x (4 x 200m), rest 4:00/8:00 - 2 sets of 4 x 200m with 4:00 rest between reps, 8:00 rest between sets. Use 100% of your 400m goal time.
• 3 x 500m, rest 15:00 - Use 90% of your 400m PR.
• 2 x 250m, on the fly, rest 25:00 - Use 100% of your 400m goal time.

These are ambitious volumes and intensities, so dial them back as you need in the beginning. You don't have to be exact, but aim to be within a half-second either way. Do not try to blow each one out at 100%. You can run 200m faster than you can run 400m; that doesn't mean you should aim to run a 100% effort 200m on that first workout listed. Again, keep what you are training for the day in mind.

Tempo

Tempo workouts focus on maintaining a set percentage of your best time, typically in the 75-90% range. This allows a build-up of lactate and acidosis, coupled with short rest periods, forcing the body to improve lactate turnover and hydrogen buffering. The other goal is to teach you to run relaxed and maintain form.
• 6-10 x 150m, rest 3:00, 75-90%
• 4-8 x 400m, rest 3:00, 75-90%
• 2 x (500m, 400m, 300m), rest 3:00/6:00, 75-90%
Start at the lower end of the prescribed percentages and reps. You can lengthen the rest periods to 4:00 if necessary. Increase intensity, then increase volume. Do not increase both at the same time.

Focus on Quality

You hopefully noticed that there is a time component to all of the speed-endurance and tempo workouts. This isn't just "go out and run hard". It's "make sure you hit your target times". It's "keep the quality high and end the workout if you can't make your targets". It's goal-oriented. Obviously I can't stop you from slogging through a string of sub-par workouts, but I can tell you that it won't get you to where you're going.

If I had a more sophisticated setup, there would be a time component to speed work too, but I don't, so I base that on feel. If I don't feel like the intensity is there and I'm not getting up near top speed, the workout is over. Trying to train the nervous system to fire powerfully with sub-maximal work is a futile effort.

What Not To Do

I've seen it quite a few times. Someone decides to add "sprint training" to their workouts and the workouts are something along the lines of 10x100m with 1 minute (or perhaps 2-3 minutes) rest. That's not a sprint training workout. That's a conditioning workout and may have a place in your program, but it's not going to make you faster. There will be far too much fatigue to truly sprint. Remember that just because you're moving faster than your 5k pace doesn't mean you're sprinting.

Speed training uses a different mentality than you're probably used to. More is not always better. Less rest between reps is not always better. If you are actually committed to improving your speed, proper rest between reps and maintaining quality of work is the most important factor. Save the metcons for metcon days and treat speed training as you would a heavy lifting day. Don't make your speed training into a running-focused metcon.

Rest means rest. Not jogging around, not doing pushups or pullups. It means walking, standing, sitting, or even laying and waiting. Literally, on my long rest days (like the 2 x 250 with 25:00 rest above), I sit/lay out of the way on the track and watch other people do their thing. Then I get up and go again.

Make It Yours

This is all hypothetical and untested, but I'd love to get some feedback if you give this a shot. My training is 100% Track and Field focused, so I don't work in metCons and I cycle my lifting, speed, acceleration, plyometrics, and speed-endurance work differently depending on where I am in the season. As such, nothing about this is set in stone, but is intended as a starting point for someone that wants to emphasize speed while still maintaining a level of "general fitness" (though I could easily argue that Track and Field would do that).

I kind of look at it like another iteration of the ME Black Box by Coach Rutherford, only with a speed bias. Tweak it, play with it, give feedback.