The Importance of Running Speed for Sports Performance!

In most sports it’s pretty common to hear about the importance of speed. In specific, running speed (how fast someone can run) has garnered a wide range of respect among sports performance coaches because it’s pretty common to see faster athletes’ excelling in sports. Look at any major high school or collegiate sports program. What is the major difference between the top schools and the mid-level schools? It’s SPEED! When athletes can run and execute sport skill with more speed, they’ll outperform athletes who move slower, in most cases.

Here at Key 2 Sports, we train athletes for sports performance enhancement regardless of sport. We believe that sports performance enhancement & sprint speed go hand in hand. Improving sports performance involves but is not limited to; sport skill, mobility, strength, power, conditioning and a host of other things depending on the sport one is preparing for and their level of maturity in that particular sport. However, sport speed or run speed by itself will give athletes an edge over their opponents, and will most assuredly improve the athletes’ performance.

In short there are a few things one must to do to actually get faster. Running speed in and of itself is a byproduct of genetics, strength/power ratio & movement efficiency. What I mean by this is most of the fast athletes are fast genetically & will most likely always be fast. They have it “easier” than people like me who had to work tirelessly at developing speed. All things being equal, a genetically fast individual will always be faster than a non-genetically fast individual. Additionally, all athletes regardless of genetics need to develop a good base level of strength. Developing strength will assist them in their ability to run faster. Lastly, one needs to train him or herself to minimize useless movements and improve the ones that help you get the most out of your body. This is usually where you see run mechanic drills come into play like A-marching and various other drills. This list sounds easy to accomplish, but people have spent thousands upon thousands of dollars on training speed. Others have worked for years on training the specifics of what I have mentioned here. So although a short list, its not an easy task to say the least.

In short, getting faster in running comes from 2 things:

 #1 - Get stronger & more powerful. Strength happens when your central nervous system is trained to activate more muscles to achieve a specific task. Strong individuals essentially use more muscles to do work whereas weaker individuals use less muscle to do the same work. It’s that simple. Strength has NOTHING to do with muscle size and everything to do with muscle activation and timing.  This is important because sprinting is a full body power exercise. If you plan to do it well, you’ll need all your muscles activated and synchronized to maximum capacity. Once strength is achieved, power can be executed! Without strength, your nervous system will not be able to call on the muscles needed to produce a faster movement. When athletes are weaker, this is usually the time where training to improve stride length and performing run mechanics is best. Once the proper motor patterns are established, horsepower (strength & explosiveness) can be put behind it to develop a more speed! Power on the other hand, is the ability to take that strength and apply it at the fastest speeds possible. A powerful athlete will generate more force into the ground thus covering more ground with each step. This along with developing optimal mobility improves an athletes’ stride frequency (how fast their legs move) and their stride length (how much ground they cover on each step). Those 2 qualities combined is what determines your speed. So in the end, you need to develop adequate strength by performing exercises like;

• SQUATS
• DEADLIFTS
• PULL-UPS
• ROWS
• ETC.

If you’re young and not ready for a weight training regimen quite yet, you can benefit from body weight exercises like;

• PUSH-UPS
• PULL-UPS
• LUNGES
• PLANK
• ETC.

In addition, if you’re somewhat over weight, you will need to get leaner. “Leaning out” as we call it, will decrease your overall body weight then thus increase your relative body strength. Doing this will allow you to develop more power which is needed to run faster. So develop a good level of aerobic conditioning and drop the excess body weight. This means cardiovascular training like distance running, biking or any activity done for 30 -60min or more at moderate HR (heart rate) zones (130-155) will help. Last, clean up your diet by dropping the low performance foods and increase the high performance foods and you will begin to see your health & speed increase.

#2 – Improve movement efficiency. This means to practice running fast with great form. Run mechanics & teaching run form seems to be a concept many coaches do not believe in. Teaching arm and leg drills like A-marching, high knee running, arm swings and various others, many coaches believe are a waste of time because athletes don’t run with this same form on the field or court. While this is true, it’s also true that only teaching running from the mindset of “just get stronger and sprint more” is seriously lacking. Athletes need to learn form. Why? Because anything done with poor form whether it’s strength training or just sprinting, will not benefit anyone. Just having athletes run fast and never-minding their form is no different than just having them lift heavy weights and never minding their form. Both will only take the athlete so far. Once adequate form is achieved, the practice of sprinting fast while maintaining that form will simply help in developing speed.

With that said, I’ll address how we see run form playing a role in speed development.

We realize that sprinting in a straight line and sprinting on a field or ball court are 2 totally different things. What most people see on a sprint track is true sprinting. There’s a start phase, an acceleration phase & a top speed phase. The track athlete is totally unhindered in their running lanes and don’t have to worry about fielding fly balls, defensemen attacking the ball or alluding tackles from 300lb men. So sprint form will always take track athletes further as it is 100% “sport specific” for them. Field sports like soccer, football, baseball and lacrosse for example are games played at angles. Sprint form is less important for them as it is for track athletes because these sports all have characteristics that require athletes to constantly change directions at various speeds. So, although sprint form is trained, it’s not the bulk of the training program. We ensure that our athletes execute form well enough to improve their on-field performance, but, we don’t go overboard with actual sprint form. It’s just not necessary.

Here is a sample from one of our speed sessions:

In all honesty, on the field “sport-specific” speed comes down to having the ability to accelerate decelerate & re-accelerate properly. This is more about quickness, agility and the ability to combine these qualities with acceleration & deceleration within your level of sport skill. Again, field sports are sports played at angles. By angles I mean the athletes is either running toward a stationary or non-stationary object. During this process the athlete must use good body leverage and be able to run, re-direct, stop, jump, cut, etc. Athletes who can extend their hips (accelerate) and or bend their hips (decelerate) with the smoothest transition will move better on the field. So essentially most field and court related sports should primarily focus on acceleration and deceleration at the hips.

Acceleration is what we spend a great deal of time training. Our athletes need to learn how to get to a specific (and sometime undetermined) spot faster than their opponents. The then must learn how to decelerate. Being able to stop, re-redirect and re-accelerate is the key to improving sports speed. Without this ability, many athletes would not be affective for their teams because the nature of sports played on fields is to be able to use that speed to improve your chances of winning. It’d be no different than trying to take a drag car on a NASCAR track. Drag cars are the fastest cars in the world, but they cannot turn. So all the speed built up between turns is useless if the ability to turn and re-direct that speed is lost.

An athletes’ running speed is only as good as their ability to adequately use it on the playing field. If the athlete lacks in any area; sport skill, strength, power, mobility, etc., speed will not be as helpful. Improving your sport skill, strength, mobility, conditioning and power can be very helpful for your speed. Just learning when, where and how to apply it will allow for better sport mastery and increase your performance. In the end, run speed will help you more than not having run speed will hurt you.

Case and point: Train athletes for speed! They’re development in field and court sports can be positively affected by proper speed development. If you want to take your game to its highest level, you’re going to have to get faster. There are no 2 ways about it.

HOW WE CAN HELP:

Are you slow and looking to take your game to a new level? Check out our speed calendar HERE for the Summer 2011 and or call Key 2 Sports @ 732-749-3093 to discuss other options we have available for you.

Get Strong Be Explosive!