Most athletes train hard but train wrong when it comes to speed. Here is which gym work carries over to sprinting - and which work quietly slows you down.
Speed is the quality every athlete wants and the one most often trained badly. The problem is rarely effort. The problem is that the gym and the track are treated as two separate worlds.
Speed is a skill first, a quality second
To get faster you need to sprint fast. That sounds obvious, but most "speed sessions" are really conditioning: 30-40 second runs with short rest. That trains speed endurance and lactate tolerance - useful, but it is not speed.
Real speed work means:
- 2-10 seconds of work at maximal intent
- Full recovery - at least 1:5 work to rest, often 2-3 minutes between reps
- Low volume - quality drops, the session ends
If the last rep is slower than the first, you are no longer training speed.
What the gym should do for speed
The gym builds the engine; the track teaches you to use it. Three things carry over best:
- Maximal strength in the lower body (squat, trap-bar deadlift, split squat). More force into the ground means more acceleration.
- Power - jumps, throws and Olympic-lift variations at 30-60% of 1RM, moved as fast as possible.
- Reactive strength - short-contact plyometrics like pogo jumps and hurdle hops. Count your contacts and stay under about 120 per week.
What slows you down
- High-rep leg sessions the day before speed work
- Long, slow "conditioning" in the same week as a speed block
- Doing speed work tired. Speed always goes first in a session, never after strength or a team practice.
A simple weekly structure
| Day | Focus |
|---|---|
| Mon | Acceleration 10-20 m + heavy lower body |
| Wed | Upper body + mobility |
| Thu | Max velocity 30-40 m + plyometrics |
| Sat | Match or team training |
Keep the speed block for 3-4 weeks, increase volume about 10% per week and take a lighter week on week 4. Then move into speed endurance - first get fast, then learn to repeat it.
On Athletics Pulse every exercise is checked against these rules: if a "speed" session has 40-second runs, the app tells you it is speed endurance, not speed.
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