Training Speed – How to Run Faster

Patrick Beith, CSCS, PES, USATF Lv. II
 

If you feel that you are going to get faster by running repeat 200 meters, repeat 100 meters or even performing repeat 40 yards with little or no rest, please for the sake of you or your athletes, read forward.

If you want to train for speed, you must first look at the energy system that is being utilized.

Anaerobic Phosphagen (ATP-CP) Energy System

The immediate usable form of chemical energy for muscular activity is ATP (Adenosine Triphosphate). ATP is stored in a limited amount in the muscles and is depleted in 1 to 2 seconds. After the muscle stores of ATP are depleted the Anaerobic Phosphagen (ATP-CP) Energy System is need to provide energy.

Creatine Phosphate (CP) is an energy rich compound found in muscle cells. After high intensity exercise, creatine phosphate immediately restores ATP in the muscle without forming waste products (lactic acid). The amount of ATP that can be resynthesized from CP can last for 4 to 5 seconds. So, add that to the 1 to 2 seconds of original ATP stores within the muscle and you have about 5 to 7 seconds of ATP production from the ATP-CP Energy System.

Speed work is performed in the Anaerobic Phosphagen Energy System. This means that performing any thing longer than 7-8 seconds, you are training outside this energy system. In order to become more efficient and challenge this energy system, speed work must stay in within 2-8 seconds, which is approximately 20- 80 yards.  Also, it takes your body about 3 minutes to fully restore depleted ATP stores. If you are running short sprints but are not allowing full recovery, you are not improving your pure speed.

Get Fast by Running Fast

Sprinting is a highly coordinated and intense activity. High intensity sprint work (moving the limbs at near peak velocity) involves recruiting specific groups of muscle fibers and improving the efficiency and firing patterns of those muscle fiber groups. This type of motor learning must be done at high speeds to properly develop the complex recruitment of muscle fiber needed to fire in a synchronized pattern. This process is also referred to as neuromuscular conditioning.

Simply put, the best way to improve top speed is to run at top speed. Now, if you are running repeat 200 meters as your speed workout, you are not only training outside the proper energy system, you are not conditioning your CNS with the proper movement pattern, and you are running at a much slower speed than your maximum velocity.

Speed work Guidelines for high school athletes:

Intensity                                          90-100%

Distance of run                               20-60 meters

Number of reps/set                         2-4

Number of sets                               2-4

Total distance in set                        80-160 meters

Total distance in session                 300 – 500 meters

Sample Program

Now let’s look at a couple sample workout sessions to get an idea of how these workouts could be structured. Rest between sets is slightly longer than rest between reps in order to allow full recovery.

                                                                                                                                                   Structuring your workouts in a similar manner will maximize all the qualities desired from working the ATP-CP energy system. Remember, working hard with minimal rest will not make you faster. Energy stores must be replenished to gain the benefits of speed work. Without speed development, you are simply falling behind your competitors.