Drills for Speed Training

While every sport has its own specific set of rules and techniques developed around those rules, certain aspects of success in sport comes down to pure athleticism. Pure foot speed and agility, the ability to move the body into different positions quickly and change directions, are two important aspects of athleticism that contribute to success in most sports. Therefore, training to increase raw speed and agility is an important part of fitness training for sports.

Perhaps the most basic form of athleticism in sport is plain foot speed. The faster one can run in straight line, the more successful one will be at things like making a break away in basketball or soccer, outrunning defenders in football, or making an outfield catch in baseball. One drill for training foot speed is to run simple sprints of 20-100m repeatedly. Another drill is to sprint up hills, since the incline allows for a quicker burn in the leg muscles. Sprinting with a wind chute attached to one's waist is another way to increase resistance of normal running. Fartleks are another common speed drill in which the athlete alternates jogging and sprinting for over longer distances.

While plain foot speed is important, in sports, the ability to change direction and contort the body is often more important than all-out speed in a single direction. Running killers is a common agility drill, which involves sprinting back and forth down a court or field, progressing further down the court each time the athlete returns to the starting point. Running through elevated ropes, tires, or obstacle course are also good ways to improve agility. Circuit training, meaning doing several different activities in quick succession, is also a great way to build endurance while improving agility.

General speed and agility training is great to raise one's level of athleticism, but one should also tailor their speed training workouts to their specific sport. A soccer player might train by dribbling the ball through a series of cones in a predetermined pattern or a goalie could attempt to block incoming shots at a rapid pace. A basketball player could practice dribbling at a dead sprint and then making a layup, or dribbling through an array of cones or dummies to simulate defenders. The more one's speed and agility training mirrors the activities that one perform in their sport, the greater the athletes readiness will be to perform those actions quickly and effectively.