Drills to Make You Run Faster

While every sport has its own unique set of techniques and skills required for effective play, there is no substitute for athleticism. Running speed is perhaps the most fundamental of all athletic attributes that contributes greatly to prowess in a wide range of sports. Faster sprinting speed can mean outrunning a defender in football, making a fast break in basketball and running down a shot in tennis. Sustained running speed is also very important in sports with constant movement, such as basketball, soccer and Ultimate Frisbee.

One of the best ways to increase running speed is by doing running drills. One common running drill is the shuttle run, or killers, which involves sprinting back and forth up and down a basketball court, traveling progressively farther down the court from the starting point. This drill forces the athlete to stop, reverse direction and accelerate again and again, increasing the ability to burst out into a dead run. Doing high knees, which is running while lifting the knees up higher than normal, and butt kicks, meaning running while kicking the heels back farther than normal, are also common running drills. Skipping and bounding are also useful drills, as well as wind sprints, which are sprints of 20 to 400 meters carried out over and over with minimal rest time.

Another way to increase running speed is to increase the body's agility. In many sports, running does not simply involving moving forward at high speed, but moving fast and constantly changing direction and contorting the body in different ways. Fast jump roping and hopping on one foot in a set pattern are two common agility drills. Running back and forth through ropes or tires is another good way to increase running precision and agility. Obstacle courses are a great way to work on agility, combining the use of upper- and lower-body muscles.

To achieve the fastest sprinting speed possible, the legs must be as strong as possible. Squats, leg curls, calf raises and leg presses with heavy weights are good exercises for increasing strength. Wall sits, lunges, squat thrusts and vertical leaping are other drills that can help strengthen the legs. The way one trains to strengthen the legs depends on the athlete's goals for running speed: being able to sprint as fast as possible for 40 meters mainly requires extremely high leg strength, but not great endurance, while being able to run fast over the course of an entire soccer game requires superb endurance.