Common Mistakes in Speed Training

You’re putting in the work, training for hours, but your speed isn’t improving. What gives? With a good program, most athletes start getting faster within a few weeks and keep improving as the program progresses. If months have gone by with no progress, you’re likely making one of these common speed training mistakes.

Watch: Dr. Scott Gray on Speed Training Mistakes

In this video, Dr. Scott Gray walks through three of the most common mistakes he sees coaches, parents and athletes make: turning speed work into conditioning, skipping strength training and ignoring arm mechanics and trunk rotation.

1. Confusing Conditioning With Speed

Athletes and coaches often mix up conditioning drills with speed drills, then wonder why nobody is getting faster. Conditioning trains your aerobic system to keep you going for a long time. Speed work trains your fast-twitch muscle fibers for short, all-out bursts.

Think of it this way: a marathoner needs a big aerobic engine for 26.2 miles, but a 100-meter sprinter relies on how quickly and forcefully their legs can fire. As Dr. Gray puts it, “if we want to become faster, we gotta train to be faster.” Long sprints with little rest leave athletes gassed, and once they’re tired, they’re working on conditioning, not speed.

2. Not Resting Enough Between Reps

Nothing turns a speed workout into an endurance workout faster than short rest. If you run 20- to 50-meter sprints with only 30 seconds between reps, you’ll slow down quickly and finish well below your top speed.

A general rule of thumb is to rest about one minute for every 10 meters sprinted. Don’t start the next rep until you feel ready to go at 100% again.

3. Not Taking Enough Rest Days

You also need enough rest days to be fresh for speed sessions. If you’ve been training about three days a week, don’t jump to six or seven. Start with a little speed work once a week, see how you feel, and build up to longer sessions about twice a week. Soreness should fade within a couple of days.

Signs you need more rest:

• Soreness that lasts all week
• Fatigue during and after workouts
• Getting sick more often
• Performance stalling or getting worse
• Not being able to reach 100% effort on an all-out sprint

Instead of doing speed work every day, spread your focus across the week: one day for strength, another for agility, another for conditioning.

4. Skipping Strength Training

Speed comes from your muscles, so a speed program without strength training holds you back and raises injury risk. Squats, deadlifts, pushes, pulls, Olympic lift variations and plyometrics help you put more force into the ground. Treat them like speed work: explosive reps, high effort and full rest between sets.

5. Ignoring Arm Mechanics and Trunk Rotation

You can be strong and well conditioned, but if your arms and trunk are all over the place, you won’t be as fast as you could be. Arm swing and trunk control drive your legs and keep you efficient. Sprint mechanics drills fix this.

6. Breaking Out the Gadgets Too Soon

Sleds and resistance chutes can help, but only after you’ve mastered the basics. Jumping to heavy equipment or intense plyometrics before your body is ready is a recipe for a pulled hamstring or back strain. Get your form right on basic drills and strength exercises first.

The Best Way to Avoid These Mistakes

The easiest way to get faster without these mistakes is to work with a sports performance expert who can watch you move, plan your training and adjust it as you improve. That’s how our programs work under The Gray Method™.

When to Stop and Get Checked

Speed work is demanding. Stop and get checked if you notice:

• Numbness, tingling or weakness: in an arm or leg
• Bladder or bowel changes: or numbness in the groin or inner thighs
• Pain after a fall or accident: or a joint that won’t take your weight
• Swelling, heat or redness: that keeps building
• Night pain, fever or unexplained weight loss: along with your pain

Keep reading: training for speed: strength, power and technique and sprinting mechanics for athletes.

Get Faster the Right Way

Our speed and agility training program teaches athletes to train fast, rest right and build the strength that speed depends on.

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Call our office at (239) 223-0484 to schedule your athlete’s first session.