I hear versions of this question from parents all the time.
“My son plays soccer four days a week. Won’t all that running make him faster?”
“My daughter plays basketball year-round. Doesn’t she get enough speed work at practice?”
It’s a fair question.
If your athlete runs during practices and games, it seems logical that all of that running should make them faster.
But there’s an important difference between running during a sport and training specifically to improve speed.
I’m Putting This Question to the Test
I’m currently conducting a multi-year experiment.
A few team sports, including girls soccer and field hockey, have allowed me to do preseason and postseason testing with their athletes.
What I’m trying to see is pretty simple:
Are the athletes faster at the end of their season than they were at the beginning?
In my sport of track, if my athletes aren’t faster at the end of the season, it is an epic fail.
So why should team sports be any different?
The first year, the results were what I suspected.
The majority of the kids were slower by season’s end.
No coach wants that to happen. I don’t care what sport you are coaching.
This year, the coaches of these teams allowed me to put a simple speed training program within their normal practice schedule.
We aren’t turning soccer or field hockey practice into track practice.
The idea is simply to focus specifically on speed a few times during practice, a couple of days each week.
Then we’ll test again at the end of the season.
Aren’t Athletes Already Sprinting During Games?
That’s one of the assumptions I’m interested in testing.
We can’t simply assume that because an athlete plays a running-based sport, they’re getting enough quality sprinting to become faster.
Some athletes may sprint frequently during a game. Many don’t.
It may not be because they don’t want to sprint. Their position, the flow of the game and the demands of their sport may simply not require them to reach high speeds very often.
And even when athletes do sprint during their sport, sprinting occasionally and training speed are two different things.
During a game, an athlete is reacting to what is happening around them. They may sprint, jog, shuffle, stop, change direction or stand relatively still depending on the situation.
Speed training gives us an opportunity to be much more intentional.
What Does Speed Training Work On?
When we specifically train speed, we can address qualities that may not receive much individual attention during a normal team practice.
Acceleration
For many sports, the athlete doesn’t have 50 or 100 yards to build up speed.
A basketball player may have only a few yards to beat a defender. A soccer player may need a quick burst to get to a ball. A football player may need to create separation. A baseball or softball player has to accelerate out of the batter’s box.
Often, the question isn’t simply:
How fast can you run?
It’s:
How quickly can you get fast?
That’s why the first few steps and acceleration can be so important.
Running Mechanics
Playing a sport doesn’t automatically teach an athlete how to run efficiently.
Speed training gives us an opportunity to work on things such as posture, arm action, leg action and how the athlete applies force into the ground.
The goal isn’t to make every athlete run exactly the same way.
The goal is to help each athlete move more efficiently.
Strength and Explosiveness
Running fast requires an athlete to produce force.
Getting stronger and learning to produce that force quickly can play an important role in becoming faster.
That’s why I’ve never viewed speed, strength and explosiveness as completely separate pieces of athletic development.
They work together.
Speed Training Is Not Conditioning
This is another important distinction.
If I give athletes enough running with short rest periods, I can make them tired.
That’s easy.
But making an athlete tired and making an athlete faster aren’t necessarily the same thing.
When speed is the objective, I want quality repetitions.
That often means giving athletes enough recovery so they can perform the next sprint at a high level.
There is certainly a place for conditioning. Athletes need to be prepared for the physical demands of their sport.
But conditioning and speed training don’t always have the same objective.
If we want athletes to run fast, at some point we need to give them opportunities to actually run fast.
Does This Mean Athletes Need Even More Training?
Not necessarily.
Young athletes already have busy schedules.
I’m not suggesting that every soccer, basketball, football, baseball or field hockey player needs several additional hours of training every week.
More isn’t always better.
That’s actually one reason I’m interested in what we’re doing with these teams.
Can we incorporate a relatively small amount of intentional speed work into practices that are already taking place and make a measurable difference?
Can we help athletes maintain—or possibly improve—their speed over the course of a competitive season without dramatically increasing their training load?
We’ll have a better answer when we complete the postseason testing.
So, Does Playing a Sport Make an Athlete Faster?
It can.
Playing sports provides athletes with opportunities to run, compete, react and develop athletic skills.
But I wouldn’t assume that because an athlete plays a running-based sport, they’re automatically maximizing their speed.
If speed is a weakness, it should be trained like a weakness.
That doesn’t necessarily mean adding hours of additional workouts.
It means identifying what the athlete needs and finding appropriate opportunities to work on it.
That’s what makes this experiment interesting to me.
We’re trying to determine whether a relatively small amount of intentional speed training incorporated into a team’s existing practice schedule can make a measurable difference.
I’ll know more when we complete our postseason testing.
And if the results don’t show what I expect?
That’s why we test.
The goal isn’t to prove that I’m right.
The goal is to find out what actually helps athletes improve.
Because at the end of the season, I don’t just want an athlete to be a better soccer player, field hockey player, basketball player or football player.
I want them to be a better athlete, too.
Want to Help Your Athlete Get Faster?
Learn more about how FPC approaches speed training for athletes in Columbus and Central Ohio.
