How Athletes Can Increase Their Sprinting Speed

Sprinting is an important aspect of many sports, from track and field competitions to basketball, soccer, and ice hockey. Any athlete wanting to run faster must work on their sprinting speed, which will help them become a force to be reckoned with on a track, field, or rink.

Various tactics can boost a novice, amateur, or professional’s speed and intensity, ensuring they achieve their sporting goals and reach their full potential. Continue reading to learn how athletes can increase their sprinting speed.

Change the Running Track

Don’t underestimate the importance of a track’s quality, as it will determine an athlete’s speed and energy return. For this reason, athletes at all levels would be wise to run on synthetic running tracks to beat their personal best and easily achieve their goals. What’s more, some running tracks can be embedded with SMART technology to record precise performance diagnostics to measure athletes’ performance and help them train smarter.

Perform Plyometrics Exercises

Plyometric exercises are designed to build muscle power, which can make athletes faster and stronger. Strengthening specific joints will help novice and professional athletes improve their sprinting speed. 

If you’re unfamiliar with plyometric exercises, they are any activities that involve jumping and skipping, which are known for helping people run at a quicker pace, as it helps the legs become faster at landing and pushing off from the ground.

Great exercises to try include:

• Bench jumps
• Box jumps
• Jumping lunges
• High skips
• Jumping with resistance
• Calf drives

Athletes should complete plyometric exercises a maximum of twice a week but must avoid doing so after running, as they should rest their legs to increase their intensity and duration.

Relax Your Mind and Body

According to Usain Bolt, staying relaxed is one of the best ways to improve sprinting speed. It’s a tactic that helped the retired athlete become the greatest sprinter of all time, as he stated, “The more relaxed you are, the smoother and faster you’ll run. Your muscles get tight when you tense up.”

For this reason, athletes must relax their minds and loosen their bodies before hitting a running track. Relaxing the shoulders and avoiding hand clenching will decrease tension and make them feel nimbler before a sprint.

Tighten Your Ankle Complex

There is more to sprinting than superb leg strength. As an athlete’s feet and ankles will need to connect with the ground when running, they must attempt to tighten their ankle complex. It will be hard to transfer force successfully if it’s too loose, which is why they must turn their ankles into stiffer springs to absorb and transfer the force easily during a sprint.

Various exercises can stiffen the ankle complex. For instance, ankling exercises require a person to stand tall with their knees firmly locked and their toes pointing upwards before pushing the balls of their feet off the floor while moving forward quickly. Also, they should perform two to four sets of quick bunny hops alongside ankle exercises.

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