Speed Drills
Before doing any type of speed drills you will first want to warm up to get your muscles loose. Start with a light jog for 10-15 minutes and then do a few stretching exercises. This will help to prevent any injuries while training.
Speed drills should be done on days where you are not doing your other training (like weight lifting) and should also be done only 1 or 2 times per week. You should also never do them on back to back days. 2 days of rest between sessions should be the minimum rest time. Lets get started.
Drills For Speed
Hill Running - Both upill running and downhill running are very effective drills for speed. You will want to do these drills in short distances as to make sure you are not overworking your muscles.
Ladder Drills - There are numerous different ladder drills you can do in your speed training. You can run straight down the ladder hitting every square, you can go laterally hitting every square with each foot and numerous other variations.
Here is a great video from Eddie George featuring some great speed drills you can do with a ladder.
Leg Kicks - Some example of leg kick drills are high knee jogging (while jogging life your knee up waist level), heel kicks (while jogging kick your heel up to your buttock), and crossovers (jog sideways and cross your right leg over your left and then your left over your right).
Plyometrics - Plyometrics are a great speed drill, some examples are bounding, one leg hops, box jumps and depth jumps.
Sprinting Drills - There are many sprinting drills you can do, an example is sprinting for 20 yards than jogging the next 20 yards and then sprinting 20 yards and so on. Another example is jogging for 10-15 yards and then bursting into a full out sprint.
Assisted Speed Drills - These drills are great for overloading your muscles. A couple examples are parachute sprinting and sprinting while pulling a tire or weight. Another great speed drill is attaching a rubber tubing band between you and a partner. Have your partner begin to run and when the band stretches you begin to run. The band will pull you faster than you can run which will overloads your muscles. Use this drill with caution however.
These drills for speed are a great starting place to get you on the right track with your speed training. There are numerous other speed drills you can do and it is good to conitnually mix up your speed exercises to prevent hitting a wall with your speed training.
