Desperate to Improve Basic Speed: Please Help

Fast turnover is the key. Just take faster steps and the speed will come. Good luck brother.

Do you still play basketball? Playing a lot of pickup ball greatly improved my speed with no other speed workouts.

Do very fast sprints up hills and down hills. Running down hills will help with increase turnover like previous poster said. I am amazed you could improve your vertical that much. Also do strides after every other workout. Even on my easy runs I might do 4 or 8 one-minute (400 meters) fast.

Sally V wrote:

Do you still play basketball? Playing a lot of pickup ball greatly improved my speed with no other speed workouts.

Do very fast sprints up hills and down hills. Running down hills will help with increase turnover like previous poster said. I am amazed you could improve your vertical that much. Also do strides after every other workout. Even on my easy runs I might do 4 or 8 one-minute (400 meters) fast.

I don't even do easy runs any more. Basically all I ever do is 30-120m sprints a few times a week. I am just getting really frustrated. I miss distance, but just don't want to go back to it knowing I'm such a slow slogger. If I could break 13 from a set start, I would be more than happy, but I am not even close to that.

But yeah, compared to this time last year, I feel like I have springs in my legs.

What's your cadence? Try running at a slow jog and pick up the cadence taking short choppy steps to turn over as fast as possible.

You should be well over 200 steps per minutes. For 15 seconds, I can hit 60-65 steps, which is 240-260 steps per minute.

If your cadence is slower, then you need to add a fast turnover drill to your routine. The purpose of the drill is to teach your muscles to fire faster, not to sprint all out. Your pace should be relatively slow when doing this drill. A brisk walk pace is fast enough.

Oh, and fast uphill short sprints. Sprinting downhill is a recipe for injury. I'd suggest you avoid that for the time being.

Despréaux wrote:

I am very light, ~115-120 as a 5'9" male.

Eat some food dude.

I have no idea what the hell you want to achieve, is it a faster 5K?

5'9" 120lbs back squatting 255. Tough to believe that.

desperfako wrote:

5'9" 120lbs back squatting 255. Tough to believe that.

Ummm....ever hear of Rich Froning?

You need to get back to running every day.

As for the speed part, from an old thread on here:

"However, if you genuinely cannot hit the example (short) performances (for 800 + 1500) I outlined above (and you would really need to if you hope to ever get to 25:00/8k), then you need to learn how to run fast. This is a skill you need to develop especially if you are a heel-striker.

You need to learn how to land further forward on your foot.

Running uphill helps to learn this because it becomes increasingly more difficult to heel-strike the steeper the hill. To get an idea, find a steep ~30 degree uphill with a hard tarmac surface (rather than soil/sand/gravel) and run up swiftly for 30-50m without letting your heel hit the ground. Compared to distance running, accentuate your knee lift (without exaggerating). Drive off the rear foot more like a light bound than a normal jog uphill.

Some (even good) distance runners can have real difficulty learning how to do this, so do persist and dont give up because you cant get it. Note that this is skill-learning (and not fitness training), so just run for 5-8 secs each rep and allow 60-90s recovery. You must be mentally/physically fresh when doing this, so dont add it on to the end of your long run. Instead, do it BEFORE your aerobic run (but after 5-10 mins jog warm-up and some dynamic stretching).

Be cautious and do no damage to your lower-leg/Achilles (you wont know for up to 2 days afterwards, so be cautious till you see the physical cost of the session). Dont do too many reps, 6-10 x 30-50m is plenty for one session. Remember, its a skill, so doing it 1,000 times but badly, will not help. Its a skill and some people get it quickly (1-3 sessions) and some take longer.

When you think youve got the hang of it, start running 10 x 100m on the flat with a minimum of 90 secs walk-back recovery using this newly learned mode of running. Any stretch of flat road will do; so no need for a track or to buy spikes. Were not looking for a world-record here, but (aiming for 25:00/8k) you would expect to develop the skill to hit ~13 secs for 100m on demand (at least in the last 1-2 of the session). Whatever ever your 8k target, you want to be able to hit the kind of pace you would expect to run in a 300-400m race, at least for the last few reps of the session (although the earlier ones can be slower and build to quick efforts for the last 2 reps).

Its okay to start each session with 2-3 reps on your 50m hill (if nearby) just to re-calibrate the skill, and even to run the first few reps as 60m rather than 100s.

At all times, remember, this is a skill. It has little to do with the fitness level that allows you to run a decent 10k. So doing 25 x 100m in 17s is not going to help you gain the ability to run 8 x 100m in 13s. Just stick to 8-10 x 100m and aim to improve the skill and run them faster as the weeks progress.

Learn how to move, as I have outlined above. And I am very aware it would be much easier if you saw what I was advising rather than just reading these words I know most runners learn best by observing and copying, so posting some video clips might be an idea for the future.

Keep this skill session in every week. So now your week might look like this:

Tues: long endurance (as earlier)

Thurs: medium endurance (as earlier)

Sat: short and fast (as above)

But he's not a distance distance runner. Speed training for a distance is a complete waste of time without an aerobic base. Giving him advice is a waste of time unless he can't be bothered to make an effort.

He's probably a middle distance runner. But he also has some issues if you know what I mean?

Something doesn't add up.

You could run a 16:50 5k, but only a 16 second 100 meters?

A 16:50 5k is basically a 20 second 100 meters...repeated 50 times without rest.

I don't buy this.

I don't really have anything to add re increasing your basic speed. Are you sure about those 40yd and 100M times though??? If I am reading correctly, you were about 21-23 when you ran a 6.5 40 and 16.5 100? That can't possibly be right. Rich Eisen ran right at 6 at age 44 and he does not look like he does much in the way of exercise. I am 46 and am certain I could run below 15 for 100 (not much).

You ran a 12s 100 and just a few years later you can't break 15, that can't be.

Despréaux wrote:

Any advice on learning how to go fast again?

Speed is a skill that needs training and development just like any other physical attribute (like endurance, etc). How do you build endurance? You do aerobic training. So how do you improve your speed? Well, you do speed work. You have to train fast to run fast. Start with flying 50s with full rest and short hill reps similarly with full rest. You can make a world of difference by doing that a few times a week. Btw, I don't think you're alone. I think pure speed development is the most overlooked component in most MD/LD runner's training.

I know it is hard to believe that I ran 16:50 off of what was the time 16.5 100m speed, but it is true. Taking acceleration into account, that was probably about 15.5 seconds/100 for max speed, so I was running close to 80% max for more than 3 miles on hilly roads. I raced similar times consistently, doing absolutely no specific training, just hobby jogging 40 mpw and racing 2 or 3 times a year.

I do not think it is a purely genetic limitation, because likei said I officially ran 12.0 electronically timed as a 15 year old. I also don't think it is a lack of strength or power, because I can now deadlift, squat, and leg curl weights in the gym after only 8 months or so that guys twice my size training for several years can't budge, and have pretty decent hops.

I think it has to be a mechanical issue or something. The thing is, it doesn't "feel" like sprinting when I try. I remember when I was younger what sprinting "felt" like, and I just can't attain that feeling. It's just like after a few years not doing it, my body just "forgot" somehow, and just fell into a hole of slow aerobic running that I just cannot bring myself out of.

I have already been consistently doing the things you guys are talking about 2-3 times weekly for months: flying sprints and power hills with full recovery, quick feet and other drills, plyos, etc. Still, high school girls in the slow heats could beatme in a sprint. I just haven't been able to approach where I'd like to be, and the fact of the matter is that I am embarrassingly slow, especially considering I was always the kid in basketball who annihilated everybody in suicides.

I know that some of you have ragged on me for giving up distance, but how am I going to be any faster if I was basically sprinting road races from start to finish in the first place. I know this is whiny, but I'm just 21 and really want to believe that there is still hope to move fast again. I really think if I could do so, and then just maintain some speed gains while adding back in some aerobic work, I could be a pretty competitive runner over 5k or 10k.

Lifting weights and running slowly killed your speed, you need to go back to what worked before.

First, at 15 you ran 12.0 FAT but your times now are not FAT. My guess is that you are timing yourself while you run. Getting ready to hit your watch at the end could easily be a full second. Second, you think your 16.5 is only 15.5 with a flying start but most likely your start is even worse than you think. Have you run a 200?

Third, if you were doing it 2-3 times a week PLUS weights on other days that certainly is not what I posted. That is 1000X badly.

"Dont do too many reps, 6-10 x 30-50m is plenty for one session. Remember, its a skill, so doing it 1,000 times but badly, will not help. Its a skill and some people get it quickly (1-3 sessions) and some take longer."

AND ONLY ONCE A WEEK

You are trying to overpower it. That will not work.

Another thing, it is possible to run 2:12 in the marathon with a 60 sec 400 and a 14.0 sec 100. A 2:12 marathoner can run about 13:45 for 5k or 16.5 seconds per 100 a 2.5 second differential. So running 5k at 20.2 per 100 with 16.5 sec 100 speed is not so strange.

Get back to running whatever got you to 16:50.

Despreaux wrote:

I also don't think it is a lack of strength or power, because I can now deadlift, squat, and leg curl weights in the gym after only 8 months or so that guys twice my size training for several years can't budge, and have pretty decent hops.

I squat 190 lbs 3x3 and power clean 165 lbs max. There seems to be much more discrepancy between your lifts. Maybe you need more work on the transfer of your strength into power. Personally I would ditch the DL, instead concentrate power clean form the floor. Also ditch the leg curls since they work the hamstrings concentrically not excentrically as in running. Maybe lift only once per week and do a dedicated plyo day.

I don't want to be a marathoner, but do you have an example of such a 14.0/60.0/2:12 guy? If true, that would be quite a testament to their aerobic abilities.

I just want to get some speed back while being able to run respectable times in the Mile-5k.

As far as the 16:50s (multiple times), it was just hobby jogging 30-40 minutes a day before early classes and entering races at random once every 3 or 4 months.

Also: I also did sprints in the morning and weights in the evenings on the same days to make sure I had recovery days in between.

And as far as FAT goes, doesn't hand-timing usually give misleadingly better, not worse, times?