Exercises To Run Faster: Sprint Faster | Jump Higher | Stretches To Run Faster

By Patricia | December 2, 2010
Faster Running Exercise

Exercises To Run Faster

Speed is a very important part of one’s exercise for a lot of people. An athlete’s performance as a whole depends on how fast he or she is. A common mistake many athletes make is only using running exercises to increase speed. It is important not only to increase your speed but also build your power and strength in order to run faster. Warm up’s are crucial for any exercise routine to be beneficial and hence before your speed workout make sure your body is warmed up properly. Avoid static stretching to loosen up during your warm up as this decreases your speed and power. Start with basic exercises and move towards more complicated and high intensity exercises. Let’s start with training speed as it’s extremely essential if your goal is to run faster. This means that you need to run short distances which should be in the range of approximately 20 to 80 yards. Make sure there is a variation of distances while running to help you improve your speed. Two things to keep in mind are – Increasing your stride length and your stride frequency. Length indicates the distance covered in one stride and frequency indicates the number of times you lift your feet off the ground in a given unit of time.

Exercises To  Sprint Faster

Power means your capability to use the maximum amount of force over a short span of time. While running, power is used the most when you start a sprint. Plyometrics is one of the most common and effective methods to train for power. This training method consists of explosive movements to build muscle power which in turn helps to improve power and speed. Exercises include bounding, power skips, pogo jumps and box jumps. Start with less number of repetitions for these exercises. These help you to exert high amount of energy quickly. It’s very important to have a strong foundation of strength in order to attain high levels of power and speed. In order to run faster it is essential to have muscular strength. The stronger the muscles the greater the amount of force you can exert. Concentrate more on the lower body and core strength in order to run faster. Exercises such as squats, dead lifts, lunges, dumbbell step ups and glute ham raises should be implemented in order to increase the lower body strength. You can also do a lot of abdominal exercises, wood chops and dragon flags to increase your core strength.

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