Through the years, when I have asked other strength coaches about their speed program, the response is always somewhat cryptic. Whether I’m asking what are your favorite exercises to develop speed or what key strength training exercises do you implement to get your athletes faster, the answer I get is like I asked them who they voted for?

Very guarded, almost appalled I would dare to ask such a thing.

Luckily in my lifetime, I have worked with a lot of collegiate athletes at varying levels. During the summer, no matter what sport they are playing, they usually are given a summer conditioning packet to help with their strength and speed. These athletes have either given me their packets or I’ve made copies of the workouts. Either way, I have a good collection of workouts to figure out what the common exercises are between these programs.

Some of the schools I’ve collected workouts from are the University of Miami (FL), Penn State University, Boston University, Miami (OH), and Wake Forest. I knew a guy from my high school whose brother played football at Michigan and tried to get their workout, but the strength coach nixed it. I’m assuming it’s because he thought it was so awesome. The funny thing is he isn’t a part of their program anymore.

I know every strength coach is prideful of their program, but all of us speed and strength coaches are all pretty knowledgeable. No one has the “secret” program that is head and shoulders above the rest. There might be tweaks about reps and intensity, but the meat of the exercises are usually the same.

So, what I’m going to talk about today are the “secret” (or probably not-so-secret) strength exercises that I have implemented into my speed program that gets athletes faster. I strength coached at a high school for 5 years and was able to see the development of my athletes from freshman to seniors. I’ve seen what a solid strength program does to athletes at that age to get them to be the best athletes possible.

One of the years I was a strength coach, our football team at Columbus Academy won the state title in 2003. We had some athletes that were truly fast and we had others that had no business being fast or explosive, but they put the work in and made themselves fast. Here are the exercises that I like to use with my athletes to complement our speed program to get them faster.

  • Cleans – I like both power cleans (from the floor) and hang cleans. These are very technical lifts and you must have a good teacher to teach the form. But, if you are proficient at the lift, the power and speed you will develop from these lifts is awesome. Power cleans are great because it really hits all your muscles and with your butt that close to your heels stimulates fast twitch fiber growth. Hang cleans mimic more of the athletic position you are normally in for your sport, but I would incorporate both. I had two butterball looking lineman start our lifting program as freshman and by the time they were seniors really had some respectable speed. In fact, at 5’8″ (maybe) for both of them, they both had 28-29″ vertical leaps at maybe 220 pounds. I think 4 years of cleans made that happen.
  • Single Leg Squats – I would start the athletes holding onto a rack, balancing on one leg. I would have them squat down as low as possible and then stand up. This is a tough exercise, but I think the strength involved really helped the continual single leg explosions that you see when you run. Ideally, I have them get a little below parallel to really activate as much of the glute as possible. A great exercise to combine with cleans.
  • Glute Ham Exercise – If you have been following me for some time, then you know how much I love this machine. I’m a big believer in developing hamstring strength for speed development and you need to do it with specific exercises. This machine does that. If you don’t have access to a glute ham exercise, then you can do a manual hamstring curl. If you click here, you can watch the video I have for a manual curl. Either exercise will help, but make sure you do one. Posterior strength not only helps get you faster, but will help reduce the chances of pulled muscles and blown knees.
  • Reverse Hypers – Core strength is huge in any sport, but especially speed. But, just like with the hamstrings and specifically hitting them with an exercise and not just relying on squats and lunges, I feel the lower back needs to be treated the same way. Planks and other core exercises are great and shouldn’t be ignored, but I think you need to specifically hit the lower back with exercises of its own and reverse hypers do that. The lower back needs to be strong when you are accelerating and breaking the forces trying to keep you down. Do these and you’ll be accelerating faster in no time.

Obviously, there is more that is added to a strength program to get you faster. But, if you are going to start from scratch I would make sure these 4 exercises get put into your program. Remember, in order to be a fast athlete you need to be a strong athlete.