If you haven’t heard, I’ve expanded my resume.  I’ve recently been named the head boys and girls track coach at Bishop Watterson high school here in Columbus, Ohio.  There was an open house this past weekend and I got to meet a lot of potential future high school tracksters.

One of the parents asked me a question.  It was what is one thing I could recommend his daughter do to help improve speed?

Sometimes, time is an issue and you need to really bottom line your training.  Or you don’t have access to a lot of options and need something makeshift.  Whatever the reason, I was posed the question.

I don’t think there is absolutely one exercise that is the bottom line best one for speed development.  But, if you put a gun to my head, here is how I’m going to qualify my answer.

One exercise to improve speed for kids under 14 or 15 depending on the physical maturity would be a hamstring curl.

It doesn’t matter what kind of curl – stability ball, 1 leg curl on a machine, or a manual resistance curl – you just need to do something.  The strengthening of the hamstrings will help set the stage for a strong posterior chain in later years.

This helps the young athlete two fold.

  1. The hamstring strength improvement will help optimize the young athlete’s ability to optimize speed development.
  2. I see a lot of shotty mechanics in young athletes that left untreated could increase the chances of a traumatic injury when they get older. Strengthening the hamstrings will help correct some of these mechanical issues and hopefully reduce the chances for big injuries.

For athletes 15 and older, or if their bodies have entered puberty and really mature (you know it when you see it), then I think the one exercise to do for speed development would be deadlifts.

I’ve written a great blog post about deadlifts and how it can help with speed development.  I’m not going to bore you with all that again.  You can click the link and read the post.

Just know if your deadlift can get better.  If you can improve your max so it is twice your bodyweight, then your relative strength is perfect.  It is right where it should be to improve your speed and you should be explosively running all over the field.

Like always get someone who knows how to do these exercises to show you proper technique, especially the deadlift.  You don’t want to do something to hurt yourself, but if you know what you are doing and can systematically improve your strength, you will be sitting pretty with your speed.