Forums >General Running>Gaining Speed
Hello. I am going into my freshman year at high school. I am not a good sprinter, but can do distance. I am looking for any tips to increase my sprinting speed/ability. I am trying out for our volleyball team and we are required to run 8 200's, each one at or under 38 seconds. I keep coming in at .5 to 1 second over the 38. Does anyone have any tips to increase my speed? Thank you!
hey girl! sprinter here, try doing some workouts with even shorter distances such as repeat 100s and 120s. since you already have the endurance part, really focus in on the speed! Essentially to gain speed, try to break your workouts up into shorter bursts of higher intensity movements. ie. 5 sets of 10 jump squats with 1 min in between instead of 50 regular squats with no rest. I would really recommend that in your training you take slightly longer rests between your 200s and push yourself harder on each one. I hope this helps! reply with any questions
How much time between them?
I think you need to work on what I call your speed endurance (how long you can keep a very fast pace). To succeed at those 200s you can either increase your top speed, or increase how long you can hold your top (or nearly top) speed. I think the second would be a lot more effective for you. Don't throw away all endurance training. I would recommend doing two sprint workouts a week, but make sure one of those has about the same rest interval that you will have for VBALL tryouts. I would also recommend a easy run or two (2 - 4 miles) per week, with 6-8 strides afterward. Strength training will help (though you probably don't want to bulk up for volleyball). Plyometrics are also a very good idea. Improving your form will help a lot.
But through all this remember:
1 - don't sabotage your volleyball season just to make the team. It doesn't do you much good to make the team if you don't do well because you messed up the skills needed for volleyball w/ 200s training.
2 - life will go on if you don't make the team. If you miss it, don' let it wreck you.