What is the right way to increase your running speed? 6 useful exercises

ultramarathoner, founder and coach of the ERA running club

What is the right way to increase your running speed? What exercises to do?

Almost everyone who started running, soon (or even from the very first training sessions) wants to run faster, and even faster, and a lot of people fail at it. Why? Because running, like many other motor skills, is normally formed and developed in childhood, between the ages of three and 15, it is a normal way of transportation in games and everyday life. Let’s face it – almost none of the people who live civilized lives in big cities run like this. People start running in adulthood, and even if running was somehow present in childhood and adolescence, a 10-15-20 year hiatus negates the old skills.

Running speed is last on the list of priorities for a beginning runner. Nevertheless, after some time (everyone has their own), fast running is just begging to be incorporated into training.

How to properly develop running speed

The modern amateur running movement all over the world, and in Russia too, is mainly focused on long (5-10 km) and extra-long (half-marathon – 21.1 km and marathon – 42.2 km) distances. Medium and even shorter distances are rarely run. If to improve the result at the half-marathon and marathon at first it is enough just to gradually (no more than 10% per week) increase the volume of running, increasing the speed at a five-kilometer distance, as a rule, requires special training.

Special running exercises

It makes sense to start working on speed by improving running technique. Optimal technique maximizes efficiency so that as much of the energy expended as possible is used for running forward, and also ensures safety and reduces the risk of injury. Technique is developed in special running exercises. At first, these exercises also help develop muscle strength and each workout requires 2-3 days of recovery. Later on, these exercises become part of the warm-up that can be done before each running workout. Most of them are familiar to us from our school days.

What these exercises are:

• Running with shin splints. When doing the exercise, try to reach your heels to your buttocks. Do the exercise at a fast pace and try to land on the front of the foot. The body is slightly tilted forward, don’t forget to work with your arms.
• Run with a high hip raise. When jumping up, try to raise your thigh up to parallel with the floor. Do not tilt your body anywhere, keep your back straight and pull the foot towards you. Do not forget to work with your arms.
• Running sideways with a side step. Put the working leg to the side, transfer your body weight to it and jump up, putting the other leg. Move your arms to help yourself jump.
• Multiple hops. This exercise is a powerful jumping forward from foot to foot. As you push off the ground, fully straighten your push leg, bend your swing leg at the knee and bring it out in front of you. Help yourself with your arms to keep your balance.
• Running on straight legs. Here the main task will be to actively and quickly carry the swing leg in front of you and also quickly change it to another, moving forward. Do not bend your knees, do not deviate the body backwards and do not forget to work with your arms.
• Seminal running. Light, short and quick running steps. Bend your legs slightly at the knees and put your weight on the front of your feet. Start moving forward quickly with short steps – about half a foot. Work your arms as if you were running, do not strain them.

Interval training

The idea is that after warming up, the athlete runs a short distance (or a short period of time) fast, then rests for a while, runs the same distance fast again, rests again, and so on. The length, number of repetitions, intensity and rest time are the four basic parameters that allow you to customize your training according to the athlete’s characteristics and the goals of the training process. The general rule is: “The shorter the competitive distance, the shorter the intervals”, then shamanism and alchemy begin, there is no single list of recipes. Usually the work on speed starts with very short (30-100 m) sections, this is the distance that almost everyone can run quickly without significant fatigue, without breaking the technique and without panting in exhaustion at the end.

As a rule, speed training becomes relevant when a runner has sporting goals – to improve his or her time on the course, to take the best place in the protocol. By this time either the athlete has time to gain the necessary knowledge on his own, or finds a source of answers to his questions in his running environment, or trusts the coach to solve the problem.

In any case, for anyone who wants to run faster, the most important thing to remember is that running training without pleasure is a sure road to injury, exhaustion and demotivation. Running should bring joy, then it will be fast and enjoyable.

By the way, the distance of running should also be increased competently. Read about how to do it here.