Increasing speed can be beneficial for many sports as well as running.
Increasing speed is beneficial for participation in most sports. The first impulse to increase speed might be to work on sprinting, but resistance training to work the fast-twitch muscle fibers in all muscle groups in your body will increase quickness and agility, too. Resistance bands are a good form of resistance for this type of training, but free weights can be used just as effectively, using low weights/resistance and high repetitions and sets.
Working the Legs
Strong legs are the powerhouse behind a swift runner.
Strong leg muscles are a necessity if increasing your speed is the goal. A good, complete leg workout will include exercises that involve all of the muscle groups in your legs. Exercises such as lunges, squats, legs curls and leg extensions, calf raises and inner and outer thigh presses will give you a well-rounded leg workout.
Upper Body Exercises
Working the upper body will help increase speed by develping fast-twitch muscles.
Including the muscles in your upper body in your overall conditioning will help increase your speed by improving the state of more of your fast-twitch muscle fibers than just those in your legs. When you are running, you engage your upper body by pumping your arms to propel yourself forward. This action utilizes your chest and shoulders which can be worked by performing high rows, bench press and triceps extensions. Be sure to include your lower back, too. A strong lower back works to assist both your upper body and your legs. A great exercise for the lower back is "good mornings," which are very similar to toe touches, but they are done with a bar attached to free weights or bands for resistance.
Cardio--Sprints
Short sprints are an effective way to increase speed.
The most obvious part of a program to increase speed would be a sprint workout. Because you will be working your leg muscles when sprinting, it can be done along with your resistance exercises on the same day that you work on your legs but if you want to incorporate either sprints or a tempo run, which is more of an aerobic workout for conditioning, each day that you work out, be sure to give your body an hour or more recovery time between working upper body muscles and sprinting. An effective sprint training session will include various distances (10 meters, 20 meters, 30 meters, etc) with a minimum of 60 seconds between sprints for recovery and a range of different starting positions, as well. For instance, you could start one sprint in a typical three-point runners stance, crouching and bracing yourself with your hands in front of you, fingertips on the ground and one leg bent at the knee, the other extended behind you; start your next sprint facing backwards, in the opposite direction that you will be running; and begin a third sprint lying flat on the ground so that you have to jump up into an upright position to run.
Helpful Advice
Resistance bands are an effective form of resistance for the upper and lower body exercises listed here, but the exercises can be performed effectively using free weights, too. Whatever form of resistance you have at your disposal will be helpful in a program to increase your speed.
It is a good idea to give yourself a rest day between training days. An effective workout plan would be a three-day split: work your upper body on the first day, rest on the second day, work your legs on the third day, rest on the fourth day, work upper body again on the fifth day (changing the exercises from the first day) and take at least one more rest day before starting the workout over again.
To get the most out of any exercise program, it is a good idea to not work legs and upper body on the same day. Because you would be involving more than one major muscle group, doing so would overextend your body's recovery as well as the nutrients available.
Tags: upper body, your legs, increase speed, your upper, your upper body