If you’re looking for a list of the 5 best 100m sprint training drills for max speed, then you’ve come to the right place. In this article, I will be reviewing some awesome research, to provide you with science based training tips to increase your sprint performance. As you’ll see, there are some relatively simple training methods that can have a drastic impact on your ability to run fast. Keep reading for more.
Running fast is a key physical task that we all must be able to do if we want to say we’re fit. Sure, you don’t have to be Usain Bolt fast, but you need to be able to sprint reasonably well. It’s also important to note that sprinting isn’t just about how strong your legs are. It’s also about your technique.
In this article I will review the key types of training drills that will allow you to run fast. As I was combing through the research it became apparent that there are only a few types of training methods that will provide the biggest bang for your training buck. Here’s a quick overview of the best 100m sprint training drills.
5 Best 100m Sprint Training Drills : Overview
- To sprint quickly you need high intensity sprint intervals with 5+ minutes of rest between
- Strong legs and hips are a must for sprinters
- Plyometric drills have been shown to increase running speed
- Sled pushing and weighted sprints are great for increasing early phase acceleration
- 2-3 sessions per week are sufficient to see big improvements in sprinting speed over short distances
Before we get into the details of the research, I want to point out that you need to ease into this type of training. If you don’t regularly run at high speed, you need to spend some time working up to running this fast. If you don’t, you will injure yourself. I’ve definitely never done this before, and I wouldn’t know from personal experience.
Next we’ll cover what the research says are the most effective sprint drills. After that, I will show you how to integrate them into my most popular fitness program, so you can create your own hybrid sprint training program. Let’s get to the best 100m sprint training drills research.
The Best Sprint Training Drills Research
Much of this section of the article is going to come from a great piece of research entitled, “The Training and Development of Elite Sprint Performance: an Integration of Scientific and Best Practice Literature.” This is a research review where the authors have combed through hundreds of scientific papers, to aggregate the best practices for developing elite sprint speed.
This research publication is specifically aimed at track sprinting but, as you’ll see, it’s applicable to a wide variety of athletes that need to increase their ability to sprint. It doesn’t matter if you’re a tactical athlete, high school football player, or a guy named Doug, these training methods will work for everyone.
In this paper they highlight that sprinting is a high power output sport, and 100m sprints are normally divided into three distinct phases. The first phase is from the starting blocks to about 30m. The second phase is the acceleration phase, from 30m to 60m. The final phase is the deceleration phase till the end of the race.
When we consider that there are three different areas for sprinting, it makes sense that we should develop drills that build these specific areas. Check this table, taken directly from the research paper. It clearly explains the different types of sprint training.
It’s important to note that this research paper is specifically looking at sprint training for track and field. I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that you just want to run faster, and don’t have much of an interest in winning an Olympic gold medal.
In this case, we can actually simplify these training recommendations. The first drill is for the acceleration phase, we can see that resisted sprints (sled / hill sprints) and short bursts of max effort are the two primary methods we should focus on.
The second drill,for max velocity training, is flying sprints. This type of sprint allows you to build up to your maximum speed over 20-40m, and then maintain that max speed for 10-30m.
The third type of sprint training drill we should use is the tempo work, to build our sprint endurance. The vast majority of these intervals are roughly 70% of your top 100m speed. These intervals are generally longer than 100m, but no longer than 300m. If you like these kinds of article then join the email list below.
Join the Email List
If you don’t want to miss out on awesome programs like this, then sign up here and we’ll email them directly to you once they’re released. As a bonus, I’ll send you our strength training, and fat loss guides!
1oom Sprint Training Drill Workout Distance and Recovery
The other key thing we need to pay attention to on this table is the total session volume. It’s very clear that when running at 95% or greater speed, we should keep the total interval volume to no more than 300m. If you have some longer 150m sprint endurance intervals, you might go up to 900 meters. The important point here is that high quality intervals matter when running at top speed.
The other key point is the recovery time. Most athletes do not rest long enough between high effort intervals. If you’re a normal gym goer, or functional fitness athlete it feels very weird to wait 7 or more minutes between your hard efforts, but that’s what you need to do if you want to run fast. This rest ensures that you are fully recovered and ready to give a high output effort for your next interval.
Without getting to in depth about your energy systems, and nervous system fatigue, I’ll give you a quick metaphor for 100m sprint training. If you’re training to be a dragster, you need to run like a dragster. If you’ve ever watched a top fuel drag race, you’ll note that they put out max power for 4 seconds, and then the team spends hours tearing down the engine and making the repairs needed to do their next run.
This is what you have to do when performing max speed intervals. You need full recovery to make sure that you’re ready to give the required effort on the next round. Now that we’ve covered what kind of training elite sprinters do, let’s put this into a complete sprinting program.
Building a High Quality Sprint Program
The vast majority of people reading simply want to run faster, while continuing with their work in the gym. This leaves us with the problem of integrating these 5 best 100m sprint training drills into our current program.
It’s no secret that I’ve written dozens of programs for many different types of athletes. However, for this section, I will cover how to integrate sprint training with my most popular program, The 8 Week Functional Bodybuilding Hybrid Program. Incidentally this muscle building and strength program is our fourth type of sprint training drill, gym work.
This program is a three part program, with part one lasting 8 weeks. You can find part two, and part three here. Both of them also last 8 weeks in length. The first 8 weeks is a 4 day per week split. Here is the first week of the program.
The first thing you can see is that this is an upper body, lower body split program, with the WODs covering a mix of both. As we discussed earlier, this program is a 4 day split, with 3 days of rest. This makes for an easy first week of the program.
If you want a super detailed premium version of this program, then you can get that below. It includes specific warm ups, percentages, and all the coaches notes you could ask for.
Because we aren’t trying to go to the Olympics, we only need 2-3 sprint workouts per week. You can also start in a three point start, or a less aggressive staggered foot start. In this first week we should do two sessions. Naturally we would include these sessions after the 4th workout of the program. Here is what those two sessions should look like.
Sprint Tempo Session
- Warm Up: 5-10min jog, then active stretching
- Sprint Tempo Work: 4 x 200m at 70% speed
- Easy walk for 3 min to recover between efforts
- Cool Down: 10min easy walk
Sprint Acceleration Session
- Warm Up: 5-10min jog, then active stretching
- 6 x 30m Sprints at 95% speed
- Walk for 4min between sprints
- Cool Down: 10min easy walk
I recommend doing the sprint tempo session the next day, as it’s easy on your legs, and won’t create a lot of soreness. You can then do the sprint acceleration session the following day, as it’s a tough workout. This leaves you with one completely free day, to recover for next week.
I would do two sprint sessions for the first 4 weeks of the Functional Bodybuilding Hybrid Program. Each week I would add 50m of length to each interval in the tempo session, and 10m in length to each interval in the acceleration workouts. Keep the same speed for each interval, just increase the length each week, by the specified amount.
After the first 4 week cycle I think it’s safe to start working on true max velocity work. I would then continue to focus on two sprint sessions per week. They would look like this.
Sprint Top Speed Session
- Warm Up: 5-10min jog, then active stretching
- 5x40m: flying start building to max effort. For the first 30m build to max velocity. Maintain this speed for 10m. This totals 40m.
- Easy walk for 5 min to recover between efforts
- Cool Down: 10min easy walk
Sprint Acceleration Session
- Warm Up: 5-10min jog, then active stretching
- 8 x 10 sec hill sprints. Find a steep grass hill and sprint at max speed for 10 sec.
- Walk for 5 min between sprints
- Cool Down: 10min easy walk
You can see that these two sessions are higher velocity. You should be ready for this. After all, you’ve spent the last 4 weeks working up to this point. Remember you should be fully recovered between each of these efforts. If you find that you still have a high heart rate prior to starting, then you can extend your rest interval.
As the weeks progress with this cycle, you can add 5-10 meters further to the top speed portion of your flying sprint. You can also add in more hill intervals or lengthen the intervals, as you like.
I would perform these two sessions at the end of my 4 gym sessions each week, for the 4 weeks of cycle two. At this point you might find you’ve achieved your goal of increasing your 100m sprint speed. If you haven’t, then you can continue on with part two of the program.
At that point you could add back in a tempo session like we did in the first four weeks. You’re most likely going to have to do this as a second training session, one day a week. Make sure you put that running workout on an upper body strength training session. It’s easier to run fast and bench press than it is to squat, in the same day. This is the best way to combine running and lifting.
Other 100m Sprint Training Drills
There are two other valuable training areas that we haven’t covered yet. The first is sprint technique work. The second is plyometric training (our 5th drill). We will briefly discuss these two drills / training methodologies here.
Your best bet is to work with a sprint coach if you truly want to learn the best, and most efficient sprint techniques, to increase your running speed. The easiest way to do this is to email an assistant track and field coach at your local college. Many of them are amenable to working one on one for a small fee.
Alternatively, you can use your phone in slow motion mode, as a self coaching tool. You should put this parallel to your running direction, along the track. Once you compare yourself to other top level athletes, you’ll find that you can gradually improve your running technique. This video should help.
The other valuable training methodology is plyometric, or jump training. This style of training incorporates skips, jumps, bounds, and other high impact exercises. The goal is to increase tendon stiffness and strength. This allows you retain more energy as you impact the ground with each stride.
Plyometric training can be very hard on your body so start moderately. I recommend doing 5-10 minutes of jump rope for a few weeks to start. You can then work on bounding and jumping after that. Eventually you can get to drop jumps. Here is a quick video on some plyometric training.
We’ve covered quite a lot of information. I want to review a few key pieces of info so that you can improve your sprint training speed. Here are my final thoughts.
Final Thoughts
Sprint training at maximum effort is incredibly taxing. That means that you shouldn’t rush this process, and cut corners. The program I’ve covered here would be appropriate for an intermediate or advanced level athlete. If you’re a newer athlete, that’s fine. You should check out this beginner functional fitness program, and work on your aerobic capacity first.
Don’t underestimate how much progress you can make with 2 days of dedicated sprint training per week. With the other work your doing in the gym, you should find that you make quick progress. I recommend checking out this nutrition article, and download this calculator to make sure you’re eating enough food. You can also check this article out to work on your recovery.
If you have any questions or comments, you can put them below. I’ll do my best answer promptly. If you want to try another one of my most popular programs then you should check this out.
The opinions and information expressed in this article are solely those of the author and are not affiliated with any corporation, group, public or private entity. This web site is not endorsed by, directly affiliated with, maintained, authorized, or sponsored by Crossfit Inc. All product and company names are the registered trademarks of their original owners. The use of any trade name or trademark is for identification and reference purposes only and does not imply any association with the trademark holder of their product brand.
