How To Run Faster: Speed Training Tips

When it comes to running, your eyes often gravitate toward the finish line. The faster you are, the better your performance. But a lot of factors are at play when it comes to picking up speed. Strength training is just as important as interval workouts, and warm-ups and cool-downs are essential to recovery.

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Sports medicine physician Dominic King, DO, explains how all these factors can influence your speed and ways you can improve with training.

Training tips to build speed

Whether you’re training for your first 5k, trying to improve your mile time or just looking to become a well-rounded athlete, learning how to run faster involves consistently focusing on three main components:

Perfecting your form
Improving your agility
Strengthening your power

“At the highest level, running faster isn’t magic. It’s just math,” says Dr. King. “You get faster by stacking a lot of good quality steps week after week.”

Running faster takes more than just pushing harder once. It’s about keeping a consistent week-to-week structure that focuses on:

Aerobic exercise
Strength training
Flexibility
The way you breathe
The way your heart is conditioned

If you’re not sure where to start, try incorporating a few of these training strategies.

Speed and interval training workouts

If you’re trying to figure out how to get faster at running, a bulk of your training will be focused on speed workouts. There are several different ways to go about it, but the overall goal is to train your body to run at different lengths and in different formats, such as the following.

Interval training

Interval workouts involve alternating bouts of faster running with jogging and walking. During these formats, you want to run with controlled bursts of speed and build in recovery. For example, an interval workout might involve warming up for five minutes, followed by one minute of fast running, two minutes of easy jogging and then repeating that process six to eight times.

“Interval workouts are just controlled stress tests for your running system,” explains Dr. King. “You have short bursts where you run faster than a race pace, followed by a rest period to teach your heart, lungs and muscles how to handle that speed without falling apart.”

Hill sprints

Hill sprints are a format that involves short, intense runs up an incline. When incorporating these into your workouts, Dr. King recommends eight to 10 hill sprints per session, with each sprint lasting roughly 15 to 20 seconds with a full walk back downhill for recovery.

“Hill sprints are strength training in disguise,” he notes. “The incline forces you to drive your knees, to push through your glutes and your hips. You land a bit more under the center of your body, and you have overall less pounding than on flat sprints. If you want a faster flat speed, you earn that on the hill.”

Shuttle runs

Shuttle runs are short, repeated sprints back and forth between two marked points. They help train your ability to accelerate, stop and change direction. Shuttle runs should be done on a track or on a smooth, flat surface to avoid injury. When included in your weekly routine, you might do four to eight sets of three to six shuttle runs, with a break in between each set.

“Shuttle runs help you improve your coordination and can help improve ankle and knee stability,” says Dr. King. “More stable ankles will allow you to be able to run faster because more stable joints will become stronger joints, and they’ll be able to maintain speed for longer periods.”

Ways to improve your strength and power development

A love for speed can make it hard to hit the weights. But it helps to understand the important relationship between muscle strength and running. The stronger your legs are, the more power they can generate, which can translate into faster running.

“Strong runners will waste less energy with every step,” notes Dr. King. “Strength really turns your fitness into free speed.”

A full-body focus on strength training might involve some combination of the following:

Weightlifting
High-intensity interval training (HIIT)
Core exercises
Plyometrics (like box jumps, high knees or burpees)

“Plyometrics takes your strength and puts it into coordination,” he continues. “These exercises train your muscles and tendons to act like springs. If you improve the spring, you get a little bit more of a return on every stride.”

Work on your form

If you’re noticing you’re not getting faster or you have pain in certain parts of your body when you’re trying to move faster, it might be due to your form, your breathing or the way you’re tracking performance.

“Form is mostly about building small, repeatable habits,” says Dr. King. “You should be tall and relaxed. You want your eyes forward, your chest upright and you want a slight lean from your ankles, not your hips.”

Your arms should be bent at 90 degrees, swinging front to back, and your feet should be landing pretty close under your body instead of being way out in front of you.

“If you’re working on form, you might have someone record you or think about doing four to six little runs of 15 to 20 seconds, where you’re working on really intentional, quick, light steps and smooth arm movements,” he recommends.

Improve your breathing

The way you breathe directly affects your form and how fast you can run, too.

“You want to aim for deep, rhythmic breathing, and you want to breathe from your belly,” advises Dr. King. “Relax your jaw and shoulders. Let your belly rise as you inhale and then fully empty your lungs on the exhale.”

If you feel like you’re gasping through a straw, slow down a little bit and reset your posture.

Technique tweaks and other tips

“You have to look at speed as more than just a number,” states Dr. King. “Speed is the outcome of a lot of little things that you do. It takes form, agility and strength, but the real accelerator is everything around the run.”

If you’re looking to become faster, it helps to:

But it also helps to focus on things like recovery and progression tracking. While you’re working on strength training and speed workouts, consider implementing the following strategies.

Warm up and cool down every time you exercise

Warm-ups and cool-downs combined better prepare your body for intense training.

“The fastest runners have a good way to warm up and a good way to cool down,” says Dr. King. “Those two things in combination are the best way to avoid injury.”

Tailor your warm-ups to the workout you’re about to do. If you’re doing a speed workout, for example, activate your glute and hamstring muscles with dynamic drills, like leg swings or high knees

For cool-downs, try gentle, static stretching to relax and recover your muscles or slow down the intensity of your walking to bring down your heart rate.

Mix up your routine

If you feel like you’re pushing yourself to the brink and you’re feeling exhausted, switch up your routine. “Give your body a mix of hard days and easy days so it can rebuild,” says Dr. King. “Gradually increase volume, intensity or duration — not all of those at once.”

Periodization training can help you break up your workouts into manageable periods where you focus on different aspects of speed and strength training. Find a simple way to track your pace, your effort and how you feel, and adjust things before you get hurt or burnt out.

Make time for rest and recovery

A rest day or easy day allows your body to recover from muscle breakdown and helps you adapt to your training volume. It also aids your body in regenerating and storing fuel for your next workout.

“If all you’re doing is adding speed, you’re just teaching your body how to get hurt faster,” warns Dr. King. “So, you want to teach your entire body how to recover, especially from speed workouts.”

Be persistent

As the saying goes: Rome wasn’t built in a day. Despite good intentions, many runners start out motivated, but soon lose steam when they don’t see overnight results in their pace or abilities.

“Getting faster has a lot to do with your goal, but even more to do with how hard you’re willing to work for it,” says Dr. King. “It’s important to remember that getting faster takes time. If you put in the work, you should eventually see the results, but it won’t be instant.”

How long does it take to get faster running

If you’re creating a weekly schedule focused on speed work, Dr. King recommends doing two to three speed sessions each week, with a mix of workouts that include interval training, hill sprints and shuttle runs. He also recommends splitting those workouts up with at least two additional strength training sessions each week.

Some runners may start to see results in a few weeks, while others can take up to 16 weeks before their pace finally starts to budge. For this reason, don’t build weekly mileage too quickly and don’t throw yourself into hard speed workouts with no experience.

The general rule of thumb is to increase your weekly mileage by about 10% each week. As you progress through training, if you’re spinning your wheels on anything, find a healthcare professional who can get you back on track.

“If you’re not able to get faster because of a lack of agility or lack of a range of motion, or something is just not happening, getting in touch with a sports medicine professional, like a running physical therapist, is key,” emphasizes Dr. King.

They’ll do running evaluations to see how you strike with your feet, what your cadence looks like when you speed up and where your form might be breaking down.

“That personalized evaluation is sometimes what people need, especially if you’ve had previous injuries, surgeries or something else that’s hampering your ability to build that speed,” he says.