How do I gain speed?

[Brown_Bear73]

I wanna shave some seconds off my forty yard dash and I was wondering if anyone new some drills or exercises I could do to get my time to come down? Everyones 2 cents are welcomed.

[justins82]

the first thing you can do is improve your running form. by improving your form you can shave 3/10 of your time easily with out any change in your body. practice lengthening your stride, pumping your arms, and running like you are holding eggs in your hands. Then for track work I suggest running 10 20 meters, 5 100 meters, and 5 200 with a 2 mile warm up on m and f and wed i suggest a 3 mile run then running 5 50's, 10 100's, and 5 400's.
As far as weight training I would suggest power cleans for sets of 8, 6, 4, 4, reverse hamstring curls where you position youself on a pulldown apparatus with your shins on the seat pad and the back your ankles behind the knee pads pulling yourself up with your hamstrings for sets of at least 10-15x3, lunges with the barbell or dumbells for sets of 15x3, and finally squats in sets of 25, 20, 10, 10. Also shoulder strength also helps improve your time so i suggest military press or dumbell press along with front raises. I would spit these exercises between tues and thurs adding suplementary lifts to strengthen the rest of your body, i only suggested the excersises proven to make runners faster.

[SUPERDAVE]

yeah definitely work the power cleans. Last summer i really concentrated on power cleans and hamstrings and my forty dropped from a 5.4 to a 4.7.

Also, a sprinter once told me this," To be fast, you have to think fast"
You can make that into whatever you want

[Jphill1301]

Speed is not necessarily top speed. Alot of it has to do with explosion. After ever set of squats do some jump squats. Just stand there have your heels touch your butt and just as high as you can each time. Also do some tuck jumps where you jump and try and get your knees to your chest

[ivan21]

maybe its just me, but also running stairs and i mean a ton of them. seemed to work for me. 4.8 jr to 4.4 sr when in HS. also perfecting your start could make a huge difference on your time.

[Jphill1301]

on the idea of running. run downhill, get your body used to running faster then it already can. its dangerous but it works

[skiboy]

do 40's downhill, straight leg dead lifts then hami. curls, do squats and between sets do squat jumps(like on a bench), yeah stairs help but you got to run 'em over fast or it won't do ne good, i cut my forty from 4.9 to 4.5 (4.4 on good days) during a few months plyometrics/strairs and this shiat helped.....good luck
peace