Speed training: how to plan a week that makes you faster

What you are training

Sprint speed breaks into three qualities, and each one gets its own kind of session.

• For acceleration, you sprint 10–40m from a start, often against a sled or up a hill.
• Max velocity comes from flying sprints of 20–30m after a run-in, and from sprint-float-sprint runs.
• Speed endurance is built with repeated 60m sprints and longer reps that teach you to hold speed.

Underneath them sit power (jumps and throws), strength (heavy, fast lifts) and general fitness (easy tempo). Faster runners apply more force to the ground on each step, while their legs move through the air at about the same speed as slower runners' legs. Strength and power work raise the force you have available.

High days and low days

A speed week is built on the high/low split. Every session is one or the other, and two high days never go back to back.

• High days are anything that taxes the nervous system: acceleration, max velocity, speed endurance above 90%, heavy lifts and max-effort jumps.
• Low days are tempo runs at 60–75%, circuits, mobility, technique work or a barefoot walk.

Week 1 of Sprint University's base program follows that split:

1. Day 1Acceleration + SledHigh day
2. Day 2Jumps + ThrowsLow day
3. Day 3Sprint-Float-SprintHigh day
4. Day 4Recovery Tempo (optional)Low day
5. Day 5Top Speed, Flying 20sHigh day
6. Day 6Active Recovery (optional)Low day

Elite programs space their days the same way. A review of elite sprint training gives intensive sprint sessions at least 48 hours of recovery (48–72 hours for max-velocity and speed-endurance work) and easy tempo about 24 hours.

How fast and how much to sprint

Effort is written as a percentage of your best. In the program, acceleration and max-velocity reps run at 98–100% with the occasional lighter rep at 95%, and tempo runs at 65–75%. Rest scales with distance: about 2 minutes after 10–20m, 3–4 minutes after 30–40m, 5 minutes after flys and 6 minutes after 60s.

Total volume stays small. The program's acceleration days hold roughly 100–250m of sprinting. The elite review lists 100–300m per acceleration session and 50–150m of max-velocity sprinting per session, with reps stopped as soon as speed drops.

Where strength fits

Lifting belongs inside a speed program. A meta-analysis found that gains in squat strength carried over to faster sprinting, with an average sprint improvement of about 3%.

Sprint University adds two or three lifts to the hard track days, after the sprinting. Over six weeks the main barbell lift follows a triphasic wave: slow eccentrics, then isometric holds, then explosive concentrics. Sets are short (about two quality reps at roughly 82–85% of max) so each rep stays fast. The program never puts max-velocity sprinting on the same day as heavy squats or deadlifts, which leaves each day with one big stressor.

How to progress over six weeks

Each week of the base program has one job:

1. Week 1 establishes the pattern, with the sessions at manageable volume.
2. Week 2 adds a rep, but only if the speed holds.
3. Week 3 is the biggest week, with the most sprint volume, longer rests and flying 30s added.
4. Week 4 sharpens into a filmed mid-point retest, which unlocks the next block.
5. Week 5 rebuilds after the check with a heavier sled and fewer, high-quality reps.
6. Week 6 tapers to fewer reps and more rest at the same 100% effort, then ends with the final test.

A taper cuts volume and keeps intensity. For strength and power sports the elite review cites a 40–60% volume reduction over two to three weeks, while some sprint coaches cut about 30% over the last ten days.

A full season follows the same logic over a longer span. In the Sprint University system, general preparation is grass, crouch starts, posture and extensive tempo. Specific preparation brings in spikes, blocks and top-speed work. Pre-competition then sharpens, and competition blocks drop the volume and shorten the distances.

How to order an off-season

The Haugen review of elite sprint training describes a common order. Strength work runs in consecutive cycles of 4–6 weeks: hypertrophy first, then maximal strength, then explosive strength, power and plyometrics. The heavy strength blocks usually sit alongside plenty of sprinting below max speed, and the closer the season gets, the more the week shifts toward max-velocity sprinting and explosive, ballistic lifts. The review's example weeks look like this:

Tempo runs fill the easy days in every phase. Within each phase, leading coaches often run two or three harder weeks followed by an easier one.

Go carefully at the hand-off into the season. In one study cited by the review, two-thirds of hamstring injuries in competitive sprinters happened in the transition from specific preparation to competition, when volume drops and speed climbs. Bring your top speed up gradually over the late preparation weeks so the gap between training speed and race speed stays small. The review also found no direct evidence that one periodization model beats another, so pick an order that fits your season and stick with it long enough to test it.

Adjust to how you recovered

A plan written weeks ago can't account for the night you slept four hours. Sprint University reads your HRV, resting heart rate and sleep from Apple Health each morning, adds a short check-in, and scores your readiness. On a low day it keeps the session but trims multi-set blocks to about 70% of their sets, with intensity unchanged. Missed days reflow into the week instead of piling up.

The research support for this is real but modest. A meta-analysis of HRV-guided training, mostly in endurance athletes, found small advantages over fixed plans for fitness and performance, and fewer negative responses.

Common mistakes

Back-to-back hard days

If you sprint Monday and Tuesday, Tuesday's reps will be slower. Put a low day in between.

Easy days that are not easy

A "recovery run" at 80% is a third hard day. Tempo should feel comfortable, and a walk counts.

Progressing by feel alone

Add volume in planned steps, then test. Without a mid-point check you can't tell what worked.

Testing tired

Cut volume in the days before a test or race, and keep a little fast running in.