Speed

Soccer is a highly competitive game. In this competition, the first player to the ball has an advantage. If a defender can run down the opposition, they can claim the advantage. If an attacker can escape the defence, they can leverage that advantage. The common theme providing the advantage in these scenarios is speed.

Imagine two players of similar ability. One of those players works on technique to increase their speed until they can sprint just 5% faster than they do today. That's just a little over half a second faster than their previous benchmark for a 100 meter sprint, making them a half second faster than the pace of their rival.

On game day, each of these players find themselves chasing a loose ball, which is falling just out of reach of the keeper, with a clean shot at goal. This could give the attacking team the lead, and a much-needed boost of confidence. If the defender can get there first, they can clean up this mess knocking the ball out of play. They are in a race to the ball from twenty metres away. A full-out sprint of just a few seconds before they can claim the first touch. Even over such a short distance, the player who worked to improve their speed gets to the ball a full metre ahead of their opponent, taking the comfortable touch to secure their advantage, and hear the roar of appreciation from their teammates.

Which player are you? If you could give yourself that metre of advantage over your opponent by working on your speed, would you do it?

A lot of smart people have spent a lot of time learning about how to get that little bit faster. There is plenty of information out there on how to improve speed in soccer. Speed is not limited to football alone, and lessons from other athletic disciplines can also be used to your advantage. Keep reading to look at what you can do today, to add a little more speed into your games.

Speed in soccer will be leveraged in many ways. In this challenge, we will focus on straight line sprints. In future you may consider working on speed incorporating changes of direction, or speed with the ball.

If you want to achieve measurable progress, you first need to measure your baseline. Before getting into the theory, get a take on your baseline.

Find a location to test your existing speed. Taking the average distance of a sprint within a game to be 18 – 20 metres, we would do well to overshoot that distance. If the energy system is best challenged at distances between 30 and 60 metres, lets go one up from there, and choose the width of your local pitch for our baseline measurement. From a standing start, measure you speed from one side of the pitch to the other. You can use a stopwatch, or better yet, have a friend record video of your full sprint from the far touch line. You can accurately scrub through the video, or crop from the start of movement to calculate the exact speed. You will also have a video to compare your form as you progress through your challenge and see just how far you have come.

This is a picture of the video with scrubber showing our little athlete across the line.

Be consistent with the conditions, distance and time mechanism for your benchmark and challenge completion runs. Remember Its not about how fast you run, but how far you can progress. Set yourself a challenge for improvement and give yourself 30 days to refine that technique.

You should find rapid gains are achievable by enhancing techniques of sprinting. Research indicates Flexibility, Strength and Endurance training will all assist you to push for an increase in your speed. Another word you will come across in researching speed training is Plyometric training, which is an explosive type of training that increases strength in short bursts.

Building on these basics, the next phase of the challenge is to explore what exercises, stretches, and fitness training will best assist to develop straight line speed, and what tips are available on improving technique.

In a team environment you may progress to competing for the ball, and practicing a sprints in game like environments.