Speed training for young athletes

The ability to sprint is a fundamental motor skill and speed is a distinguishing characteristic of successful performance in many sports. Despite the importance of speed to long-term athletic development, evidence-based training guidelines are lacking to improve the sprint performance of young athletes. This chapter describes how speed naturally develops throughout childhood and adolescence, pointing to the importance of increasing stride length, propulsive and vertical force, and stiffness. The chapter also demonstrates that non-specific forms of training, including plyometric, resistance and combined training, can transfer benefits to sprint speed in young athletes. However, it is sprint-specific training that may offer the greatest potential to increase speed and this chapter reviews evidence and provides guidelines for the use of sprint-specific training in young athletes. This includes the use of unresisted forward and backward sprinting, as well as resisted sprinting, which take into account the individual ability of each athlete to work against external load.