The Biggest Speed Training Mistakes Teams Make
The biggest speed training mistake isn't what teams do. It's what they don't do.
Speed is one of the most important qualities in modern team sports.
Whether it's football, GAA, rugby, hockey or basketball, the ability to accelerate, sprint, change direction and react quickly can be the difference between winning and losing key moments.
Yet despite its importance, speed is often one of the most misunderstood and poorly trained physical qualities within team environments.
Over the years, I've worked with players and teams across a range of sports, and I've noticed the same mistakes appearing time and time again.
Here are some of the biggest speed training mistakes teams make – and what coaches can do instead.
Mistake #1: Assuming Players Are Either Fast or Slow
One of the most common beliefs in team sports is that speed is something you're born with - and that’s that.
You'll often hear comments such as:
"He's naturally quick."
"She's just not fast."
"You can't teach speed."
While genetics certainly influence an athlete's ceiling, speed is a trainable quality.
Just like strength, fitness or skill, speed can be developed through appropriate training.
Many athletes never reach their true speed potential simply because they have never been exposed to proper sprint training.
Instead of accepting a player's current speed as fixed, coaches should view it as a quality that can be improved over time.
Mistake #2: Replacing Speed Training with Conditioning
Many teams spend large amounts of time developing fitness while giving very little attention to speed.
The problem is that conditioning and speed are not the same thing.
Long runs, conditioning drills and small-sided games can improve fitness and help players recover between high-intensity actions. This is an important part of performance. The fitter an athlete is, the better they can recover and repeat their efforts throughout a match.
However, fitness alone will not make an athlete faster.
Improving acceleration and sprint speed requires specific speed training. Speed is a separate quality that must be trained directly.
Speed development requires:
High intent
Maximum effort
Full recovery between repetitions
Quality movement execution
When players are fatigued, sprint mechanics and sprint output drop significantly.
A useful way to think about it is that fitness helps you recover between sprints, while speed determines how fast those sprints can be.
For example, as a former sprinter, I could still produce a few fast sprints on a football pitch. However, without the fitness levels developed by team sport athletes, my ability to repeatedly produce those efforts throughout a game would quickly disappear.
The best-performing teams don't choose between fitness and speed. They develop both.
Players need the fitness to recover between high-intensity actions, but they also need dedicated speed training to raise their ceiling and become genuinely faster.
Mistake #3: Only Sprinting During Games
Many teams assume that because players sprint during matches, speed is already being trained.
Unfortunately, this isn't enough.
Game situations are unpredictable. Some players may sprint frequently, while others may go long periods without reaching meaningful sprint speeds.
To improve speed, athletes need planned exposure to sprinting in training.
Simply hoping players accumulate enough sprinting during games rarely produces meaningful improvements.
Speed should be trained deliberately, not accidentally.
Mistake #4: Waiting Until Pre-Season
Another common mistake is only focusing on speed during pre-season.
While pre-season is an excellent opportunity to develop physical qualities, speed cannot simply be trained for six weeks and then forgotten about.
Speed detrains relatively quickly.
Without regular exposure, athletes gradually lose the qualities they worked hard to develop.
The most successful programmes use a year-round approach where speed, strength and conditioning are all trained throughout the season in varying amounts.
This concept is often referred to as vertical integration.
Instead of switching completely from one quality to another, teams maintain exposure to all key physical qualities year-round.
Mistake #5: Chasing Quick Feet Instead of Force Production
Many speed sessions become focused on ladders, fast feet drills and trying to move the legs as quickly as possible.
While these drills can improve coordination, they often have very little transfer to actual sprint performance.
The ability to sprint faster comes from producing greater force into the ground.
Athletes don't become faster by taking more steps.
They become faster by producing more force with each step.
This is why acceleration work, sprint mechanics, resisted sprinting and strength development often have a far greater impact on speed than endless ladder drills.
Mistake #6: Ignoring Maximum Velocity
Many team sports coaches focus heavily on acceleration but rarely expose players to high-speed sprinting.
Acceleration is undoubtedly important.
However, maximum velocity training offers several additional benefits:
Improves overall sprinting ability
Increases an athlete's speed ceiling
Enhances running efficiency
Exposes tissues to high-speed demands
May help reduce injury risk
If players are expected to sprint at high speeds during competitive matches, they should experience these speeds in training too.
Mistake #7: Treating Every Player the Same
Not every player has the same strengths, weaknesses or training history.
Some athletes may need:
Better acceleration mechanics
More top speed exposure
Improved strength levels
Better sprint coordination
More confidence sprinting at high speeds
The best programmes identify individual needs rather than applying exactly the same approach to everyone.
Even within a team setting, small adjustments can make a significant difference.
What Should Teams Do Instead?
Teams looking to improve speed should focus on:
Regular sprint exposure throughout the year
High-quality sprinting when players are fresh
Sticking to appropriate recoveries between sprints e.g. 1 minute for every 10m covered
Developing both acceleration and maximum velocity
Strength training to improve force production
Technical sprint coaching
Consistent speed exposure every week
Most importantly, teams should stop viewing speed as a bonus quality and start treating it as a fundamental part of athletic development.
To Sum Up...
Modern team sports are faster than ever.
Players are accelerating more frequently, reaching higher speeds and covering greater sprint distances than previous generations.
Yet many teams still treat speed as an afterthought.
The teams that consistently develop faster athletes are not necessarily doing anything revolutionary.
They're simply recognising that speed deserves the same attention as fitness, strength and skill development – not instead of these qualities, but alongside them.
Fitness helps players recover and repeat their efforts. Speed training helps raise the ceiling of what they're capable of producing.
Train speed consistently, expose players to sprinting regularly, and treat it as the important performance quality it is.
The results will take care of themselves.
