You ran a lot.
Your old school coach made you run until someone threw up. You needed to be conditioned, they said, and you needed some discipline. Maybe that was a little abusive, or maybe it was just some misguided thoughts on what it meant to be an athlete. Back then, that’s just what you did.
These days, we have all the data and all the science and all the proof that conditioning couldn’t be any further from speed training. In fact, much of the conditioning work your athlete does actively works against improving their speed.
It’s why sport coaches often come to you, the parent, with this piece of advice: your son or daughter has some great skills, but they need to be faster. Quicker. More explosive. What they work on in practice simply does not improve the speed of the athlete.
A lot of people assume speed training means endless sprints or running until your legs give out. But ultimately, that couldn’t be further from the truth.
Speed is a skill—and just like any skill, it needs to be taught, refined, and practiced with purpose.
What Conditioning Typically Looks Like
You can feel conditioning when you see it.
It’s the run around the flag pole, the “suicides” back and forth. It burns your lungs and elevates your heart rate. “Keep your arms above your head and don’t lean over!” Conditioning is running or movement that is unable to be done at maximum speed. Someone is always the pace setter, but even they can’t move with 100% effort; they would burn out very quickly.
Conditioning is aerobic work that can be sustained over a long period of time, certainly more than two minutes. It’s important for most sports, but there is also typically a heavy emphasis on it within sports practices. Conditioning is important to stay on the field and outlast your opponents, but it does not make you faster.
What Speed Training Actually Is
Speed training is a burst of maximum speed done in a short amount of time. Anywhere between a few seconds up to, by definition, about 2 minutes. I tend to think of speed training as much less than 2 minutes. Most likely, it’s a maximum of 10 seconds because of the body’s energy systems (ATP) that are involved.
But speed training is what makes you FAST. It makes you explosive. When there’s a race to the ball and an athlete separates themselves from the rest of the pack, that’s when they’ve developed maximum speed and acceleration.
Not only does speed training use a completely different energy system than conditioning work, but it also focuses on proper technique and fast twitch muscle fibers. Technique is much different for sprint work than it is for distances, and the untrained athlete often doesn’t realize the difference.
So how do we train speed? We sprint short distances, most often between 10-60 yards, with maximum effort, and plenty of rest after each sprint. We keep the reps low and the body fresh. We do not let the athletes drag themselves through reps.
Why the Confusion?
It’s just running, right? For the untrained person, or the old school coach who knows the sport, but not the science behind athleticism, running seems like running.
Conditioning is also much easier to implement. Go run down and back. No mechanics, no timed rest periods, no coaching. So it’s easy to default to, especially when you don’t think of speed as a teachable skill. You are just told, “go run!” It does help for your sport still, at the end of the day.
Why This Matters for Your Young Athlete
Conditioning just doesn’t help improve your speed as an athlete. In fact, it most likely hurts your top end speed and acceleration. This is why athletes almost always come back from their season slower (and why I’m always pushing for an in-season training plan.)
Conditioning often trains slow-twitch muscle fibers, which are built for endurance. Sprinting depends on fast-twitch fibers—the ones responsible for explosive power. Too much conditioning can dull their responsiveness or limit their development.
Speed gives athletes an edge in every sport: Beat defenders, get to the ball first, and make explosive plays. With proper speed training, kids also become more confident and efficient movers—reducing injury risk, too. If you’ve ever heard your athlete needs to be faster, sending them out for a run is only making the problem worse: they need to be told to do 5 sprints in front of your house and time it. Try to beat the time every sprint, after 2-3 minutes of rest.
What Parents Should Look For in a Speed Program
When evaluating a speed program, ask how your athlete’s speed is going to be measured and kept track of. This is the key. In order to develop maximum effort, both the coach and the athlete need to have certain numbers in mind. Then, you have to go beat them.
Many “speed and agility” training facilities will bust out the ladders and do “sprints” down and back. These are pretty much always done with less than maximum effort, simply because the body can’t “sprint” for multiple laps on a track. And fast feet through a ladder don’t translate to quickness and explosive movement on the field: there is rarely force produced through the agility ladder.
So when evaluating where to train for speed, just take a look around the facility when you visit. Are athletes running hard? Or do they look tired? Because a tired athlete is not a fast athlete.
Bonus question to ask: how will strength training play a role in my athlete’s speed development? If you’re out in a field training speed, you can get faster, but you can’t get much stronger, which is essential for improving speed as well.
Maximum, timed effort + technique + strength = Speed.
If you think the Parisi Speed School can develop your athlete’s speed and overall athleticism, contact us to ask questions or to set up a performance evaluation!
