The Gym Does Make You Faster.
Just Not Everywhere.

The gym does make you faster. Just not everywhere. If you want to know where your strength is actually paying you back, look at the first stride.

200 milliseconds on the ground

Out of a standing start, ground contact on that first stride can be upwards of 200 milliseconds. That's a long time to be on the ground, and it changes what's producing the speed.

With that much time on contact, your muscles have time to build up force and push. That is exactly the kind of force the gym develops: big, deliberate, produced against resistance. On the first stride it can actually be expressed.

Think about what you're doing in that moment. You're moving your own bodyweight from a standstill. The more force you can put into the ground, the more you move. So there is a real correlation between squatting ability and initial acceleration.

Strength also gives you position

Force is only half of it. In the first strides, the direction of force matters as much as the amount.

To accelerate, you need to push back into the ground behind you, with your body leaning forward and your shins angled, so the force sends you forward rather than up. Holding that low, angled position is hard. It takes strength through the hips, the trunk and the legs to stay there under load.

A stronger athlete can get lower and hold the knees in position through his first strides. That's what lets him project horizontally and stay close to the ground, instead of standing straight up.

Why weaker athletes pop up

A weaker athlete pops up. Not because he chose to, but because he can't hold the angle.

The moment he's upright, more of his force is going straight up instead of forward. He's still working hard. He's still pushing. But the push is sending him in the wrong direction, and the acceleration he should have had is gone.

This is one of the easiest things to see on video and one of the most common. Players who look like they're trying their hardest off the mark, but whose head and hips are already high after a step or two. The effort is there. The position isn't.

Where it shows up on the pitch

That's the part of the sprint where strength really earns its place.

The first metres when a ball is played in behind. Reacting to a loose ball from standing. Getting away from a marker from a dead stop. In all of those moments you're starting from zero, you're on the ground long enough to push, and the player who can produce more force in a good position gets the jump.

So if your first step is weak and you keep popping up, strength may well be the thing holding you back. In that case, the gym is exactly where you should be spending time.

Just not everywhere

Here's the catch. That long contact doesn't last.

As you build speed, every contact gets shorter. There is less and less time on the ground to build force, and the qualities that produce your speed start to change. Being strong doesn't stop mattering, but it stops being the thing that decides it.

That's why some players keep getting stronger and keep getting quicker off the mark, but never get any faster once they're moving. The gym is paying them back on the first strides. It just isn't paying them back everywhere.

The only way to know which part of your sprint is holding you back is to look at it. Your first step, your position, how long you spend on the ground as you build speed.

When you start a sprint, do you drive forward or pop straight up?