How to get faster as a teenager isn't a secret drill. It's finding the thing holding your speed back, fixing it, measuring it, then moving to the next one, in the right order, week after week. That's how Maksim went from 23 km/h to 32 km/h, and why his next target is 36 km/h.
Watch: the video this post comes from
Let me show you what that kind of jump actually looks like, and what doesn't produce it.
23 to 32 km/h: what a real change looks like
When Maksim first ran through our timing gates, his top speed was 23 km/h. Today it's 32 km/h. Same athlete, same gates, numbers measured, not guessed.
He isn't the only one on that path. James went from the low 20s to 32 km/h in 14 months. Xavi went from 22.3 to 31.2 km/h in 17 months, then won the Golden Boot in his U14 competition with 31 goals.
And it isn't only big jumps from a low start. Tristan was already quick, and he still added 9.2% to his top speed. When you're already fast, every bit of that is hard-earned.
None of these changes came from one magic drill. I'll be straight with you about that, because a lot of people selling speed won't be.
Why more drills didn't make you faster
Here's what usually happens to a teenager who wants to get faster.
He finds a weak spot. Say his ankle isn't stiff enough. So he does ankle work. Then knee work. Then hip work. Every body part gets its own exercise.
Six months in, you're still getting caught by the same player who caught you last year.
Because you kept isolating body parts, thinking that was the limit. Then a coach sees it and decides the answer is more exercises, so you specialise even further. I watch it happen to good players every single year, and every time they get further from the one thing that would have fixed all of it. Stop thinking more is better.
How to get faster as a teenager: the order matters
Real change comes in an order. Take Xavi. His change came from fixing his coordination first. Then how much force he could put into the ground. Then how reactive he was on every single contact. In that order, week after week.
Get the order wrong and you can spend years doing the right exercises and never getting faster. See why?
The engine underneath all of it is what I call the big three:
- ✓Heavy squatting to build strength. Early on, strength is usually the thing holding everything else back.
- ✓Flat-out sprinting, because your nervous system only learns to go faster when it's asked to.
- ✓Maximal jumps and bounds, one leg at a time, so you put big force into the ground in a very short time.
If you can put a lot of force into the ground in a short time, everything that takes longer rises with it. The small parts, like ankle stiffness and knee stability, get trained every time you do the big work. Your ankle can't sit out of a max-speed sprint.
Measure it, or you're guessing
The other thing every one of these athletes has in common: their progress was measured. Every session is timed and reviewed on film. That way you know which quality is moving and which one is holding the others back, within weeks, not seasons.
If you're a teenager doing this on your own, start here:
- ✓Write down your times now, in km/h or seconds over a set distance, and film your runs from side on.
- ✓Train the big three, hard, and cut anything that never gets close to game speed.
- ✓Test again. If your numbers aren't moving, something in the order is wrong.
The road to 36 km/h
Maksim's next number is 36 km/h. That's the point. You don't stop at a good result, you set the next target and work backwards from it. Every step on the way is a number you get retested against, so you always know if you're on track.
Getting faster as a teenager compounds. You don't chip the whole rock in one go: you chip a piece off every week, and over a few years the whole rock is gone. If you want to know whether speed is something you're born with, read can you get faster or is speed genetic, and for George's story from 17 to 35 km/h, read how fast should a 15 year old run.
If you want your own starting number and the thing costing you the most, the assessment is where your road starts.