Speed training for tall athletes should focus on strength for stability and position, quick ground contacts and stiffness, not on piling on muscle. Shorter athletes need the opposite emphasis: more elastic power and a very high strength-to-weight ratio. Height changes how you should train for speed. It doesn't decide how fast you can get.
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A lot of people think tall athletes always have it easier in a sprint. It isn't that simple. Each body has its own advantage and its own problem to solve.
Speed comes from two things
Your speed is your stride length times how many strides you take a second. That's it. Every fast athlete, tall or short, is getting more of one, the other, or both.
A taller athlete has longer levers, so he naturally covers more ground per stride. A shorter athlete has shorter levers, so he has to get more out of each contact with the ground. See how height changes the job?
Speed training for tall athletes: control the levers
Tall athletes have the lever advantage. Their challenge is controlling it.
Those long limbs need enough strength, mainly for stability and holding position. That matters most in acceleration, when the body is leaning forward and every push has to go back into the ground instead of up. A long body that can't hold its shape leaks force at the hip, the knee and the ankle.
The second job is managing mass. Long limbs are heavier to swing, and too much muscle works against you because of inertia: the heavier something is, the harder it is to get moving and to stop. So for a tall athlete, more size is not automatically more speed.
The third job is stiffness through contact. Ground contact time is how long your foot stays on the ground each stride. A tall athlete wants that contact quick and the position strong, so the long stride he already has isn't wasted on a soft, collapsing landing. I go deeper on this in ground contact time sprinting.
So for a tall athlete, the focus is:
- ✓Strength for stability and position, especially in the first steps.
- ✓Quick, stiff contacts with the ground.
- ✓Managing mass, not chasing size for its own sake.
What shorter athletes need instead
Shorter athletes have less mechanical advantage at the hip and the knee. Shorter levers mean they can't rely on stride length the way a tall athlete can.
So they have to make up for it with force. They need much more elastic power, which is how much spring you get back off the ground, and an exceptional strength-to-weight ratio. They're producing huge amounts of force relative to their body mass.
That comes from plyometrics and explosive strength work: jumps, bounds and heavy, fast lifting. The aim is simple. Maximise power output per kilogram. If you want to dig into that, read power to weight ratio for sprinting.
Don't fight your build, use it
This isn't about one body type being better. It's about making the most of the mechanics you've got, and turning a weakness into a strength.
A tall athlete who trains like a powerlifter and gets too heavy can lose what made him fast. A short athlete who never builds real power will always be chasing stride length he doesn't have. Both are training against their own body. Does that make sense?
That's also why, when we assess an athlete, we ask for an upright photo. It's to see muscular structure and limb length. The same 10 m time can come from two very different bodies, and the fix for each one is different.
Your height doesn't decide your speed
Your height doesn't determine your speed. Your training does.
The right plan starts with knowing what your body is actually doing. On our assessment every run goes through electronic timing gates and is filmed at 240 frames a second, so we can see your stride, your contact and your position, not guess at them. Then we fix what's costing you the most, in order, and every session is timed and reviewed on film so you can see it move.
If you're tall and wondering why you're not as quick as you look like you should be, or short and tired of being told you're too small, the assessment will show you exactly where your speed is going.