40 time improvements

[The Jet]

im 16 and need to get faster if i want to play in college...i bench almost 300, squat around 375, clean around 240, vert 31, shuttle 4.4, 16-18 reps of 185 bench depending on the day...but my 40 is slowing me down because it is around a 4.9, what are some good things to do to help with strictly 40 time?

[SDOptimist]

im 16 and need to get faster if i want to play in college...i bench almost 300, squat around 375, clean around 240, vert 31, shuttle 4.4, 16-18 reps of 185 bench depending on the day...but my 40 is slowing me down because it is around a 4.9, what are some good things to do to help with strictly 40 time?

work on your stance and form. if you have a great stance and start and follow it with great running form, your 40 will improve. and in terms of running, do some explosive workouts. 50, 60+ yard sprints. interval training. spring 50 yrds, jog the next 50 then sprint the next 50 and so on, that will help. also if you have access to sleds or some kind of resistance running, then that will greatly help also.

[farzamk]

Regular sprint training, technique work, and overspeed training.

Don't exceed 60m.

Here's a good look at a sprint workout:

3x10m
3x30m
4x50m

That's after your warm up which should contain plyos, drills, tempo runs, jogging, skipping, dynamic stretching and so on.

Cool down with a nice few minute jog then stretch fully.


Overspeed training using a hill that's isn't steep but one that makes you exceed your maximum speed by 10% is the best. Use 30-40m to gain your 110% speed and then 10m flat ground to maintain and slowly slow down.

Slow speed of 50-80% with very high knee lift and proper body and arm form develops your technique and should be used in your warm ups.

Also do some regular 40 yard runs at 80% working on the technique and how you would EXACTLY run it. Stay very low and keep your head down for most of it and drive really hard. Do like runs where you start at running at 40% maximum speed for the 40 yards, then move up to 50% or so and slowly increase speed every run for 6 total runs until you hit about 80%. Then take it nearly all out for the next run and then the final one blast it with everything you can.

Make sure you fully recovery inbetween any run of sprint in any workout.

Never do sprinting back to back days.

Lifts should be always done after speed workouts.

Finally using sleds/parachutes/whatever to do resisted sprints will help develop acceleration and drive, use this as well.

You can also do acceleration work by doing 10-25m sprints.

PM me for other questions.

[HenryHill]

What farzamk said is good. The quickest way to improve your time is by improving your start. Really perfect using both feet to explode out of your stance.

[desteph]

don't use parachutes, they can mess up your form by giving unequal resistance. But everything else that was said was good.