 You want to become faster, but are you even practicing the skill of running fast? Most players wish they were faster, but they never sprint unless their coaches force them to. That's like wanting to get big muscles without lifting weights, it's like hoping to make money without working for it, it doesn't make sense. So why are so many players doing this? I realize the idea of practicing running fast in order to become faster sounds like a no brainer, but how often do you practice sprinting? Practice sprinting like you practice shooting and you'll be faster in no time. The first step to getting faster is consistently sprinting and building the muscle memory in your legs. Next, I want you to change the way you look at sprinting. If you look at sprints as something you do not want to do, you're always going to struggle with improving your speed. But if you enjoy sprinting, you will increase your speed much faster. Take every opportunity you can to sprint, whether it's by yourself in practices or during matches and more importantly, sprint to the best of your ability, more than you know. You must learn to push it to new heights. In this case, you must learn to push it to new levels of speed. When you are doing these sprints, push yourself to go faster with your body but also your mind. Tell yourself you can go faster and physically attempt to make your legs move faster. It's a complex idea to get across but once you start pushing your mind as well as your body, you'll understand what I'm trying to tell you. Try sprinting the whole field and when you feel like you're about to give out and you can't go any faster, try to push through that mental and physical barrier and find new levels of speed. Focus on pumping your legs harder, pumping your arms harder and propelling yourself forward with more speed than ever before. The stronger your legs are, the more power they can produce. Did you know the average Olympic sprinter can squat twice his body weight? I'm not saying you should go to the gym and try to squat twice your body weight but you should start to focus on making your legs stronger if you want to sprint faster. The two exercises I've found to be most effective when making my legs stronger are squats and deadlifts. It's up to you to learn proper form for these exercises. Do the research and become educated. When you go to the gym, start with light weight and focus on your form. Once you become confident, start increasing the weight and challenging your legs. In these clips I was only doing light weight because I had had a heavy leg workout earlier in the week and I have a tournament in two days. But I just wanted to demonstrate these exercises for you. Usually I will do a few warm-up sets with lighter weight then three working sets with heavy weight aiming for six repetitions. I'm always trying to lift heavier than I did last session as long as I can keep good form. Constantly trying to lift more is what will make your legs stronger and more powerful. If you keep lifting the same amount of weight, your legs are just going to stay the same. It's also a good idea to do speed drills like these. The purpose of these drills is training your muscles to trigger faster and produce more power. When performing these exercises, focus on just that. Being as quick as possible and as explosive as possible. As a student of football, you study the game to become smarter. You look at professionals and analyze their skills. Why shouldn't you do the same thing for sprinting? Analyze the best sprinters in the world. Go on YouTube and watch Olympic sprinters. Review their technique, break it down and put these new ideas into practice. There's so much you can learn if you just start looking for the answers. Watching this video is a great first step. But this is only the beginning of your speed education. Keep learning about speed and sprinting. Just make sure you take action with all your newfound knowledge. And go back to step number one, actually practicing sprinting. Remember, knowledge is power, but only if it's put into action. This is the absolute minimum I want you to do if you are serious about increasing your speed. Number one, focus on your sprint technique whenever possible. So whenever you have to sprint, whether it's by yourself, whether it's in practice or in a game, actually focus on going as fast as you can and practicing the proper technique that you've been learning. Number two, you have to go to the gym at least twice a week, where if you have weights at home, get started at home and do squats and dead lifts, focus on good form to start, but then increasing your strength over time. Three, actually practice sprinting twice a week. So twice a week, I want you to go to the field and do 10, 20 meter sprints and 10, 50 meter sprints. Only you have to just keep learning. So like I said, watch videos, look at other soccer players who are very quick and fast and you want to be more like them, analyze their technique, try to learn what they're doing well and then make adjustments to your own technique.