Getting faster isn’t just about running more sprints. Whether you want a quicker first step, sharper changes of direction, or the ability to hold your pace deeper into a workout, speed depends on strength, power, technique, and conditioning – all working together as one.
Our Athlete track is part of our Challenge tracks – structured 45-day programs built around specific fitness goals. The Athlete track is designed to develop your athletic performance, training the qualities behind speed: explosive acceleration, efficient running mechanics, endurance, and recovery.
Read on to learn how to get faster with seven practical training strategies and discover how our Athlete track helps you put them into practice.
What makes you faster?
Speed comes down to how efficiently your nervous system and muscles work together to apply force against the ground. The more force you can generate – and the faster you can generate it – the quicker you’ll move1.
If you want to know how to get faster, regular speed drills are key. Our cardio workouts are built around short sprints, jump-based exercises (like box jumps and bounds), as well as quick-footwork agility drills – done in fast bursts with short recovery windows in between. That combination trains your body to produce more force, produce it faster, and recover quicker between efforts.
How to get faster: 7 ways to improve speed and agility
Faster movement isn’t always about trying harder. It’s about quality, rather than quantity – and better technique can help you direct more of your effort into moving forward.
So, let’s hit the ground running (pun intended) with our top tips on how to get quicker.
1. Build stronger legs
Greater lower-body strength means more power behind every stride during acceleration and sprinting. Building and maintaining muscle mass in your legs comes down to consistently training key movement patterns, including:
- Squats
- Deadlifts
- Split squats
- Lunges
- Step-ups
- Hip-dominant movements
You’ll find all of these in our resistance workouts, where timed circuit stations built around barbells, dumbbells, kettlebells, and sleds put progressive overload into practice – gradually increasing the weight, reps, or intensity in each round.
2. Train explosive power with plyometrics
Plyometrics are high-intensity exercises that demand maximum effort in short, explosive bursts. Think:
- Box jumps
- Broad jumps
- Bounds
- Skater jumps
- Jump squats
- Lateral hops
These movements train your muscles to stretch and contract rapidly, like a rubber band snapping back into shape. That rapid stretch-and-release action is what builds explosive power, while also training your nervous system to fire faster and recruit muscle more efficiently.
3. Practice acceleration
Acceleration is how quickly you increase your speed from a standing or slow start – and controlling your body well through this phase also helps protect your muscles from the sudden, jarring loads of rapid changes in direction.
Acceleration training includes:
- Short 5-to-20 metre sprints
- Resisted sled pushes or pulls
- Falling starts
- Split stance starts
To gradually build your acceleration, try exercise snacking – layering short, sharp bursts of work into your day outside of class. Running up a flight of stairs, squeezing in a few sprints on your lunch break, or throwing in some falling starts before you head out the door all reinforce the same patterns you’re building in your F45 workouts.
4. Train deceleration and change of direction
Being quick isn’t only about accelerating – it’s also about controlling your body when you need to stop or change course. To change direction efficiently, form matters just as much as speed. This is particularly useful if you play a sport like basketball or soccer – where sprints, cuts, and stop-starts happen constantly.
It might seem simple, but breaking each directional change into its separate parts is what distinguishes clean movement from the sloppy kind. Try the following:
- Slow down
- Control your body
- Plant effectively
- Produce force in a new direction
- Accelerate again
5. Improve your sprint mechanics
Strength and power only translate into speed when that force is applied efficiently – in other words, using proper technique to bridge the gap between raw power and actual pace.
A few fundamentals to focus on are:
- Posture: Lean forward initially during acceleration, then gradually rise into a more upright position as you build speed.
- Arm action: Your arms should drive rhythm and counterbalance your legs, not swing loosely across your body.
- Foot contact: Aim for quick, efficient ground contact rather than overstriding.
Ask your F45 trainer how to improve speed in your next class – they can watch your form and coach you through each step until it becomes second nature.
6. Build conditioning so you can repeat fast efforts
Being fast once isn’t enough – repeating that speed effort after effort depends on your muscles and energy systems working together.
This is where metabolic conditioning comes in: training your body to recover fast between efforts so speed doesn’t drop off by the tenth round. Practical approaches include:
- Sprint intervals
- Bike, row, or ski-erg intervals
- Short work-rest intervals
- Hybrid conditioning
- Aerobic work that supports recovery between high-intensity efforts
You’ll find this kind of repeatable-speed training in our hybrid workouts, where cardio and resistance are combined for an all-round conditioning challenge. It’s a combination that’ll help build your running endurance and improve your aerobic fitness.
7. Prioritize recovery and track your progress
It’s important to listen to what your body is trying to tell you. When you’re tired – perhaps because you’ve skipped a rest day – you lose the ability to fire your muscles quickly and forcefully: dulling the sharpness behind every sprint, jump, and change of direction.
So, make space for different types of rest: including sleep, nutrition, electrolyte-based hydration, lower-intensity training, and appropriate spacing between demanding speed sessions. This shows up throughout our recovery workouts – which combine passive and active exercises with different stretching techniques to support your next high-intensity session – and through Recovery by F45. Available at select F45 studios, it’s a total wellness package, allowing you to enjoy the benefits of a cold plunge, infrared sauna, and percussion therapy to bounce back from injuries and recharge after a demanding week of training.
How the F45 Athlete track helps you train for speed and performance
The Athlete track is purpose-built for people chasing real athletic performance. It combines structured programming with trainer guidance and nutrition support, so every session, meal, and recovery day works toward the same goal.
When we asked F45 trainer Jordi Duff how to get faster, he explained, “Most people training for speed are wasting their time on the treadmill. If you’re not strong enough to produce force onto the ground, no amount of sprint drills is going to make you faster.
“That’s why the Athlete track combines resistance training with hybrid training: resistance sessions build the raw leg strength and force production every fast stride depends on, while hybrid sessions convert that strength into functional speed that translates into everyday life.”
To get the most out of both, our trainers push you to train at a rate of perceived exertion (RPE) of 8 to 10 – a 0 to 10 scale measuring how hard an effort feels, from no effort at all to an all-out maximum you couldn’t hold for more than a few seconds.
Sitting at 8 to 10 means working close to your limit: fast, powerful, near-maximal effort that improves your speed and agility.
Now that you know how to improve speed and agility with our Challenge tracks, stick around to learn how heart rate zones work – and how we help you train in them.
1 https://health.clevelandclinic.org/how-to-become-a-faster-runner
