What is Speed endurance?

Generally, people refer's speed endurance as the ability to maintain speed at the end of the race. for e.g, the last 20-30 meters of 100 meter sprint after the runner reaches top speed.

When measuring " speed endurance " I focus on improving the average speed of an athlete over a distance. If we look at elite sprinters we will see most elite sprinters hit top speed around 70m, you can go through the researches already carried out by the researchers. Whereas university or nationals junior sprinters reaches to the top speed around 60 & 50meter respectively.

After hitting top speed, the less the athletes breaks down the higher their " average speed" will be over a given distance.

For e.g- if a 200 m sprinter hits top speed at 60m, and then improves how much speed they maintain 60 - 200m they will have a higher average speed. That is how I analyze "speed endurance' with objective numbers in short-distance sprints.

Types of speed endurance

The term "Speed endurance" is vague and can be used to refer to different types of training

For example "speed endurance", "tempo ", and "repeated sprints" are all quite similar but have different purposes.

I already explained how I define "Speed endurance" so let's define how we use "Tempo" training. Tempo training is a form of recovery and also to build an athlete's ability to handle more intense training. Generally, a tempo workout would be running at 70-80% of the athlete's true speed on grass. These runs are too slow for them to have an impact on speed but they can speed up recovery, work on technique, strengthen the feet, and improve conditioning.

The goal is to prepare the body for Pure speed training.

Then there is " repeated sprints" which is a form of speed training. Repeated sprints are fast sprints, with short time recovery. Usually it is never advised using a short recovery for speed but if your are training rugby or soccer then you need to train according to what will happen and requirement of sports. During a regular game, an athlete will sprint for short distance, mutliple times, possibly without recovery. Repeated sprints are not the only type of speed training we use for athletes, but they help out athletes transfer their speed into their game.

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Problem with speed endurance

There are so many problems with "speed endurance" training that I can easily write a 20- pages. Instead, going to all I will note few out of them .

1) Running them without any speed, just doing cardio

2) Too much volume, for example, doing 10 x 150 m

3) Doing speed endurance more than pure speed (your season is over if you do this)

4) Thinking that speed endurance is speed training.

Always remember these rules)

1) If there is no speed, there is nothing to endure

2) You have to do speed before going to speed endurance. (focus on rule no 1, you will automatically get's into rule no 2)

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