Stronger Glutes to Sprint Faster

Many experts have many different methods of how to sprint faster. Many of them think that by changing or altering an athletes technique can ultimately have them gain speed. Many think that by strengthening the primary muscles involved in running will ultimately make them sprint faster. Well we can dive into many debates but here's the facts...

When an athlete corrects their technique it is indeed allowing them to move more efficiently across the playing field. However we believe that this errors in technique are usually but not always caused by muscle imbalances the athlete developed throughout the years. These imbalances in themselves are another topic which you can read here. Muscle Imbalances for Sprinters.

On the other hand, we can look at another fact of how to sprint faster and that is adding strength to the "motor" or gluteal muscles. The reason we label the glutes as the "motor" is because when you think about a car this might be the best metaphor for the muscle. It is the power, strength, and driving force behind sprinting faster.

The main problem athletes run into is either a lack of firing in the glutes or insufficient strength as a whole there. Think about athletes these days, they end up sitting for a greater portion of their day and this is just a result from our society but sitting on your butt actually ends up inhibiting your glutes. So when it comes time to fire them they aren't as sufficient as they can be. In turn, alot of times we experience athletes that from imbalances have extremely weak glutes by nature.

What to do.

There are numerous things that we can focus on to enable the glutes to fire better and grow stronger. First make sure you are performing complex movements that are overloading the glutes activation, such as squats, deadlifts, RDL's, goodmornings etc. In addition, you can perform 1 leg bridges or band activation drills to make the glutes contract.

Although there are many more this is just a start to become a faster sprinter. For more on a complete solution check out The Speed Academy

See additional information on: Mammoth Strength Blog