🔥 Does Training In Sand Increase Speed?

Question from the other day: I see on social media guys training in sand, is that good for speed?

Training in sand destroys the elastic-reactive response and dissipates forces. The ground is a force plate. What you put in you get back out.

You play beach volleyball? Great, go train in the sand.

Otherwise, training in sand kills your speed by causing you to take short choppy steps. Just like the foot ladder, which somehow still persists with unknowledgeable trainers, anything that reduces your stride length will reduce your speed

The key to unlocking greater speed is to understand that’s there’s only 2 ways to get faster: increase stride length, or increase stride frequency.

Both however, are BYPRODUCTS of sprinting faster. Meaning, the myriad of factors that go into raising speed: better body composition, raising relative strength, technical improvements; if executed correctly leads to a faster athlete

But as the late great speed coach Charlie Francis once said, most sprinters aren’t made, they’re unmade. Meaning, many guys have POTENTIAL to be fast but they’re ruined by poor programming, lactic activities like running poles, and the latest greatest internet gimmicks like training in sand, which unfortunately isn’t just a waste of time, but ultimately causes guys to get SLOWER

-Fenske