Speed training for football players, without leaving your club
You train with your team two or three days a week and play at the weekend. The plan puts your sprint session three or four days before the match, the gym where it will not leave you sore and hamstring prevention the day after. The minutes you play adjust the week.
Updated
What is speed training for football players?
Speed training for football (soccer) players is the sprint, gym and prevention work a player does on their own, on top of club training, to be faster in the match. It is not 100 m preparation. In football, 90% of sprints last under 5 seconds, come every 45-90 seconds and cover 10 to 30 metres; the longest, the ones above 30 km/h, reach 30-55 metres. A professional makes around 11 sprints per match and covers 700-900 metres at sprint. That is why everything, tests and sessions alike, is centred on 0-30 metres.
When you pick football in Speed and power, the plan sets the typical sprint distance at 20 metres, which governs the acceleration sessions and the tests. Change of direction and repeated sprints get a high weight, 0.8 out of 1 for both, because in a match you brake and go again with ten sprints already in your legs. Upper body gets very little, 0.2: a footballer's gym is legs, hips and hamstrings, with a Pallof press for the trunk and not much more.
What changes compared with "a few sprints after training" is that each piece goes in its phase and its place in the week:
- Acceleration from 0 to 20 metres from varied starts: three-point, falling, reactive.
- Max velocity over 20 m flying segments with a 30 m run-in, preceded by wickets and build-ups.
- Change of direction: deceleration, 505, pro-agility and lateral hops; reactive in later phases.
- Repeated sprints in blocks of 6-8 × 30-40 metres with 20-25 seconds, when they fit and far from the match.
- Gym: squat, hip thrust, Bulgarian split squat, Romanian deadlift, calves and the Nordic ladder.
- Prevention for hamstrings and adductors the day after playing.
And it is measured against yourself: 10 m, 30 m and broad jump every five weeks, with the 505 and six repeated 30 m sprints as optional extras. From there come your top speed in km/h and your 0-100 index, and the plan shifts its emphasis depending on whether you start better than you fly or the other way round.
Football
Typical sprint: 20 m- Change of direction80
- Repeated sprints80
- Upper body20
20 m sprints, repeated efforts and braking well. Little upper body.
A sprint is three qualities, not one
90% of the sprints in a match last under 5 seconds and cover 10-30 metres. That is why the plan does not train "running fast" in general: it trains each phase with its own session, and measures it with its own test.
Acceleration
0-10 mVaried starts, hills, sled. Leg strength in the gym.
Test: 10 m
Transition
10-30 m20-30 m sprints from a standing start, running technique, plyometrics.
Test: 30 m
Max velocity
30-50 m10-20 m flying sprints, wickets, ins and outs. 3-6 min rests.
Test: 20 m fly
Your AI-generated plan
When you choose football, the app asks which days you train with your club, which day you play, whether your coach already includes all-out sprints, what you most want to improve (first steps, top speed, change of direction, jumping or repeated sprints), where you can run and what equipment you have. With that it places its sessions by distance to the match, not by day of the week.
MD-4 and MD-3 are the loading days. With club on Tuesday and Thursday and the match on Saturday, the gym goes on Monday (MD+2) and speed on Wednesday (MD-3): flying sprints at max velocity or acceleration, which leave you fresher the next day. Intense repeated sprints never go on MD-3, because they increase match-day soreness: they wait for MD+2 or for pre-season. On MD-2, nothing eccentric: only technique, light tempo or prevention, and the Nordic never lands on MD-2 or MD-1. The day before, nothing, or a 15-minute activation if you feel like it. MD+1 is prevention: hamstrings, adductors, tibialis, calf and hip and ankle mobility, 25 minutes.
The minutes you play rule the recovery. 60 minutes or more means two days without high load; 20 to 59, one; if you did not play, none. That is why MD+2 is the loading day for the player who plays little: the only slot in a match week for repeated sprints or change of direction.
Does your coach already do sprints? If the club sprints flat out in its sessions, the app does not duplicate them: two intense sessions back to back is the recipe for a strain. What it does not negotiate is the weekly exposure to 95% of your max speed, the one that protects the hamstrings (Malone, 2017). If the week has no room for a session of your own, it adds a microdose of 4-6 flying 20 m runs after club training, on MD-4 or MD-3, and warns you after 7 days without exposure.
In season the volume drops to 65%, with a single intense sprint session per week on top of the match for beginners and intermediates; two for advanced players. The match counts as your hardest session. In week 3 of the first cycle, an intermediate does an acceleration session three days before the match (three-point starts and 20 m sprints: 100 metres flat out with full rests) and a microdose of 4 flying 10 m runs after club training: 150 metres of sprinting in the week, plus the 6-8 rep gym session.
With no match in fourteen days, you train as pre-season: four sessions, two of them sprinting and never back to back, gym the day after running and technique on Saturday. The same week 3 rises to 250 metres of sprinting, never growing more than 10% week on week and capped by level: 300, 500 or 800 metres.
The week is built around your match
You tell the app which days you train with your team and when you play; it places its sessions by distance to the match. Example week: club on Tuesday and Thursday, match on Saturday, three sessions of your own.
- MonMD+2Base strength54’
- TueMD-4Club + speed microdose28’
- WedMD-3Acceleration39’
- ThuMD-2Team training
- FriMD-1Rest or activation15’
- SatMDMatch90’
- SunMD+1Rest or prevention
- The speed session goes on MD-3 or MD-4: far from the match, when you perform best and risk least. If max velocity does not fit, a microdose of flying runs after club training.
- Nothing hard the day before. The day after, only prevention or rest.
- 48 hours between two intense sessions, counting the match as one of them.
- The minutes you played set the recovery: 60 or more means two days without high load.
- If your coach already includes all-out sprints, the app does not duplicate them.
Who is this plan for?
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You play for an amateur or semi-professional team and train with the club two or three days. That leaves one sprint session, one gym session and the prevention the day after. The plan places them by distance to the match and never asks for more days than you have.
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You are a substitute or play less than an hour. With under 20 minutes played there are no recovery days, and MD+2 becomes your loading day: repeated sprints, change of direction or gym while the starters rest. It is how you avoid losing a whole week over 15 minutes of football.
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You are in pre-season or the club has not started yet. Four sessions a week, two of them sprinting (acceleration and max velocity) never on consecutive days, gym the day after sprinting and technique at the weekend. It is when you improve most, and the plan raises volume 10% a week.
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You had a hamstring strain in the last three months. The first cycle comes in through short acceleration, the Nordic ladder from the rung you control and tempo, with no flying sprints or 30 m test. With hamstring or groin pain in the check-in, the speed session turns into prevention.
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You only have the club pitch and an ordinary gym. 40 metres of grass, two cones, mini hurdles or three cones for the wickets and a barbell are enough. No sled, use a hill or a band; no 40 metres, use 10 m flying sprints with a 20 m run-in.
It is not for someone who wants to run a 100 m, nor for someone chasing endurance: for match stamina the plan keeps tempo and repeated sprints, and the rest is your club's job.
The courses this plan uses most
In speed work the measurement is the instruction: where the cones go, how long each segment is and which part is timed. The app shows you this sketch before every course-based drill, with the distance adjusted to your sport and level.
- Acceleration
Hill acceleration
A 5-8% slope over 15-25 m. Walk back down: the hill gives you the forward lean for free.
- Max velocity
20 m flying sprint
You need 50 m of clear ground. Only the last 20 m are timed: this is the top-speed test.
- Change of direction
505 test
Only the 5 m in and the 5 m back around the turn are timed. Alternate the turning leg.
- Change of direction
45° cut
Plant the outside foot. Knee in line with the foot, never caving in: that is the movement that protects the ligament.
- Change of direction
Reactive change of direction
You do not know which side until you reach the cone: your partner points. That is what happens in a match.
- Repeated sprints
Shuttle repeated sprints
15 m out, touch the line, 15 m back. The next one starts every 25 s. For when you do not have 40 m of straight ground.
Measured with what you have: a friend, a tape measure and a phone
Every five weeks, in the deload week, the app walks you through a short test battery. No €300 GPS pods, no lab: three attempts, the best one counts, and the result is compared against yourself.
10 m
Acceleration: the start.
A friend with the phone stopwatch, or normal-speed video.
30 m
Acceleration plus transition; top speed is estimated from here.
Same. With a 10 m split if you have two watches or video.
20 m fly
Pure max velocity. Optional, for advanced players.
30 m build-up and 20 m timed: you need 50 m of clear ground.
Broad jump
Horizontal power, the one that drives acceleration.
A tape measure. Best of three.
Vertical jump (CMJ)
Vertical power and neuromuscular fatigue. Optional.
With My Jump or height estimated from video.
505
Change of direction and left-right asymmetry. Optional.
Two cones and a stopwatch, two attempts per leg.
The two numbers you see
- Top speed (km/h)
The number people quote in the changing room. From the 20 m fly, or estimated from the 10→30 m split.
- Speed-power index (0-100)
Percentile against players of your sex and level, weighted by what you said you wanted to improve. It places you; improvement is measured against yourself.
So that noise does not count as progress
- Hand-held stopwatch: the app adds 0.24 s (Mann 2015) and notes it on the record.
- With two or more tests, your own typical error sets the smallest change that matters: about 0.06 s over 30 m, about 6 cm on the jump. Below that, no improvement or loss is announced.
- If you change timing method, the app warns that it is not comparable and starts a new series.
- What already comes in from Strava or Garmin (top speed of each activity) counts as a trend, never as a test.
Work out your top speed
With a friend and the stopwatch on a phone. Enter your times and you will see the same number the app gives you.
Your first weeks, in detail
Week 3
In season, cycle 1: club Tuesday and Thursday, match on Saturday| Day | Session type | Detail | Duration |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monday | Base strength (MD+2) | Back squat 3×6-8, Barbell hip thrust 3×6-8, Bulgarian split squat 2×6-8 per leg, Isometric hamstring bridge hold 3×25 s, Pallof press 2×10 per side, Short lateral hops 4×10, Standing broad jump 5×3 jumps | 54 min |
| Tuesday | Club + speed microdose (MD-4) | Build-ups 40-60 m 2×40 m, Flying 10 m (20 m build-up) 4×10 m | 28 min |
| Wednesday | Acceleration (MD-3) | High knees 2×20 m, Butt kicks 2×20 m, 3-point start 3×10 m, 10-20 m sprint 2×20 m, 10-20 m sprint 2×20 m | 39 min |
| Thursday | Team training (MD-2) | Your coach runs today. Eat well and sleep: it is load the plan accounts for. | — |
| Friday | Rest (MD-1) | Recovery | — |
| Saturday | Match (MD) | Play. Afterwards log the minutes you played: the plan adjusts the next two days. | 90 min |
| Sunday | Rest (MD+1) | Recovery after the match | — |
Week 8
Pre-season, cycle 2 (strength and power): four sessions of your own| Day | Session type | Detail | Duration |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monday | Acceleration | High knees 2×20 m, Butt kicks 2×20 m, 3-point start 5×10 m, 10-20 m sprint 3×20 m, 10-20 m sprint 4×20 m | 49 min |
| Tuesday | Max strength | Barbell jump squat 3×5, Back squat 3×4-5, Barbell hip thrust 4×4-5, Bulgarian split squat 3×6-8 per leg, Romanian deadlift 3×6-8, Isometric hamstring bridge hold 3×25 s, Pallof press 2×10 per side | 62 min |
| Wednesday | Rest | Recovery | — |
| Thursday | Max velocity | Wickets 3×20 m, Build-ups 40-60 m 2×50 m, Flying 20 m (30 m build-up) 6×20 m, Short lateral hops 5×10, Standing broad jump 5×3 jumps | 68 min |
| Friday | Rest | Recovery | — |
| Saturday | Extensive tempo | High knees 2×20 m, Extensive tempo 100 m at 65-70% 8×100 m | 29 min |
| Sunday | Rest | Recovery | — |
These examples are real extracts from the EntrenAI planning engine. Your personal plan adjusts to your level, equipment and availability.
Equipment needed
EntrenAI automatically substitutes any exercise if you don’t have the gear.
- 40 metres of grass: the club pitch before or after training, or a park (with 20 m you can do 10 m flying sprints)
- Mini hurdles or cones every 1.5-2 metres for the wickets, plus two more cones for the 505 and the starts
- A teammate with the phone stopwatch, or the app's video timer if you stay behind alone
- A tape measure for the broad jump
- A gym with a barbell for squats and hip thrusts; with dumbbells and bands the plan substitutes
- A band for the assisted Nordic, the rung before the partial one
- Optional: a sled (or a hill or a band) and a GPS watch or Strava for the match's top speed
What most people get wrong (and how to avoid it)
- 1
Duplicating the sprints your coach already does
If the club already sprints flat out on Tuesday and you do flying runs on Wednesday, that is two intense sessions back to back: the recipe for a hamstring strain. The app asks whether your coach does sprints and does not duplicate them; what it does ask of you is one exposure to 95% every week, even if it is a microdose of 4-6 flying runs after training.
- 2
Heavy legs or Nordics on Thursday before a Saturday match
Nothing eccentric fits on MD-2: Nordics and heavy loads leave you sore right on match day. The plan never places the Nordic on MD-2 or MD-1, and the gym goes on MD+2 or MD-4; on MD-3 only as a last resort.
- 3
Sprinting on Friday to arrive switched on
The day before there is nothing hard. The only thing the plan allows on MD-1 is an optional 15-minute activation with technical drills and two easy build-ups. Speed is trained three or four days before you play, which is when it pays off and no longer gets in the way.
- 4
Loading again on Monday after playing 90 minutes
The minutes played set the recovery: 60 or more means two days without high load, 20 to 59 one, and under 20 none. The starter who played the full match has Monday trimmed; the substitute has MD+2 as his loading day. That is why the plan asks for your minutes after every match.
- 5
Assuming the match already gives you your speed dose
The match counts as max-velocity exposure only if your watch or Strava brings a top speed above 90-95% of your tested one. Without that data the plan cannot know, and after 7 days without exposure it warns you and adds a microdose. Players who reach 95% at least once a week get injured far less than those who stay at 85% (Malone, 2017).
- 6
Piling on sprint metres in pre-season
Professional clubs limit the weekly increase to a few dozen metres above the usual, and small increases are part of the hamstring vaccine (Edouard, 2019). The plan grows by no more than 10% from one week to the next and is capped by level: 300 metres for beginners, 500 for intermediates and 800 for advanced players.
Other Speed and power plan variants
Back to the general Speed and power plan
- Speed and agility training for basketball, built by AIAI speed and agility training for basketball: 15 m sprints, braking, change of direction and vertical jump, placed around your club sessions and your games.
- Speed and power training for rugby, built by AIAI speed and power plan for rugby: sled acceleration loaded to your profile, upper-body work in the gym, repeated sprints and prevention around your match.
- Speed training for handball: faster on the fast breakAI speed training plan for handball: 15 m fast breaks, feints and changes of direction, jump shots and upper-body strength, built around your match week.
- Speed and agility training for tennis and padel, built by AIAI speed and agility training for tennis and padel: 10 m bursts, brake and go with the 505 and T-test, gym strength and adductor work around your matches.
- Gym workouts to get faster: strength and power for sprintingNo room to run 40 metres? Leg strength, loaded jumps and plyometrics in the gym to sprint faster, plus one weekly outdoor sprint outing to keep top speed.
Frequently asked questions
Three, and none of them long: one sprint session (acceleration or max velocity) on MD-3 or MD-4, one gym session on MD+2 or MD-4 and the 25-minute prevention the day after the match. Beginners and intermediates do a single intense sprint session a week on top of the match; advanced players, two. In-season volume is 65% of pre-season: in week 3 of the first cycle, an intermediate does 3 flying 20 m runs with 4 minutes of rest.
The app asks you during onboarding and, if the club sprints flat out, it does not duplicate them: you will never have two intense sessions on consecutive days, and the match already counts as one. What stays is the weekly exposure to 95% of your max speed: if club training does not guarantee it, the plan adds a microdose of 4-6 flying 20 m runs straight after training, on MD-4 or MD-3, which takes 15 minutes.
The whole week changes. With under 20 minutes played there are no recovery days, and between 20 and 59 there is one; the starter who plays 60 or more gets two. For you MD+2 is the loading day: it is the only slot in a match week where repeated sprints or change of direction fit, and the plan uses it. Log the minutes after every match and Monday adjusts itself.
Not heavy. Two days before the match the plan only allows prevention, running technique or light tempo: nothing eccentric, no Nordics and no loads that leave you sore on Saturday. Leg strength goes on MD+2 or MD-4, always the day after sprinting and never the day before max velocity; on MD-3 it only comes in as a last resort, when it fits nowhere else.
With no match in fourteen days, the plan switches to pre-season mode: four sessions a week, two of them sprinting (acceleration and max velocity) never on consecutive days, gym the day after running and running technique on Saturday. Sprint metres rise by at most 10% a week and week 3 of the first cycle already reaches 250 metres flat out, against 150 for the same week in season.
Because match sprints cover 10-30 metres and last under 5 seconds. The 10 m measures how you start, the 30 m how you take off, and your top speed in km/h is estimated from the split between them. For football the optional extras are the 505 (change of direction, two attempts per leg) and six repeated 30 m sprints with 20 seconds, which give your drop-off percentage. They are done every five weeks, in the deload week.
With three things at once. The weekly exposure to 95% of your max speed, which cuts the risk of leg injury a lot compared with staying at 85% (Malone, 2017), with microdoses when the week allows nothing more. The Nordic ladder, twice a week from the rung you control and never on MD-2 or MD-1. And the day-after prevention: hamstring bridge, Copenhagen plank for the adductors, tibialis and calf. With hamstring or groin pain in the check-in, the speed session becomes prevention.
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