How to Get Faster in the 100m

August 12, 2026 · 8 min read

One caveat that belongs at the top rather than the bottom. Your coach can see you run and the internet cannot. Sprinting is a technical event, the corrections are individual, and a stranger writing generally cannot tell whether your problem is your start or your posture at 60 meters. Take this as a map of what matters, then take the specifics from someone watching you.

With that said, the 100m breaks into parts that respond to work very differently.

The parts, in order of how much they usually pay

1. Top speed. For most high school sprinters this is the biggest single lever, and it is trained by running at or very near maximum velocity with full recovery. Short, fast, rested. The mistake almost everyone makes is running these too slow with too little rest, which trains something else entirely.

2. Acceleration. The first 30 meters. This is about applying force into the ground behind you, with a body angle that lets you do it. It is trainable and it is also where the most obvious technical faults live, such as standing up too early out of the blocks.

3. Speed endurance. Holding what you have from 60 to 100. In a race this is why fast starters get caught. It responds to slightly longer fast runs with incomplete recovery.

4. Strength. It helps, and it is the part people most overrate for sprinting specifically. Getting stronger without converting it into ground force at speed usually produces a stronger athlete who runs the same time.

What actually holds most young sprinters back

Running the fast days too slow. If a session is meant to be top speed, everything below about 95 percent of your best is training a different quality. Fewer reps, more rest.

No rest. Speed is a nervous system quality. It needs recovery in a way that endurance does not, and sprinting hard on tired legs mostly trains you to be tired.

Nothing measured. If you do not time anything you cannot tell what worked. Timing your 30m occasionally tells you more about your progress than your season best does.

Ignoring the start. Blocks are a skill. Time spent on a repeatable set-up and a consistent first three steps often pays faster than any physical adaptation.

About "get faster in one day"

You cannot meaningfully improve your speed in a day. You can, however, run faster on a day, by being properly warm, properly rested, and not running your race in your head before the gun. Plenty of personal bests come from those three things rather than from new fitness.

Give the work somewhere to show up

Track your times across a season rather than chasing single sessions. Improvement over seasons is also the thing college coaches read most closely, so a visible progression is worth having on a public profile.

Related: is 11.5 a good 100m time, hand time versus FAT, good 100m times by age and grade, and the 100m college ladder for boys and girls.