Helping athletes run faster is the goal of many soccer, basketball and even football coaches. Speed training is simply part of the team workouts. With more research being done on what makes muscles move faster, these workouts are always improving.
Lifting weights for strength is necessary but it isn’t the only method that is going to make an athlete run faster. The smaller muscles need to be trained to contract quickly with the use of isometric exercises and stretching the important muscle fibers. These muscles need to be adequately conditioned for generating speed not for strength. The fibers in the muscles that are responsible for speed and quickness are the ones that need developing to increase their reaction and contraction times. As muscles memory begins to take place in the neuro-pathways in the brain, these reaction times will become intuitive and reflexive.
An athlete wants to be able to outrun their opponent and get down the field faster, they want to be able to have more confidence when they take to the field and not tire as quickly and this is what begins to happen when they see the results of speed training.