Why Your Athlete Is Not Getting Faster

You've watched your kid put in the work.

Practice after practice. Camps in the summer. Extra reps in the driveway.

You've invested the time, the money, and the early Saturday mornings.And yet — they're not getting faster. Not noticeably. Not the way you expected.

Here's the honest answer most people don't want to hear: It's not about effort. It's about what kind of work they're doing. 

The Problem: Working Out Is Not Athletic Development
There's a difference between working out and training for athletic performance — and most youth athletes (and their coaches) don't understand it.

Working out means showing up and doing something physical. Running laps. Lifting some weights. Going through the motions at conditioning. It burns energy, it feels productive, and it checks the "I trained today" box.

But working out without a purpose-built program is essentially spinning your wheels.

Athletic development is different. It's a structured, progressive system designed to build the specific physical qualities your athlete needs to perform better in their sport — speed, power, explosiveness, agility, strength, and the ability to stay healthy doing it.

One is exercise. The other is engineering.

 
What "Getting Faster" Actually Requires
Speed is not just running more. That's one of the biggest misconceptions in youth sports.

True speed development requires training the neuromuscular system — the connection between the brain and the muscles — to fire faster, more efficiently, and with more force. That doesn't happen by jogging laps around a field.

Here's what actually moves the needle:

1. Sprint Mechanics Most young athletes have never been coached on how to run. Arm drive, shin angle, ground contact time, hip extension — these are trainable skills. Fix the mechanics, and speed improves without the athlete even getting "more fit."

2. Acceleration Training There's a difference between top-end speed and acceleration — the ability to go from zero to full speed quickly. In most sports, acceleration is what wins. A football player doesn't run a 40-yard dash in a game. They explode off the line for 5 yards. Acceleration is a skill that must be trained specifically.

3. Strength — The Foundation of Everything An athlete cannot be fast without being strong. Speed is force production. If your athlete can't produce force through the ground, they can't move quickly. Strength training — done correctly, progressively, and sport-appropriately — is the foundation of every elite speed program.

4. Plyometrics and Explosive Training Box jumps. Broad jumps. Bounding. Reactive drills. These train the elastic properties of the muscles and the reactive strength index — the ability to absorb force and redirect it explosively. This is the stuff that makes athletes look different on the field.

5. Change of Direction In almost every sport, the athlete who wins is the one who can stop, cut, and accelerate again faster than their opponent. Straight-line speed matters, but agility — true, trained agility — is what separates good athletes from great ones.

 
The Trap Most Athletes Fall Into
Here's what a typical "training" week looks like for a lot of youth athletes:

Practice with the team (skill work, drills, conditioning)
Open gym on off days (shooting around, casual lifting)
A camp or clinic in the summer
Repeat

None of this is bad. But none of it is athletic development.

Team practice is focused on sport skills — plays, technique, strategy. The strength and conditioning component is usually minimal, generic, or nonexistent. Open gym is unstructured. Camps teach skills, not physical development.

The result? The athlete gets better at their sport skills through repetition, but their raw physical attributes — speed, power, strength — plateau. And when they hit high school or try to compete at a higher level, they run into athletes who did have structured development, and the gap is obvious.

 
What Athletic Development Actually Looks Like
At New Level Fitness, athletic development starts with an honest assessment.

Where is the athlete right now? What are their strengths? Where are the physical gaps holding them back? What sport do they play, what position, and what does that position actually demand?

From there, we build a program around them — not a generic template, not a one-size-fits-all conditioning circuit. A real plan with progressive overload, structured recovery, and measurable benchmarks so the athlete (and the parent) can actually see what's improving.

A typical development block focuses on:

Speed and acceleration mechanics — correcting movement patterns that are slowing them down
Explosive power — jumps, sprints, med ball work, Olympic lift variations
Agility and change of direction — reactive drills, cone work, sport-specific movement
Injury prevention and mobility — because the fastest athletes are the ones who stay on the field
Strength as a foundation — progressive, age-appropriate, purposeful

This isn't random. Every session has a goal. Every week builds on the last. That's what makes the difference.

 
When to Start
The athletes who show up to summer training in June and put in 8–10 weeks of real development work are the ones who show up to tryouts in August looking like a different player.

Coaches notice. Teammates notice. The athlete notices.

Speed, power, and athleticism are trainable. They are not just things you're born with. But they require the right kind of work — not just more work.

If your athlete has been grinding and not seeing the results they want, the answer isn't more practice. It's a smarter program.

 
Ready to Find Out What's Holding Your Athlete Back?
At New Level Fitness, we offer a free assessment for athletes. We'll look at movement, speed mechanics, strength, and sport-specific demands — and show you exactly what a development program would focus on.

📍 302 Burkmont Ave, Morganton, NC  828-334-3368 🔗 newlevelfitness1.mydurable.com

Because working harder isn't always the answer. Working smarter — with the right program — is.

Shane Farris is the owner and head coach at New Level Fitness in Morganton, NC. He specializes in personal training, athletic development, and sports performance for youth and adult athletes.