Ask five coaches how to get faster and you may get five completely different answers.

You may be told to strength train, sprint, lose weight, play your sport more, change your footwear, drink more Gatorade, or do distance work.

And of course there's the crowd who'll simply say you should've picked different parents, because they believe speed is entirely determined by genetics.

Luckily, today you don't have to sort through all these half-informed opinions.

If you want to get faster you can simply look at what the research says, and do that.

Some ideas, like doing more distance running, are flat out incorrect.

Others, namely gaining strength without adding too much size, will certainly have a positive impact on how fast you play.

But even that isn't the best way to improve your speed.

Only a certain type of sprinting will do that.

There are acceleration sprints (10-20 yards or so), change of direction drills like shuttle runs, and longer sprints (30 yards or more).

In most sport settings, players primarily accelerate and change direction.

Rarely do they hit 95% or more of their top speed potential.

Yet it is exactly that type of run, done consistently, that is the absolute best way to get faster for everyone ages 16 and under.

It's because there are two major skills you can only develop at your very fastest speed.

Not to mention, both are highly trainable in our younger years.

One skill is the coordination needed to switch your limbs rhythmically. The exact timing needed cannot be replicated in any other way.

The same goes with the super-high impulse forces you strike the ground with.

By impulse we mean driving into the ground with the highest force possible in an extremely short period of time.

Plyometric jumps can help you develop higher impulse ground contacts, but don't simultaneously require rhythm and coordination.

Only all out effort sprints work them together.

Every kid playing youth sports runs (or skates) a good amount.

The question is whether they do it at 95-100% of their absolute best.

Lower efforts, or runs conducted while fatigued, won't come anywhere close to this threshold.

Track athletes who run short sprints (100 meters or less) typically achieve this in their sport.

Yet even for them it may not happen often enough over the year.

Ideally, youth athletes run a minimum of 2 full speed sprints three times per week.

Do this consistently for a long period of time and you'll get faster.

Learn how to fix inefficiencies in your stride and the progress will come even quicker.

But if you don't run far enough, or fast enough to hit top speeds on a regular basis, it's hard to reach your true speed potential.