What is the best way of increasing my running speed for rugby?
Work on your quadriceps and hamstrings as these are the prime movers of knee flexion and extension. You can improve this through using resistance machines if you have gym memership, i.e leg extension and leg curl. If not squats and lunges are good. Ask your coach about plyometrics training, this involves sudden burst of exertion and muscle contractions. All of these contribute to improving musle tone, but also exercising fast twitch muscle fibres which are what we use for sprinting. And as suggested above, sprinting exercises and drills is overall the main way of improving speed, i.e shuttle runs. Improving reaction time, will also help as your cutting down the time it takes for you to react and therefore, although not increasing your speed, it gives you a head start! Hope this helps!
