1) Squat till you drop! Deep, full range of motion, ass to grass squats are best for building lower body strength and are a must for any kind of speed or strength development.
2) Build a big strong ass! Squats, Lunges, Glute-Ham raises all help build your glutes which is the primary muscle needed for explosive speed.
3) Include plyometric exercises! Squat jumps, Jumping lunges and box jumps all help develope power that is essential for off the mark speed.
4) Keep the reps low and focus on exploding out of each rep.
Now for the science!
A new study in the journal of strength and conditioning was done on professional rugby players and showed that increasing maximal squat strength with an 8 week training program will increase sprint speed over 5, 10 and 20 metre sprints. The participants first performed a 4 week maximal lower body strength program that included back squats, clean pulls, deadlifts and hamstring curls all at around 90% of their 1RM. They then performed a 4 week lower body program that included hang cleans, squats jumps, back squats and hamstring curls all at 85% of their 1RM.
After 8 weeks the rugby players increased their 1RM squat strength by an average of 30kg. These dramatic strength gains resulted in significantly faster sprint speed. The players increased their 5m sprint speed the greatest by an average 7.6%. 10m sprints had an average 7.3% improvement and 20m sprints had a 5.9% increase.
The greater improvement in sprint performance in the initial 5m is most likely because of the higher forces required during the initial acceloration phase. The players got stronger and were able to produce more force with each step to generate that explosive acceleration.
One final note is that the researchers stressed the importance of full deep range of motion squats with a barbell not smith machine in conjuction with plyometric training to get best results.
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