Part 3 of 18
🧠 Introduction
By now, you may be feeling a little conflicted.
On one hand…
the advice you’ve been following makes sense.
You’ve been told to:
👉 get stronger
👉 build more force
👉 develop the muscles involved in speed
And you’ve done exactly that.
You’ve trained.
You’ve worked.
You’ve improved.
But on the other hand…
something still doesn’t feel settled.
Because despite all that effort…
many athletes continue searching for more speed.
And that raises an important question:
👉 If you’re already training the muscles everyone says matter…
why does the search continue?
📚 All Roads Lead To The Same Place
Think about all the places you’ve looked for speed advice.
👉 Coaches
👉 Training programs
👉 Articles
👉 Videos
👉 Social media
👉 Teammates
👉 Weight rooms
The sources are different.
But after a while, something starts standing out.
Many of the answers seem to keep leading back to the same muscles.
👉 Glutes
👉 Hamstrings
👉 Quads
👉 Calves
And because those muscles are important, it becomes easy to assume they must explain most of speed.
After all…
if everyone keeps pointing you in the same direction…
why would you think to look anywhere else?
In fact, that’s exactly what most athletes do.
They continue training those muscles.
They continue trying to strengthen those muscles.
And they continue expecting more speed to follow.
But eventually, many athletes find themselves facing a difficult question:
👉 If these muscles explain most of speed…
why does the search continue?
🔍 Now Look At Your Own Training
Let’s take this one step further.
Think about the last thing you did to get faster.
Was it sprinting?
👉 Glutes
👉 Hamstrings
👉 Quads
👉 Calves
Was it squats?
👉 Glutes
👉 Hamstrings
👉 Quads
👉 Calves
Was it deadlifts?
👉 Glutes
👉 Hamstrings
👉 Quads
👉 Calves
Was it jumping or plyometrics?
👉 Glutes
👉 Hamstrings
👉 Quads
👉 Calves
Was it sled work?
👉 Glutes
👉 Hamstrings
👉 Quads
👉 Calves
Now think about your last month of training.
Or your last six months.
Or maybe even the last few years.
How often do those same muscles keep showing up?
💥 Do you see the pattern?
The same muscles that appear in many speed articles…
are often the same muscles dominating many speed workouts.
And again, that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
Those muscles are important.
But if nearly every speed conversation…
and nearly every speed workout…
keeps leading back to the same place…
then why would you expect a completely different result?
If you’ve been repeatedly improving the same group of muscles…
shouldn’t you expect to keep getting more of the same outcome?
Maybe that’s why so many athletes eventually find themselves stuck.
Not because they aren’t working hard.
Not because they’re training the wrong muscles.
But because they’ve spent years trying to solve a larger speed problem using the same piece of the puzzle.
⚖️ Don’t Misunderstand The Point
At this point, it would be easy to think we’re saying the glutes, hamstrings, quads, and calves aren’t important.
That’s not the message.
In fact, there’s a reason they appear in almost every speed discussion.
👉 They matter.
👉 They help create force.
👉 They help propel the body.
👉 They help athletes run faster.
If they didn’t matter…
nobody would be talking about them.
The question isn’t whether these muscles are important.
The question is whether they explain the entire speed equation.
Because those are two very different ideas.
A piece of the puzzle can be extremely important…
without being the entire puzzle.
And that’s the possibility many athletes never stop to consider.
💥 The Good News
The good news is that none of this means your hard work has been wasted.
It hasn’t.
The glutes, hamstrings, quads, and calves you’ve spent years developing matter.
The strength you’ve built matters.
The work you’ve put in matters.
In fact, those things may become even more valuable once they’re viewed as part of a larger speed equation.
And that’s why this realization should be encouraging.
Not discouraging.
Because if speed depends on more than the piece you’ve been focused on…
then there may still be opportunities to improve that don’t require starting over.
You may simply need a more complete picture.
🧭 Your Journey To Faster Speed Continues Here
At this point, one thing should be becoming clear.
The question isn’t:
Do the glutes, hamstrings, quads, and calves matter?
They do.
The question is:
Is there more to speed than glutes, hamstrings, quads, and calves?
Because if there is…
then there may be important contributors to speed that aren’t receiving the same attention.
👉 And that’s exactly where our journey goes next.
