How to Run a Faster 40 Yard Dash

Where Your Time Is Really Being Lost

The 40-yard dash is not a single sprint — it's three distinct phases that require different things from your body. Understanding which phase is costing you time determines what you should train.

For most athletes below a 4.6, the drive phase is where the most time is being lost. A slow or poorly executed first step creates a deficit that compounds through the entire run. Fix the first 10 yards and your overall time drops significantly — often without any fitness improvement at all.

Step 1 — Fix Your Stance and First Step

This is the highest-leverage thing you can do — and it costs nothing but practice. Many athletes run 0.1 to 0.2 seconds faster simply by fixing their stance before touching a weight room or track.

Step 2 — Resisted Sprint Training

Once your mechanics are dialed in, resisted sprint training — specifically sled pushes and sled sprints — is the fastest way to improve your drive phase power. Research consistently shows it's the most effective tool for improving short acceleration times.

Why Sled Training Works

Pushing a sled forces you to maintain the low forward lean of the drive phase for a longer distance than you naturally would. It trains your body to apply force in the correct direction — forward and down — while building the specific muscle strength that drives first-step explosion. It's essentially forcing your mechanics to be correct while adding resistance.

The Right Load

Use 10–20% of your bodyweight on the sled. This is lighter than most people think. Too heavy and your mechanics break down — the training effect becomes counterproductive. At the right load you should be running at about 80–85% of your maximum speed with perfect drive phase mechanics.

The Prescription

• 6 × 20 yards with sled at 15% bodyweight
• Full rest between reps — 90 seconds minimum, 2 minutes ideal
• 2 sessions per week with at least 48 hours between
• Follow each sled session with 4 × 20-yard sprints at full speed, no sled — this teaches your nervous system to translate the resisted strength into free-sprint speed

Step 3 — Build Your Squat Strength

Your squat-to-bodyweight ratio is one of the most reliable predictors of 40-yard dash performance, particularly in the first 20 yards. If you squat less than 1.5× your bodyweight, strength is your primary speed limiter.

Ground force production drives acceleration. Every stride in the first 10 yards requires you to push your entire bodyweight forward explosively. Stronger legs produce more force per stride, which directly translates to faster times in the drive phase.

For a full breakdown of exactly how squat strength affects your speed — including predicted 40-yard dash times at every strength level — see our complete guide on squat strength and sprint speed. You can also use our Squat Strength Predictor to see what your current squat predicts for your 40 time and what you'd run at each strength milestone.

Minimum Strength Targets by Goal

Step 4 — Top-End Speed Work

Once your drive phase is solid, the second half of your 40 depends on max velocity mechanics and stride efficiency. Flying sprints are the primary tool here.

Flying Sprints

Set up a 10-meter build-up zone followed by a 20-meter full-effort zone. Accelerate through the build-up and hit maximum speed as you enter the timed zone. Sprint through the 20 meters at absolute maximum effort. This isolates top-end speed without the fatigue of a full acceleration.

The prescription: 5 × 20-meter flying sprints with 3 minutes of full rest between reps. Two sessions per week. This is not a conditioning workout — every rep should be at 100% effort, which requires full recovery between reps.

Upright Sprint Mechanics

Once you reach upright running position around yards 8–12, the key mechanics shift:

• High knee drive — knees should come up to roughly hip height on each stride
• Dorsiflexed foot — toes pulled up toward the shin on ground contact, not pointed down
• Minimal ground contact time — think of the ground as hot — get on and off it as quickly as possible
• Relaxed face and hands — tension in your upper body slows your legs down. Relaxed running is faster running.

The 8-Week 40-Yard Dash Program

Hand Timing vs. Electronic Timing

This is one of the most misunderstood topics in combine prep and it matters enormously when setting goals.

Hand-timed 40s are typically 0.2 to 0.3 seconds faster than electronically timed results. This is because hand timers tend to start the clock slightly late (reacting to movement rather than anticipating it) and stop it slightly early. The human error almost always favors the athlete.

Most high school combines and many smaller college combines still use hand timing. The NFL combine is electronically timed. When you're setting a goal time based on combine benchmarks from our average 40-yard dash times guide, always clarify which timing method applies. A 4.6 hand-timed is roughly equivalent to a 4.8 electronic — a significant difference when evaluating recruiting prospects.

Common Mistakes That Kill Your 40 Time

Overstriding. Taking long, reaching strides looks fast but is actually slower. It creates braking forces every time your foot lands in front of your center of mass. Shorter, faster strides with your foot landing directly under your hip are quicker.

Popping up too early. The most common drive phase error. Standing upright in the first 3–4 steps wastes all the horizontal momentum you built in your stance. Stay low until your body naturally rises at around steps 6–8.

Tensing up. Fear of the clock makes athletes tighten up — clenched fists, stiff shoulders, tight face. Tension in the upper body slows leg turnover. The fastest athletes look relaxed even at maximum effort. Practice running relaxed.

Not warming up properly. Cold muscles are slow muscles. A proper warm-up — 10 minutes of light jogging, dynamic stretching, and 4–5 build-up sprints — can improve your 40 time by 0.05 to 0.1 seconds compared to a cold start. Never test without warming up.

Training your 40 by running 40s. The 40-yard dash is a test, not a training tool. Running 40s repeatedly builds fatigue and ingrained patterns. Train the phases — drive phase, acceleration, flying sprints — separately, then combine them on test day.

Frequently Asked Questions