5 Ways to Skate Faster
5 Ways to Skate Faster
Speed comes from technique and conditioning more than raw effort — here’s where to actually focus your training.
Speed is built, not forced
Anyone starting out in skating eventually starts wondering how to actually get faster — not just push harder, but genuinely improve. Speed comes down to a handful of overlapping factors working together: technique, power, endurance, and a strong core. Training each one individually, rather than just trying to force more effort into every stride, tends to produce far better results.
Five ways to improve your efficiency
Improve your form
Proper form is essential to speed skating. Make sure you’re pushing off with correct technique and keeping your body in the right position throughout — clean form maximizes efficiency and directly translates into more speed for the same amount of effort.
Increase your power output
Producing more power while skating directly improves your overall speed. Building strength through squats, deadlifts, and lunges gives your legs the power output needed to push harder with every stride.
Develop your endurance
Being fast for a short distance doesn’t help much if you can’t sustain it. Building endurance through longer-distance skating, combined with interval training — alternating short bursts of high-intensity skating with rest — helps you hold your top speed for longer.
Strengthen your core
A strong core is essential for staying in control and maintaining proper balance while skating. Planks, mountain climbers, and Russian twists all help build the core strength that speed skating performance depends on.
Practice specific drills
Taking time to drill specific movements — crossovers, powerful strides, and quick starts — helps you become more efficient with exactly the techniques that add up to real speed gains.
Techniques for improving your form
Keeping your core engaged throughout the length of every skate stroke ensures you’re pushing off with proper form and staying in control of your body. It’s also worth practicing proper edging technique on both the inside and outside edges to maximize efficiency — engaging your larger leg muscles to generate power rather than relying too heavily on your ankles, which tends to slow you down. Finally, leaning into every push-off with a slight forward tilt creates more powerful strokes, generating extra momentum that lets you travel further with each stride.
Building endurance the right way
If skating faster for longer distances is the goal, building endurance is one of the most important pieces of the puzzle. Interval training is the method most commonly recommended for this — alternating short bursts of high-intensity speed skating with shorter rest periods. Combining improved form, greater power output, a stronger core, and better endurance is what takes speed skating performance to the next level.
Strengthening your core
Planks
Builds strength in the abdominal and back muscles, which is instrumental in staying balanced while skating at higher speeds.
Mountain climbers
Helps build endurance while also assisting with generating more force behind every push-off.
Russian twists
Strengthens the obliques and rotational muscles in the torso, which are essential for generating power output while skating.
Drills that build real speed
Crossovers
Designed to teach proper technique for transitioning between feet, ultimately increasing efficiency when skating from one side to another.
Powerful strides
Builds leg strength that directly assists with generating more power behind each push-off, increasing overall speed.
Quick starts
Regularly practicing quick starts improves acceleration, helping you reach top speed faster than before.
Increasing your power output
Focusing on explosive movements during training — jump squats, box jumps — builds the kind of strength used specifically for speed skating, helping generate more force with every stride. Improving jumping ability through squat jumps, broad jumps, and single-leg hops enhances that same explosive power. And developing balance through exercises like single-leg Romanian deadlifts and stability ball squats rounds out the picture, since better balance translates directly into better power output on skates.
