How Sprinter Sarah Al-Ablan Is Chasing an Olympic Dream — and How You Can Train for Speed

Who is Sarah Al-Ablan?

According to Arab News, Sarah Al-Ablan is a 21-year-old King Faisal University student who runs for Al-Adalah Club and the Saudi national team, and she is targeting Olympic representation for Saudi Arabia after a fast climb through the sprint ranks. The profile reports that in her first race, in 2023, she ran the 100 metres in 14.97 seconds, and has since posted 26.99 in the 200 metres and 62.67 in the 400 metres. At the 2026 Gulf Universities Championship she took gold in both the 400 metres (63.13) and the 200 metres (27.91), coached at Al-Adalah by Azza Mohammed, with international meets in Kazakhstan and Malaysia along the way.

It is the kind of story Saudi sport is producing more of, as women's athletics grows under Vision 2030. But you do not have to be aiming for a start line in a stadium to take something from it.

What actually makes a sprinter fast

Speed is not one thing you either have or you do not. Coaches break it into a few trainable qualities, and the research points to a clear message: the biggest gains come from combining methods rather than betting on one. As Science for Sport and the strength-and-conditioning literature summarised by StrengthLog both note, the runners who improve most train sprinting, plyometrics and lifting together, not sprint drills alone.

Three levers matter most, and all three transfer straight to the gym floor.

Acceleration: drive into the ground

Getting off the mark quickly is mostly about how much force you put into the ground, and in which direction. Early in a sprint that force is horizontal: you are pushing yourself forward, not up. Drills that teach that feeling, like a broad jump straight into a short sprint, train your body to apply force the way acceleration actually needs it.

Explosive power: plyometrics

Plyometric moves — box jumps, broad jumps, bounding — train what coaches call the stretch-shortening cycle: the fast stretch-then-contract your muscles and tendons perform every stride. Done well, they improve elastic-energy return and cut the time your foot spends on the ground, which is exactly what separates a quick stride from a heavy one.

A strength base under it all

None of that power has anywhere to come from without strength. A systematic review summarised by StrengthLog links lower-body strength — squat strength in particular — to faster sprinting, with a measured improvement of around 3% in sprint times. That is why sprinters build their lifting around big compound movements — squats, deadlifts, lunges, hip thrusts — plus Olympic lifts like power cleans that train how quickly you can produce force, not just how much. If those lifts are new to you, our exercise library walks through the basics at your own pace.

How to sprint faster without overdoing it

You do not need to copy an elite programme to feel faster. A simple, honest starting point:

• Warm up properly first. Speed work asks a lot of cold muscles, so a few minutes of easy jogging and dynamic drills — leg swings, skips, gentle strides — comes before any all-out effort.
• Sprint short, rest long. Quality beats quantity: a handful of short, near-maximal runs with full recovery between them beats a long, tired grind that only trains fatigue.
• Add one or two plyometric moves. Start low — a controlled box jump or a broad jump for distance — and land softly. Power work is about intent, not volume.
• Keep lifting. Two strength sessions a week built around the compound lifts above give your sprinting something to draw on.
• Respect recovery. Speed and power are trained fresh, not fatigued. If your legs feel heavy, that is a day for easy movement, not a personal best.

If you would rather have someone build the progression for you and check your form, a personal trainer can turn these principles into a plan that fits your level — much the way Al-Ablan works with a coach at her club.

And if her rise makes you want to train alongside other women chasing their own goals, GymNation's ladies-only spaces are built for exactly that.

Find your speed at GymNation KSA

Every fast runner started with a first session — Al-Ablan's was a 14.97 hundred metres she has spent years improving on. Yours can be a warm-up and a few honest sprints. Find your nearest GymNation in Riyadh, bring some space to move and a bit of patience, and start building the strength and power that speed is made of.

Sources:
arabnews.pk
strengthlog.com
scienceforsport.com

The opinions shared in the GymNation blog articles are solely those of the respective authors and may not represent the perspectives of GymNation or any member of the GymNation team.