Suicides are a high-intensity conditioning drill where you sprint to a series of lines on a court or field, touching each line and returning to the starting point before sprinting to the next one. The distances increase with each repetition, making the drill progressively harder. They’re a staple in basketball, soccer, football, and general fitness training, used to build speed, endurance, and the ability to change direction quickly under fatigue.
How the Drill Works
The classic version uses a basketball court. All players line up on the baseline, then sprint to the nearest free-throw line, touch it, and sprint back to the baseline. Without stopping, they sprint to the half-court line and back, then to the far free-throw line and back, and finally to the opposite baseline and back. That entire sequence counts as one rep.
On a field or in a gym without court markings, coaches set up cones at increasing distances, typically at 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100% of the total length. The principle is the same: sprint out, touch the marker, sprint back, and immediately go again. The constant acceleration, deceleration, and direction changes are what make the drill so demanding. Your heart rate climbs rapidly and stays elevated because there’s almost no rest between sprints.
Muscles Used During Suicides
The sprinting portion hammers your quadriceps, hamstrings, and calves, the same muscles that power any short burst of running. But the direction changes add a layer most straight-line sprints don’t. Every time you plant a foot to reverse direction, your glutes and hip flexors absorb force and redirect it. Your core works hard throughout to stabilize your torso during those rapid stops and starts. Lateral stabilizers around the ankles and knees also fire intensely to keep your joints aligned as you decelerate and push off again.
Conditioning and Fitness Benefits
Suicides train your anaerobic energy system, the one your body relies on for short, explosive efforts when oxygen delivery can’t keep up with demand. Repeating these bursts with minimal rest pushes your body to recover faster between efforts, which translates directly to game situations where you need to sprint, recover, and sprint again.
Over time, this type of interval training also improves your aerobic base. Your heart becomes more efficient at pumping blood, and your muscles get better at clearing the metabolic byproducts (like lactate) that cause that burning sensation in your legs. The result is better overall endurance, faster recovery between plays, and the ability to maintain your speed later in a game when fatigue sets in. Agility improves too, since you’re training your nervous system to coordinate rapid deceleration and reacceleration dozens of times per session.
Injury Risks to Watch For
The rapid direction changes are the biggest source of injury risk. Each time you plant and reverse, your knees and ankles absorb significant force. The most common problems mirror what researchers see in any high-intensity running program: muscle strains (especially hamstrings), ankle sprains, overuse knee injuries, and in severe cases, stress fractures. Many of these injuries aren’t caused by a single bad step. They result from cumulative stress, doing too many reps, too often, without adequate recovery.
Warming up properly before suicides matters more than it does for steady-state running. Dynamic stretches, light jogging, and a few gradual sprints prepare your muscles and joints for the sudden forces they’re about to absorb. Wearing supportive shoes on a surface with good traction also reduces your risk of rolling an ankle during a hard plant.
How Often You Should Do Them
Most sprint coaches recommend true high-intensity sprint work only two to three times per week. Suicides fall squarely into that category. Your muscles, tendons, and joints need time to recover from the repeated impact and explosive effort. Doing suicides every day, or stacking them on top of other intense lower-body training, is a reliable path to overuse injuries.
If you’re new to the drill, start with two or three reps with generous rest between sets, perhaps 60 to 90 seconds. As your conditioning improves, you can add reps or shorten rest periods. Experienced athletes might do five to eight reps with 30 to 45 seconds of rest, but even at that level, two sessions per week is plenty to see conditioning gains without breaking down.
Why Some Coaches Use Different Names
The term “suicides” has fallen out of favor in many coaching circles because of its association with self-harm. Organizations like the Positive Coaching Alliance encourage coaches to use alternatives such as “line drills,” “wind sprints,” “out and backs,” or “all-outs.” Some teams simply let players vote on their own name for the drill. The exercise itself hasn’t changed, but the language around it is shifting, particularly in youth sports where coaches are more conscious of the words they normalize.