The shuttle run is a football drill that involves speed and agility. When the NFL has players do this drill, they are accessing linear speed and a player’s ability to change direction quickly.

To help you crush the 20-yard shuttle run at this year's Wall Street Decathlon, we asked Lauren Williams, a certified personal trainer and head coach at New York City’s athletic-based training studio Tone House, to come up with three moves to help you shave seconds off your personal best time.

1. Side Standing Long Jump: In this exercise, start by squatting low, with your weight evenly distributed in both feet. Next, jump to the right off of two feet -- traveling sideways as far as possible. You want this movement to be quick and powerful. Repeat on your left side. This drill will help train you to be explosive off of two feet moving laterally, which is a key element of performing the shuttle drill. Do 5 reps on each side for 3 to 5 sets, resting between each set.

2. Carioca: Start standing with your feet facing forward. Move laterally by stepping your foot behind, than in front of the other leg. When your leg crosses in front, make sure to drive that knee up explosively before you put your foot down. For the shuttle run, you want to train your body to turn your hips and cross your foot over as you accelerate towards the next point. This drill will help you train for that quick crossover. For this move, do 5 reps on each side for 3 to 5 sets.

(You can find great video footage and explanations of the first two exercises here.)

3. Hill Runs: Add some hill runs to your program work on your speed and acceleration. The distance you travel for the shuttle run is short, the goal is to accelerate and decelerate quickly. For your hill runs you want to focus on short burst of speed, accelerating as quickly as you can up the hill for ten seconds at a time, then rest and repeat. Do ten, 10-second second hill sprints with 30 to 90 seconds rest in between, depending on your level of fitness. Make sure you go all out in that 10 seconds of work in order to see the benefits from the work.

How are you training for The Decathlon? Comment and let us know!