WHY is Sprinting SO Important?
One short, one medium and one long or in combination with hill sprints. 2-3x/wk will make you faster, stronger, and more explosive.
When you sprint, you are contracting more muscles with more power. We know that the best way to make progress in the weight room is to lift heavier weights for less reps instead of light weights for more reps. But many people don’t know that this same idea works for running. By running shorter distances at faster speeds you build muscle faster just like when you increase your weight in the weight room.
One important thing to remember when adding sprints to your routine is ENDURANCE. If your were to replace all of your endurance training for sprints you will be less able to run long distances. Actually, that isn’t completely true.
By sprinting, you build strength in the same muscles and movements patterns you use when running distance. After adding sprints, you can cover the same ground with less effort leaving you plenty of energy to continue. So by replacing some of your endurance workout with sprints, you should run faster and more easily because you’ll be stronger, and sprinting will also increase your overall endurance.
The benefits of building of muscle, increasing power and speed, and improving your aerobic system, it would be crazy to leave sprinting out of your routine.
And, it’s so easy to add sprints into your training.
All you need is a park, a good paved trail, a track, your yard, a gym, etc.
Whatever you’re doing for training already, a few days of sprints thrown in will make a huge difference in your speed, endurance and power.
WHY Do Hills Sprints?
The best way to engage fast-twitch muscle fibers is to run at max intensity, and the best way to build leg strength is hill running. So run all-out up a hill. If you keep it to 10 seconds max, you can avoid producing lactate and becoming fatigued. This also reduces the risk of injury, and doing hills already lessens injury risk. Studies of sprinting uphill show that the muscles are in constant overload. The fast pace you run the hill builds speed, but it’s the incline of the hill that increases your strength.
Running uphill places the same demand on your muscles as weight training your glutes, quads, hamstrings, and calves. They have to lift you up the slope, but you are using them specific to running. And just like plyometrics (jumping drills), the explosive action of hill sprints improves elasticity in your muscles and tendons, and that allows you to spring quickly into action after landing.
IMPORTANT Things to Remember About Sprints
- A good sprint workout will leave you feeling tired but exilerated. you won’t feel beaten down. Don’t try to go so hard to cause soreness or judge the effectiveness by how hard it is to walk the next day. You are probably already pretty fit with a good training routine if you are adding sprints.
- Sprinting is high intensity. So don’t overdo volume. Speed before fatigue.
The majority of a sprint workout is going to be spent resting between sets. This is hard for some people to grasp at first. You have to remember that it is necessary for getting the benefits. The longer rest periods allow your muscles to replenish the locally stored energy and your nervous system to work efficiently. When you decided to take shorter rest periods between sprints you don’t allow these two important things to happen. These workouts are good test of patience. - Without a proper warmup you’re going to get injured. Just because you didn’t get injured if you skipped the warm-up one time, you will get injured). Sprinting uses your whole body, and it works hard. Your body needs to be warm, loose and primed. There is a good warmup at the Workout Materials menu.
- Trying to come to a complete stop within two feet of the end of a sprint is the second fasted way to get injured (right after skipping warmup). Watch a professional sprinter, they run through the finish line and gradually slow down over a long space. You have to do the same thing or you will get injured at some point. And that could mean losing your season or a great deal of fitness.
WHY Add Bounding into Your Routine?
When it comes to improving explosive sprint and posterior chain power, bounding is one of the top movements, second only to actual maximal sprinting.