Beginner Guide: Implementing Sprints With Athletes - Tips for Speed, Structure, and Success

Unlock the secrets to sprint training success and transform your athletic performance. Ever wondered how often you should sprint to truly maximize speed? This episode delivers the insights you need, guiding athletes and coaches alike through the intricacies of structuring an effective sprint training regime. From balancing the frequency of in-season and off-season workouts to the critical role of progressive overload, we cover it all. Learn why long rest periods are non-negotiable and how timing your sprints can make the difference between average and exceptional.

Exploration into sprint training doesn't stop at running faster; it encompasses strategic planning to reach peak performance. We'll walk you through crafting a training week featuring accel and top-speed days while emphasizing the importance of recovery. Discover how incorporating complementary strength and plyometric exercises can significantly enhance your power output. With practical tips on tracking progress and maintaining that crucial 95% of top speed, this episode equips you with the tools to elevate your sprinting prowess. Whether you're hitting the track yourself or coaching others, these actionable insights will ensure you stay ahead of the competition.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:26

After making the last video about the top mistakes I see in sprinting, I actually got a ton of questions about where to start, particularly for athletes. I got this from coaches, I got this from individual athletes, so I wanted to make a little breakdown. We won't go too deep into everything, but I wanted to share with you guys where you can start mentally on planning what you're going to do with your sprint work If you're looking to get faster, quicker and whatnot. So with sprinting, what we're looking for is a minimum of two times a week, max three times a week. I've seen people try to do way too much here and we'll get into this in a little bit. So again, two times a week to three times a week, I would say in season one to two. Out of season you can go up to that three. You're going to have to progressively overload to that.

Speaker 1: 1:11

You may, when you first get into sprinting and actually running as fast as possible, find that you get sore, you're under-recovered and it takes a little bit of time to get back on your feet and ready to sprint again. So first a couple points. Long rest periods start out, with one minute for every 10 yards to keep it simple. So if you do a 20 yard sprint, you're resting two minutes. 30 yard sprint, three minutes and whatnot. So when we get into those longer sprints, yes, you will be resting five to seven minutes between full sprints. Next, you want to time. So, finding a way to time your sprints whether that's anything as basic of a stopwatch and a buddy, all the way to lasers or free lap cones you're going to want to track this again. This can be as simple as a notepad writing down what you're getting on your times and your miles per hour each week, all the way to something like universal speed rating where you're actually inputting it into a software platform. It needs to be max intensity. It can't be a conditioning style. It can't be a conditioning style. It can't be 30-second rest periods, 20-second rest periods. You need to have that long rest period and then run as fast as you possibly can.

Speaker 1: 2:20

If I was going two times a week to kick it off, I would start out with an Excel day. Now, this is usually loaded or can be loaded. You can also use a hill. So if you don't have equipment, you don't have sleds, you can just go do hill sprints where we're looking at zero to 20 yards, potentially starting at three reps when you first get into it. So three full speed reps. You're still going to do your prep, your technique, your warmup, but three full reps and then working up to five reps is where we kind of get our athletes at. If we're going to lift after this, we're going to pair it with heavier movements and loads. Thinking about our plyos, we're going to be doing long ground contact times, so high intensity plyos, think depth drops, think loaded jumps, things where we're spending a lot of time on the ground.

Speaker 1: 3:06

This is going to tie back in with what the emphasis is of the day and that's being able to create power and produce it in the right direction. Your second day is going to be your top speed day. Big thing to think about I want to start with is you're going to need a 48-hour recovery typically between these days. So that's why I typically will hit this one time a week with most of our athletes. You know, if you are sprinting consistently for a certain amount of time, you might be able to do this twice a week, but if you're also playing a sport, I would say you want to hit this one time a week and think about when is my next game, do I have a 48 hour window and recovery before I have to run full speed again? The goal is to hit 95% of your top speed every week. Okay, so that goes back to the importance of timing and tracking. This is the adaptation that we want to create, so we need to hit that speed. If you are unable to hit 95%, it's also great feedback. Number one are you recovered? Are you spending as much time outside of the weight room or outside of the sport to recover between efforts? Are you getting sick? Do you have an injury, stuff like that? So this is a great way to see where you're at as an athlete on your recovery and base it on more than just how you're feeling. The reason we need to hit this weekly and it's really important is the speed diminishes within three to five days. So it's the adaptation that goes away the quickest for athletes.

Speaker 1: 4:38

The principle of reversibility. Your strength, your aerobic capacity are going to last, you know, two to four weeks minimum. Your speed is going to start to drop after three to five days of not touching that top speed. What we like to do is we time it when we get a fly 10 and we convert that to mile per hour. Again, this can be super easy. If you guys have further questions on that, let me know. There's a basic formula or a lot of apps that do that for you. But we're going to be timing and tracking and then we're going to get our fastest top speed over 10 yards and then track that in mile per hour.

Speaker 1: 5:12

So you'll see, in our facility we have athletes to join mile per hour clubs and that's the reason why typically we're going to see 30 to 60 yards and this is very nuanced, like if you are, right now we're in Idaho, it's a winter, right, so we don't have the opportunity to go outside and sprint. Really, if there's snow on the ground, whatever, it's too cold. So that's why I put that 30 in there. Typically I'd say 40 60 yards. I put 30 in there so that you can hopefully find a way to create that space to sprint. I think if you do diagonal on a basketball court, you can do that. There's a lot of options in that 30 yard range, but 30 to 60 yards you can again start potentially at like a 30 yard and then over the weeks, progress towards 60 yards.

Speaker 1: 5:57

I would just capture the 10 from the end of the run. So if it's the 60 yard run, the 50 to 60, if it's a 50 yard run, the 40 to 50, you're going to start out again. You can aim for three reps. This might be a lot when you start. If you can even get one to two full speed reps and feel like you ran as fast as possible and are able to hit that 95% plus, you can sit around there. Don't push it. This is where you'll start to feel. You know, if you're getting back into sprinting, oh, my hamstrings are getting tight. I can feel. I just feel a little off. You can just call it Okay. So over time, we want to work up to five. Five reps would be probably the maximum that I would do on that, and then, in the weight room, we're going to pair that with fast movements. So this is where we think about like bar velocity.

Speaker 1: 6:43

Looking at intent with the lifts, uh. So the weight's a little bit lighter and we're trying to move really fast because we're pairing the demands of top speed with what we're doing in the weight room. Big thing to think about with the weight room, though, is it shouldn't inhibit your ability to sprint. So if you, in your training, are going so hard in the weight room. Big thing to think about with the weight room, though, is it shouldn't inhibit your ability to sprint. So if you, in your training, are going so hard in the weight room that you're sore every day and you can't come in and run full speed at least once a week over 95% you need to back off a little bit in the weight room. Okay, especially if you're an athlete. If you're a strength athlete, no, but if you are a sport, if you're playing traditional sports, you're going to need to be able to show up and run full speed once a week. So keep it pretty general in the weight room and extreme in your speed. Lastly, if we think about plyos, we're looking for short ground contact times, more extensive plyos, getting off the ground as quickly as possible, trying to get that stretch reflex and focusing on developing fascia and the ability to move quickly off the ground, absorb, load and redirect. So that'd be the basic dive into.

Speaker 1: 7:45

Okay, I want to start sprinting. I know athletes need a sprint. Where do I start? If you guys have any further questions, let me know. A lot of different opportunities for me to kind of break these down. Go through different pieces for you. We can make a podcast on it, whatever you guys need. So I hope you guys have a great day.