Dan Andrews on Sprinting

Gentlemen:

I am new to this board, but I like your lines of thought. I think a majority of the physical work needed to run fast involves running fast. Are other training modalities effective to train sprinters or jumpers? Certainly. There is no need for every low to medium intensity day to be a tempo day. However, there is also no need for every high intensity day to be just sprints or acceleration work. Specificity is good up to a point. It allows adaptations to the strongest skills and abilities of the training demands, but the limiting factor in improvement are the weakest skills and abilities of the task. In sprinting one gets faster by improving leg stiffness and acceleration abilities, but if an athlete has a weak acceleration they will never maximize the potential they have in leg stiffness. The opposite is also true if they have poor leg stiffness, their speed will suffer once they reach maximum velocity as they won't be able to hold their speed.

I am not as big on strength training (in a narrow view of that topic). I am more concerned with power, the ability to develop force rapidly, and the ability to sustain power output for specific durations. I definitely do not agree with the baye article on explosive strength training. I see more injuries in the weight caused by lifting too heavy of a weight and not from lifting a weight fast. I truly believe most of the weight room injuries are caused by the inability to unload to heavy a weight without setting a domino effect massive eccentric loading on the shoulder girdle, spinal structures, and bi-articulate muscles of the hip, knee, and ankle joints. This is usually done with heavy 1RM squat, deadlift, and cleans although that 1RM figure is a moving one depending on the fatigue of the components musculoskeletal system involved in the lift.

I wish we in the sporting world would move beyond the idea that ballistic movements are bad, track and field is filled with repetitive ballistic movements even the marathon and throws fit this description. Do we need to be doing drop jumps or landings from 60cm or higher? I doubt even the fastest sprinters or farthest jumpers have the leg stiffness to sustain many of those drops during the course of training.

It all comes down to a balance of specificity to variation so training does not become monotonous, and for those variations to work on weaknesses while still being somewhat specific. There are exercises that work specific strength and mobility on the body that lots of sprint coaches use, but may not use them correctly in a training session such as mach drills, hurdle mobility, plyometrics, olympic lifts, and medball throws. A specific training session must implemented in a way that speed, mobility, and ROM of activity are increased from smaller/slower to larger/faster to speeds and ROM that are as fast if not faster than the work involved in the workout theme. The warm-up isn't just about getting the blood flowing, it's also about priming the nervous system to act on demand, and rid the body of as much tightness in dynamic movements the will be executing. The ancillary and supplementary training in track and field training program should mostly come as part of the warm-up and cooldown to include weight room activities.

Dan

____
Next post:
speed:

I think the warm-up should have the slowest and shortest ranges of motions in a training session not because we want them slow, but because we want them to progress to larger and faster ones.

As far as preloading goes in the weightroom. When my athletes do 1-2RM work in such movements as squats or deadlifts those exercises are complexed with a following 50-60% 1 RM snatch or clean and sometimes with better athletes they are complexed again with a plyometric to include a sprint. Only my new and beginning athletes who have done little or no weightroom work in the weight room doing max strength work for 2-3 macro cycles consisting of 3-4 microcycles for a total of 8-12 weeks of max strength work and they don't start complexing movements except in the last microcycle. At that point almost all work done in the weightroom is geared towards working power, working through intensities ranging from 20% 1RM to 85% 1 RM for each lift as as possible. This makes some traditional lifts such as squats and bench press more ballastic, but it also makes them faster. A coach has to be careful placing weights at the beginning of a workout more so than at the end of a workout as you don't want to fry the CNS, but prime it and keep it pumped for the coming activity.

I must point out that many coaches do not agree with this methodology, but as far as long term development goes. Strength gains are more than acceptable even though we don't do many reps or high tonnage and match closely the gains in strength of their peers who are doing a BFS routine or something similar with regards to max strength. The big difference is power outputs in weightlifting tasks and simple movement skills such as VJ and SLJ scores. Another difference which I can only provide as anecdotal evidence is actual sprinting performances improved greater than peers in programs like BFS in this time which may or may be directly related what we did in the weight room, but a better and more thought training plan which was highly adaptable yet very specific sprinting in terms of work on the track.

Linas:

I think the biggest problem with most sprint programs is the organization of a training session. So I will highlight the problems I see.

1. static stretching and jogging as warmups.
2. inappropriate use of Mach Drills as part or warmup or being cued wrong
3. maximum velocity sprinting is cued at the knees or as a voluntary action of pushing off the ground.
4. cueing of dorsiflexion and shin angles.
5. over emphasis on the swing phase.
6. inappropriate selection and order of plyometric exercises
7. too many lifts and too many days spent in the weight room
8. starts and relay handoffs performed at the end of practice
9. too much volume in sprinting activities without regard to the specific demands of events.
10. putting speed,special, and tempo endurance activities in front of acceleration and maxV work (relates to #8).
11. Very little to zero focus on dynamic flexibility and mobility.
12. Not enough training alternatives to use in training when an athlete is injured, fatigued, or the weather dictates something else must be done.

Most coaches have at least 4 or more these problems in their training program and I think a coach can have short term successes even greater than the ones I achieve if they still have these problems in their training, but long term I think you'll the coaches who more adaptable, training at intensities more often used in competition, and regulating and monitoring recovering will better over the course of a season at least 5 months in duration and even more successful in bringing out adaptations specific to the event demands over the course of each successive season. The coaches who have the problems I listed often are limited in improving their athletes beyond their first 3-4 months with the athlete. I typically see fairly substantial gains over the course of 2 years in smaller increments than many of my peers, but over the course of a season those improvements tend to be larger and after 2 years there seems to be a world of difference.