Why All Athletes Should Sprint
Within the walls of BSP we see athletes of all shapes and sizes as well as all sports. We will see athletes from football and basketball to cheerleading and dance. As you observe the athletes training you will notice similarities and differences in that training. The major difference is that no two athletes are performing the same workouts. Each athlete has their own workout to perform based on their goals, movement style, and needs. One of the similarities that you will notice right from the start is that EVERY BSP athlete performs some sort of sprinting drill.
These drills are not used to focus strictly on sprinting form, and raw speed. Those traits are important and, yes, we would like to see improvements in both those areas. However, the true desire is to see improvement in the physiological adaptation. Sprinting is a movement that exemplifies physiological traits that are hard to mimic anywhere else. The benefits of sprinting are found in many areas including, strength, power, coordination, and conditioning.
Strength
Many times sprinting is overlooked as a strength training movement, however, the amount of force created with each stride while sprinting can be the equivalent of five times your body weight moving through a single limb. That would be like squatting 400lbs. on one leg. Not many athletes, at any level, could perform this feat. By creating the brief strength stimuli over and over throughout the run we are introducing this effect a little at a time until the body is better able to harness it.
As we increase the volume of these runs we begin to introduce an increased need for strength endurance in order to recreate that strength over and over throughout a competition. It is these examples of strength that help our athletes improve their strength capacities and overall strength outputs.
Power
As our athlete’s strength improves and their ability to produce forces increases their power also improves. Power (Explosiveness) is derived from the amount of work being done in a given period of time. As we increase the work (Increase force) through strength training we are able to increase the power.
We use these sprint drills to improve our body’s efficiency while performing this “work”. Each week we work to place our athlete’s in a position that challenges them, but ultimately allowing them to succeed. This is done by using different starting positions and increasing the volume week by week.
Coordination
Coordination is a term that can be used in many contexts. As I discuss coordination here I am referring to two instances.
One, I am referring to the body’s ability to coordinate itself as a whole in the movement (i.e. balance through movement). When sprinting, the athlete is moving at a very high velocity, which requires great awareness and balance in order to continue moving down a path without faltering in step. When you watch young athletes run you will see them exploring their parameters of movement. At times you will see an adjustment in gait as they learn what is comfortable and what they believe to be effective.
The second reference to the term coordination refers to the body’s ability to function at a deeper level. The human body is a well-timed, high functioning machine. Each movement by a limb in one direction is created by the relaxation of certain muscle groups, while opposing muscle groups are contracting. Then to move that limb in the opposite direction the roles of each muscle must reverse. Now, you can imagine in a high velocity movement like sprinting how fast these muscles must be alternating back and forth between functions. The alternation of these functions must be trained just like anything else in order to improve their efficiency. As we go through sprints we are essentially training each muscle to perform its duty as efficiently as possible.
Conditioning
Finally, we use sprinting as a conditioning tool. HOWEVER, it is most likely different from what you have in mind. If you think of sprinting as conditioning and a picture of an athlete with their hands on their knees comes to mind then we are talking about different things.
When truly sprinting, fatigue is the enemy. In order to improve maximum velocity we must sprint at or above 95% of our maximum velocity. You can imagine how difficult that is. This means that the body must be experiencing very little fatigue. When we sprint we are sure to incorporate extended rest periods in order to allow the body to recover each time. However, as we go through each subsequent sprint there is some exertional residue. This residue is similar to the soreness you feel after really hard workouts, however, this is on a much smaller level. As we participate in each additional sprint we are training through this exertion residue from the previous sprints. This may not cause us to hunch over in agony, however, it is forcing our respiratory, cardiovascular, neurological and endocrine systems to work overtime in order to overcome these repeated sprint efforts.
Long story short, the body has to work really hard to sprint at a high speed over and over again.
Sprinting is not necessarily just our ability to move from point A to point B. It is a training tool that we can use in order to make our body stronger, more powerful, and more efficient.