Exercise of the Week - SPRINTING!

I've got Olympic fever and yesterday's 100 and 400m sprint finals were unbelievable, with the 200 and relays still to come!

If you're like me and have caught the fever then you're in for a treat with this weeks exercise of the week - sprinting!

No where enough people actually sprint which is a shame considering how good sprinters look and perform!

Most people will try and replicate sprinting through interval workouts that in reality is as far from sprinting as you can almost get as the speed you're going at is no where near top speed and that is what sprinting is all about.

Olympic sprinters are known for using what is called the high/low system which means they either train at 95 - 100% for high days or at 50 - 60% for low days.

They do not train "in the middle" which unfortunately is where everyone else in the world trains which is odd when you think about because if it was so good wouldn't they be doing it?

OK, what I'm going to GIVE you is a 6 week sprinting plan that you'll do 2/week and with the weather fining up, that shouldn't be a problem.

You'll have 12 sessions to complete preferably 3 - 4 days apart and I'll also include an introductory week that you do to prep for the work ahead. If you're hesitant then you can do this week twice.

Our measurements are going to go by counting our steps so you can do this workout without equipment. So each foot strike is 1 so count to 10, 20 or 30 (depending on the set), walk back slowly and repeat when you're breath has come back to pretty much normal.

You might be a bit short of breathe immediately after some of the hill sets but you should be able to complete each sprint with high quality so rest as needed to achieve this.

You're going to need to find 3 separate sprinting spots - a steep hill, a moderate hill and a flat surface.

A pretty good spot for this is Como Park that has hills around the Alexander Parade side of the oval that varies in distance as well as the killer hill on the other Toorak Road side.

A good idea is to time your 20m sprint sets in the 2nd prep session and we'll use that to see how much we improve after the 6 - 8 weeks which I think will be substantial - remember that .5sec of a huge improvement in the field of sprinting!

You'll want to measure out the testing sets so measure your feet with your running shoes on and divide 2000 by your foot length in cms (2000 / 35 for example) then simply step it out toe to heel style,

To time your sprints simply video it on your phone and pop it through this free app and follow the steps from here which is based on jumping but it's still the same thing:

http://aussierulestraining.blogspot.com.au/2016/08/measuring-vertical-leap-with-vstopwatch.html

Alternatively contact me via the Facebook page and you can send it to me and I can do it for you!

IMPORTANT - make sure you perform a thorough warm up prior to each sprinting session. Do a little jog for 400m or so to increase body temp, then ease into some 10 and 20m run-throughs increasing the pace of each set slightly for 4 - 6 total warm up. Skip this at your peril!

Prep Week
Session 1 Steep Hill: 4 x 10 steps + 2 x 20 steps + 1 x 30 steps
Session 2 Flat Surface: 4 x 10 steps + 2 x 20 steps (time these sets) + 1 x 30 steps

Here's the full 12 session, 6 week workout:

Week 1
Session 1 Steep Hill: 5 x 10 steps + 2 x 20 steps + 1 x 30 steps
Session 2 Steep Hill: 6 x 10 steps + 3 x 20 steps + 1 x 30 steps

Week 2
Session 1 Steep Hill: 7 x 10 steps + 4 x 20 steps + 1 x 30 steps
Session 2 Steep Hill: 5 x 10 steps + 2 x 20 steps + 2 x 30 steps

Week 3
Session 1 Moderate Hill: 5 x 10 steps + 2 x 20 steps + 1 x 30 steps
Session 2 Moderate Hill: 6 x 10 steps + 3 x 20 steps + 1 x 30 steps

Week 4
Session 1 Moderate Hill: 7 x 10 steps + 4 x 20 steps + 1 x 30 steps
Session 2 Moderate Hill: 5 x 10 steps + 2 x 20 steps + 2 x 30 steps

Week 5
Session 1 Flat Surface: 5 x 10 steps + 2 x 20 steps + 1 x 30 steps
Session 2 Flat Surface: 6 x 10 steps + 3 x 20 steps + 1 x 30 steps

Week 6
Session 1 Flat Surface: 7 x 10 steps + 4 x 20 steps + 1 x 30 steps
Session 2 Flat Surface: 5 x 10 steps + 2 x 20 steps + 2 x 30 steps

After 4 - 5 days off do this session:

Testing Session; 5 x 10 steps + 2 - 3 x 20 steps (timing all sets)

Let me know any questions you have on this, otherwise good luck!