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Workouts for sprinters should be tailored to the needs of the individual athlete. And successful sprinters in all sports need incremental goals to increase their speed, strength, and power. Strength training, explosive movements, and nutrition are essential to a sprinter’s initial and continued development.
Race-specific resistance training, with proper mechanics, is an excellent tool to maximize elite sprint performance. Plyometric exercises are a great way to increase the speed and explosiveness of an experienced sprinter. In contrast, intermediate sprinters should introduce high-intensity interval training to optimize their conditioning. And every sprint workout should include an optimized warm-up with an emphasis on event specific drills.
A coach should have a training plan that outlines workouts for sprinters, rest between sets, and nutrition for specific athletic goals during the training session. Ideally, providing the opportunity to track progress to measure a training method’s effectiveness.
Beetroot supplementation and HIIT
Supplementation of beetroot juice did not improve performance in short-duration, high-intensity workouts for sprinters.
Caffeine and exercise performance in workouts for sprinters
Caffeine is a drug that can be found in many places, including coffee, tea, and chocolate. Most commonly consumed as a beverage, it is known to improve physical performance in aerobic exercise and cognitive function in most individuals.
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Caffeine can be used to enhance anaerobic performance and may also be useful in the heat and at altitude. It is most commonly consumed 60 minutes before exercise.
Muscle and tendons under strain
Sprinters have a greater active muscle stiffness at high strain rates than untrained men. The increase in stiffness is caused by training.
The human muscle, a wondrous bundle of fibers, each one contracting and extending in its self-contained symphony of movement, is not unlike the myriad of experiences and memories that shape a person’s essence. Under strain, these muscles, they sing – not a melodious tune, but rather a raw, visceral cry of sheer exertion, teetering at the boundary between agony and ecstasy. And the tendons? These unsung heroes, quietly yet resolutely connecting muscle to bone, bear the tension with a stoicism that’s almost philosophical in nature. They’re like the strings of a well-tuned instrument, pulled taut, yearning to snap, yet holding on, resisting.
Achilles tendon length is unrelated to speed.
In the seemingly boundless universe of human athletic prowess, there’s an oft-mentioned biomechanical curiosity that gets whispered about in the hushed locker rooms of runners and sprinters: the Achilles tendon. This sinewy piece of connective tissue, named after the very same ancient Greek hero who, it should be noted, met his demise due to an arrow in said tendon, functions as a sort of spring, stretching and recoiling with every step we take. One might, at first glance, postulate – even with a modicum of optimism – that a longer Achilles would bestow upon its owner a natural advantage in the blistering world of sprints and dashes.
However, and this is where the deliciously counterintuitive nature of human physiology comes into play, the empirical data suggests otherwise. The tendon, in its unassuming nature, doesn’t seem to correlate with outright sprinting supremacy. In other words, nature’s given leverage, this built-in spring, is more a testament to the rich tapestry of variables that influence athletic performance than a direct one-to-one tethering to speed. It’s almost as if the very cosmos is hinting at the profound truth that human capability cannot be reduced to mere metrics or anatomical lengths, but is rather a confluence of a multitude of factors, some tangible and others, well, deeply enigmatic.
Wearable resistance on acceleration mechanics
- Sprinting with forearm loads increases step length and propulsive impulse during the first acceleration phase. This would be an alternative to running uphill or running with a resistance band attached to your ankles.
- Sprinting with forearm loads decreases stride frequency, while it increases flight time and vertical impulse during the last acceleration phase. This would be an alternative approach to short sprints, a lot of plyometrics, or aerobic training.
Junior swimmers vertical jump training effect on start performance
Maximal strength training in elite youth swimmers (under 17) seems to improve sprint start performance. Vertical jump training does not.
Sprint Swimming increases metabolic biomarkers in Master’s Swimmers.
Although it is well established that acute exercise induces metabolic stress, little is known about the minimal sufficient volume for generating such stress. Anaerobic exercise is a time-efficient way of inducing beneficial adaptations. However, little is known about its minimal effective volume, especially in swimming.
In master swimmers, a low volume of 4×25m was as effective as a higher volume of 4×50m in increasing blood biomarkers.
Sprint Butterfly starts and turns.
Faster swimmers have a higher underwater velocity at the beginning of the race, but not at the end. This is probably because faster butterfly swimmers use a different kicking pattern than slower swimmers.