Topic: Sprinting

[Sam Dutton]

I assume this is a good thing to train as you have to run faster than a casual jog to do a lot of parkour related things. If I am right, how often should I train sprinting? I can sprint for about a quarter of a mile right now.

[Scott Eustice]

How you train depends alot on how far you want to sprint. 400 meters (quarter mile) training is significantly different than 100 meter training. What distance do you want to improve the most at? 55, 100 and possibly 200 meter runs will have strong carry over to Parkour.

In general, strength training will help both, with squats and deadlifts as the focus for lower body strength. This is essential for the 55, 100, and 200 meter races. It loses some importance around 400 meters, but strength training can separate a good 400 runner from a great one.

400 meters is also about the limit of what most people can sprint. Much beyond that and you start to get into aerobic capacity.

[Steve Low]

Your goals are?

Also, you can only truly sprint for about 40-70m. ANything after that is slower.

Also, 400m is about 40% aerobic. So I wouldn't say it's not significantly aerobic at all.

[Dan Elric]

From what I can understand, you can increase how far you can sprint, but not for very far.

I think what you're looking for is cardiovascular support, which would be developed through a HIIT regimen.

[Sam Dutton]

Well, I would like to increase my constant speed print to 100m. As you, after about 70 I slow down somewhat. Not much, but it is noticeable.

[Scott Eustice]

Steven is right, you have 6, maybe 7 seconds of real, true all out sprint. No one, not even Usain Bolt, can keep up a full speed sprint for longer than that.

You want your acceleration to take place over a long period of time, so that you only start your full sprint at least 15 to 20 meters into the race (assuming this is a 100). Then you want to go all out for as long as you can. After around 75 to 80 meters, you will start to slow down. You want to deaccelerate as slowly as possible through the finish line.

Also, that is interesting about the aerobic capacity required for a strong 400. But the aerobic training required for a 400 is not anything like the type of workouts that most people consider aerobic work. Most non-runners I have talked to seem to think that aerobic capacity is best improved by LDS running.

[Shamas]

post to follow/lurk

[Steve Low]

Also, that is interesting about the aerobic capacity required for a strong 400. But the aerobic training required for a 400 is not anything like the type of workouts that most people consider aerobic work. Most non-runners I have talked to seem to think that aerobic capacity is best improved by LDS running.

This is true. 200m repeats at constant times are different than the aerobic work it takes to do 800+ meters, and especially 1500m and beyond.

I am writing an article on energy systems right now about that.

In all honest, anything over about 90s in duration is a majority aerobic work, so people need to keep that in mind. The split between maximal aerobic/anaerobic work comes sometime around 75s.

[Rafe]

If you are big on training power you want long running jumps, giant kongs, huge wall passes etc. Train just short sprints 30-60 meters with full rest, a work out my sprint coach has us do is 5 sets of flying 30's(with a 15 meter run in) 5-6 minutes rest in between each one. Sprinters rest a long time between sets its an important component of developing the neural and metabolic adaptions for maximal speed.
If you really want to improve speed 3 days a week for 8-10 weeks is a good start. 

If you are interested in longer flow based training then adding some speed endurance and tempo work. Speed endurance is stuff along the lines of 90-120-150-180-200 meter sprints with full rest 10-20 minutes. For a traceur you will only do a total of 600 yards of this type of training at most. High level 200-400 meters will do more depending on what their training but for our purposes its probably not something we need to think about.

Tempo work is done at 80-90 percent of full effort with limited rest periods. So if you run a 23 second 200 this might be 5 200 at 28 seconds with 30 seconds rest between them.

There are a variety of approaches here, you can start with pure speed work and then stretch it, clyde hart who is very succesful coach of 400 meter sprinters goes the other way he starts with high volumes of tempo work then decreases volume and ups intensity and recovery.

[Dan Elric]

Don't forget dead-lifts and squats!  Absolute must for all runners.

[Sam Dutton]

Thanks everybody. I have been doing 50 meter sprints to improve my speed, and I have also been doing squats.

[Jason C. Astor]

Posting to Follow.

And, what if you want to be able to sprint and be able to run a Half Marathon in great time?

Would This work?
Sprint Day
Jog Day
Rest Day
Distance Day
Rest Day
Tempo Day
Rest Day

[Sam Dutton]

That sounds like a good plan, which I will probably use. What exactly is a tempo day?

[Jason C. Astor]

If you plan on doing a long run. Say 10k or above. You decide what you want your time to be and divide that by miles. From there you get your minutes per mile, let's say 8:00 minutes a mile. Do 2 or 3 or more miles at that Pace or slightly faster

[Dan Elric]

I'm not sure, I think something more structured is in order.

Also, it neglects lifting two to three times a week, which is a necessity.  Dead-lifts and squats are an absolute must.

By sprint day you haven't elaborated on the type of work being done.  Are you training for speed or cardiovascular improvement?  Speed is gained by doing shorter sprints with longer recovery, vice versa for cardiovascular.  The kind of short power runs that involve < 100m  tend to be known as "flying x", such as flying 30s, which involves maximum effort.

HIIT can be done through a number of ways, either through shorter sprints or longer distance fartleks.  In any case there's no need to ever do a distance run at a comfortable pace, it should be at an uncomfortable pace, and I don't think there is a need to introduce distance runs at the same time with lifting.  The goal of HIIT is ultimately to build the support needed to do longer distance at a faster pace.

Which isn't to say you shouldn't start distance work eventually if you intend to be doing half-marathons, but I think it would be too much too soon.

[Sam Dutton]

My sprint day: 15 sets of 20s sprints(I have no way of measuring meters at the moment)with 4m rests in between. I am going to be marking the distance my sprints end so I can track improvement. I will be doing squats and deadlifts 3 days a week(at least) as soon as my hand heals.

[Scott Eustice]

@ Sam
15 sprints! And at 20 seconds those are around 150 meters in all likelihood. That is alot of volume, probably too much to do consistently. Good training for a 400, less so for a 100.

Also, you should probably find a track, they make sprints so much better. And more measurable.

@ Jason
Steven had to bash this idea into my head a few times before I learned the hard way that you cannot do both distance and sprint training all at once. To paraphrase him, "Endurance and speed cannot be trained optimally at the same time." You should decide which you want to focus on first, because otherwise your performance in both will suffer.

Sprints would most likely be a better starting point because speed work will carry over to distance work better than distance to speed.

I also disagree about always running at an uncomfortable pace. Lighter, more comfortable days are good active recovery. Those are also the best days to lift, if you are trying to maintain your strength. I know that super elite distance runners don't ever go on runs slower than 20:00 5k pace, if that, but we aren't all Hicham el Guerrouj. So we can't all train like he does.

[Sam Dutton]

Alright, so this is the rough draft of my schedule:
Monday:sprint day, 10 sets of 15s sprints, rest about 4 minutes in between
Tuesday:conditioning day, also 3 sets of 15s sprints.includes squats, muscle ups, deadlifts, condioning for perfecting my climb up and other stuff too
Wednesday:training day, several hours of it
Thursday:sprint day, same as before
Friday:conditioning day, same as before
Saturday:training day
Sunday:rest day

Notes: sprint, condioning and rest days do not mean I will not do some vaults and wall runs and whatever I feel like doing, it means I just won't be doing it for several hours of it. Also, people always end up coming to me and asking me to help them learn some basic movements, so this may end up with me training for up to a half an hour. Makes no difference, but I spelt training wrong about 5 times.

[Steve Low]

Still don't like it. It's too much if you want to improve your speed and get stronger.

Like I said, there's really no need to do conditioning unless you want to run 400m and even then you're not going to be doing conditioning that much as speed is more important. If you can only run 100m in 15s conditioning is not going to significantly help your 400 until you get your speed to 12s 100m or less.

Distance sprints are better than timed when beginning because it modulates the intensity for you.

2x30m 2x40m, 4x70-80m would probably work better

You should have at least 2 rest days

[Sam Dutton]

As I said, I have no real way of measuring meters at the moment.
Monday-sprint day
Tuesday-training day
Wednesday-rest day
Thursday-sprint day
Friday-training day
Saturday-conditioning day
Sunday-rest day