Sprinters' training a complex art

Sprinting: what a simple concept. This sport could easily be summarized as running a short distance as quickly as possible, and for most of us amateurs, it would be making a foolish attempt at imitating Speedy Gonzalez. But contrary to this popular belief, the sport is much more complex than it looks, and sprinters are much more than just fast, a vague word that fails to describe the exhausting training routines sprinters must endure every day.

Sprinting takes months of training in order to maximize power, strength and speed and attain one's potential. In order to prepare properly and safely, these athletes must balance their training with not only weight training and speed work, but also mixing in periodic phases of resting and remaining aware of one's health and fitness. Each component plays a different role in physically shaping an athlete to reach his peak.

So what does the training actually entail? These speedy athletes spend several days a week allotting time between weight training, plyometrics, and actual running; however, the amount of time devoted to each varies because each aspect hones the sprinter's skills in different ways.

The first and perhaps most simple component of sprint training is weight lifting. It is also one of the most important as weight training increases the athlete's strength and increases speed potential. But many people overlook the part of weight training that is most important: bodyweights. By training with bodyweights — the act of exercising without weights — the athlete not only builds and tones muscles and strengthens tendons: he also builds stabilization. Working with bodyweights helps improve core strength, which in turn stabilizes the body in the starting position, helping the body's reactionary speed.

After skillfully and slowly building the muscles with bodyweights, the sprinters are ready to begin weight lifting, focusing primarily on explosive lifts. These lifts are best for developing power and strength, however, since weight training can be potentially dangerous and overwork the muscles, the Tigers only lift weights twice a week.

Though weight training builds the necessary power and strength, plyometrics actually helps the athletes apply this strength to the track. Plyometrics involves eccentric and concentric movements are performed back-to-back to help create flexibility and an elastic response from the limbs, or more simply defined, jumping movements. Jump roping, bounding, and box jumps all help the athlete develop and strengthen his/her power. The box jump, a common plyometric activity, is when the athlete jumps from a box down to the ground and quickly rebounds up onto another box. These exercises increase the neural responses, training the nerves to react quickly and coordinate movements. These exercises are often performed once to three times a week depending on the athlete. They are interchanged with sprint workouts and weight lifting.

Plyometrics and weight lifting ultimately lead up to actual sprinting, the complex sport that combines the results from both activities and tests them on the field. Sprinting comes in two forms, short sprinting and long sprinting. A short sprint workout varies between four and 15 full intensity-level runs of 10 to 100 meters. A period of rest immediately follows the sprints and its length is proportional to the distance run. During these sprints, the most important factor is to remain focused. Similar focus should be applied to longer sprinting sets, necessary to help the athletes learn to maintain a fast pace through pain. These sets aim to help the sprinters control and fight the stress and fatigue that impede their body from performing at maximum speed.

"Every runner should relax and run with proper mechanics," said junior Brian Shields. "While accelerating, the athlete should run with a good forward lean and focus on driving down and back into the ground while relaxing the shoulders and allowing the head — and therefore the body — to rise to a normal running angle naturally. Technique should be monitored; quality over quantity!"

But to begin, athletes must realize their potential speed, beginning slowly and working their speed gradually. Maintaining a strategic balance between resting and sprinting is the key to success on the track.

"The biggest challenge in training speed is getting an adaptation to training while at the same time keeping athletes fresh and healthy," said junior Dan Saltzman. "Muscular fatigue can result in injuries, and neural fatigue can result in plummeting performance."

However, this "resting" is not sitting on the La-Z-Boy watching the newest episodes of Real World. Resting in context of sprinting describes a various number of activities that continue to work the athletes, but not at high intensity levels. After periods of intense workouts, it is necessary to relax and "take it easy," with most high-intense training workouts requiring at least 36 to 72 hours of rest.

In order to maximize the effectiveness of a workout, sprinters must make their own exercise specially catered to their own needs, creating the right balance of weight lifting, plyometrics, sprinting, and resting. Once finding this balance, a person can finally claim to be a sprinter.