Written on March 28, 2013 at 5:23 am, by Eric Cressey
While sprinting has been around since the dawn of man, only in the past few years has it really taken off as true fitness trend. In other words, it was either what we did to kill our dinner in prehistoric times, or it was a modern athletic competition. Only recently have we realized that doing sprint work for our interval training is a tremendously effective way to get/stay lean, enhance mobility, improve athleticism, and prepare ourselves for the demands that life throws our way.
Heading out to sprint full-tilt when you haven’t been doing any running work in recent months is, however, analogous to signing up for calculus when you haven’t brushed up on basic math of late. The main difference is that you can’t rip your hamstrings off your pelvis doing calculus!
Sprint work requires tremendous mobility, good tissue quality, and adequate strength to tolerate significant ground reaction forces and a wide variety of joint angles. You don’t prepare for this with your “typical” gym workouts, so before I have some specific modifications in place that you’ll want to follow. To that end, below, I’ve provided you with seven tips you can apply to ease into sprint work so that you can get the benefits of it with less of the risk.
1. Do these foam rolling drills and four mobility exercises every day for a month.
These drills are like summer reading before a tough English class. You have to do them so that you can hit the ground running (pun intended).
2. Sprint uphill first.
People often get hurt when they overstride; they’ll pull the hamstrings on the front leg. Sprinting uphill doesn’t really allow you to overstride, though, and it’s also good because you go up with each step, but don’t come down quite as much. Ground reaction forces are much lower, so this is a great option for easing into top-speed sprinting. (great studies here and here, for those interested).
While it’s more ideal to do uphill sprinting outside, it is okay to do this on a treadmill. After all, you’re just trying to lose your spare tire or be a little better in beer league softball, not go to the Olympics.
I like to see a month of 2x/week uphill sprint work before folks start testing the waters on flat terrain.
3. Don’t sprint at 100% intensity right away.
Contrary to what you may have heard, you don’t have to run at 100% intensity to derive benefits from sprint work. In fact, a lot of the most elite sprinters in the world spend a considerable amount of time running at submaximal intensities, and they are still lean and fast.
The bulk of your sprint work should be in the 70-90% of top speed range. You might work up to some stuff in the 90-100% zone as you’re fully warmed up, but living in this top 10% all the time is a recipe for injury, especially if you’re over the age of 35-40 and degenerative changes are starting to kick in.
When you first start out, sprinting is new and exciting, and it's very easy to get overzealous and push the volume and frequency side of the equation just as you would the intensity side. Don't do it. For most folks, twice a week is a sufficient complement to a comprehensive strength training program, and the session shouldn't last for more than 30-45 minutes - most of which will be you resting between bouts of sprinting. If you find that they're 90-120 minute sessions, you're either doing too much volume or not working hard enough. The speed and quality of your work will fall off pretty quickly as you fatigue, so be careful about forcing things too quickly. Beyond just injury prevention benefits, taking it slower on the progressions side of things allows you to test out your footwear of a few weeks to make sure that they're the right shoes for you.
5. Don't sprint on pavement.
I can't think of a more unforgiving surface than pavement, especially since it means that you're more likely to get hit by a car. Unfortunately, it's also the more easy accessible surface for most people. In an ideal world, I like to see folks sprint on grass, artificial turf, or a track surface. Broken glass and hot coals would also be preferable to pavement (for the record, that was a joke, people; don't be that schmuck who goes out to try it).
6. Don't sprint through fatigue early on.
This is a "go by feel" kind of recommendation. On one hand, you have to sprint through some fatigue to get in the volume it takes to derive the training effects you want: namely, fat loss. However, we also have to appreciate that states of fatigue drive injury rates sky-high in the athletic world. With that trend in mind, I encourage people to run conservatively in the first few months of their sprint training programs; in other words, don't allow a lot of fatigue to accumulate. Instead, take a little extra time between sprints. Then, as your sprinting mechanics and fitness improves (and you've gotten rid of the initial soreness), you can push through some fatigue.
7. Generally speaking, sprint before your lower body strength training work, not after.
People often ask me when the best point in one's training split is to sprint. As a general rule of thumb, I prefer to have people sprint before they do their lower body strength training sessions. We might have athletes that will combine the two into one session (sprinting first, of course), but most fitness oriented sprinters would sprint the day or two prior to a lower body session. A training schedule I like to use for many athletes and non-athletes alike is:
Mo: Lower Body Strength Training (with athletes, we may do some sprint work before this as well)
Tu: Upper Body Strength Training
We: Sprint Work
Th: Lower Body Strength Training
Fr: Upper Body Strength Training
Sa: Sprint Work
Su: Off
In this case, the intensive lower body work is consolidated into three 24-36-hour blocks (Mo, We-Th, Sa).
Conversely, I've also met lifters who like to sprint at 70-80% effort the day after a lower body strength training session, as they feel like it helps with promoting recovery.
Closing Thoughts
As you can tell, while there are definitely some tried and true strategies for avoiding injury when you undertake a sprinting program, there are also some areas that are open to a bit of interpretation. The value of incorporating sprinting into one's program is undeniable, though, so I'd encourage you to test the waters to see how it fits in with your strength and conditioning programs. At the very least, it'll give you some variety and help get you outdoors for some fresh air.
If you're looking for ideas on how to incorporate sprinting in a comprehensive strength and conditioning program, I'd encourage you to check out my latest resource, The High Performance Handbook.
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Nice job on this one. Seems lately I have has
More pesonal training clients wanting to try it. Many I have to tell to relax and do not add more and more right off the bat. Many too have no clue about rest intervals…
See you at upcoming seminars,
Ray McCarthy
Eric,
What if you do not have access/very limited access to foam rollers and/or lacrosse balls? Should your athletes proceed directly to the mobility drills?
Gret work. A couple of things I’d add to prevent injury and build stregth:
1) Build up sprints–if you’re sprinting 100m build up slowly to the top speed you use through the first 50m. Injuries often occur during acceleration phase.
2) Learn speed/track drills to warm-up–things like butt kickers, high knees, cross overs, etc. These help improve strength, form, and mobility.
Thanks for sharing!
In my personal experience I focus on sprinting on flat ground because hill sprints have caused me to develop achilles tendonopathy.
Much different, Matt. That’s speaking more with respect to doing speed-strength and strength-speed work in the weight room. This is more absolute speed oriented.
“Contrary to what you may have heard, you don’t have to run at 100% intensity to derive benefits from sprint work.” A friend who is a pro MMA fighter asked this question: “I use sprints for sorta…like “explosive endurance”, and sometimes just for explosive work, can you clarify the above statement for someone in my sport who needs to last longer at very high intensities? Wouldn’t you have to work at at least a 90% intensity to work on lasting longer at close to the same outputs (90-100%)?”
If I want to add some sprinting while doing Show and Go, should I follow the Monday lower body Tuesday upper body Wednesday sprint Thursday lower body Friday upper and Saturday sprints? Also would olympic lifts on weight days just be overkill?
Thanks for these tips! I would like to know how much time do I need to perform the foam rolling drills per day? Anyway, love all the details in this post! Thank you!
I think that’s a good set-up. You could also do the MoTuThF lifting and WeSa sprinting set-up. If you want to add O-lifts, do them first on your lower body days, and then cut back the volume on all the other exercises (maybe drop one set of each of the other ones).
Great article here. I have one question though. What are you thoughts on people with glute amnesia to start sprinting?
Since the glutes plays a huge role in sprinting and deceleration would mobility drills be sufficient or must the glute issue be fixed before starting on sprinting?
Pretty much everyone has glute amnesia, but you can’t live your life in a bubble! Just gotta get out there and start sprinting gradually, and you can certainly work in some glute activation stuff in the warm-ups.
Lots of points here that I completely did not realize. I’ve been sprinting most of the time at the 100% and after training sessions – usually around 30 yrds x 5-10. I guess I should throw in more work at the 70-90% output range.
I wonder if performing sprint starts (say 10 yards) from the blocks at full output would put me at lesser risk for injury since I wouldn’t get to full speed. But with that approach I would be able to train the explosive element of the start.
Good Timing, I decided around about yesterday I would like to start adding sprints back into my week and then i open my email this morning and here is this article. Top stuff, Thanks..
Eric,
Great article, always appreciate what you are willing to share, very useful information. The article does provide an excellent framework of what to follow and what to avoid for sprinting, I’m wondering; what program would you suggest for beginners to start with?
Over the weekend I had a realization about how much fun can sprinting can be. It’s a great exercise to combine into other activities to make games.
In my case, I was playing frisbee with some friends and we worked in sprinting in the following way: Instead of throwing the frisbee at each other, we’d throw it off to one side so you would have to sprint to catch it. Besides just making you sprint, you get some good overhead activity from catching something overhead. Not to mention it was fun and it was a better activity to do with other people than just pure sprinting.
A couple of days after I was doing a lower body workout and I felt more refreshed than I had in a while hitting reps at > 90% which are usually much harder. I think it was a great recovery addition.
The article refers to 30-45 min sessions. My home is surrounded by hills so incline sprinting seems not a problem. However, can the incline be too steep (what’s ideal)? Also, how long should each sprint be in terms of time or distance?
Further to my comment a few hours ago, with sprinting on an incline, is there a technigue to adhere to (eg,should the heel touch the ground each step as opposed to running on the toes all the time)? thanks
thanks a lot for this article and of course for all your puplic (free) work!!! I really appreciate it!!!
So my question is about a mixed strength and sprint training session:
What do you think about training first at 80-95% at max. strenght followed by sprinting? (An other example would be bench press folled by very quick bag work -boxing-)
I’ve read that this way of training improves the explosive Power a lot….
In regard to Sam’s question on complexes for power development you said use no more than every 4-6 mos, how long for each cycle? And what would your advice be if my goal was to be as powerful as possible, based on vertical jump( roughly 40 inches with running start) i still can’t dunk since i have short arms and I’m 5’11, very close though. i want to be able to 360 two hand dunk while increasing kicking power ,shot put, and punching (Bruce lees one inch punch)Thanks for selfless work and critical thought Eric, your one of my biggest influences for going back to school to build my scientific understanding of the human body.
Great article and tremendous content as always! I was just wondering while watching your foam rolling video at the beginning, what is your stance on the concept that you should hold for 30 seconds or until the muscle relaxes when you feel a knot or stiff tissue on the muscles being rolled?
I think that if we held for 30s on every spot, we’d spend our entire day foam rolling! I’d prefer frequency over duration, for sure. 10=15s per spot seems to work well, with the entire sequence lasting 6-8 minutes.
March 28th, 2013 at 7:03 am
What type of “ball” are you using in the rolling segment? What has been most effective for clients in your practice? Thanks
March 28th, 2013 at 7:22 am
Great article, Eric.
March 28th, 2013 at 7:53 am
Nice job on this one. Seems lately I have has
More pesonal training clients wanting to try it. Many I have to tell to relax and do not add more and more right off the bat. Many too have no clue about rest intervals…
See you at upcoming seminars,
Ray McCarthy
March 28th, 2013 at 9:03 am
Eric,
What if you do not have access/very limited access to foam rollers and/or lacrosse balls? Should your athletes proceed directly to the mobility drills?
March 28th, 2013 at 10:13 am
Gret work. A couple of things I’d add to prevent injury and build stregth:
1) Build up sprints–if you’re sprinting 100m build up slowly to the top speed you use through the first 50m. Injuries often occur during acceleration phase.
2) Learn speed/track drills to warm-up–things like butt kickers, high knees, cross overs, etc. These help improve strength, form, and mobility.
March 28th, 2013 at 10:24 am
Thanks for sharing!
In my personal experience I focus on sprinting on flat ground because hill sprints have caused me to develop achilles tendonopathy.
March 28th, 2013 at 11:48 am
Hi Eric, great article. How does this article fit into the article you wrote at T Nation- Training Speed to Get Strong?
March 28th, 2013 at 12:40 pm
Good contributions, Ian; thanks!
March 28th, 2013 at 12:41 pm
Neil,
That’s fine. Can just be done at another time of day – or you can bring them out to the track with you.
March 28th, 2013 at 12:42 pm
Much different, Matt. That’s speaking more with respect to doing speed-strength and strength-speed work in the weight room. This is more absolute speed oriented.
March 28th, 2013 at 12:46 pm
Hi Eric,
How long do you suggest doing each rolling exercise?
Best,
Eric
March 28th, 2013 at 5:07 pm
Eric,
10-15s each, longer if an area is particularly uncomfortable.
March 28th, 2013 at 5:11 pm
Noel,
Those are batting practice baseballs. Just as easy to use regular baseballs or lacrosse balls. If that’s too aggressive, tennis balls work okay, too.
March 28th, 2013 at 6:15 pm
Just for the record…nothing beats barefoot hot coal sprints!!
March 28th, 2013 at 7:31 pm
“Contrary to what you may have heard, you don’t have to run at 100% intensity to derive benefits from sprint work.” A friend who is a pro MMA fighter asked this question: “I use sprints for sorta…like “explosive endurance”, and sometimes just for explosive work, can you clarify the above statement for someone in my sport who needs to last longer at very high intensities? Wouldn’t you have to work at at least a 90% intensity to work on lasting longer at close to the same outputs (90-100%)?”
March 28th, 2013 at 8:08 pm
Nice tips.
March 28th, 2013 at 8:33 pm
Eric,
If I want to add some sprinting while doing Show and Go, should I follow the Monday lower body Tuesday upper body Wednesday sprint Thursday lower body Friday upper and Saturday sprints? Also would olympic lifts on weight days just be overkill?
March 29th, 2013 at 2:21 am
Hi Eric,
If I am able to complete a half-marathon in under 3 hours, am I ready to perform sprints?
Ed
March 29th, 2013 at 3:12 am
Thanks for these tips! I would like to know how much time do I need to perform the foam rolling drills per day? Anyway, love all the details in this post! Thank you!
March 29th, 2013 at 5:34 am
Joy,
He’d be better off working closer to 100%, as we’re talking about performance carryover, not just general fitness.
March 29th, 2013 at 5:35 am
James,
I think that’s a good set-up. You could also do the MoTuThF lifting and WeSa sprinting set-up. If you want to add O-lifts, do them first on your lower body days, and then cut back the volume on all the other exercises (maybe drop one set of each of the other ones).
March 29th, 2013 at 5:36 am
Ed,
Yes, you’re closer, but still take into consideration the points about gradually increasing intensity and doing the foam rolling/mobility work.
March 29th, 2013 at 5:36 am
Carey,
10-15s each.
March 29th, 2013 at 7:27 am
Hi Eric,
Great article here. I have one question though. What are you thoughts on people with glute amnesia to start sprinting?
Since the glutes plays a huge role in sprinting and deceleration would mobility drills be sufficient or must the glute issue be fixed before starting on sprinting?
Much thanks,
-kedric
March 29th, 2013 at 5:25 pm
I found it easier to roll pecs against a wall. love the recommendations!
March 29th, 2013 at 6:59 pm
Kedric,
Pretty much everyone has glute amnesia, but you can’t live your life in a bubble! Just gotta get out there and start sprinting gradually, and you can certainly work in some glute activation stuff in the warm-ups.
March 30th, 2013 at 8:32 am
Thanks so much Eric!
April 1st, 2013 at 1:14 pm
Eric,
Lots of points here that I completely did not realize. I’ve been sprinting most of the time at the 100% and after training sessions – usually around 30 yrds x 5-10. I guess I should throw in more work at the 70-90% output range.
I wonder if performing sprint starts (say 10 yards) from the blocks at full output would put me at lesser risk for injury since I wouldn’t get to full speed. But with that approach I would be able to train the explosive element of the start.
Mike
April 2nd, 2013 at 1:04 am
Good Timing, I decided around about yesterday I would like to start adding sprints back into my week and then i open my email this morning and here is this article. Top stuff, Thanks..
April 2nd, 2013 at 6:41 am
Eric,
Great article, always appreciate what you are willing to share, very useful information. The article does provide an excellent framework of what to follow and what to avoid for sprinting, I’m wondering; what program would you suggest for beginners to start with?
April 3rd, 2013 at 10:45 pm
Over the weekend I had a realization about how much fun can sprinting can be. It’s a great exercise to combine into other activities to make games.
In my case, I was playing frisbee with some friends and we worked in sprinting in the following way: Instead of throwing the frisbee at each other, we’d throw it off to one side so you would have to sprint to catch it. Besides just making you sprint, you get some good overhead activity from catching something overhead. Not to mention it was fun and it was a better activity to do with other people than just pure sprinting.
A couple of days after I was doing a lower body workout and I felt more refreshed than I had in a while hitting reps at > 90% which are usually much harder. I think it was a great recovery addition.
April 6th, 2013 at 6:15 am
Eric,
The article refers to 30-45 min sessions. My home is surrounded by hills so incline sprinting seems not a problem. However, can the incline be too steep (what’s ideal)? Also, how long should each sprint be in terms of time or distance?
Thanks
April 6th, 2013 at 12:28 pm
Further to my comment a few hours ago, with sprinting on an incline, is there a technigue to adhere to (eg,should the heel touch the ground each step as opposed to running on the toes all the time)? thanks
April 6th, 2013 at 9:50 pm
Hey Eric;
I found this link to an excellent piece on sprinting that I think you’ll enjoy and possibly derive some useful info from:
http://www.scarboroughtrack.com/sprintingmechanics.pdf
April 7th, 2013 at 5:03 am
Mark,
The grade doesn’t have to be super steep…maybe 2-3%. I’d go 30-60yds, really whatever you’ve got!
April 7th, 2013 at 5:04 am
Mark,
I certainly wouldn’t cue running on the toes; just try to work through the balls of your feet, and if you heel strike a bit, so be it.
April 7th, 2013 at 5:30 am
Thanks Eric,
What I’ve got are actual hills (maybe 30-degree incline) – is this a no-no for sprinting?
April 8th, 2013 at 3:26 pm
Mark,
That’s not too bad. Roll with it!
April 12th, 2014 at 3:29 pm
Good article Eric!
April 13th, 2014 at 6:31 am
Thanks, Reid!
July 8th, 2014 at 7:36 am
Hi Eric,
Thank you for such an interesting article.
When you say “session shouldn’t last for more than 30-45 minutes”, does it include the warm up?
Best, E.
July 8th, 2014 at 2:38 pm
Eduardo,
No, the warm-up would lengthen it a bit.
July 9th, 2014 at 5:34 am
Hi Eric,
Thank you for your quick reply.
That is what I thought.
I usually go by bike (~15 min from my place) and do some dynamic warm up (~10 min) before I hit the hill for 25 min (13 sprints last week).
So, I guess I can start adding 3-5 minutes every week.
Thank you for your help and for sharing your knowledge with us.
Best, Eduardo
July 22nd, 2014 at 4:26 am
Hey Eric,
thanks a lot for this article and of course for all your puplic (free) work!!! I really appreciate it!!!
So my question is about a mixed strength and sprint training session:
What do you think about training first at 80-95% at max. strenght followed by sprinting? (An other example would be bench press folled by very quick bag work -boxing-)
I’ve read that this way of training improves the explosive Power a lot….
Thanks a lot
Sam
July 22nd, 2014 at 5:11 pm
Sam,
There can definitely be a place for it; it’s just called complex training. Just don’t use it more than every 4-6 months.
September 13th, 2014 at 2:17 pm
In regard to Sam’s question on complexes for power development you said use no more than every 4-6 mos, how long for each cycle? And what would your advice be if my goal was to be as powerful as possible, based on vertical jump( roughly 40 inches with running start) i still can’t dunk since i have short arms and I’m 5’11, very close though. i want to be able to 360 two hand dunk while increasing kicking power ,shot put, and punching (Bruce lees one inch punch)Thanks for selfless work and critical thought Eric, your one of my biggest influences for going back to school to build my scientific understanding of the human body.
September 13th, 2014 at 5:57 pm
Great article Eric. Do you have any advice for clients with flat feet getting into sprint training?
Many thanks
James
September 19th, 2014 at 6:15 am
James,
I think the two biggest things would simply be easing into it – and making sure that they’re in the right type of footwear FOR THEM.
September 19th, 2014 at 11:10 am
Hi Eric,
Great article and tremendous content as always! I was just wondering while watching your foam rolling video at the beginning, what is your stance on the concept that you should hold for 30 seconds or until the muscle relaxes when you feel a knot or stiff tissue on the muscles being rolled?
September 19th, 2014 at 6:29 pm
Hi Mark,
I think that if we held for 30s on every spot, we’d spend our entire day foam rolling! I’d prefer frequency over duration, for sure. 10=15s per spot seems to work well, with the entire sequence lasting 6-8 minutes.