I couple of months ago i asked this forum for help regarding to me being out of energy and it helped so much. Today i have another question. Last year i started track only because i thought it would be good for football but i really ended up liking track. It was my first year and i was the slowest sprinter but i did like it.
Now this year i want to be able to be faster. I was on the sprinting team and i did the 100m and 200m dash. I had horrible times but every time i went my time improved by .2 seconds. My best time for the 100m was 14.4 seconds and for the 200m dash i think it was around 28 sec but i really cant remember that. The thing is i also want to be able to work out and put on mass this year so what should i do?
Sprint while dragging a tire behind you as part of your training. You’ll see your times drop very quickly. Those parachute things work, too, but an old tire is free and rope is cheap.
Pick up a good balanced lifting program. There are plenty.
Eat good food, and keep meticulous track of it. You want to make sure your getting enough building materials in your diet, without eating so much that you gain too much body fat. If you find that you’re running out of steam a lot, eat more. If you stop making progress on your lifts, eat more. On the other side of the coin, if you start getting fatter than you’d like to be, taper back a bit on the calories.
Before the rest of you start in on me, I’m giving him advice as a sprinter, not just a lifter.
Best thing you can do is find someone faster than you and race them as often as you can.
The next thing you can do is look up a track workout on the internet. Theres billions of em. People on this site tend to like De Franco so use him, pretty much anywhere you go should help 14.4 seconds
Eat as much and healthy as you can, stay flexibile.
[quote]Ratchet wrote:
squats, step and drives, deads, lunges, leg curls… focus on lower body… if you were doing long distances I would include abs, but your a sprinter…
This is what we focused on for my lacrosse team and everyones sprint times went down a good bit…[/quote]
i have to go with what has been said before but 125lb? thats realy light more muscle get stronger at squats deads and the much push your strength up…increase calories…practise sprints(obviously)…train and eat hard and consistant!
Sounds like you need to get your legs stronger. A lot stronger. 5’9" and 125 is pretty small for football. I can’t imagine at that weight that you’d particularly strong or fast. Work on getting your legs stronger and then do sprints a few times a week.
You also said you want to work on mass. You’ll need to eat more and get stronger if you want to gain mass.
At your age, you should be trying to get a lot stronger and sticking to the basics.
Thanks for the replies i tried looking for DeFranco programs but the one on T-Nation is for football and his homepage is not opening any other suggestions for the program?
glad to hear you like track. i also enjoy it (hence my name) but a simple change i made this year when i ran was to simply raise my knees more. you may have heard it a million times but might not really listen to the advice. you want your thighs to be parallel to the ground. videotaping yourself running may help
[quote]apb407 wrote:
Thanks for the replies i tried looking for DeFranco programs but the one on T-Nation is for football and his homepage is not opening any other suggestions for the program?[/quote]
Defranco trains all types of athletes and his programs are pretty much universal for sports.
Keep compound when in the gym. When you squat keep your stance close, and do front squats as well as back, and do power cleans as well. Do dynamic effort ham curls to your arse and dynamic effort leg raises.
The rest is just learning good technique when you run, like keeping your pelvis level the whole time, keeping a right angle with your arms and powering with your shoulders instead of your biceps. Look straight ahead with where ever your body is facing and keep on your toes. Stay low for the first 6 steps to accelerate and then evenly straighten up over the next 6 steps.
If you have any choice, stick to runs below 100m, like 60m and 40m when you are training for speed.
Dont be afraid to do the 400m event if you are a sprinter, it is very benificial, and a gut-tearer of an event.
[quote]forevernade wrote:
Get yourself a pair of spikes (spiked shoes) and train with them on.[/quote]
While I’m not a sprint expert, most posts I’ve seen have recommended that you don’t use sprint spikes that often as they are hard on the feet. You’re better off doing most of your sprint training in a good pair of track flats or good running shoes.
Well without getting too complicated I would recommend Starting Strength, and it’s not just because there’s a new article about it today either.
Mostly it’s because you’re the typical perfect candidate for the program, and that includes the recommendation for GOMAD (a “gallon of milk a day”) which is in addition to what you normally eat. Given your present condition I wouldn’t worry about gaining very much fat especially if you’ll be training in track and field.
Forget 8-9 months, in just 52 days this guy gained 35 good pounds and took his squat from 185 for 5 reps to 330 for 3.
Starting Strength will accomplish the goals of increasing your lifts and muscular mass dramatically in a very short period of time which will improve your running times guaranteed.
Sometimes numerous bouts of sprinting can lead to strains, but hill sprints or stair sprints are an excellent way to avoid the pain caused by repetative impact and work great for enhancing force development.
Wow thanks for all the replys okay that Starting Strength thing looks pretty interesting but is this the program http://www.T-Nation.com/tmagnum/readTopic.do?
id=2348713&pageNo=0 because they dont talk about the whole gallon of milk thing and also i think my problem with that is that i wont be able to eat that much i would feel bad about myself…
i know it sounds retarded but i actually lost alot of weight before and i dont want to be fat again.
If you were sedentary then a gallon of milk a day would definitely make you fat no doubt about it, but training with weights and for track at the same time would make it a non issue. If the training is in place you can severely enhance or hamper you results by eating enough food.
It isn’t possible to get fat or musclebound overnight, if you find that you’re gaining unwanted fat only then would I suggest you consider lowering cals.
[quote]ernade wrote:
Get yourself a pair of spikes (spiked shoes) and train with them on.
While I’m not a sprint expert, most posts I’ve seen have recommended that you don’t use sprint spikes that often as they are hard on the feet. You’re better off doing most of your sprint training in a good pair of track flats or good running shoes.
[/quote]
Yeah, probably. When I was sprinting I always wore mine and it didnt help my back problems. I ran on grass barefeet now and then to soften the training for me lol. My track coach got me to train in my spikes.