Plyometrics are one of those elements of training that’s crucial for sprinters and jumpers. What the ultimate goal of plyos are is to decrease the amount of time that it takes for the muscle to lengthen and then shorten, but also increase the amount of elastic energy that we can store and release during that period of time. That’s what the goal of plyos are. Sprinting, in and of itself, is a plyometric activity.
Tony Holler is a track and field coach and a football and basketball physical trainer. He works at Plainfield North High School. He is also a member of the Illinois Track & Field Hall of Fame and co-director of the Track Football Consortium with Chris Korfist. But above all, Tony Holler is known for being the author of the “Feed the Cats” training methodology. In this post you´ll learn the importance of training max velocity or top speed in football practice to achieve better performance during the game.
Learn cool down drills that will improve sprinting technique, speed up recovery and help prevent injuries. A good post workout routine that includes specific cool down drills is a critical component of sprint training. Unfortunately, it’s also one of the most overlooked areas when it comes to speed training and most track and field events in general.
In this post I highlight based on the opinion of Olympic coach Karim Abdel Wahab, some of the key differences and similarities between the 100m and 400m when it comes to sprinting technique. Studies have shown that the 400m runners whose technique is closest to 100m runners are the fastest. Topics covered include knee drive, turnover, ground contact time as well as where the foot lands in relationship to the bodies center of mass during sprinting.
Do you have the right body to be fast? The hard truth is your parents set your speed potential. We know that’s not some hot take. Everyone points it out all the time. But what are the specific physical traits that are supposed to make you fast? Scientists have measured it all: leg length, muscle fibers, bone structure,  and even the so-called speed gene. So, let’s find out if you have what it takes to be fast.
Dunking a basketball is one of the most captivating things you can do as an athlete, especially if you’re under 6 feet tall. Anyone who’s ever played basketball has likely fantasized at least once about what it would be like to dunk during a game. The only problem is less than 1% of people in the world can probably dunk. In this post we’re gonna dive into the science to understand if sprinting can help you dunk.
We can look at muscle fibers as being on a spectrum with slow twitch on one side and fast twitch on the other side.
Type 1, which are slow twitch, uses oxygen to create energy. The upside is they can work for a longer period of time before fatiguing. The downside is they contract the slowest. When a muscle contracts, these are the first fibers to be recruited. Then, as intensity increases, the fast twitch fibers are then recruited as well.
Type 2A, which are fast twitch, uses both stored energy and new energy created with oxygen just like type 1. The difference is, since they use stored energy, they can contract faster than type 1. They can work for a short period of time before fatiguing.
Type 2X, which are the fastest muscle fibers in humans, uses stored energy only. This allows it to contract the fastest, but it also means it fatigues the fastest. The thing is these fibers are rarely present in the average human. In a study with sprinters they found only 1 out of 1.000 muscle fibers they examined were pure type 2X.
Six pack abs is one of those things in life that nearly everyone wants at least for one point in their life. But very few obtained. Yet Olympic sprinters don’t seem to have that problem. Nearly every single one of them has insane abs. There’s a few obvious reasons why. However, there’s also some less obvious reasons which might surprise you.
Have you noticed that Olympic sprinters have insane shoulders? I mean not only are they large in size, but they are also even developed, have impressive flexibility and almost never get injured. According to a study, 36 of all resistance training related injuries occur at the shoulder. They identified the biggest risk factors as a muscle strength imbalances, front shoulder instability and loss of mobility, which is the complete opposite of what nearly every Olympic sprinter has. In this video we’re going to try to figure out why do Olympic sprinters have insane shoulders.
Today we’re going to be covering the top 7 benefits of sprinting based on science.
BENEFIT #1 – MUSCLE GROWTH
Sprinting is a type of anaerobic exercise. Anaerobic means it does not require oxygen. This is true for sprinting, jumping and heavy weightlifting. All of which build strength and muscle mass.