Sprint Training for 100-200

Tom Lester, Raytown South High School

An active warm up for a short sprinter will consist of a 40-45 minute routine to get them prepared for training on a hard day or prior to a race on competition day.

The active warm up consists of active work, not static or stagnant movements in this order:

• individual stretching (10 minutes)
• jogging and dynamic flexibility (10-15 minutes)
• sprint drills (10 minutes)
• acceleration drills 15-20 meters (5 minutes)
• 100-meter build-ups x2 (2-3 minutes)
• partner stretching (3-5 minutes)
• 3x 50 meter build-ups @ 90-95% (3-4 minutes)

Either on a sand or soft surface area, the sprinters should do more plyometric circuits work versus a lot of powercleans and squats because:

• it has physiological advantages over the challenges of stress on the lower back
• helps build ball and socket joints
• facilities control of balance on both sides of the body
• and, can increase short explosive sprint ability with eaach set of sand circuits

And, during the season, weightlifting should range in frequency during the microcycle at 2-3 times per week. The sprinters should lift at the beginning of practice to stay fresh and the major lifting that should occur would be bench, incline, arm swings. Any thing that will help with upper body explosiveness would serve as enhancing their track performance.

In this notes, Coach Lester points out training odd distances over traditional interval training. He emphasized the 150 meter, 250 meter, and 350 meter distances for specific reasons. One, I believe is that the last 50 meters can be isolated and made the opportunity for the sprinter to really determine how well they can finish the last part of their race, by staying calm and driving through the finish line. Also, the 150 meters can help to build threshold strength where the sprinters can maintain 100% effort without much deceleration. The 250 meter distance allows the sprinter to maintain 90% effort, and lastly, not least, the 350 meter distance poses the great mental and physical challenge for the "long" sprinter who must understand that the spirit of sprinting is "heart and desire" to drive through the remaining 50 meters without timidity or hesistation.

He has provided specific thoughts for the high school athlete and coach, but certainly this can be generally applied to the collegiate coach and athlete who will be segwaying from high school to college, depending on the program and the year of the athlete entering a track and field program, as well as their athletic ability.