Why do the MAJORITY of sprinters get slower in college?

Possible answers:

1. grind of tougher classes hurts training

2. HS coach was actually better than college coaches

3. freshman 15

4. the sport is becoming less fun and more of a job for them

5. they're partying too much

6. In HS there were races each week, while less in college -> makes them less sharp

Any and all could come into play. They all did at varying levels during my college career for me.

As a high school senior who's being recruited by colleges as a decathlete, I feel like the slowing of my sprinting and hurdling is inevitable. As a junior I ran in the 10.8 range and I would like to preserve this and hopefully lower it in college. How can I make sure this is possible?

And how would the academics effect it? By harming the sleeping habits and placing stress on the athlete?

My current diet is atrocious, so it wouldn't surprise me if I wind up benefiting from eating differently (while making healthier choices) in college.

You are not talking about major programs. If you look at the major sprint programs....

Texas A&M

LSU

Florida

Baylor

USC

Oregon

...their sprinters get faster.

UCLA has frankly not been a major program since Smith and Kersee left, and I believe in Charles Jock's last 2 years at UC Irvine, he outscored the entire UCLA men's team. So one thing is that the coaching is better at the better teams. And some times at programs that are not as good--just like in distance--there is a one-size-fits-all training approach that doesn't work.

But some times, kids in California particularly work their asses off to get a scholarship, and once they get there, they don't care as much.

When Cheryl Smith-Gilbert came to USC, John Henry Johnson, who had been the sprint coach at USC, moved to UCLA. If coaching is an issue, you should see an improvement in UCLA sprinting in the next two seasons.

College sprint coaches are lowest pond scum in the physical culture. You'd get faster if you did nothing but show up to race once a week than you would under the tutelage of the likes of someone like coach d.

as far as how the academics affected me - in HS I gave little effort to my school work, never studied and just passed with minimum scores. Most of my mental intensity was focused on track. In college I decided I wanted to maximize my GPA and became obsessive about it. That combined with the fact that the classes were harder ended up with me actually focusing much more of my concentration on it, studying for every quiz and test, doing homework every night, etc. Kind of the reverse of how I was in HS -I shifted to doing the minimum in my track workouts (yeah, I still showed up and did the workouts but not with the fire I had in HS) and it made a difference in my race times. Of course, not everyone is this way. More likely to impact those runners who take on tough majors like engineering or math/science where late night studying is necessary and not just during finals week.

They focus more on football.

Cross country for the win

Drills and "proper" sprint training slow people down.

1. As someone mentioned: way more meets in high school. For sprinters, the meets themselves are a critical part of training.

2. Along with that: for most, the high school season goes 4-6 weeks later into the spring/summer than the college season does. Better weather, more races...

3. Many college sprint coaches do not seem to understand that, for most sprinters, base training should focus above all on the development of top speed. Why? Because, for virtually any sprinter, what is "basic" for that athlete is running at high speed for brief periods--duh, that's what a sprinter is!

Charlie Francis had a clue on this--it's sad that so many college coaches don't. Overdistance should *not* be a major part of most sprinters' base training--it drains their adaptation reserves, early in the training cycle. Instead they should be doing a mix of activities (running and other), like the all-round fast-twitch athletes they generally are. One of those activities should be gradual development/improvement of top speed. For in-shape athletes, this should include overspeed: things like flying sprints with the wind at your back, towing, and sprinting down very, very slight inclines.

Good high school sprinters typically do football in the fall, and often basketball in the winter. Those are activities much more likely to get them ready for springtime sprinting, compared to the so-called "correct" training that has a sprinter doing cross-country in the fall and continued overdistance in the winter. Those things just slow a sprinter down.

And, yeah, the drinking, late nights, and sleep deprivation in college don't help.

1. Women. Guys get to college and meet girls of all sizes and races and lose their minds.

2. Their genetic makeup doesn't fit the coaches program.

3. They grew up hungry and go nuts with an all you can eat cafeteria card.

4. Their coach sucks. Lots of good coaches get distracted. Example: Bobby Petrino.

5. They were on peds and scared of college drug tests. Example: Tony Mandarich

What is your sample size?

I do not believe that the original premise is accurate in a majority of cases. Not nearly.

Check out pretty much any D1 program and you will find that at least half their sprinters haven't PRd since high school and if they have, it's typically been minimal and over the course of years.

Sadly it is true in the majority of cases. Maybe not true among sprinters at the better programs, but among all college sprinters it probably is true.

The reason for this is that sprinters do a poor job of taking care of their bodies. They don't eat right. They don't get enough rest. In high school, their parents provided a better environment for performance. In college, they need to be more independent to create that same environment.

isn't the answer that they get slower b/c they are playing football in the fall?

Statistician wrote:

What is your sample size?

His sample size is approximately 3.

I like all the bullshit answers to a wrong premise though. A MAJORITY of college sprinters run faster in college than they did in high school.

Well, they aren't.

A few people slowing down, does not mean that it is an epidemic.

I think you need to look beyond 3 people.

Working time wrote:

Statistician wrote:

What is your sample size?

His sample size is approximately 3.

I like all the bullshit answers to a wrong premise though. A MAJORITY of college sprinters run faster in college than they did in high school.

For the record:

There were 41 people in NCAA D1 that ran 10.30 or faster last season.

The were 4 people in high school that ran that fast wind-legal.

There were 151 people in D1 that ran 10.50 or faster.

I think it's likely that those people ran faster in college than they did in high school, and so many of them that very few have any chance of a pro contract.

And a bunch of people above like Lease running their "mouths" off have no idea what they're talking about.

I would still say that aside from the top 50 or so NCAA sprinters, the hundreds of other sprinters times decline in college. Look at pretty much any roster outside the SEC and most will be running slower. Do I have to cite every team to prove this to you?