100 meter dash training. went from 16 seconds to around 12..Want to get better. Need Help.

THANKS FOR EVERYTHING! I realized that the reason im asking so many questions is that I not believeing in myself enough. I just started sprinting and and Im doing so well. I am going to incorporate your advice adn go at it for the next 5 months (until the end of august). I think its crazy if Im not able to get in the 10s within a year.

Im from Georgia. I will make it. Ill reach my goal and will join my college team. Ill be back on here and I will post a link to my times (tfrr). Ill show that its possible.

After warming up, knock out some 300's at 3/4 speed. Three. Then after some rest, get back to whatever ya were doing. After a month of that start hitting 4 300's.

Where is a 100m race won, yep, those final 10m. What is a 100m to a guy used to running 300's? What is a 100m to a guy used to only 60's? See the difference?

That ability to maintain a large % of your max velocity is the 100m. You need to built that endurance first.

As you know nobody is speeding up after around 65-70m, so now what happens, yep, declleration. Now who will decellarate at the slower rate, yep, the guy with the inferior endurance. Being able to hold on longer to max velocity is sprinting (after a 60 of course).

In only training MWF, im going to those longer distance but maybe 150's (low intensity ~70%) on tuesday and thursday. that way I dont mess with my intense days, and I wont burn my CNS, and I looked a charlie francis, he does it too for recovery for Ben.

Ebanizar Edmonds wrote:

After warming up, knock out some 300's at 3/4 speed. Three. Then after some rest, get back to whatever ya were doing. After a month of that start hitting 4 300's.

Where is a 100m race won, yep, those final 10m. What is a 100m to a guy used to running 300's? What is a 100m to a guy used to only 60's? See the difference?

That ability to maintain a large % of your max velocity is the 100m. You need to built that endurance first.

As you know nobody is speeding up after around 65-70m, so now what happens, yep, declleration. Now who will decellarate at the slower rate, yep, the guy with the inferior endurance. Being able to hold on longer to max velocity is sprinting (after a 60 of course).

Not only is this completely wrong, but you can't spell, you're grammar is atrocious, AND you can't even make the argument you were attempting.

"Now who will decellarate at the slower rate, yep, the guy with the inferior endurance."

Jeebus!

Agreed. The guy doesn't know what he is talking about. You can build up your speed endurance by gradually getting stronger over the 100m distance in training. All those 300s will kill your fast twitch response. If you want to run 200/400 then yeah do those 300s but not if you want to stick to short sprinting.

haha, thanks im basing my traing off intensity, it workes for me so far. I will put some endurance in for fitness sake, nothing that will hurst my training. thanks!

John Luppo wrote:

When I first started, I was doing 4x100 (95-100%), everyday. with 5 minutes rest between each run. I quickly burned out. I found out that it is really taxing on the nervous system. So I started doing 5x100 but every two days. And I say 5 minutes rest but I usually take like 6-7. but okay, ill start taking around 10.

This would be an overload of lactic acid.

You are best to train as much as possible without spikes, but you will run faster with spikes.

I'm an old ex-800m man, with shot hamstrings. While browsing through youtube about 6 months ago I saw a video called "bullet proof your hamstrings" on AthlenX, the guy uses a gym ball to do nordic drops. Really good and if you are going to be sprinting in spikes, then at some point your hamstrings are going to pop. This is a preemptive way to protect them.

Steps for leg strength,

Strides up hills.

Hopping hurdles.

Concentrate on high speed relaxed form, record your form on a tablet to look for areas to improve.

Your gains will be slower from here on but you certainly can get better, focus for the long haul. Good luck.

I always train in flats, on my off days I do stretches and work on mobility. I think my volume is low, so it makes up for the fatigue and "burnout"

Tell that to my coach who took this 10.45 sprinter down to 10.22. The trick, over distance training.

In HS I never ran anything further than a 200m. Once I started training with 300m sprints, things started to change dramatically. And if ya understood any of this you'd know that endurance is sprinting.

How was my spelling, hahaha!!!!

You need to hit the weights. That and plyometrics.

You have said a few times now you want to lose fat, well gain muscle and as a general rule of thumb you will do, presuming you're keeping your activity level the same and eating well.

You've progressed well and it looks like ypu have good potential, you'll need to step things up and change things up, you may find it increasingly difficult to improve with your current regime, law of dimishing returns and whatnot.

Olympic lifting and strength work, plyometrics, work on the different phases of sprinting and get yourself some spikes and train out of blocks 😊

Given your age and the amount of body fat yu say you have to lose, muscle you have to gain and your inexperience, I'd say you could wind up running some good times

Hey Brutal, I see you are preaching your usual over distance for 100, ancient stuff, haha.

To op, you need to get some knowledge first so we can help with more specific questions, I d recommend getting books on periodization about strength and power stuff (Bompa for example and such) and get some track and bio mechanics books, Charlie has good stuff dat also covers a bit of everything and its a good place to start,usually cheap too.

Learn about the many approaches to track season periodization (short to long vs long to short vs mixed etc...)

I personally think an modified short to long approach is better, similar to what some Jamaican camps do.

And yes there is a place for over distance work but limit it to early phase of early general preparation phases and transition to the really important (faster and shorter) stuff asap.

You're stating 12-something for 100m. For a reference point of tracking your improvement from here, let's state you are roughly a 12.75 FAT 100m sprinter. We can state much of your improvement was due to loss of fat. 6'1" 181 lbs. is normal 100m size. If you lose weight going forward, lose weight slowly! You do not want to lose any muscle. I am not stating one must power lift to race 100m sub-11; one has to be stronger than you. Free squatting x 3+ body weight is what you see for elite 100m sprinters. Yes, that means at 175lbs. free weight squatting 525+ pounds. Sprinting 100m fast is physical strength and neuromuscular coordination.

EVERY school in the world has at least one 14 year old running a 12 second 100 m on grass in tennis shoes and far less than 1% of those kids runs 10 seconds in his life.

Not impossible and not for you not trying.

If he is hand timing himself, he may not be as fast as he thinks he is which is why I estimate 12.75 FAT 100m. That stated, if he shows up September, 2017 as a D3 athlete, if he's in sub-11.50 FAT 100m condition, they most likely will love to have him on the team.

John Luppo wrote:

THANKS!!, I'll look into Charlie Francis, isn he Ben Johnsons coach? I do have a good amount of fat to lose. I don't look fat, but I have no visible abs, however, you can tell I try to keep in shape. Heres my plan, for the next six months:

1. keep with the sprints,

2. lose body fat, about 20 pounds

3. increase strength,

I run around 11.8-12.1 without blocks, no spikes, and no competition. I six months, by doing the above, I want to be able to run the 100 in the 11-11.3 range. That is without blocks and spikes. Then I want to walk on my college team(division three). Im hoping block training, spikes, and competition should make me run around the high to mid 10 range.AGAIN, EVEN T SOUNDS IMPOSSIBLE, IM GOING TO TRY, AT LEAST ILL KNOW

I've been reading this thread and I have to say it's one of the more intriguing threads as of late on letsrun. Definitely a breath of fresh air seeing some sprint training discussed on here. I think right now your basic plan is pretty good, just follow through with it and adjust as needed. Train consistently, lose body fat and body weight but remember you still need a fine balance of fuel/nutrients and calories to maintain your training intensity and quality. I remember my coach used to always say "Better to undertrain than to overtrain". As for your goals... you will never know, and nobody can really tell if they are realistic. You just have to go out there and train and see how far you can go. But to be honest, I think high 10s as in 10.9 range is definitely possible, but I'm not sure about mid 10s. If you look at statistics, 10.5 would be top hs sprint times all over the nation, and win the California, Texas, and Florida state meets most of the year. The kids who win the state meets definitely have been running track for a few years and likely very talented as well. Take it one step at a time. See if you can get a friend or even someone with a electronic timer like freelap or something to get a more accurate timing of your sprints.

CambridgeFratBoy wrote:

... See if you can get a friend or even someone with a electronic timer like freelap or something to get a more accurate timing of your sprints.

Forget that. There is an awesome iOS app that cost only a few bucks that is basically a FAT system:

Ebanizar Edmonds wrote:

Tell that to my coach who took this 10.45 sprinter down to 10.22. The trick, over distance training.

In HS I never ran anything further than a 200m. Once I started training with 300m sprints, things started to change dramatically. And if ya understood any of this you'd know that endurance is sprinting.

How was my spelling, hahaha!!!!

Really? You improved by .23 seconds after high school? Wow! You are the only person to ever do that. It MUST have been the over distance training. I stand corrected!

This is what I do. I have a cell phone. I put a timer on. I put in 12 seconds, when 12 seconds are over, the phone vibrates. So I get to the start, press start, then just go. Now notice there I wait for a brief moment (roughly .2-.5 seconds) after i press start, and before I start running. I just run until the phone vibrates. However, I always pass 100 meters before the phone vibrates. So I know for sure I run under 12 seconds, with a questionable reaction time, no competition, no blocks and spikes. Im so confused ( and happy). The ripped fast guys in my high schools would run 11.5s in competion. I could get close to that without competition.....