I am a 23 years old man. I have some distance training (alone) and can run a 21 minutes 5k.
I want to learn sprinting. I have never done any sprint training but I am concerned by my lack of talent.
I am afraid that any random young man who is not obese can run sub 70 seconds out of the couch. I only did 73 seconds and it is far from my first easy goal of 65 seconds
How to train for sprinting? I would like to join a club but not before I reach a minimum.
Have you tried contacting David45?
150/200 repeats are your friend.
haha. thread #2 from David's older brother!
I am going to go along with this anyway.
Are you looking to just be good at the 400, or do you want to improve your 400 as a piece of a middle distance/distance program?
I want to run fast.
my goals are sub 70s, then sub 65s and then sub 60s
I have no current distance goal but maybe I can run easily under 20 if I improve my speed.
Hills!
<50 meters all out walk down recovery
Start with four work up to 12-16
Hilly distance runs where you push both the up hills and the down hills.
Flying 100's (25 to get to top speed)
Start with four work up to 12-16
500's come thru the 400@80 and sprint last 100 at less than 20 (hopefully at 16 ish)
150's - 200's - 250's equal distance recovery
Cut down 300's each 100 faster
steve red wrote:
Hills!
<50 meters all out walk down recovery
Start with four work up to 12-16
Hilly distance runs where you push both the up hills and the down hills.
Flying 100's (25 to get to top speed)
Start with four work up to 12-16
500's come thru the 400@80 and sprint last 100 at less than 20 (hopefully at 16 ish)
150's - 200's - 250's equal distance recovery
Cut down 300's each 100 faster
Thanks you for the answer.
And how do you make your stride? longer stride or shorter with more cadence ?
For my 73s I was at 198, if I do 210 I can only last 100m at full speed. I try to swing my arm to help. Do I need to do more push up and do bench press to muscle the arm and upper body?
Combination of max speed work - ie 20m flys off about 4-5 minutes. Some 400 specific work - maybe 3x300 off 15 minutes rest - as you get faster you’ll likely need more.
I’m assuming you aren’t going to want to ditch your distance running so getting these in once a week around your other stuff should be manageable.
Don’t worry about plyos or weights, unless that was something you were going to do anyway. You’re at a stage where your going to get newbie progress - save that energy for actually running fast.
Jean23 wrote:
steve red wrote:
Hills!
<50 meters all out walk down recovery
Start with four work up to 12-16
Hilly distance runs where you push both the up hills and the down hills.
Flying 100's (25 to get to top speed)
Start with four work up to 12-16
500's come thru the 400@80 and sprint last 100 at less than 20 (hopefully at 16 ish)
150's - 200's - 250's equal distance recovery
Cut down 300's each 100 faster
Thanks you for the answer.
And how do you make your stride? longer stride or shorter with more cadence ?
For my 73s I was at 198, if I do 210 I can only last 100m at full speed. I try to swing my arm to help. Do I need to do more push up and do bench press to muscle the arm and upper body?
I told you already, talk to David45, he's the most informed runner here.
He know's it all
The idea of running fast on gradual downhill will help your cadence when you're on the flat running fast uphill will help your power when you're running fast on the flat
Hill reps. Start with 6x8 seconds. Put a mark at your finish point. Walk back slowly. Wait at least 90 seconds before the next rep. Once you can no longer hit the mark, the workout is done. Build up to 8 reps.
Flying 40s. Carry a stopwatch. Work on improving your fastest rep as the weeks go by. Take up to 5 minutes between reps. Once you slow down... say a half second... the workout is done.
During your normal runs after a warm up of at least 10 minutes, do the following drill. Slow down. Dramatically increase your cadence by keeping your arm swing compact and moving your arms as fast as you can. Do this for 20 seconds. It will be VERY tiring. Jog/walk a couple of minutes to recover and repeat. You can download a metronome app to measure your cadence. I'd suggest that you try to start with a beep every other foot strike at 120 beeps/minute. That's a cadence of 240. It's unlikely that you can even reach that turnover, but try it. Then, try 115, 110, or 105. A 105 beep every other footstrike is a 210 cadence. You should be able to do that, but holding it for 20 seconds might be hard. Wherever you start, do 4 reps of 20 seconds with a couple of minutes rest in between. Once you can do 4 reps, increase to 6. Once you can do 6 reps, increase the time to 30 seconds and try to increase the cadence another 10 BPM.
Eventually, you will hit an upper limit of cadence that you just cannot hold for more than a few seconds. For me, it's 260 so I do the cadence drill a little slower... at 240. Remember, it's a drill. It's not running. It's not distance or pace. Distance and pace are irrelevant. It's just shuffling along with as fast a cadence as you can muster.
The drill trains your CNS to fire faster. The hills give you range of motion. The flying 40s combine both with push off. Eventually, you'll put it all together when you race the 400.
Of course, these are only drills. They aren't 400m workouts. That's another subject.
jean23 + david45 = dean34
73secs? I suggest you try a scooter.
Jean23 wrote:
steve red wrote:
Hills!
<50 meters all out walk down recovery
Start with four work up to 12-16
Hilly distance runs where you push both the up hills and the down hills.
Flying 100's (25 to get to top speed)
Start with four work up to 12-16
500's come thru the 400@80 and sprint last 100 at less than 20 (hopefully at 16 ish)
150's - 200's - 250's equal distance recovery
Cut down 300's each 100 faster
Thanks you for the answer.
And how do you make your stride? longer stride or shorter with more cadence ?
For my 73s I was at 198, if I do 210 I can only last 100m at full speed. I try to swing my arm to help. Do I need to do more push up and do bench press to muscle the arm and upper body?
Hey Jean23,
I am sure you are a sub-50 400 metre guy laughing like crazy at the sprint advice. Sprint advice for a young lad to break 70 seconds, 400m. You're a funny guy!
Its always difficult asking for sprint advice on Letsrun as not many are actually sprinters?
There are a few, so always just do a search, especially for 400m there are some good athletes and coaches who are around from time to time