Like I said, he’s talented to the gills!
Yes masters sprinting is fraught with injury. As a matter of fact, it is the explosiveness of high force that goes first—the first 20-30m. The rest you can still tick over nicely, but high force with ROM is a killer.
I do everything right—not by intention, just because that’s how I live—and cosmic rays are still ionizing me. Although in amazing shape, I’m not setting any masters WR’s in my age group. I used to be able to dunk, now I struggle to touch the rim.
I have survived well due to cross-training with other sports, and staying away from block work and hard accelerations. I have recently increased the weights again, and have begun folding in some explosiveness. I can pretty much guarantee that I will now go from 12s to an injured 13s, if I am lucky.
But I feel like I have to try. Pretty sure my achilles will go first, we’ll see.
I will say this about drugs: if I was using, I would be in contention for some WR’s.
An issue with former sprinting elites is that they remember, and replicate, their earlier motion—and get injured very quickly because an older body just can’t repair itself fast enough. Young sprinters will destroy themselves one day on the track or in the weight room, and then go do it all again the next day—forever! Trying this when old, you won’t last a work week.
Maxxing stuff out as when sprinting is a “feel” more than anything else. It’s a mental zone. In my experience you just cannot go to that zone when older. Sometimes I see it, but I know that extra level is not there—the level where the outside world disappears, and all you can see is red.
I am using weights to try to touch that level again, in a controlled way. We’ll see if I can translate that zone to the track later in the year.