Can I eventually go sub 60? If so, how?

Just for reference.. When I so pure speed sessions I aim top hit a top speed of 15.5mph for each sprint. My fastest speed ever reached was 16.2mph.

You are a female in your late twenties. You would, IMO have to improve your 200m personal best by four seconds. If you have never trained as a sprinter, difficult by possible. Your only opportunity would be to train as a 400m athlete. Road mileage would be in addition to your sprint training.

Thank you for the reply!

I have only just turned 25 years old, I’m not sure how long that leaves me to build more speed but I think that with all the stars in line that I might just be able to knock 4 seconds from my 200m with a LOT of training, it took me 8 months to get from 35 to 32 seconds but my 100m has always been 14-15 sec at baseline so that was more of an endurance/being out of shape issue than a speed issue.

Ok so my 60m dash time correlates to just under 28 second 200m speed so all I have to do is train my body to be able to hold that speed enough for a 200m. I think I might incorporate some all out 80m to 120m into training to practice at those speeds.

I am fairly light with a BMI under 19 so I probably don’t have an ideal sprinter build, if I gained 6lbs of muscle - how much do you think that would help my situation?

- Cass

Being strong head to toe helps. There is no guarantee that adding weight makes one a faster sprinter. We see still photos of sprinters. Sprinters are maxing out their muscles. Sprinters look bigger than what they actually are. Eg. Noah Lyles is app. 5'11" 155 lbs. Craig Engles is app. 6'0" 145lbs. Based on American College of Sports Medicine, my observations and my experiences, sprinters & jumpers get injured far more than distance runners. Doing everything to get faster does increase the likelihood of injury. Weight training with heavy weights is one of the reasons sprinters get injured more often than distance runners. Eg. I tore my left leg hamstring years ago doing leg curls. Try doing deep knee bends, core work, push-ups, declining push-ups, pull-ups, etc. before you try to build muscle mass using weights. Some physiologists disagree on stretching. I think it helps range of motion. Full disclosure: I raced 200m on occasion. I raced 200m & 400m relay legs. I always trained as a middle distance runner. I never full-time trained as a sprinter.

Wantfastnotmediocre wrote:

I am fairly light with a BMI under 19 so I probably don’t have an ideal sprinter build, if I gained 6lbs of muscle - how much do you think that would help my situation?

- Cass

Gaining weight in itself is not enough, you must gain muscles, especially fast-twitch and middledistance muscles in your quads.

A start is all kind of plyometrics, explosive and also more of the jumpingrope kind. Do short and longer hills for building explosive strength and sprintendurance. Add weightlifting or other kind of strengthexcercises.

Listen to your body when adding new stuff, you can become very sore and risk injury, but as long as you are sensible you will be fine.

You must eat enough protein, supply if you want with wheypowder and also creatine.

Good luck.

Your pure speed session is good, as are the mile reps. Try keeping the same %s of fast vs easy work, but alternating 200m hill reps at 90% effort every third speed session. Keep longer rests to maintain quality, it should not be a lactic session. You need to learn to sprint relaxed.

You could also work in more drills and plyometrics to build explosive power. Phase these in slowly because they're more demanding then you might think. I'm a big fan of bounding and jumping lunges. These can be done at the end of an easy day.