Anatomy of a sprint workout to develop raw speed?

Sprint speed is purely genetic. Once you are in good general shape so that you aren't carrying around extra weight, there's really nothing you can do to improve. Just hope you picked the right parents.

The 7aji wrote:

How would you structure a sprint workout to develop raw speed. How long to warmup, what distance to sprint, how many reps? sets? How often each week to develop raw speed

If you understand what you are trying to accomplish, you can be pretty flexible in terms of workouts. To get faster, you need to put more force into the ground on each stride- in that way, you take longer strides, but at the same time you can also increase your stride frequency(or at least keep it the same) because you do not have to reach out in front of your body with your foot plant.

The distances and reps are not nearly as important as simply learning to drive harder against the ground with each stride. Running up hills is a decent way to learn to drive harder. Running at 90-100% intensity while keeping good posture helps a lot as well.

Just as a guideline, I find that 8 -12 reps of 50 - 100m sprints on the grass, barefoot, 1-2 times per week , all-out, with full recovery in between reps, gets my athletes (triple jumpers) faster pretty quickly.

I also meant to add that doing squats and bounding will help you generate more force against the ground.

genetic wrote:

Sprint speed is purely genetic. Once you are in good general shape so that you aren't carrying around extra weight, there's really nothing you can do to improve. Just hope you picked the right parents.

I'll go ahead and let Noah Lyles know he doesnt have to practice anymore

I lost you when you said "barefoot". It's not 2010. Sprint on the grass but in good shoes. Barefoot you run slower which kills the entire purpose of the workout to go as fast as you can. Anyway, speed, esp. "raw" speed is mostly genetic. You can improve a bit, but it's really significant change. OTOH, you can improve your endurance a lot.

Do your normal run or workout add it at the end. Assuming your a distance runner? The only time your sprinting is at the end of the race so sprinting when your tired with good mechanics is where its at. Plyos as well once a week.

Speed development for a distance runner can take the form of 4-8 flying 50m sprints or the same number of reps up a good (5-8% grade) hill, both done all-out with about 3-4 minutes of easy jogging done between them done 1-2 times per week during base phase, once every other week during pre-comp/early comp phase, and never during peaking/championship season.

Also, a good lifting routine (2-3 times week during pre-season down to once a week until a couple weeks before a peak race) and drills routine (nearly every day) will help a lot.

It looks different for sprinters, but for distance runners this is about right.

Agree with the 4-8 flying 50m sprints on the track and sometimes on a hill.

And each rep is all out.

Open up that stride.

I think having more top end speed helps increase your pace at every distance and make your pace feel easier and every pace level.

Good top end speed makes your 5 minute mile pace feel easier just as building endurance makes that pace feel easier.

**Let me stand on my soapbox for a minute here**

So Bolt was just in good general shape to run 9.58?

High school athletes are in the same good general shape as professionals? They're just genetically inferior? It couldn't be that they haven't spent the same years developing, perfecting technique, getting stronger and more explosive? I guess somehow it's all being in good general shape and not carrying around extra weight

By that token we'd be seeing soccer players being able to jump onto their countries Olympic team to take home some medals just for grins. Tell me they're not A) in good general shape and B) aren't carrying around extra weight. Because every pro soccer player makes more than a track athlete, surely they can do soccer for the money and win a 100m world title for country.

We need to stop saying "Sprint speed is purely genetic." it's a disservice to some of the best and most technical coaches out there. I wish I had the same eye our sprint coach has for how to get kids faster.

**I'll step down now**

To get back to the original post. There's a fairly long thread I was a part of that had some good dialogue about speed development. The question there was about 5x60m w/ full recovery

and was geared more toward distance events and how to apply pure speed sessions into training.

Since that time I came across Tony Holler, a damn good high school coach out of Illinois that was (is) a pretty big voice in how sprint training is changing especially from the old school camps of making kids bleed lactic acid to "condition" and probably the same dudes who think sprinting is just genetic.

Since you should never take a forum and treat it as gospel, here's one of Tony's articles that covers a lot of his bases:

It's somewhat long, but if you're going to put hours into your training (or make someone put hours into your training) you owe it to them to take your research a step further and go to the source. He is a better developer of sprinter than I am, I'm sure.

Thank you so much for this! What a great and thorough post! Much appreciated

Ya i'm not looking to be the next bolt but i have very very good endurance and an elite level VO2Max lab tested. I ran a 1:21 half not being able to run faster than a 78 second 400. I did pyramid workouts on the track from 400s to 1600 once a week extending farther as the weeks went by. I've recently hit a plateau and can't run faster than 76 and that's because i don't do strides or any other type of sprint work or anything shorter than a 400 in training. Now i'm looking to make that raw speed so that i can extend the distance i can run it and make my other paces feel more comfortable.

Thanks for that too! I have a couple of hills around where i'm staying now that i can use since tracks are closed now

Do you have any plyo type workout recommendations? And yes i'm an HM/Marathoner

I just went through the thread you attached i like your workout examples. Thanks again for that. Can i include these after my easy runs in place of strides?

In addition to the advice already given about structuring workouts, if you are serious about speed you need to take a hard look at your mechanics. Following with the good advice of “going to a source” I’d recommend Loren Landow - he’s got great stuff out there you can access for free. Gold if you take it seriously and put in some work once a week. Here is a start https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=u-6YEP9bygg

Another great source, thanks!

So with my athletes we do this once a week.

Burpees for 30sec into a 30m sprint

Jumping Jacks for 30sec into sprint

Jump squats for 30sec into sprint

Mountain climbers for 30sec into sprint

Double leg hops times 10 no more sprints

Single leg hops times 10

Bounds times 10

Few minutes rest after each line as well. In practice we got 2-3 kids at a time so the rest is built in waiting in line basically

The 7aji wrote:

How would you structure a sprint workout to develop raw speed. How long to warmup, what distance to sprint, how many reps? sets? How often each week to develop raw speed

Your age?

Did you participate in high school track & field? I doubt it. You stated a 76 400m personal best. You really do not want to train as a sprinter. It sounds like you want to do sprint workouts while you log, most likely 75 plus miles a week.

Your age matters. Sprinting is like ballet. Nearly all great ballerinas started at age 3 or 4. I assume you are past age twenty-five. The older one is, the more developing sprinting coordination is difficult, especially if you insist on training as a long distance runner. I assume you did not participate in explosive moment sports growing up. Sprinting is mostly physical strength as strength relates to body weight and neuromuscular coordination.

citius5000 wrote:

Do your normal run or workout add it at the end. Assuming your a distance runner? The only time your sprinting is at the end of the race so sprinting when your tired with good mechanics is where its at. Plyos as well once a week.

No one "sprints" at the end of a race. Unless maybe he has been jogging the entire race. The rule of thumb is, good runners can close a race at the speed of the distance two levels below them, if the race is raced all-out.

A miler can close in 400m speed

A 3k guy can close in 800m speed

A 5k guy can close in mile speed

So for a miler it would be more useful and important to work on 400m speed and mechanics, rather than doing many all-out sprints. Whether his time for a 40 dash is 5.0 or 5.1 won't translate much, but how smoothly he can run at 400m speed at the end of a hard race matters a lot.

There is a significant amount of injury risk with sprints if weak, skinny distance runners try them and do them with wrong form. Without a coach, there should be absolutely no flat sprints except on hills (unless a coach has already verified and helped with sprint form). Also, most people don't race bad because of their kick/last 400m, but because their average pace isn't high. There is no reason in training to kick like a Farah when you only run in 17 min a 5k. Get it down to 14 min first with aerobic training, and then think about optimizing the last 1% with the kick and sprints.