Athletic Fitness - Sprints Edition

A simple guide to re-introduce sprinting into your training program.

Apr 27, 2023

Sprinting is a key component of reclaiming athleticism.

It is the highest output activity you can do. It is best to take a strategic approach to rebuilding your capacity to move at a high speed, especially if you haven’t run or run fast since high school.

The Charlie Francis short-to-long method is widely used in athletic populations. For your purposes, it is easy to apply and understand (great book for only $10, here’s the link).

Start with short distances and lower intensities.

Progressively increase intensity and distance over time to develop capacity, speed and power.

It’s that easy.

Below you will find a 2 session per week, 6 week block to re-introduce sprinting into your training.

Make sure you do a dynamic warm up and a locomotion based warm up before sprinting.

If you haven’t sprinted in some time, consider starting with some of the conditioning methods discussed here.

Progression

Full recovery between reps. This is a minimum of 1-3 minutes. Longer and hard the sprint, the more rest you need.

This is not conditioning work. The progression is meant to gradually build you into Sprinting at high intensities. Which requires full effort and complete rest.

If the % of intensity doesn’t mean much to you, think about it on 0 (walking) to 10 (working as hard as possible) scale.

Week 1:

Day 1: 3 x 10 yards, 70%
Day 2: 3 x 20 yards, 60%

Week 2:

Day 1: 3 x 20 yards, 80%
Day 2: 3 x 30 yards, 70%

Week 3:

Day 1: 3 x 30 yards, 85%
Day 2: 3 x 40 yards, 75%

Week 4:

Day 1: 3 x 30 yards, 90%
Day 2: 2 x 50 yards, 80%

Week 5:

Day 1: 3 x 30 yards, 95%
Day 2: 3 x 50 yards, 85%

Week 6:

Day 1: 3 x 20 yards, 100%
Day 2: 2 x 40 yards, 95%

When to sprint

- At the beginning of your training, after a complete warm up

- On other high output days, lower body is usually best

- I like to keep the volume low and the intensity high. You are building the ability to sprint, and for the training benefits associated with sprinting. Not training for a race.