Im 17 and a Senior in highschool. I absolutely LOVE running sprints! My question is too many sprints bad? I do them three days a week with my lower body days. What if I wanted to do like 20 60 yd sprints or something. Would that be bad? Also Does sprinting really induce growth hormones?
[quote]baseballplaya92 wrote:
Im 17 and a Senior in highschool. I absolutely LOVE running sprints! My question is too many sprints bad? I do them three days a week with my lower body days. What if I wanted to do like 20 60 yd sprints or something. Would that be bad? Also Does sprinting really induce growth hormones?[/quote]
You should only sprint (or do other forms of speed training) when you’re completely fit, totally rested, that is. Otherwise, you just might end up setting up speed barriers by impairing your nervous system. Lookup “nervous innervation patterns” on that one.
If you manage to do those three days in your best form, then go ahead, do it. It goes without saying you shouldn’t stress your muscles beforehand. So, like, no squatting (or anything else) before your sprints. First, you work your speed. Afterwards, hit the weights. It only works that way, not the other way round.
Also, listen to your body. It’ll tell you if you can outperform yourself on a given day, or you can’t. If you can’t, don’t sprint.
Did I say “only sprint when rested”? Yeah, guess so. Well, that’s worth saying again, because it’s just that important. Only maximum stimuli will make you faster. You get the idea…
Thanks a lot, what about growth hormones?
depends what sport you are playing. Walter payton uster do 20 odd sprints up a 95 yard hill. I have heard stories of guys doing 900 odd box jumps in one practice. There are lots of texts/books that say it will fatique you etc, but look at the greatest athletes, they don’t do the ordinary, they do the extraordinary!
[quote]baseballplaya92 wrote:
Thanks a lot, what about growth hormones?[/quote]
from my understanding anaerobic stress releases anabolic hormones. sprinting is an anaerobic activity.
Number of sprints depends a lot on how fast you’re doing them. 20x60m is not possible to do at a level of intensity or quality that will be effective for anything but endurance and lactic acid tolerance (valuable but won’t necessarily make you faster). High speed sprints (not counting warm-ups, drills and buildups) should not exceed 400m per session. Slower and longer sprints (100-400m intervals) should stay under 2000m in a session.
Most sprinters lift and sprint on the same dsys, and do slower runs (tempo) and core/general strength work on their low intensity days…
Time your runs and when time begins dropping off - don’t do more than 1-2 more – and even then - focus on technique vs. effort.