Hi gents. I am 19yrs old 170lbs 6’1. My dilemma is I am trying to run faster but have no idea start. I have read articles on sprinting and plyometrics but I don’t know how to put a program together. Any suggestions are appreciated. Thanks
Check the conditioning forum, there’s like 3 threads dealing with your exact question.
IF you want more specific information, try asking a more specific question and I’ll gladly help you out as far as I can.
Getting faster boils down to a few things
Hip extension strength and power
Good Feet or ankle stiffness
Strong torso/core to prevent energy from leaking out through the spine
Running
So if you wanted to design a simple workout to help you you could do something fairly straight forward and pick one exercise targeting each of the area listed and go from there.
Hip extension - RDL
Hip Power - Kettlebell Swings or straight leg sprints
Torso stability - Planks
Sprints
Throw in a dynamic warm up and a good stretch dpwn and there you go. You could do something like above 2-3 times a week.
Hope this helps
Alex
Alex,
Following your scheme you have given nothing for acquiring/improving “good feet or ankle stiffness”
I am not sure what you mean by “good feet” but do you say that these two qualities are not trainable?
Oops,
Great catch Peter
Ankle stiffness is essentially eccentric RFD. The faster you can halt the eccentric contraction the faster you can get the force from the hip to the ground. In other words as your hips are generating force the eccentric contraction at the ankle dampens the hip force.
So you want to train the body to rapidly stop the eccentric contraction. hope this makes sense. Some work has shown that the ground contact time can decrease by .09 seconds PER step by improving ankle stiffness. Over the course of a 40 or 100m think of how many steps you take. Good feet can save almost 0.1 sec per step…
To train this you can do things like low squat hops, jumping rope, stiff leg altitude drops off of a low box landing on the toes. Basically anything that requires a rapid eccentric contraction at the ankle. Altitude drops and depth jumps are also great ad developing ankle stiffness.
Hope that answers your question
Alex
Alex,
I don’t exactly follow the physics or mechanics of the eccentric contraction at the ankle dampening hip force but I get the practicality of training the ankle to stop eccentric contraction and how the exercise examples
you have given may achieve this. Thanks for the clarification.
honestly I’m just telling you from my experience
periodization and specificity
it helps most to simply practice whatever it is you are trying to improve in
this applies to “being faster”
because there are different ways one can display speed
play particular sports to acquire different skill sets
such as speed and proprioception
agility and coordination
different sports allow development in different ways in that they stress different kinds of stimuli
most speed training is also largely dependent upon several variable in particular:
mobility, muscle fiber type, fatigue
mobility is especially important in your hips
stability is very important as well
hip extensors are among the primary agonists
hip hyperextension is often exhibited in the most elite runners
[quote]peterm533 wrote:
Alex,
I don’t exactly follow the physics or mechanics of the eccentric contraction at the ankle dampening hip force but I get the practicality of training the ankle to stop eccentric contraction and how the exercise examples
you have given may achieve this. Thanks for the clarification. [/quote]
essentially your hips are pushing your leg and foot down into the ground.
When the ball of your foot strikes your ankle/calf is placed into an eccentric contraction as your heel pushes towards the ground.
As your heel lowers into the ground all of the force from your hip that is supposed to go into the ground is actually being lost in the calf muscle as it lengthens.
The sooner you can stop the calf from lengthening, the sooner you can get the force from the hip to actually go into the ground and not into the calf.
Now sprinting will also help make you faster but there is a lot to be said about correcting movement patterns. IE using your glutes as hip extensors and not your hamstirings. Or being posterior chain dominant versus quad dominant. If you don;t fix the big issues you are essentially ingraining bad form and placing a low ceiling on your potential.
Alex
Hope that made sense
Alex
seriously guys you can do better than that ?
the guy knows nothing about speed training so just give him an outline or summit of something easy ?
like
- squat(when you get to 200 kilo you got the strenght you need)
- loose fat(cant run fast with 30 kg deadweight on you)
- do sprints(sprint 30 metres x 8 walk back then 40 metres x 6 walk back then 50 x 4 walk back and 60 x 2 walk back)
- ???
- Repeat
[quote]blunt wrote:
seriously guys you can do better than that ?
the guy knows nothing about speed training so just give him an outline or summit of something easy ?
like
- squat(when you get to 200 kilo you got the strenght you need)
- loose fat(cant run fast with 30 kg deadweight on you)
- do sprints(sprint 30 metres x 8 walk back then 40 metres x 6 walk back then 50 x 4 walk back and 60 x 2 walk back)
- ???
- Repeat
[/quote]
So my original idea wasn’t good:
Feet and warm up - Jump Rope
Hip extension - RDL
Hip Power - Kettlebell Swings or straight leg sprints
Torso stability - Planks
Sprints
Seems simple to me.
Alex,
That makes it clear. Thanks.
Most important/first question - Faster for what? 40 yard dash for football? Quick bursts for B-ball? 100m for track? 400m for track?
There are a lot of good track sites out there as well that deal with these questions. If you want to get faster, there are multiple different models, but basically, you need to do the following:
- Run - a lot
- Get stronger
- Periodize your training
- When running, do 3-4 different types of workouts
- Acceleration work
- Max Velocity Work
- Tempo Work
- Plyometrics
Periodizing your running - you should move from short to long on the Acceleration and Max Velocity, and then short to long to short on the tempo work.
You can honestly take many of the lifting protocols (Westside; 5/3/1 - as a few examples) and follow similar progressions with running (ie- sets and reps). Make sure Acceleration and Max Velocity distances do not exceed 400m in a session and tempo should not get beyond 2000m in a session.