Sprinter Physique

I’m going for the sprinter look, since that’s what i’m going for what would be a good routine to do to acheive my goal. What lifts, how many sets, how many reps? Sprints, what distances?
When should I take time off? Should I do one routine for the first 3 months, then change, etc.
What would be a good diet while i’m doing this…
Any supplements besides protein that would be good to take?

There was one training program that had sprints in it. 50 yard dash I think it was called. Check the FAQ and look at the training programs.

Step 1: Go back in time and pick the right parents. Take care of that and I’ll tell you step 2. :slight_smile:

My genetics aren’t bad, but not perfect. I have pecs now, and use to have a six pack (Haven’t worked out for a long time). My legs are shit and so are my arms.

I read the 50 yard dash thing, but I want to do sprints and lifting. Prob pylo’s too.

And about the diet, and supps…What are some good meals/Shake combo’s?
I’ve heard protein is more important than carbs for sprinters, so how much /lb of bodyweight should I try to take in?

Charlie Francis has commented that the “sprinter’s physique” is an attribute of years of sprinting and following periodized workouts. If you haven’t been sprinting since you were young, then your best bet is to talk to some track coaches, get yourself on a sprinting program, hit the weights and keep doing for a while! Charlie’s book “Training for Speed” has some good insight on how to set up training. Check it out. His main exercises were squats, benches, and clean and jerks. They were the core exercises in training. But much of a sprinter’s training starts early with running and many bodyweight exercises. Then it progresses to weightlifting in a “bodybuilding” fashion to establish enough muscle mass. From there, it goes into the big power movements, heavy weights, lower reps. And of course plenty of running, sprinting and recovery.

Charlie has also said that can’t look like a sprinter simply by training like one. Sprint training is great, don’t get me wrong, but you have to first have the right body structure then spend many years training the right way. If you have crappy arms and legs, then you don’t sound like you have sprinter genetics.

Oh yeah, don’t forget to use a lot of juice. Sprinters are pretty juiced up after all, “at least the ones who win” as Charlie would say. Sorry, don’t mean to be a pisser here, but I’m just trying to add some reality to the discussion. Read the articles by Charlie at this site and the interviews with him. It’s pretty shocking stuff.

TEK is largely wrong on the juice issue. This guy doesnt want to win the olympics… Ben johnson sprinted for MANY years before juicing and one could achieve sprinterlike size atleast without juicing

I’m pretty sure Ben started juicing at age 19.

If you’ve got your heart set on achieving a sprinters physique, first make sure that you have the right bone structure/frame and muscle insertions. Without those you can juice all you want and you’ll never get Ben’s or Mo’s ‘look’.

He wants to “look” like a sprinter…not win a gold medal right? Well, that means very muscular, low bodyfat, and athletic. Sounds great don’t we all want that?

I say figure out how much your favorite sprinter weighs and how tall he is in inches. Assume the sprinter is less than 8% bf and you have a good idea how much weight you have to gain (and fat to lose).

Sprinters obviously have very impressive lower bodies so you’re gonna have to do a lot of squats, lunges, hamstring, and calf work. Build upper body to match and do some aerobic work to keep the body fat low. The other thing that is obvious when you look at sprinters is that they look like they can use the muscle, that is, they look athletic and they are flexible. Track (sprint) workouts are great, but they can be very destructive to the body, especially if you don’t have a naturally good stride. Some running may be good, but I would say crosstrain to get a more athletic looking body. Run stairs (not just stairmaster), rowing machines, rock climbing, x-country ski, biking, martial arts, swimming. AND EAT A LOT!!!

These other activities would keep the stress on the knees from running to a minimum and should help keep the workout sessions fun. Build a decent level of fitness before you start doing the 100 meter repeats, otherwise you'll just make yourself puke every 5 minutes or hurt yourself. I would say focus 60% of your time on pure muscle building weight training and 40% on the x-training.

Here’s what i’m thinking:
Mon: Heavy: Bench, Clean, Squat, Power Press-
ABS: Crunches, reverse crunches
Tuesday: 10-20M starts, Downhill sprints and pylos-Depth jumps, squat jumps and bounds
Wed: DeadLift and Front Squat,
Curls, Tri extension, and dips
ABS: Crunches, reverse crunches
Thursday: 10-20 meter starts, Uphilll sprints and pylos-bounds, lunge jumps and power skips
Friday: Incline, Light Squat and light clean, Abs
Pull downs, back ext
Weekends are rest, and I have some light days in there too. Those are basically rest.
Does that look good?

What about the diet, I dont really know what foods are better than others and when to eat them.

Al, do cleans first on Monday. Follow them with squats. Finish with benches or move benches to your Wed workout along with overhead presses. Do your deadlifts (or snatch pulls or clean pulls) and front squats on Friday. You will need the gap between squat workouts to recover. The notion of having a squat, pull and press in a workout is a good idea to follow.

If you really try squats/cleans on Mon, downhill sprints/plyos on Tues, front squats Wed, and then sprints Thurs with plyos, you won´t get a sprinter´s bod, but you will get injured in a hurry. A good sprint program always starts out with a good base´, and then builds in intensity. You can´t train legs Mon & Wed in the weight room and sprint in between when starting up after a long break - especially when I haven´t trained for a long time´!! I coach, and I wouldn´t put my worst enemy on your program. Follow Nate Dogg´s advice and get into a sprint program, or at least talk to a coach, some people who sprint or have sprinted. Your training plan is a recipe for disaster. And there ARE sprinters out there who are clean and look great. They may not run sub 10, but they are buffed. You could also check out GPP by Dave Tate to start out. You need to start reading.

You certainly are attacking this but I would suggest you reorganize your training program significantly. You are basically doing Power work 4 days in a row, just changing the medium and you will likely achieve the results you desire. Is there a track club in your area that you might be able to join? In faith, Coach Davies

  1. Sprint and lift(legs) on the same day, not like you’re doing it, there’s no recovery there. You’ll make no gains and probably get hurt. 2) If you have never sprinted then I wouldn’t do any high intensity sprints(ie. starts) but I’d do tempos. These are where you run 100-300m at 65-75%, so a 100m run would take 16-18s. Start with around 500m and work up to 2000m, adding 100-200m each workout. After a warm-up you’d run 100-200m, walk 25m and repeat. You could do these on your leg day or the day after to faciliate recovery, these work very well for me. Regardless of whether you sprint hard or not you should be doing these with a few body weight exercises and stretching after. 3) I wouldn’t jump right into OL’s, I’d recommend going through a maximal strength phase first, you’ll still make gains. 4) Ease into this, make it a long-term goal, don’t jump in and get yourself burned out. 5) Ask if you need anymore help.

Ok, what do one of you guys recommend? Can you lay it out simply like I did? Thanks

my apologies with my last post - big typo as I meant to say “you will likely not achieve the results you desire”. Seems like a simple 3 day a week (M,W,F) lift program with some modest tempo on T/Th will accomplish many of your goals. Obviously if you want to run additional track you need to compensate for that. In faith, Coach Davies

You can arrange it in many ways just make sure you have 48 hrs recovery for max speed and weight training work…both of these hit the nervous system very hard and you need to recover. You could do heavy explosive lower body weight training one day and tempo training the next day and vice versa. You could also do max accel/speed work and lower body weight training on the same day…if this is the case it’s best to do the sprint training first.

Coach Davies’ split would work for you, or you could do a Westside program. I think the best place for tempos would be after leg days, they’d help recovery and you’d still get the benefits. Ask if you have more questions.