Wednesday 5.09.12

I love sprinting.  It's over quickly, works my muscles in a way no other movement does, makes me faster, leaner, more powerful, and in my head, I look exactly like this when I sprint...

This, however, is probably what I actually look like....

Whatever, I'm a work in progress.  Here are just some of the many benefits of sprinting I found in an article at Mark's Daily Apple: 

• Sprint intervals improve insulin sensitivity in healthy young subjects, overweight men, and overweight, sedentary women alike. In the youngsters, it improves their lipids, too. Sprint intervals also reduce postprandial lipemia (temporary elevation of blood triglycerides after a meal), and they improve the circulatory function of obese, sedentary women. Sprinting also boosts growth hormone.
• Sprinting doesn’t just make you better at sprinting. Even though it’s wholly anaerobic, sprinting increases the oxidative (fat burning) potential of muscle and improves endurance capacity. It also improves the efficiency of muscle during exercise, so you can conserve more glycogen and rely on more fat, instead of using up the former right away (perfect for fat-burning beasts). Incorporating sprint training with jump training improves both speed and vertical leap in handball players better than jumping alone.
• It’s even an effective way to improve agility and speed in young (11 and 12 year olds) kids. I’m not really surprised that 10 and 20 meter runs are effective in making kids more athletic, because that’s exactly how they naturally play – by running around in short bursts! Play-restricted adults, take heed.
• Best of all, sprinting is the best bang for your buck exercise around. It’s over quick, you’re not in agony for hours at a time (and for more hours after the workout), and it gets the job done. One study even concluded that sprint intervals are a “time-efficient strategy to induce” similar muscular and performance benefits as endurance training.

SO, in light of all that I'm trying to get at least one pure sprinting session in each week.  Today I did the following:

Warm Up:

- 1.5 mile run at a fair pace, but not running really hard.  

Sprint Training:

10x50 yard sprints resting only long enough to walk back to the starting line.

Last week I did 10x40 yard sprints, next week I'll bump it up to 60, and so on until I get to 10x100.  I could just jump to 10x100's now, but it's been so long since I sprinted regularly that I get really sore afterward.  So I figured I'd ramp up to the longer sprint distances over a few weeks to let my body acclimate.