Sprinting, an Ultimate Fitness-Building Exercise
- Saboura Rokhsari
- Jun 20, 2024
- 3 min read
What is Sprinting:
Sprinting is a simple & effective workout and like all other exercises, it is adjustable based on one’s skills and fitness level. Sprinting is an occasional max all-out-effort. It is an anaerobic exercise and meant to be brief and done less frequently (every 7-10 days), however very challenging.
Sprint workouts comprise 4-6 sprints with a duration between 10-30 sec and resting periods between each, which varies between 5 sec to 1 min based on one’s fitness level. Although adjustable, rest durations should be sufficient enough to allow the respiration to go back to normal and allow for mental readiness before tackling the next effort.
All varying sprint durations entail a combination of aerobic and anaerobic effects. Shorter efforts (ex: 8 sec) are more anaerobic (94%) and longer ones (ex: 6 mins) will be more aerobic (79% aerobic and 21% anaerobic).
Benefits of Sprinting:
It triggers hormonal balancing such as elevating the insulin sensitivity, lipid optimization, testosterone enhancement, and increasing human growth hormones (HGH)
It increases focus and alertness by delivering more oxygen to brain
It increases energy by increasing mitochondrial biogenesis and size
It boosts the muscle development by increasing the protein synthesis by 230%
It improves recovery by increasing muscle buffering capacity (better lactate clearance and less acidosis during workout)
It improves fat loss by increasing fat metabolism and insulin sensitivity
It translates to a better gene expression as well as longevity by simulating a stress hormone (cortisol). This creates a cortisol spike in the bloodstream for a brief moment which as a result forces the body to make more testosterone and human growth hormone (HGH). All in all promoting health & vitality and antiaging effects
It also helps with high intensity and longer duration workout and sport performance
Sprints Variation & Types:
Sprints can vary in duration. Varying durations trigger various mechanisms in the body. For example:
A shorter variation (8-10 sec) would be fueled by ATP and appropriate for developing maximum explosive fitness and top speed.
longer durations (10-30 sec) are fueled by lactate and applicable to situations that require more sustained effort at near maximum.
Sprints of 30 sec up to 2 mins are fueled by glucose and are good for building anaerobic max fitness. This is not accurately a sprint workout, since it is impossible to do all-out-effort in more than 30 sec.
Running on a flat surface is a high impact exercise and could be the most effective sprint type, but swapping to a low or zero impacts such as running uphill, stationary bike, elliptical machine, rowing machine, or swimming pool, etc. are all good alternatives that could be done more periodically compared to running on a flat surface.
Adopting varying duration of sprints such as short, medium, and long durations are very beneficial.
A longer sprint with a shorter rest time provides a higher anaerobic peak for situations that require sustained effort for a longer period, such as a soccer or basketball game. Whereas, shorter sprints with a longer rest time, mimic the explosiveness, short but top performance.
Regardless of variation and types, they all contribute to fat loss, building lean muscles, hormonal optimization and more importantly enhancing human growth hormone (HGH).
Cautions in Sprinting:
During sprinting, it is normal to experience both mental and physical fatigue, due to a significant amount of stress on the central nervous system. However, If mental focus and physical abilities are not recovered during the rest intervals, this indicates that no further sprints shall be performed.
Examples of sprinting:
Scenario 1: Running 100 yards in 20 sec with 10 out of 10 effort, next intervals should be scaled to 8 or 9 out of 10 for the same 20 sec. In this scenario most likely you will cover less distance in the next intervals, as you experience more fatigue build up.
Scenario 2: Running the first sprint in 20 sec with an effort of 10 out of 10. Then, the next intervals might take you 21 or 25 sec to cover the same distance, as the performance dropping gradually.
In sprinting, maintaining a consistent quality must be the goal. Meaning, when performance drops significantly, this is an indication of stopping the exercise to maintain the quality. The quality of exercise could be measured by time, distance, wattage, output level, power/weight ratio or amount of perceived exertion.
Conclusion:
Sprinting is supposed to be challenging and high effort, however it is crucial to build up to that level by training with low or moderate intensity running/cycling/swimming drills first to prepare the body's skeletomuscular strength and connective tissue resilience for higher effort sprints.
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