Sprint training, or the activity of running at a set speed, is one of the most popular forms of exercise routine today. It is an efficient way to lose weight, tone your muscles, and generally improve your health.
If you haven’t tried sprint workouts before, you are in for a treat. It’s never too late to start, and we’re here to help you get started on this type of training program.
What Is a Sprint Workout?
Sprint training is a form of high-intensity interval training that improves cardiovascular fitness, among others. Contrary to jogging, sprint workouts involve short bursts of running at top speed, engaging almost all the muscles in the body.
More often than not, light jogging is also part of a sprinting routine. However, this is almost exclusively for warming up the body.
Sprint Workout Benefits
When was the last time you placed all your energy at your feet and ran at top speeds? We know how exhausted you felt, but doing this regularly actually provides your body with numerous physiological and mental benefits.
Increases Lean Muscle Mass
The body has a certain fat-to-muscle ratio that indicates a person’s fitness level. Unfortunately, around 41.9% of Americans are obese, which means they have high levels of fat compared to muscle mass. One way to combat this is by adding sprint workouts to your daily routine.
Sprinting increases the body’s capability to burn fat. Additionally, it promotes muscle growth. If you combine this with a proper diet, you get lean muscle mass and improve your body composition rapidly.
When you sprint, your body signals your cells to adapt to the physically-demanding task at hand. In turn, this improves the oxidative capacity of your cells, which also boosts your body’s metabolic rate. All of these are factors that affect the speed at which your body burns calories.
Slows Down Aging
Another significant benefit of sprint training is that it can slow down your body’s aging process. As you grow old, your muscle fibers start to degenerate and lose mass.
There is nothing you can do to stop that from happening. However, you can slow down this process by making sure you build muscle mass while you are still young and able.
The best sprint workouts activate two major types of muscles in your body: fast-twitch and slow-twitch. The fast-twitch muscle is primarily responsible for speed and power, while the slow-twitch muscle aids in endurance and posture.
Short sprints allow you to develop fast-twitch muscles. Standing, jogging, and walking, which you do during sprint intervals, activate the slow-twitch muscles. When you build these two types of muscles, your body stays strong and agile despite old age.
Improves Cardiovascular Fitness
When you perform sprint workouts, you are already conducting high intensity interval training or HIIT. If you ask any fitness guru, they’d probably say you should engage in this type of training. That’s because it is one of the most efficient methods of developing your body.
There are numerous benefits to HIIT, but one of the most important is how it improves your cardiovascular health. It slows down your heart rate during resting periods, and it also improves the cholesterol levels in your blood. Most importantly, regular sprints control your blood pressure levels, ultimately reducing the risk of heart disease.
There are many forms of HIIT, but you can stick to the one that’s mainly focused on sprinting called SIT or sprint interval training. It provides the same benefits as any traditional HIIT.
Lowers Stress
Arguably all forms of dynamic exercises can significantly reduce your stress levels. That’s why you’d often see people recommending it to improve mental health. One of the main reasons for this is that exercising releases a chemical into the brain. This chemical, called endorphin, is primarily responsible for feeling good.
While sprinting, your brain is focused on the task at hand, which is running. This allows you to momentarily clear your mind of other stressors.
After your sprint session, your body’s cortisol and adrenaline levels will significantly drop. This exudes a feeling of relief and even confidence. The sprinter’s high you feel after sprints can also bring down your anxiety.
Boosts Metabolism
You will need a relatively high metabolic rate if you want to burn calories. Thankfully, your sprint time will burn more calories than when you jog because of how it boosts metabolism.
How is that possible, especially since you can jog for hours but can only sprint for 30 seconds to a few minutes? Well, that’s because when the stored anaerobic energy in your body is depleted, it turns to aerobic energy sources.
In simpler terms, your body will continue to burn calories even after you’re done with your sprint workouts.
This means that sprinting is not just about burning calories while in motion but also while your body rests or recovers. As a result, the accumulated burnt calories are higher when compared to long-duration, low-intensity physical activities.
Convenience
The last benefit (or advantage) of sprint workouts is that they are very convenient.
We mentioned that there are lots of HIIT exercises you can do. However, most of these require various pieces of gym equipment. Therefore, you can either head to the gym or invest in one just to perform them.
On the other hand, even the best sprint workouts will only require you to wear comfortable clothing and the right pair of shoes. If you don’t have a treadmill at home, then just sprint anywhere! You don’t even need to have a gym membership just to reap the benefits of this form of training.
What makes this even better is that sprinting outdoors can bring additional benefits to your life. The sunlight and the fresh air, for instance, can help improve your general health. Moreover, you get to see your neighborhood and maybe visit areas you haven’t been to.
What’s the Proper Sprinting Form?
To maximize the results of your workouts, make sure you have the right form while sprinting. This guarantees that you engage the vital areas and muscles involved in your movements.
High Knees
Sprinting is about speed and power. To draw this out from your body, your feet need to hit the ground at the right moment and at the right position. Once you got that right, you can increase your power by lifting your knees high. They have to be almost as high as your hips whenever you sprint.
Forward Running Form
Aerodynamics plays a huge part in your sprint workout. As your body moves forward, you want to make sure the air is not pushing you back. Otherwise, you’ll put unnecessary and excessive strain on your lower body without increasing your speed and power.
To prevent this, you need to adopt a forward running form, which is basically leaning forward instead of backward. You also want to relax your shoulders. Stiff muscles will limit the smoothness of your movements, which can lead to reduced power and even sore muscles.
Solid Flat Ground Contact
If you want to increase the power you generate from your legs, your feet must make solid contact on the ground. Once they do, you want your legs to be as straight as possible to push you forward.
The transfer of force from your feet to the ground and back to your feet will increase your speed. The correct timing plays a huge part in this, too. Striking the ground with your feet is one thing, but following through seamlessly as though your legs were a pair of springs is just as important.
Arm Movement
Lastly, you want to pay close attention to your arm movement as well. You need to think of them as though they were paddles.
Alternate your legs with your arms and swing them forward and back instead of inward and out. This movement will increase your momentum and help maintain your balance while you sprint.
What Sprint Workouts Can You Try?
Now that you know how to sprint properly, it’s time to hit the track. You already know there are different types of sprint workouts you can try. We’re going to discuss each of them so that you can easily find one that suits your current fitness level.
Beginner Sprint Workout
The beginner sprint workout is arguably the easiest routine you can try. Anyone can do this, even those who are new to workouts in general. Here’s how:
Step 1: 60-second jog
Step 2: 30-second full-speed sprint
Repeat the process six to eight times before resting.
Top Speed Sprints
The top-speed sprint workout is a form of high intensity interval training that improves your acceleration. Moreover, it increases your top speed and the efficiency of your limbs’ movements. You can do this by sprinting at top speed in short intervals with short breaks between repetitions.
Here’s how to perform this sprint workout:
Step 1: 10-second sprints at 85% effort (preferably at an 8% incline)
Step 2: 90-second full recovery while walking or jogging
Repeat this process three times before following it with the next stage, which includes:
Step 1: 10-second sprints at full speed (preferably at a 1% incline)
Step 2: 90-second full recovery while walking or jogging
Repeat these steps five times.
Hill Sprints
As the name suggests, hill sprints are traditionally done on a hill. If that’s not possible, you can also do this on a treadmill as long as it has an incline feature.
It is one of the more difficult sprint workouts you could try because it will drive you to get out of your comfort zone and push you to the limit. It’s also quite a versatile routine, as you can adjust the length of your sprint session by running further up the hill.
Here’s what you need to do to get the best results from hill sprints:
Step 1: Sprint 1/4 mile up the hill
Step 2: Jog back down and use this as your recovery time
Step 3: Sprint 1/2 mile up the hill
Step 4: Jog back down while recovering
Step 5: Sprint 3/4 to a whole mile up the hill
Step 6: Jog back down while recovering
After you’ve done the steps above, you can stay at the starting point and rest for two minutes. Once you’ve recovered, perform the following steps four times:
Step 1: Sprint up the hill for 20 seconds at maximum effort
Step 2: Jog back down while recovering
Endurance Sprints
If you’re following sprint workouts mainly because you want to improve your cardiovascular health, you should try endurance sprints.
The main point of this type of sprint workout is to maintain your maximum velocity for longer periods. In turn, this allows your body to remain comfortable even when you’re sprinting at a very fast pace.
Here’s how you can do this type of sprint workout:
Step 1: 20-second sprints at 85% effort (preferably at an 8% incline)
Step 2: 90-second walk or jog while recovering
Repeat this process four times before proceeding to the next stage, which also needs to be repeated four times.
Step 1: 20-second sprints at 95% effort (preferably at a 1% incline)
Step 2: 90-second walk or jog while recovering
Power Sprints
If you have a running track in your area, you can use that to practice power sprints. It’s a great method to improve endurance, too. Moreover, power sprints increase the body’s anaerobic capacity and power.
Power sprint training is relatively easy; just be sure to follow these steps:
Step 1: 200-meter sprints at 85% effort
Step 2: 200-meter walk or jog for recovery
Repeat this process 15 times, and you’re covered for the day!
How Many Calories Do You Burn in Sprint Workouts?
The number of calories you burn in sprint training is largely affected by the intensity and duration of your workout. Here’s a quick table that should give you a general idea of that:
Speed | Calories Burned per Hour | |||
| 130 lbs. | 155 lbs. | 185 lbs. | 205 lbs. | |
| 6 mph | 590 | 704 | 817 | 931 |
| 6.7 mph | 649 | 774 | 899 | 1,024 |
| 7 mph | 679 | 809 | 940 | 1,070 |
| 7.5 mph | 738 | 880 | 1,022 | 1,163 |
| 8 mph | 797 | 950 | 1,103 | 1,256 |
| 8.6 mph | 826 | 985 | 1,144 | 1,303 |
| 9 mph | 885 | 1,056 | 1,226 | 1,396 |
| 10 mph | 944 | 1,126 | 1,308 | 1,489 |
| 10.9 mph | 1,062 | 1,267 | 1,471 | 1,675 |
Sprinting To Better Health
One of the best things about running is that everyone already knows how to do it. You don’t need complicated equipment or an understanding of certain tools just to reap the benefits of this exercise.
That said, it pays to understand how sprinting helps the body and how you can perform this activity properly. So, if you’ve really decided to improve your overall health, make sure you add sprint workouts to your exercise routine.
