Learn How To Do Sprints For Increased Speed & Endurance

If you are an athlete and you want to improve your performance, you should consider giving interval training a try. Put simply, interval training means alternating sprints with a slow steady pace. When running, you can sprint and then walk. You could sprint and then slow down to a jog. You can sprint for a very short distance or, if you slow the sprint a bit, sprint for a longer distance. Rest periods between sprints can be brief or extended. There are four components to interval training: intensity of sprint, duration of sprint, intensity of rest and duration of rest. By changing and adjusting these components, you can tailor an interval program to train the specific energy system best needed for your sport.

A pure sprinter, for example, needs to train their system by doing hard sprints followed by long walks. The sprinter needs to return their body to a completely aerobic state, breathing comfortably, before sprinting again. The body needs to restore ATP (a natural substance in the muscles that transports energy cells) to normal between sprints. The body can only do this with full rest. This is called a "rest" recovery.

If you are a middle-distance runner or a basketball, tennis, or soccer player, you need to train your lactate system. Athletes taking part in these sports sometimes sprint all out, but at other times jog comfortably. Their training needs to teach the body to delay lactic acid buildup. Interval training for one of these athletes should involve a sprint followed by slowing to just a jog. This is called a "work" recovery because the athlete doesn't quite get their breath back before sprinting again. Since the ATP and creatine-P in the muscles is only partially replenished, the next sprint uses more of the lactate system for energy. By interval training in this manner, the muscles learn to handle greater and greater loads of lactic acid with less fatigue.

Even an endurance athlete can benefit from interval training in developing the aerobic system. How? Aerobic enzymes increase in response to the tasks required of them during recovery. During recovery, aerobic enzymes not only replace ATP and creatine-P, they also process lactic acid. The enzymes "learn" to make new ATP faster and get rid of lactic acid faster. In other words, aerobic enzymes increase in response to anaerobic stress. But, they only function under aerobic conditions. Therefore, to develop the aerobic system, the athlete must exercise aerobically during the recovery period. By training the aerobic system with wind sprints, one of the other two systems gets trained as well. If you slow down to a jog during recovery, the lactate and aerobic systems are trained. If you slow down to a walk so that your breath comes back more quickly, the creatine-P and aerobic systems develop. In either case, don't do the next sprint until you are completely recovered from the last.

To recap, just remember these two rules:

1. If you are a sprinter or a long-distance runner, make sure you completely get your breath back during the rest periods before sprinting again.

2. If you are a middle-distance or play one of the stop-and-go sports, you should not get your breath back completely during the rest periods.

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