why can't I run????

meerkat70

Going to have to disagree with some in here and will be probably be crucified for it but anyway....

Whike I do agree you should jog just for cardio health, you should, really really should be able to get at least 3 miles in, that's not going to help your sprint tremendously. When you jog or run for distance your are mostly using your slow twitch muscle fibers. You can build up some speed doing this but nothing sprinting is a whike differet story. When your sprinting your using your fast twitch muscle fibers. They are completely different. They are the balls to the wall, explosive, get the f out of dodge violent ones you have.

Now, I'm not saying you shouldn't jog bc without enough umph from your cardiovascular system then your body is goin to give out regardless what your doing at any intensity but if you're eying performance in your sprints than you need to be doing more sprints and working like crazy in the gym as some more explosive excercises.

Back in the day I was in track and field doing the 100m and 200m sprints during off season for backfield in football. While we did a good amount of sprint repetitions, a great deal of our work that showed most the results were done in the gym with heavy weights and explosive movements. Squats, deadlifts, lunges, calf raises, leg extensions, leg curls, leg presses...basically getting heavy weight on there not lifting slowely but exploding with every lift. Not only does this really train your fast twitch muscles hard but a lot of the complex lifts like squats and deadlifts are EXTREMELY taxing on your cardio system.

So yes, get a bit of jogging in and get your cardio up to speed but if you really want to put everyone else there to shame then hit the weight room.

Someone really should tell Usain Bolt to take his endurance runs out of his training programme... :-)

ElliottTN

Someone should tell you there is a huge difference between training programs for an Olympic athlete and someone just starting out.