Cardio: Sprinting

NorthCascades wrote: »

You might try a bike, too.

You have a limited capacity when it comes to cardio. Everybody does. The sprint you want to do is beyond your capacity, so you can't do it. You can either dial the intensity back (run slower) or you can shorten the duration; in the long run, you can improve your capacity.

If your goal is to race, what you're doing with sprint workouts isn't going to help much, in fact it's probably counter-productive. You're building your anaerobic system which can produce powerful bursts of energy, but not for more than 20 or 30 minutes at a time. Better to do 80 % of your cardio sessions in zone 2 and the other 20 % in zone 4 and 5. Most people go too hard on their easy days and too easy on their hard days.

Since your goal isn't to race but to lose fat (eg burn a lot of calories, because fat loss comes from a calorie deficit), you're better off doing an exercise you can maintain for a long time. That will build more calories, it will also improve your aerobic endurance.

Finally, you probably already understand the importance of rest and recovery. Keep in mind, that all applies to your heart too.

Noelv1976 wrote: »

50-60 meters is a long way for a beginner. shorten up in intervals. try 20-30 meters, five times. Can also do suicides. Sprint ten meters, stop, turn around and sprint back. do that for about 30 secs, then gradually increase your distance once it becomes easier. Can also do what we like to do is 30/60s or 60/120s. Sprint for 30 seconds, walk or jog for 60. Same for the latter, run for 60 seconds, walk or jog for 120 seconds. OF course you will have to make "circle" in the parking lot, if you have enough room.

blues4miles wrote: »

Do you do any other sort of steady state cardio? I'd make sure you are warmed up for the sprints. Jog out and back (160m) once or twice to warm up. Then yeah, just keep at it. If you just started, don't do it two days in a row (personal opinion) so you don't get injured. For me personally...I have a hard time going fast until I've done a half mile of jogging to warm up first. That's where my line is, yours might be above or below that.

NorthCascades wrote: »

Seth1825 wrote: »

North Cascades wrote:

... If your goal is to race, what you're doing with sprint workouts isn't going to help much, in fact it's probably counter-productive. You're building your anaerobic system which can produce powerful bursts of energy, but not for more than 20 or 30 minutes at a time. Better to do 80 % of your cardio sessions in zone 2 and the other 20 % in zone 4 and 5. Most people go too hard on their easy days and too easy on their hard days. ...

Hey thanks for your response, very helpful, although you kind of lost me on the zone stuff, what does that mean?

I'm guessing you come mostly from a weights background. I'm mostly a cardio guy. We probably don't speak exactly the same language but I bet a lot of the concepts carry over.

You can measure your running performance in speed, and for the most part that works really well. To go faster, you have to work harder; pace is a good proxy for exertion/intensity/power. It's not perfect though because hills. And because sand vs pavement, and other stuff too. Not such a big deal running but on the bike, a strong wind is worse than a hill. All that stuff means speed isn't a perfect gauge for workout intensity. One thing a lot of people do about that is wear a heart rate monitor, the faster your heart is beating, the harder your body is working. Cardio is all about the heart. I mean, you're running, your legs are propelling you forward, they need oxygen for energy, the harder you work the more oxygen they need and the faster your heart beats and the harder you breathe.

So you wear an HRM, you go out and run, you look at it, it says 153 bpm, now what?

Most people who do cardio figure out the range of what their heart can do, and then divide that up into zones. Almost everyone uses a 5 zone system so that's what we're going to talk about. We'll use mine even though I have them set up differently than most people, it's still a concrete example:

Resting heart rate ~= 50 bpm

Zone 1 = 118 to 133 bpm ("warm up", easy)
Zone 2 = 134 to 147 bpm ("fat burning", easy to moderate)
Zone 3 = 148 to 160 bpm ("aerobic", moderate to somewhat hard)
Zone 4 = 161 to 175 bpm ("anaerobic", hard)
Zone 5 = 176 to 188 bpm ("redline")

Max heart rate = 188

The reason for this is different stuff is going on inside your body at different levels. So for example, in zone 2 most of the calories you burn will come from fat, in zone 4 and 5 most of them will come from carbs. Technically that doesn't matter from a weight loss perspective because it's all calories in calories out. But burning glycogen makes you really freaking hungry, burning fat doesn't. More to the point, exercising in each zone can make you stronger in different ways.

So you'd think the best way to train and to get really fast is to go out and run or ride as hard as you can as often as possible. More is better, right? But the best way to actually get faster is to spend most of your time in zone 2 (easy to moderate) which builds up your aerobic endurance, and some amount of time pushing almost as hard as you can, which raises your top end. It's way counter-intuitive. I guess, think of a bike race, with a pack of cyclists approaching the finish line, and that one guy sprinting to the win. That guy needs a good sprint, but more importantly he needs to be able to hang with the pack and still have enough energy to be able to sprint.

Noelv1976 wrote: »

Probably first thread where no one is criticizing each other but actually complimenting. Great responses everyone. Need more people like this on the other threads. More than welcome to add me as a friend.
OP, let us know how you're doing!