Sprinter Training to Increase Power
Sprinting may take only a few seconds, but it takes a significant time commitment to develop the power to do it well.
“The task of sprinting is highly specific, but it’s truly a full-body activity. So you need to be an incredibly robust individual,” says Mark Murphy, DPT, CSCS, SCS, a Mass General Brigham applied sports science lead. “This requires focus on several different aspects: posture, ground contact quality, and relative strength.”
Murphy works with athletes at the Center for Sports Performance and Research.
To become a more powerful sprinter, it’s essential to supplement running with drills that enhance posture and ground contact quality. Sprinting power also requires significant time in the weight room to develop strength throughout the body.
Mach drills for sprinters
Murphy recommends a series of drills developed by an influential track and field coach named Gerard Mach that can improve speed in running athletes. The Mach system uses A, B, and C drills to work on the different components of a runner’s movement:
- A skips: These focus on knee lifts with an up-and-down motion to target the hip flexors and quadriceps. Maintain an upright posture but not too upright where you reach the limb out in front of your body.
- B skips: These involve reaching the lower leg out and then down in an arc, to work the hamstring muscles. The athlete should not exaggerate the foreleg reaching. This drill can be a potential screening tool for individuals who may be over-striding.
- C skips: These provide the coach with a tool to examine push-off and extension. They also demonstrate general coordination and range of motion.
Murphy uses the Mach drills to screen athletes and determine what they need to work on to improve power.
“You can then identify areas to improve in the weight room, whether it be certain muscle groups, certain types of exercises, and certain strategies to improve the posture and ground contact qualities, then remedy those,” he says.
Proper sprinting form and posture
Posture is the way someone holds their body during a task.
“A sprinter needs to get into appropriate positions and joint angles in early acceleration, late acceleration, and into flight to utilize their relevant muscle groups and execute the task of sprinting,” Murphy explains.
Murphy recommends three changes to posture during a sprint:
1. When a sprinter comes out of the blocks (begins their sprint), they start in a forward-leaning position.
2. From the 10-meter to the 30-meter mark, the athlete starts to rise up.
3. The runner then transitions to a tall, upright position.
“Through the rest of the run, I want a runner’s head, neck, shoulders, and rib cage aligned over the midfoot when they’re in the stance phase of sprinting. And I really want to make sure they’re driving their arms and keeping their strides long, but not overstriding. I don’t want them to be over-pushing out the back,” Murphy says. “You want them to look almost like they’re floating.”
Ground contact quality
Another key aspect of powerful sprinting is ground contact quality: the quality of movement as the feet contact the ground.
“If the body can’t handle the volume or intensity of ground contact, it might say, ‘I don’t have the strength to absorb this speed,’” Murphy says.
That can lead to improper form, such as:
- Overextension through the lower back
- Excessive ankle dorsiflexion, which happens when the ankle moves in a way that brings the toes toward the knee
- Bending the knees or hips too much in the stance phase
- Overstriding at the end of the swing phase
With good ground contact quality, the athlete’s foot strikes the ground around their midfoot, transitions to their forefoot, and then pushes off from their toes.
“We want our athletes to maintain some stiffness at ground contact time, then rebound off the ground quickly and cross-cycle from foot contact to foot contact,” Murphy says. “We don’t want the athlete to spend too much time on the ground.”
Sprinters can improve posture, ground contact quality, and power with well-planned time in the weight room.
Strength training for sprinters
Murphy recommends that sprinters complete 6 to 8 weeks of resistance training under the guidance and supervision of a trained professional. This will help them begin to see measurable changes.
Below are some general relative strength training standards for male and female athletes. Note the recommended weight assigned for each exercise:
| Female athletes | Male athletes | |
|---|---|---|
| Barbell back squat With a barbell on your upper back, squat down and then rise. |
1 to 1.75 times body weight | 1.5 to 2.5 times body weight |
| Barbell bench press Lie down on a bench and lower a barbell down to the chest and then back up. |
0.5 to 1 times body weight | 1 to 1.5 times body weight |
| Barbell deadlift From a standing position, bend over and pick up a barbell, slowly sliding to a standing position. |
1.25 to 2 times body weight | 1.5 to 2.5 times body weight |
Sprinting is a full-body activity, and these exercises strengthen muscles throughout the body.
“Where a lot of people go wrong is that they just focus on the lower extremities. But you need to make sure you’re also targeting the upper extremities because the velocity and power at which an athlete is throwing their arms have an impact on power and speed. You often hear coaches say, ‘As the arms go, the legs will follow.’”
Other exercises for sprint training
The exercises listed above are not a complete list. Murphy recommends using a variety of training modalities in the weight room to improve sprinting performance:
- Bilateral (two legs) and unilateral (one leg) squats and hinges (a variety of exercises where you bend the hips and knees but keep the back straight)
- Horizontal and vertical pushing and pulling exercises, such as presses and rows
- Isolated strength exercises, which focus on one muscle, such as Nordic hamstring curls for the hamstrings, leg extensions for the quadriceps, and calf raises for the calves
- Medicine ball throws and plyometric jumps
- Olympic lifting, such as the snatch and clean and jerk, or modifications of those exercises
Post-activation potentiation
Advanced athletes can make tremendous gains in power and speed with a technique called post-activation potentiation, Murphy says. This involves lifting a heavy load in a training activity and then immediately doing a plyometric exercise (quick, explosive movements). The combination activates the nervous system and can temporarily increase muscle force and performance.
For example, a sprinter can push a heavy sled for 10 meters. This high-intensity activity requires the same stance a sprinter would use in early acceleration. The athlete then transitions right from the heavy sled push to a plyometric activity, such as a box jump or a few broad jumps.
Because of the way the combination activates the nervous system, most people immediately notice that the jumps are more powerful after the sled push.
“The focus here is to combine a high-load, slow-velocity activity for a short duration with a low-load, high-velocity activity for a short duration to mirror the demands of sprinting,” Murphy says. “I think where many athletes go wrong is that they do too much of one thing or they do too little of another. The best approach to gain power in sprinting is a multifaceted approach to training.”
