No athlete remembers them fondly, but wind sprints are an indelible part of many sports experiences. Anyone participating on a team has likely done a fair share of these drills, running full-speed for a designated distance more times than the lungs seemed capable of doing.
It often seemed end-of-practice sprints were a form of punishment–or at least a way for coaches to identify who was woefully unfit or uncommitted or both. But it turns out those wind sprints help better prepare you for sports participation, and are a good thing to include in your current exercise program.
“If you only go at one pace during workouts, maybe a slow run, your body is stuck working only one set of enzymes in the muscles,” says Todd Trappe, an exercise physiologist at the Human Performance Laboratory of Ball State University in Muncie, Ind. “Even if you log a lot of miles, you are still just working that one single set of enzymes.”
In this case, those enzymes are adequately fueling the muscles for aerobic activities such as walking, running, in-line skating, cycling, swimming and aerobic dancing. Your body is able to maintain a certain level of effort for a long duration because it is efficiently providing oxygen to muscle fibers.
What’s lacking is your anaerobic capacity, which is the body’s ability to exert energy without any additional oxygen pumped to the muscles (“anaerobic” is derived from two Greek words that mean “without air”). Any short-term burst, such as running to catch the bus, breaking open for a pass on the basketball court or trying to win the 100-meter dash at this summer’s Olympic Games, requires anaerobic fitness and uses a second set of enzymes to provide fuel in the muscles.
Lifting objects, such as barbells or heavy bags of groceries, is another form of anaerobic activity that uses yet another set of enzymes, labeled the phosphagen system by exercise scientists. Running sprints won’t help here; good exercises include resistance training with weights or elastic tubing or certain weight-bearing calisthenics such as pushups.
Nonetheless, sprints have a significant place in sports conditioning.
“We use them with all of our teams,” says Paul Schmidt, head trainer for the men’s and women’s athletic programs at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
Interval training is another variation on sprints and anaerobic conditioning. It involves alternating between short bursts at a fast pace (swimming one lap as hard as possible) and periods of less effort (swimming two laps at a slow to moderate pace) to allow for muscle recovery.
The concept of gradually increasing intensity works at any exercise level. If you walk for fitness, try going faster than normal for, say, 30 seconds every three minutes. Eventually your body will become acclimated to holding the quicker pace over a longer period (and you will have to increase the intense phases to maybe 45 seconds to a minute every three minutes to avoid hitting a plateau). An added bonus: You will burn more calories.
Trappe says interval training will improve consistency of sports performance, especially during the later parts of a game or match.
“If you are aerobically fit, you will be able to handle one or two short sprints or bursts without much problem,” he explains. “But if you want to repeat the short bursts many times during a workout, you need to do interval training.”
Trappe suggests one interval workout each week for anyone looking to improve overall fitness. He suggests two interval workouts if you are hoping to improve in a sport that requires anaerobic actions.
You should start such training with 20- to 30-second fast intervals with plenty of slow recovery in between (at least twice as long; three to four times longer is a good beginning length). If you don’t care to use a watch, find distances that approximate the intervals, such as telephone poles on your cycling route.
It’s important to maintain correct form during the faster intervals. The correct fast pace is one that pushes you but allows smooth and consistent motion. If you are off-balance, you are only developing bad habits that may be hard to break.
Schmidt warns against becoming too enamored of interval training.
“You need at least a day of rest between interval workouts,” he says. “Otherwise your leg muscles don’t recover. This can lead to improper form and lesser quality workouts, plus possible injury.”
Schmidt says many coaches use wind sprints at the end of practice because athletes are most loose and warmed up then. He recommends about 15 to 20 minutes of activity before starting your intervals.
“You definitely want to be fully stretched and warm before sprinting or going all-out,” says Schmidt. “Everyone is different; there is no one cookbook approach.
“You are asking for trouble if you jump too quickly into the intervals.”
