As we get older, speed is one of the last things we tend to focus on as it pertains to our overall health. Life becomes more about slowing down and being comfortable rather than continuing to challenge and push our bodies. Joey Greany, CSCS, shares his sprint training tips here. According to the pro sports speed and strength coach, by not focusing on speed and the movements required to move faster and more explosive, we’re doing a physical disservice to ourselves in the quest to be our best as we get older.
Speed and sprinting are a fixture in all Major League Baseball training programs as it’s part of the job. For many of us, sprinting is only done on a have-to-do basis. Whether we’re trying to make it to the boarding gate to catch a flight or to deter an officer from placing a parking ticket under our windshield, how many of us are testing our speed on a consistent basis? Why don’t we?
Greany, the strength and conditioning coach for the Tampa Bay Rays, explains why speed training is as important for weekend warriors and fitness enthusiasts of every level as it is for baseball All-Stars or Olympic athletes. And probably most surprising of all: Sprint training doesn’t have to dominate your training schedule. According to Greany, two days a week for less than a half hour should be enough to help anyone build power and explosiveness.
“With just one explosive sprint, you’re going to get the benefits of power development, overall athleticism, core strengthening, joint intended health, and that’s just to name a few,” Greany says.
Benefits of Sprint Training
Here he discussed the benefits it can have to your overall fitness, the misconceptions around it and his sprint training tips on how to get the most out of incorporating speed into your training.
Speed Training Helps Build Muscle
Sprint training not only helps you become faster but it also helps build muscle, connective tissue and aids in body control, and awareness—all important factors as we get older. Most of our workout routines can become monotonous as we move through life and building speed is not only a way to add variety but also can lead to you feeling your best longer.
Sprint Training Can Improve Health
Greany says sprinting can help athletes of all shapes and sizes. If you’re a runner, you can improve on your endurance, and pr times. There is also a novelty reason as well.
“Look at a marathon runner’s body, and then look at an Olympic sprinter’s body,” said Greany. “You can see the difference in muscle tone and muscle mass, because that sprinter is exposing themselves to higher speeds, higher stresses, and working as many muscles as possible. When you do a max effort sprint, you’re working a gauntlet of muscles from the lower body all the way to the upper body, including your abdominals. So body composition, burning body fat, tendon and joint health, building overall athleticism and explosive power is the benefits of sprint training.”
Sprints Actually Reduce the Risk of Injury as We Age
If you hate burning fat, improving your agility, endurance, and cardiovascular health, then sprint training isn’t for you. Even if running is a fixture in your routine, Greany says you’re training your body to be slow with running in one plane of motion and if you had to make a sudden stop or quick movement, you’re likely to pull a groin or hamstring because of how foreign the motion is.
As we get older, one of the main concerns of doing anything athletic is injury. Sprint training helps keep the tendons and ligaments strong, which helps reduce the risk of injury. You also want to perform your best when you’re doing anything athletic and making sure your body is ready for whatever stress that is supposed to be placed on it is a great start.
Essential Sprint Training Tips
NEVER Skip the Warmup
As with most exercises, warming up is imperative for a number of reasons. Sprinting requires explosive movements and even though the warmup can be longer than the actual workout, you don’t want to go right into sprinting while the body is cold, so to speak. A proper warm up will aide in injury prevention and help improve performance.
“You’re looking at about 10 to 12 minutes of dynamic movements, Greany says. “There’s roughly between 16 to 20 different movement warmup exercises that you can go through. Then you’re looking at about four to five running drills, and then right into your sprint work.”
Sprints are Different from Distance Training
Sprinting is all about explosive power. You’re burning fat and calories as you’re pushing your body to accelerate. This not only helps you become a more well-rounded athlete but it’s also a way to keep your training routine fun and challenging. With the amount of stress placed on the body, you will need some time off to recover to be fully prepared for the next session.
There is less recovery needed for distance training as you’re usually going long and at an easy pace. Along with cardiovascular health, you’re also improving your muscular and aerobic endurance. This helps you not feel fatigued as fast. If you’re confused on which you should be doing, you’ll see greater returns doing both.
Sprint training Is Easy to Add to Your Workouts
“I would say twice a week, or once every four or five days,” Greany says. “You want to allow at least 48 hours in between sprint work. If we’re talking like the general population of fitness, I would say every four days or so would be enough to develop that explosiveness.
“The best timing to perform any sprint or explosive work is prior to your strength training and right after a warm up. Say you perform a warm up and go right into your explosive work. Whether it’s plyometrics, jump training or sprint work, and then go into the weight room perform your strength training. Or, you could do it on a separate day — do your strength training one day, do your speed and plyometrics the next day, go ahead and do strength training and kind of cycle through that during the week.”
Always Keep Track and Measure Your Progress
If you’re one that loves to track your improvement, there are a few ways you can do this. You can use speed gates that track and record your speeds. You can use wearable tech that tracks markers such as pace, heart rate, and timing. Greany says one of the best things you can do is include a training partner to not only help push you but to also see where you at through competition.
Joey Greany is a pro sports strength and speed coach with over 17 years of experience training some of the world’s top athletes. He spent 9 seasons as a minor league strength and conditioning coach for the Kansas City Royals and 8 seasons with the Tampa Bay Rays at the major league level. Joey holds a Masters degree in Exercise Science from the University of Tennessee Southern and is a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist (CSCS) through the National Strength and Conditioning Association. His fitness programs have even been featured on Fox 13 Tampa Bay and Fox 10 Phoenix morning shows.
Follow him on Instagram @joeygreany and X @joeygreany