Prime Your Muscles
We’ve talked about the importance about warming up before our races and I think that we can all agree that you absolutely must warmup before any run. But, have you paid attention to something I’ve mentioned every now and then? The title of the post says it all. Before we sprint we must also prime our muscles. What does that mean? Well, it means that we have to engage our sprint muscles and use them before we run. How do we do that? Accelerations, quick jumps, high knees, machine gun, explosive squats are all examples. Here is a summary from a study if you are not convinced. Note that the weight lifting example provided by the study is not necessarily the best thing for us to do.
Yetter M, Moir GL. (2008). The acute effects of heavy back and front squats on speed during forty-meter sprint trials. J Strength Cond Res. 22(1):159-65.
The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effects of performing heavy back squats (HBS) and heavy front squats (HFS) on the average speed during each 10-m interval of 40-m sprint trials. In a randomized, cross-over design, 10 strength-trained men performed a HBS, HFS, or control treatment before performing three 40-m sprint trials separated by 3 minutes. The HBS and HFS treatments consisted of performing parallel back or front squats with 30%, 50%, and 70% of the subject’s 1 repetition maximum after 5 minutes of cycling. The control treatment consisted of cycling for 5 minutes. The sprint trials were performed 4 minutes after completing the HBS, HFS, or control treatments. Significant increases in speed were found during the 10- to 20-m interval for the HBS compared with the control treatment (mean difference, 0.12 m x s(-1); 95% likely range, 0.05-0.18 m x s(-1); P = 0.001). During the 30- to 40-m interval, HBS produced significantly greater speeds compared with the HFS treatment (mean difference, 0.24 m x s(-1); 95% likely range, 0.02-0.45 m x s(-1); P = 0.034) and the control treatment (mean difference, 0.18 m x s(-1); 95% likely range, 0.03-0.32 m x s(-1); P = 0.021). The differing effects of the treatments may reflect different levels of muscular activation or different mechanical aspects of the squat exercises. Similarly, the multidimensional nature of sprint running means that other specific exercises may confer improvements in sprinting performance during other intervals. It is suggested that coaches could incorporate HBS into the warm-up procedure of athletes to improve sprinting performance.
So…Please, please do not just stand there and go through the motions while warming up. Instead, do something explosive, something that will engage your sprint muscles. Prime your muscles and you will run faster.
-Coach Vandermyn