4 Running Tips That Will Help You Build Power, Strength, and Speed

When was the last time you really had to run? With your heart pounding, your legs burning and going as fast as possible?

If you don’t remember, then you are missing out on one of the best tools to challenge your body and improve body composition. Sprinting is arguably one of the most essential training tools for sports performance.

If you’re going to include sprints in your routine, you should consider the best ways to approach them to maximize their use and protect yourself. When you do, you will see improvements in your body’s ability to perform.

What are the benefits of running?

Increases sports performance

Sprinting applies to all sports because of the power, strength, and speed benefits. “Because it is super explosive, it activates practically every muscle in the human body,” he says. Mike Young, Ph.D.director of Athletic Lab, which focuses on the development of speed and athletic performance. “There’s not much in the fitness world that involves all muscle groups acting as aggressively as you see in sprinting,” says Young.

Improves body composition

Beyond athletic performance, the benefits of sprinting translate to the physical qualities of the body, Young says.

“You get the benefit of high intensity through body composition and lean mass: it’s more athletic gluteshamstrings and quadriceps“, says. “That’s why you see elite sprinters look the way they do: really lean and muscular. Some of that just comes from the act of running.”

How to acclimatize your body to sprinting

Sprinting is an intense, high-impact exercise. To protect your body and get the most out of your sprints, follow these tips.

Heating

When you start running, start with a quick warm-up, such as high knees and lunges, to get your body relaxed and ready to run. Then start with basic movement, acclimating your tissues, muscles, and even bones to the intensity, Rooney says. Even running in place can be a good starting point as your body gets used to the movement.

“We must awaken the nervous system that accesses the large muscle fibers — the great engine. When you do that, you can work those muscles,” Rooney says.

start slow

If the last time you ran was in high school gym class, don’t go straight into the 100-yard dash. You just want to start moving fast again, he says Martin Rooneyfounder of Training for Warriors.

That could be taking quick steps up a speed ladder or taking steps a little faster than you’re comfortable with. While there is no “perfect” distance to run, aim for 30 yards or so when you start.

keep your body

Ought work in mobility — through stretching and dynamic movements like lunges that improve your range of motion, therefore reducing the risk of injury.

And if you are in a higher body weight than you should, improving your nutrition and losing weight will improve your running ability, Rooney says.

4 running tips to be faster

If you want to make sure you’re experiencing all the benefits of sprinting, here are four tips to help you do it the right way.

1. Keep your mechanics sharp

The fastest body is the most efficient, meaning you don’t waste energy with body parts in the wrong place. While it may seem like running fast is just running fast, then you’re not getting the most out of your effort.

Your anatomical checklist for excellent sprint technique:

• Lean your entire body forward. Instead of simply hunching your back, Young says to think about bending from your ankles up so that your head, neck, spine, and pelvis are aligned.
• Stabilize your head. “A common mistake is for the head to tilt due to its normal postural alignment,” says Young. That means that the force transferred from the ground is not efficiently transferred to the entire body. Because the human body is not ideally designed for running (we are too vertical compared to the horizontal position of, say, a cheetah), a wobbly head makes a system even more inefficient.

2. Accelerate with long strides

Good sprint form is about how you accelerate during the race. “The physics of running hasn’t changed: if you run in a world governed by physics, you don’t reach top speed without acceleration,” Young says.

That means your first steps are big, long strides (not the short, choppy ones you see some people take) with big swinging arms. When you take short steps, you can’t generate much force, because there is less contact time with the ground.

Having a long stride length means longer ground contact time and more force to propel the body forward, says Young.

3. Experiment with intensity

When most people hear the word “sprint,” they think “full speed ahead.” That doesn’t have to be the case, Rooney says. You can aim for 70 or 80 percent of maximum effort in your workouts and play with combinations of different distances and intensities.

“When we say sprint, it doesn’t mean it has to be like a tiger is chasing you,” Rooney says.

4. Strengthen your sprint muscles

The glutes and hamstrings, and all the muscles in your posterior chain — serve as a speed engine, Young says. Dead weight, romanian deadliftglute raises and steps to follow They are great for strengthening those muscles and helping with sprinting performance. Any single leg exercises It will also be useful, says Young.

And there are few better movements for training power and speed than plyometricsthat help develop explosiveness.