Speeding is Good

This was my final paper: my choice paper. I chose the genre... and as you could probably tell, I chose all my topics for my papers. I received an "A+" on this paper. You can not really get an "A+" in college, but because it only had two mistakes when he first saw it and he learned from it, he gave me an A+. Made me pretty happy!

Speeding in a car down the roadway may not be good for one’s health, but on the other hand, sprinting is. Sprinting improves cardiovascular health, athleticism, increases muscle size, and once someone is good at it, it can be quite fun. How does one become good at sprinting? Becoming a faster sprinter may seem simple: just become faster. Someone becomes faster from just running, right? Not really. There are much more efficient and fun ways to become a faster sprinter.

Just running for miles and miles is not the best way to increase speed. To be honest, running for miles and miles can get really boring and might even slow some people down. Before getting into exercise strategies to increase speed, it is necessary to describe what makes someone faster. To become faster, one must become leaner, improve running technique, improve flexibility, become more powerful, create a stronger core and be more explosive (being able to activate muscle fibers faster).

Becoming faster can be a fun, but difficult process. If someone is overweight, one of the first things that person must do is get rid of excess body fat. It is of utmost importance to lose excess body fat to become faster. To lose weight safely, one should keep a healthy diet, perform moderate weight lifting and moderate aerobic exercise. Going from overweight and doing little to no exercise to doing extreme exercise in attempt to lose weight quickly increases injury risk (Irish Times).

The next most important thing to do to increase sprinting speed is to improve sprinting technique and form. If someone is lean, powerful and overall very fit but has ugly form, that person could be beaten in a race by someone who is in slightly worse physical condition, but has better sprinting form. Not only does having good sprinting form make someone faster, it also decreases the chance of injury. I personally experienced this when I ran with poor form and experienced knee pain and shin splints. Both of those injuries sidelined me of the sports I was playing at the time. I fixed my form and have not had any running injuries since then.

Once a sprinter knows what proper sprinting form is and how to execute it, the sprinter should practice his or her form to perfect it. Doing so will also train the muscles and the central nervous system to function and work properly while sprinting.

Becoming flexible helps sprinters in more ways than one, thus flexibility exercises should be included in any sprinter’s workout regimen. Being flexible decreases a sprinter’s chance of injury, and being flexible also allows a sprinter to have longer strides, both of which are very important for sprinters (American Journal of Sports Medicine). Dynamic stretching (stretching while moving) and static stretching (holding a position in which a muscle is stretched) are both effective at increasing flexibility. Dynamic stretching should be part of a sprinter’s warm-up before exercising, while static stretching should be used in a sprinter’s cool down after exercising.

Sprinting is a movement that requires a lot of power (Smirniotou). A very effective way to improve power is through weight lifting. For a beginner, any kind of weight lifting will improve power. After a month or so of weight training, a sprinter should focus on heavier weights that work more muscle groups. Lifting heavy weights work the fast twitch muscle fibers (the muscle fibers that are used for speed) more than lifting light weights does.

What is considered a “heavy weight” when lifting? Lifting a weight that can only be lifted for 2 to 6 repetitions is considered a “heavy weight” and will usually give sprinters optimal results. Lifting a weight that can only be lifted for only one repetition is very heavy, but will give very little results. Lifting a weight that can be lifted for 7 to 12 repetitions will give a sprinter a lot of muscle and power, but eventually will build more muscle than necessary, which could slow a sprinter down. Lifting a weight that can be lifted for more than 12 repetitions is too light and will increase endurance, which is ideal for endurance athletes, but not sprinters.

For sprinting, some people may think that they should only train their leg muscles, but that is not the case. When sprinting, the arms and core are heavily involved. Pumping the arms back and forth is necessary to maintain speed and proper form while sprinting. The core keeps the body upright and stops the sprinter from twisting his or her body too much while sprinting. Powerlifting movements (squats, deadlifts, overhead press, bench press) are effective for increasing power and core strength, thus should be used by any serious athlete (Brown).

    Even though powerlifting heavy weights builds a strong core (Brown), sometimes that will not be enough work for a sprinter’s core. Doing core exercises, such as plank variations and hanging leg raise variations are helpful to strengthen the core for sprinting.

Doing plyometrics (exercise involving repeated rapid stretching and contracting of muscles to increase muscle power) is another very effective way to train for speed (Stein). A few good plyometric exercises are jump squats, box jumps, quick feet, clapping pushups and almost any other jumping exercise. Doing plyometrics will increase the power of the concentric (contraction) movement of the muscles (Hannusch). It does so by exercising muscles while they are in a eccentric (stretched) position. In simpler terms, plyometrics put tension on a stretched muscle to improve explosive power (Hannusch). Plyometrics are extremely effective at increasing speed, but should only be used by advanced athletes. A beginner or an out of shape athlete can easily injure themselves by doing plyometrics (Irish Times).

    Some sprinters have trouble bringing their knees high enough while sprinting. Core exercises, hill sprints, technique practice, increased flexibility and some plyometrics should aid in taking care of this problem.
    Some long distance runners do not want to add sprinting to his or her routine because he or she might assume sprinting will not help him or her with long distance running. This assumption is not valid. If a long distance runner’s long distance running is mostly replaced by sprinting, then yes, sprinting will not improve his or her long distance running. If sprint workouts are only added once or twice a week, his or her long distance runs will likely improve. Doing sprint workouts teaches runners to bring their knees higher, which most long distance runners could improve on. Sprint workouts will also increase muscle strength, which helps prevent injuries and increase overall speed. Not to mention, someone can burn more calories in less time from interval sprinting rather than from long distance running.

Sprinting and sprint training are very good for one’s health. Being a good sprinter aids in almost any sport, provides better overall health and will improve one’s physique. Remember, for someone to become a faster sprinter he or she should keep his or her diet in check, lose excess body fat, improve his or her running form, strengthen his or her core, become more powerful, flexible, and explosive.

Works Cited

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Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness 48.4 (2008): 447-54. ProQuest Central; ProQuest Newsstand. Web. 6 Dec. 2012.

"Hamstring Injuries in Sprinters. the Role of Concentric and Eccentric Hamstring Muscle

Strength and Flexibility." American Journal of Sports Medicine 22 (1994): 262-6. ProQuest Central; ProQuest Newsstand. Web. 6 Dec. 2012.

Hannusch, Jeff. "Add Plyometrics to Training to Increase Strength, Speed." Times - Picayune

(pre-1997 Fulltext): 0. ProQuest Central; ProQuest Newsstand. Sep 07 1994. Web. 4 Dec. 2012 .

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Approach to Building Health." Journal - Gazette: 0. Dec 25 2005. ProQuest Central; ProQuest Newsstand. Web. 6 Dec. 2012 .