The vast majority of scientific studies investigating sprint training methods are performed on young team sport athletes where brief sprints 🍊 with short recoveries are the norm [1,2,3,4]. Therefore, sprint training recommendations from the research literature have limited relevance to competitive 🍊 sprinting, where elite 100-m athletes perform sprint-specific training over various distances. Practitioners classify sprint running either according to phase of 🍊 interest or primary energy system used [11,12,13,14,15,16]. For the latter, sprint duration shorter than 6–7 s is considered alactic, while 🍊 longer sprints are considered lactic [11,12,13,14,15,16]. In the following paragraphs, we present best practice guidelines for specific sprint training according 🍊 to phase of interest. Total volume within these sessions is typically guided by the intensity and visual inspection of technique. 🍊 That is, the session should be ended when drop-off in performance and/or technical deterioration is observed [11, 13,14,15,16]. Table 2 🍊 summarizes the best practice guidelines, while Table 3 shows examples of training weeks across varying meso-cycles.
Table 2 Summary of best 🍊 practice sprint training recommendations Full size table
Table 3 Training week examples across varying meso-cycles Full size table
Acceleration
When acceleration is the 🍊 primary focus, leading practitioners recommend 10–50-m sprints from blocks, crouched or a three-point start position [10, 11, 13,14,15,16,17,18]. Block starts 🍊 are considered more energetically costly than standing starts. The distances used will vary depending on athlete performance level, as better 🍊 sprinters reach higher top speeds and accelerate longer than their lower performing counterparts. Full recovery is required between each sprint, 🍊 allowing the athlete to perform each repetition without a drop-off in performance. According to the UK Athletics, longer recoveries are 🍊 required for elite sprinters who are reaching higher absolute intensities than for younger developmental athletes [15]. A typical acceleration session 🍊 for a young and relatively untrained athlete might be runs over 20 m from a crouched start with 2-min recovery 🍊 between each repetition, while an elite sprinter may perform sprints over 40 m from blocks with 7-min recovery in between 🍊 [15].
