can i sprint train after 40?
Most certainly! I’m over 40 and I still try to sprint train 2 x per week. I keep them fairly short and simple, and it’s a formula that works. Sure, life gets in the way sometimes, but I find it easier to hit a park or high school track than drag my sorry butt to a gym.
Now, training a high intensity activity such as sprinting has to come with some sort of Surgeon General’s warning: You’re older - so your body’s soft tissue isn’t as elastic as it once was. It needs time to adapt to the stresses of sprinting. Don’t try to re-live your High school heroics early on in your (re) training or you will end up with an injury. It’s like death, taxes and Liam Neeson - it will find you.
Follow my advice and, hopefully, you’ll be a hero in your kids eyes once again. I have teenagers so looking cool in their eyes is a tough, tough thing.
That being said, here are my keys for success when sprinting and you’re no longer in your teens or twenties:
1) Warm up! I hear people say all the time that their warm up is longer than their workout! It doesn’t have to be that way - 10-15 minutes is more than adequate to prepare your tissue, if you’re smart about it. Your warmup should include dynamic movements (light jog, shuffles, carioca, butt kicks, A-skips etc.), some dynamic mobility (hip swings, sumo’s, lunges etc.) and some low-intensity sprints and plyometrics. You should feel warm (even sweaty) and you may breathe a little harder. This is good. A warm up is movement prep for the days activities. You wouldn’t walk into the gym and throw 450# on the barbell for a 1 rep max and expect to come out alive. Sprinting is the same; it’s very much a gradual crescendo.
2) Keep it short! By this I mean your sprint distance. Your body no longer cares that you were a 100 or 200m champion in middle school. Keep your sprints to 10m ( I like to utilize Derek Hansen’s 10 x 10 protocol) - that is 5 x 10m, followed by 1-2 mins rest and then repeat. After a few weeks of consistent training you can increase to 15m (and so-on). This would look like: 5 x 10m, rest 1-2 mins followed by 5 x 15m. Survive that up-tick and you can move to 10 x 15m and so-forth. We are gradually increasing the volume (total distance covered) so you don’t have to call your husband or wife to pick you up because you can no longer drive home.
3) Monitor your intensity! Intensity = effort. I’ll refer back to my 1 rep max analogy I mentioned in rule number 1. You wouldn’t try to max your lift day 1, so don’t max your sprints either. That 10 x 10 protocol you’re starting with - keep those sprints around 70-75% of your max effort. Think of these as a ‘fast run’ rather than a full on sprint at this stage. Again, we’re allowing for tissue adaptation to occur (think: slow to fast) so spend a couple of weeks here before upping to 75-85%.
4) Start Easy! This is exactly as it sounds. Utilize a ‘rolling (easy) start’ to your sprints - especially early on. This may be a 5 yard walk or jog into the sprint rather than a ‘static (hard) start’ like a 2 or 3 point position.
5) Cool down! The days of walking out of a workout with a cigarette in hand and no stretching are gooonnnne my friend. Post workout is the perfect time to lengthen those muscles through stretching (flexibility). Spending 5-10 minutes at the end to stretch is time very well spent, believe me.
There you have it! Hopefully this gives you some confidence to go out and sprint well into your golden years. If you believe in a fountain of youth - sprinting may well be it.