Guys can I have your opinion?? Please?

Expert Discussion Advanced Sprint Training
1

I am 24 years old, and had never trained track in my life. At Uni a couple of weeks ago we had a sports competition, and I timed 11.93. (without ever having sprinted or trained for sprinting) a friend of mine told me that I should train, so I started to train my legs a bit harder with weights, and at another track meet 4 weeks later I timed 11.45, my start out of the blocks sucked badly, I’d never done it, but I still ended up 3rd in my heat and lost in my heat to the guys that took 1st and 2nd place.

Here’s the question, do you think, a) my times are ok for a beginner and b) I can go sub 11 by training well next year.

It’s also important to note that I’m 172cm tall and weigh just under 70kgs with 10% bodyfat.

Please send opinions, and training suggestions.

Thanx, Alex.

2

I think you know that the answer is yes… :slight_smile:
There is none here to keep you from doing it.

What sport do you do?

3

thanks for your reply Thor.

The truth is that I’ve done mainly martial arts for a while, and I’ve found that lately it just hasn’t been motivating me all that much. And sprinting and athletics is something I just fell into lately, and think that if I apply myself to the training I can go under 11 seconds by next year.

There aren’t that many athletes in my faculty, and it always helps to get a few medals for the faculty, and the training, and the sport itself is really motivating.

Besides, women athletes are very attractive :wink: (that’s just a bonus hehehe)
here is a foto of practice last weekend, I’m hte one at the right of the foto, we were doing ascensions, (start slow and go to max speed progressively)

This foto was taken at the athletics facility of my university (Universidad de Chile, in …Chile) in the background, you can see the Andes Mountain range, it’s really beautiful, you can see them from anywhere in Santiago (the capital of Chile) tell me what you think

4

Andes Mountains.

There is a certain Disney film set there about some rugby players. I was forced to watch it when I was 14 for my Social Studies class and NEVER forgot it.

It does look beautiful though.

5

David, I think he was asking our thoughts on how he looks :slight_smile:

My comment… much better than the other two, though a video is needed.

If you’re injury free I don’t see why sub 11 shouldn’t be a realistic goal in a year’s time even if it’s 10.99 :slight_smile:

6

Aside from the times themselves, I think an important consideration is your improvement and response to training. Dropping half a second in just a few weeks is pretty impressive. I think sub 11 is realistic, but you just have to train (and recover) properly and let yourself develop at your own pace.

Your form looks pretty good.

7

Thanks Flash, I do have to admit though that I’ve probably stressed my body a little bit too much these last two weeks. I’ve started with some pains in my shins, and I can’t really tell if it’s the tendons of the muscles in my shins or if it’s the shins themselves, as well as the ligament that runs along the front inner side of my anlke just in front of the internal maleolus of the tibia. Maybe it’s just DOMS but maybe not. I’ve decided to take a 5 day rest to see how they respond, and hope it’s just the connective tissue repairing slower than the muscle.

Thanks again for all your support guys, and I’ll post up some fotos of my running form on saturday night so you can all give me your advice, and tell me what I’m dooing right and what I can improve on.

Alex

8

At last, someone else from South America. First of all welcome to the Charlie Francis forum. If you’re curious I’m from Venezuela and I’m currently living in Argentina. Who knows, if things go well for both I might see you in the Orlando Guaita next year!

There is little doubt you can go sub-11 next year if you train properly, from 11.45 to sub 11 is nothing if you are just starting and as you said you come out of blocks poorly. With proper strength and track work you’ll gain most of that half second to sub-11 just improving your technique and strength levels for the acceleration/coming out of blocks phase of the race.

As to pain in your shin, that’s very normal, is the track there are Uni Chile hard? In particular if you suddenly started training many times a week on a track from nothing before most people get shin splints (periostitis). Not much you can do about it, ice it and continue training, there is no point in stopping as once you start training again they will come back till your body adapts to the impact of training. Do go to a doctor and have it checked out just in case there is anything else but this just sounds like your usual periostitis in beginners case. Make sure you go to a sports specialist, a stupid normal doctor will probably tell you to stop.

Do you train with Kael Becerra? I know he’s also from Universidad de Chile, that kid has posted some important marks this year … 10.69 and 21.52 are no joke for an 18 year old, in particular here in South America. If you need any information on athletes or results on meets in South America ask me, I’ll probably know (I still haven’t been able to find you on results from tournaments in Chile I have :smiley: ).

9

Thanks for your reply aln, true, I agree completely with your analysis. I just got back today from the ENADEO (Encuentro Nacional de Estudiantes de Odontología) where I ran tha 100mt and the 100mt leg of the “swedish relay”? (not sure if that’s what it’s called, 100mt, 200mt, 400mt and 600mts)

To start off, so you guys can laugh a bit (at the shoddy organization of the meet), the track on which we ran was some sort of combination between ashphalt (it had tar) and it was really HARD, and we had to run in spikes. As i’ve already mentioned my starts arne’t all that good, and in my first run, I came out of the blocks really low, and the spikes didn’t penetrate the surface, with the result, that I slipped and ate part of the track, I managed to stay “up” and fixed my sunglasses that almost fell off, and just got really pissed off, resulting in my accelerating really hard, and passing two guys that had passed me and ended up finishing third in my heat, and still qualifying for the finals in 12.5

In the finals, I ran without my sunglasses, and ended in 4th place, behind two of my training partners, (both of which have been training for years) and I clocked manually a time of 11.39 seconds. (the 1st place was 11.31, it was a really close race)

After this, with my two partners I just mentioned, we split up for the 100 (me) 200 (samuel) and 400 (Eduardo), We started off with the 100, and apparently being beaten annoyed me and made me run a little faster, and I ended up leaving all my oponents behind, left about 5-7mt between me and the next guy, giving samuel a good head start, even though, the other university had two really good runners running the 400 and the 600, so we ended in 2nd place.

As for training with Kael, no I haven’t trained with him, I haven’t really trained a lot with the people of U. de Chile, I started training with them about three sessions ago, and haven’t been training with anyone in particular, just my two friends from my faculty, but at the inter-faculty meet I did race against a guy whi sprints really well, his surname is Schilling. I am however going to train constantly now that the ENADEO has passed, and will participate next year in the federated competitions, as I mentioned before I had no idea I could run until 2 months ago.

You may have heard of a friend of mine though, he’s a thrower, he does the shot put, his name is Gabriel Rabi, he’s one of the guys that told me that I should train.

As soon as I develop the pictures, I’ll post them, I should have them ready by mid week.

If anyone wants to give me a hand in setting up a training regime, please let me know, considering my performance on thursday was not up to what I wanted, I am really hungry to improve and post some better results.

10

Haha, that reminds me of a friend who used to compete in baggy shorts. During one of his heats, his pants started to fall down so we watched as he ran and simutaneously tried to pull his pants up.

Ahh, the things that you can still do while trying to run as fast as you can.

11

ah yes, the sad thing is that I even got a sposor to make the track team speedsuits, and there was a photographer from the regional newspaper, I don’t think that its necessary to say that I wasn’t in the photo, well… actually I was, but the tip of my shoe, pushing against the blocks so that thay wouldn’t slip when my mates ran in the first heat.

"…look at my shoes…I’m famous… my friends get front page closeups of their starts, but my shoes are still in the picture, ah…to be famous…
hahahaha