Me

Expert Discussion Advanced Sprint Training
1

Hello,

Not sure if this is the right place to post this but here it goes…

Background info on me:
Age - 16
Weight - 78 kilos
PB’s - 100m - 11.83 - 200m - 23.80 (both electronically timed)
Been sprinting for 2 years now.

Recently I have spent 6 weeks with my leg in plaster in an attempt to heal a stress fracture that was caused by sprinting. The fracture has since healed and I have been out of plaster for 2 weeks now. I’m currently doing physio to get the strength back in my leg.
The sports doctor says I could be back sprinting in another 4 or 5 weeks but I really don’t want to rush anything.

I talked to my sprints coach first thing when I came out of plaster and basically he told me not to listen to the doctor. Coach pretty much said I should start sprinting again straight away. As you can imagine, I wasn’t very impressed.

Now here’s my problem. Going by his recent comments, my coach doesn’t seem like a very smart person. Even though he has taken my 100m PB from 13.3 to 11.83, he did train me so hard as to cause a stress fracture. Okay, maybe the fracture was not entirely his fault, but from what he has recently said to me, if I keep training with his squad, the same thing is only going to happen again. Honestly, I shouldn’t have got the stress fracture in the first place. My times are not fast enough to justify it.

Anyway, I’m thinking of dumping the current coach. He isn’t really a sprints coach anyway; he’s mainly distance. Until I can find a replacement, I’m going to try and coach myself using the info that is on these boards. :slight_smile:

Here are my plans for the upcoming track season:

Goal - 100m - 10.86
I believe this is very achievable. I have run my PB of 11.83 on 2 separate occasions; on the 2nd occasion I was running with a stress fracture. When I ran 11.83, I had no endurance, I had done no gym work, I had no flexibility and I was maybe carrying a little too much body fat. I have also had no proper starts training.
So, my plan is too improve on all these areas.

The doctor says I can start cycling on an exercise bike, so I will be doing that to get my fitness up and hopefully lower my BF%.
When my leg has fully recovered, I will start lifting weights, making sure I have proper technique.
When I am happy with my fitness, I will start doing track work. I will most likely need a coach for this unless you guys can hit me up with a program?
Finally, when I’m happy with my strength and fitness, I’ll seek out a coach to help me with my starts.
Oh, nearly forgot, I’ll be doing lots of stretching to improve my flexibility. I’ll talk to my physio about this.

Sound good?

If you have any good suggestions on how to get fit fast, or flexible fast, or if you can help me out with just anything really, I would love to hear from you. :slight_smile:
Thankyou very much. :o

2

you sound pretty smart for a 16 year old. Seeing as how you have at least 5 years until you should be running at an elite level, taking 6 months now to make sure you are fully operational sounds smart.

Other options for you at the moment to get you back into things: Pool running; sit-ups (thousands of them!!!); push-ups etc; take this time to research the nutrition section on this forum and start eating like a champ now rather than when you are too busy to make your diet a habit once you are back training.

Your physio sounds smarter than your coach. And yes, it was his fault that you got the fractures, unless of course you never told him you were in pain to begin with.

Keep us updated, and ask as many questions as you want. The more specific the question, the more specific the answer. For example… “Can anyone write me a program?” is an example of a very general question that will more than likely not get answered. “How many times per week should I do speed work?” is an example of a decent question. And, “I am currently doing this for my program: EXAMPLE OF YOUR PROGRAM. What can I change to begin with?” is an example of a GOOD question.

3

Your coach needs a few more brain cells.
At your age, taking time to recover properly & completely is the smartest this you can do. Not doing this can cut short any chance of finding out what your potential is…
I highly recommend deep water running (with waist belt floatation ) & you can do all of your drills, “strides” etc without putting strain on your foot. You can even come out of it stronger from the resistance.
Make sure your eating is clean & nutrients are optimal for healing as well.
Good luck & very nice to see such mature thinking in a 16 year old.

4

my advise to you is to work on as much fitness as possible. forget track work and everything for a couple of weeks. grass is the best surface to train on until u r well back. and yess 10.86 is never far, ive dropped my times from 11.52 to 10.86 in 5month from workin on grass, just developed my fitness through tempo and strength endurance through circuits and hurldes. such times dont need any advanced training. make sure u get a desent aerobic base in as well. i would work on bike and rowing machine for general conditioning 3 times a week with easy tempo in between. for 3weeks to make sure im in then id build up from there. sorry to hear about ur coach, but sad news is i suffered the same thing. fell in that mistake 3times in 2yrs. so gluck with that and listen to ur body

5

Ditch you coach. Anyone who tells you not to listen to a doctor is not only ignorent, but waiting to get a lawsuit. A better reply would be to ask more than one doctor for their advice. While not all doctors are qualified in the area, it’s safe to assume that a doctor would be more knowledgable than any coach in physiotherapy based on basic biological principles alone.

If your doctor is orthopedic, your coach is a moron…question, how many sub 11 second sprinters has your coach produced? If none, ditch your coach find another and some training partners. Then be sure to go to every meet your coach goes to and kick your old teamates asses :smiley:

6

To quote everyone else so far it’s good to see someone as young as you be mature about your training. I’m 17 and went against my body and tried to push through and injury, although I reached my goal for this season it now leaves me in the lurch for the upcomming season. I wish i had your maturity 6 months ago, and luckily I have matured a little because of my experinces.
My suggestion would to leave your coach(although if you dropped him would you still have access to all the equipment you need?) And listen to what the guys(and girls!) around here have to say. Just a few questions though, what sort of stress fracture was it and what part of your leg?