Don't know about today, but one of my good friends was a world class sprinter (55m and 100m) in the 90s and he said they never ran more than a mile and that was only if a long distance guy challenged them.

I don't think cardio matters as much when you're only running for less than 11 seconds.

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Not a coach. Not a FOP Tri/swimmer/biker/runner. Barely a MOP AGer.
But I'm learning and making progress.

Just a *hunch*, but I don't see how you can get to become a world class runner without tons of volume...

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@floathammerholdon | @partners_in_tri

Because they aren't runners. Its a physiology that has effectively no relationship with the kind you're used to thinking about. Its weights, and drills, and some sprinting, and a ton of recovery between that sprinting, and very little ground ultimately covered

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And explosive weights...

I trained at one time in the gym with the first Australian guy to run under 10.

He used to do ridiculous stuff like muscle ups with 20 kg weight on his belt and just about spring off the bar at the top.

And 500kg leg presses bouncing the weight almost like a plyo. They are different people.

I was national level hurdler in highschool (110m / 300m) and college (400m).

We "jogged" 400 to 800m for warm ups and cool downs. Otherwise it was only interval sets.

I always enjoyed running, so in the off season I'd go for ~3 miles once a week. That was not the norm.

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In college we had a pretty solid sprint program. Several world class sprinters including at least 1 olympian. I ran xc.

We'd get to the track and bang out 20x400 on 200 easy and get in another 3 miles of easy running in ~ the same time they did 20x150 on what seemed like 3 of our repeats.

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World class BMXers are doing 2-4hr aerobic training rides... laps are 35 seconds long with like 5x2" max efforts of pedaling mixed into that 35 seconds.

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I ran at the Duke track a few times and watched their 400 and 800m stud going through some efforts... it seemed like he and his coach were going for *perfect* steps for each part of the 150m or 200m that they did, like each stride was numbered and labeled and they were creating muscle memory to do each one of them right from 0-200m. It wasn't so much about the split times as it was what he looked like doing the split times. Every ounce of energy had to be accounted for and efficiently spent.

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Usain Bolt has said he's never run a mile, and while that may be exaggeration, I'm sure it's true that he's never run a mile in training. Like others have mentioned, sprinting is not the same as running and the training for it is extremely different.

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Strava

They don't.

My son was mostly a jumper and hurdler in high school. His coach, who knew his stuff, would get mad if he ever ran more than 100m in practice.

He (my son) was a D1 All American in the decathlon in college. He did a 2 mile jog on Sundays, sometimes, if he felt like it, but no real distance training. He did do some 200m or 300m interval sessions for 400m training that seemed to me to be like middle-distance training, but never did anything intentionally for cardio. I take that back, he did do some exercise bike stuff, not sure the details or purpose of that.

Managed to run a 4:28 1500m (~4:50 mile) at the end of a decathlon at 230 lbs.

A few college level sprinters played varsity football, and a few times played pick-up basketball, for cardio. For volume, they did 50-200M sets, mostly for form, reaction time at starts, and relaxation running, Probably the furthest they ever ran without stopping was from the locker room to the outdoor track. They usually walked back. They performed reaction drills for starts. Stretched, and stretched some more. Weights 3x a week, lots of weights. Heavy max with single lifts, and small quantity sets of 3-5 at 70% to 85% max: bench, squats, lifts, clean and jerk, core stuff galore. Lots of accelerations on 150M repeats, especially 200M sprinters. Multiple repeats of curve running too. Lots of bounding and standing jumps on the infield. We had a mix of NCAA D1 AA's and 8 Olympians from 200M to 5K over my four year spread on the team. I was lucky to make traveling squad as a middle distance guy. For the best 100M guys, they viewed little difference between a 10K and 400M race, both a non-starter for them.

Workout Wednesday: Olympians Marvin Bracy & Nickel Ashmeade
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H94pdo1f9NE

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It is amazing to me that he could run a mile that fast at 230 lbs, on almost no distance training, although I guess there was some carryover from the 200 and 300 m repeats.

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

I've recently become very interested in how sprinters train.

It's of course almost the opposite of distance training. The key determinant in sprinting fast is how fast you can go (duh). Having a really fast top speed allows you to kind of cruise through longer events. Even up to the 800m, it's often better to have a high top speed than good endurance.

Top sprinters also use polarized training just like top distance athletes. Doing 100% intervals is rarely done because the risk of injury and systemic fatigue is too high. Just like distance athletes. I don't think a life long distance athletes has any conception for what a 100% sprint feels like for a top sprinter; it basically rips your legs apart because of the intensity of the forces. There is a reason sprinters always seem to have hamstring injuries....

Sprinters easy days are at 60-70% of top speed. A easy day might be 8-10 x 100m at 70% of max speed with about 30-45 mins of drills and mobility. Sprint workouts can be long. Even though most sprinters probably rarely do any exercise for longer than a minute continuously, I wouldn't be surprised if their average heartrate was around 60% of max for the course of a recovery day.

Here is a solid review article with Stephen Seiler as a co-author. This board loves seiler and he coined the 80/20 polarized model for distance training.

https://link.springer.com/...86/s40798-019-0221-0

I know this is a running thread but some of the responses with regards to low volume, weight training, etc. also seem to apply to absolute sprinters in swimming. My good friend from college (who is now in his upper 30s) qualified for the 2012 Olympic Trials in the 50 free by incorporating a very intensive strength regimen while swimming ~3k once or twice a week to maintain feel for the water.

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Strava

The purpose of that is obvious

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Not obvious to me. I don't know if he did short high-intensity intervals or long and slow or how often or how much he did. I don't know if it was for recovery or for 400m training or for the 1500m or just for warmup or injury prevention or treatment. He just told me he would do exercise bike stuff.

Let us in on the secret.

Didn't know that Usain Bolt had a youtube channel, but there seem to be some excerpts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0b_KrJf9uic

From what I saw the track guys do in college, unless they were the milers they did not run long distance. If anything they rarely did their race specific stuff in college. A lot of max and sub-max efforts at shorter distances.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

In Shelia T's Swim Speed Secrets book, she mentioned that Gary Hall Jr. suntanned as others swam, jumped in the water, did sculling for 10 minutes without getting his hair wet, proclaimed he had a feel for the water, and then said see you later. Workout over. That was one week before the '96 Olympics. Seemed to work out well for him.

I ran XC in high school, there was a fair amoint of crossover between the XC runners and the track guys especially for the longer distance events- 1500, steeplechase, and up were all run by XC runners with a couple of XC guys even doing the 800.

In the 4x400 and 4x800 relays, the track guys would sometimes ask the XC guys to do the heats for them, paticularly if their track schedule was packed and we were confident of qualifying

Obvious? Please enlighten us.

I think he means sprinters (i.e. 100, 200, 400) the 800 is already an "aerobic" event. The sprinters I know of didn't do warm ups longer than a few laps with accelerations, after that it was all starts, progressive sprints, plyometrics, strength. So not a lot easy long runs faster than 2-3 laps. Definitely not 10 k easy runs.

Ex-College sprinter here (never sniffed near world class) I'll bite. General cardio in season rarely would we do intervals over 400 meters. So a general day would we warm up 800 meters (dynamic stretching 10 - 20 minutes) 10 x 50-100 meter stride outs, workouts can really depend on the day as short as 20 - 80 meter sprints, but longer days could be 400 intervals (longer rest at least 300 meters reps about 6 - 8) cool down around 800 meters and stretching. Weight room usually before or after. In the offseason we have run up to 3 miles with some pickups no need to run as much as 10k.

Obviously you know this, but swimming is different because you've got 4 components that aren't really related to do the 50:

1. The start
2. The first 14M underwater
3. The next 10 seconds of pure ATP power
4. The final 3-5 second when Oxygen has to be the energy source but breathing slows you down

I suppose 1&3 require the same type of training. 2 is its own thing unique in sports. 4 just sucks balls.