Preparing For Fall Sprint Training

Either it's football or soccer ending early or it's a kid who is solely focused on track, but for some teams, between six to eight weeks from now some of the over-eager sprinters will head out to their track coaches (if they are holding practice, some may opt to wait till January) to begin their season. What should you do with high school sprinters who come out late November/early December to prepare them for the spring season and get them ahead of the game?

Well one of the first and foremost items that need to be addressed is developing the practice routine.  It will be different than their previous sport if they even did one at all, and you need to show the athletes what time practice starts, what the warm up is, and what tempo you want your practice to be.  This can go on for a week or two as developing the mindset early in the season is crucial for keeping practice flowing well throughout the year.  For instance, when the John Curtis football players come out for track in late December/early January, the first week or two is dedicated to learning the warm up and just doing a few strides on grass to get the rhythm of practice down.

One thing a good sprint coach needs to focus on is not allowing the athletes to dictate the workouts. Doing blockwork on the first week of the pre-season is unnecessary despite how much kids may say they want to do it.  Don't over look some small things like doing shin exercises to help rid the athletes of shin splints from the get-go so you don't struggle with that down the season when you are racing. Also, you may want to get the ball rolling on some strength work.   It doesn't have to be crazy, and honestly body weight strength training exercises will be fine for the majority of what you need to get accomplished in high school track and field.  Once again, for instance, the John Curtis track/football guys haven't lifted for over a month and a half when they start running again and need to start with just some basic exercises.

Malachi Dupre of John Curtis is a 5-star wide receiver as well as a sprinter/jumper.

Get your plan set ahead of schedule because the seasons can be short.  In Louisiana the indoor state meet is in the middle of February and the outdoor post season starts the second week of April.  The season is over before you know it so a good base is important to success.