Opinions on this!!

[Hypertrophy]

I know many coaches that are training sprinters with endurance type activities. Why? Well, ultimately, lactic acid accumulates and interferes with calcium being released to cause a contraction. Endurance training increases the number of mitochondria which are the location of aerobic energy production. These mitochondria will help buffer lactic acid and produce energy and the more you can buffer, the better!!
Whats some of your guys theory on this.
I am not saying that endurance training is all they do, but they intregrate a lot more into the program for this reason.
Let theories fly!!!

[pvgirl08]

Hmm Hypertrophy no ones responding to your question. I don't think anyone knows for sure. It might be because of the increased mitochondria increasing LA buffering capability, but it may just be one of those things that makes no physiological sense. Coaches have been doing it for years and passing their training techniques down the line, and it seems to work. If it works, stick with it. Dont know any sports besides swimming that do this though. Other sports may do an OD once a week, but not the kind of endurance training swimmers do.

[kage]

good post

[Badgerman]

A lot of sprint trainers do nothing over 300 metres.......alot of aerobic training reduces explosiveness and transfroms fast twitch muscles to slow twitch. The only rational I can see is reduction of BF% so there is less weight to pack around.

[Mr. Gottabejuiced]

In sprinting, one thing that is very important is the strength of the stabilizing muscles in the feet, ankles, shins, ect.

A lot of people who are average end up getting injured when they start jogging, wich is lower impact then sprinting, much lower.

It is therefore necessary to begin a training season with foundational training wich would involve much more distance running then you would want to do in the middle of sprinting season. Why? Because this is the best way to strengthen the stabilizers, and the muscles involved in sprinting that you cannot train with weights.

Also the technique is somewhat similiar in jogging as it is in sprinting. There are some significant differences between jogging and sprinting, but many aspects of the technique are very similiar.

If you watch an olympic sprinter jog, you will see what I am saying. Thier form is drastically different (when they jog) then the form of an elite distance runner.

I know that some sprinters I trained with would run distance, say 400s in a form that couldn't be considered sprinting, or even striding. But it wasn't the most effective way to run distance because the form could not be held for much more then 400M or so. But it was basically jogging/in sprinting form. So they had much more repetitions running in the sprinting form, but it was much more forgiving on thier bodies if their form got bad.

I think this is an excellent way to train. Especially the more advanced you are as a sprinter. (of course it is just one very small part of a sprint training program)