Helping you prepare for the Great Manchester 150
Introduction to Sprinting
To sprint well you need to have a mixture of strength, mobility and good technique.
The ability to sprint is a key attribute possessed by sportsmen and women from many sports including football, hockey, rugby, cricket, netball, tennis, to name but a few.
Stretching & Mobility
Sprinters pay a lot of attention to their range of movement. Tight muscles and ligaments impede performance and can cause injury. Warming up for sprinting is important. It is a good idea to do a stretching and mobility session at least three times each week. This can easily be done before or after another sporting activity that you might do during the week.
Here you will find some simple stretches that you can perform to help prepare you for the Great Manchester 150. Better still, why not sign up for one of the Great Manchester 150 Introduction to Sprinting workshops taking place in Manchester in April.
Stretching should precede training sessions or races with the aim being to prepare the muscles for activity and reduce the risk of, or prevent injury.
The two most common forms of stretching are:
A combination of both prior to training or competition will (along with a suitable warm up programme) help prepare you physically and mentally for the exertions of training and competition.
Warm up example
Carry out a series of static stretches before gently jogging for 5 minutes to warm up your muscles…then perform some/all of the dynamic stretches before increasing the tempo of your warm up runs.
Following the warm up jog and stretching it is advisable to carry out a series of warm up sprints (4 or 5) of 50m - 60m gradually increasing in pace from 50% of your maximum speed and increasing by 5-10% each time in preparation for competition