What Gym Equipment Helps You Become A Better Sprinter?

If you want to be a better sprinter, practising running techniques will only get you so far. Gym work is a vital component of your work and heavy lifting can be the key to providing you with the extra strength to power you along the track.

Anyone watching the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow may take inspiration from the performances of some of the top athletes involved. While the standard is not as high or the list of countries involved as wide as the Olympics, it is still a major event.

This is certainly true when countries that dominate in particular sports feature prominently, examples being Australia in the swimming pool and Jamaica on the track.

Few events can be more exciting than the sprints, with 100 and 200 metre events displaying raw power and speed in its purest form. There is no pacing, no tactics, no lapping back markers, just a headlong dash for the line.

How Have Sprinters Got Faster Down The Years?

There are some events in which records stand for generations, such as Jonathan Edwards’ triple jump record, which was set in 1995 and still stands, but that is not the case for sprints. For example, the men’s 100 metres has seen remarkable advances:

• The first ratified world record was the 10.6-second time run by Donald Lippincott at the 1912 Olympics
• The first man to break ten seconds was Jim Hines in 1968, timed at 9.9 seconds
• The first man to officially run below 9.8 seconds was Maurice Green in 1999, at 9.78, after Ben Johnson’s 9.77 at the 1988 Seoul Olympics notoriously fell foul of a positive drugs test.
• Usain Bolt first broke the record with a run of 9.72 seconds in 2008, before running 9.69 in the Beijing Olympics later that year and then setting the present record of 9.58 the following year.

Different factors have helped sprinters get quicker, including professionalism, better track conditions, footwear and diet. But the training athletes have done has not just been on the track. Modern sprinters are all very muscular and powerful.

This is no coincidence. The likes of Usain Bolt, Linford Christie and Asafa Powell will all have spent countless hours in the gym in addition to their time on the track.

How Do Deadlifts Build Up All Your Muscles For Running?

Therefore, a 6ft Olympic barbell can be as important to success as the timing to start running on the ‘B of the bang’, because deadlifts can be an important part of the strength training you need.

While you may run with your legs rather than your arms, the benefit of lifting weights is that it strengthens more than just your biceps. It builds up muscles such as your glutes, lower back, quadriceps and hamstrings.

These are crucial muscles in generating power in your running, but it is also important to consider the endurance element. The stronger they are, the less chance there is of you sustaining an injury.

For instance, anyone who has pulled a hamstring knows how much of a setback that can be. You will immediately find yourself limping off the track and potentially out of action for several weeks.

Although a sprint may seem like a very brief activity that literally takes seconds, the wear and tear of successive sprints, especially in competition settings, can make injuries more likely.

Indeed, it is worth reflecting on the benefits that working with weights can bring in other sports in which you may run quickly, such as football or rugby. 

Indeed, the latter could help you enjoy a combination of pace and power that might make you very hard to stop in full flow.

What Other Gym Exercises Can Help You To Train For Sprinting?

Weights will not be the only equipment you need in a home gym to help build up your muscles for sprinting.

• Other exercises include:
• Squats
• Jump squats
• Core exercises like planks and Russian twists

As ever, the golden rule of gym work applies: It is important to use your equipment properly and to undertake extensive warm-ups and warm-downs before and after. This prevents you from suffering an injury that could keep you off the track.

This will all set you up with the physique you need as you go down to the track and practice your sprints, something you can do in the knowledge that you will have left no stone unturned in your efforts to get in the best possible racing condition.

Up in Glasgow, none of the competitors will have done more work with deadlifts than the power lifters hoping to bring home the gold medals in that discipline.

Nonetheless, there will be plenty of other competitors who will have spent a lot of time with the weights, especially the fastest men and women of them all.