How important is sleep for sprinting performance? As important as water is for humans.
Many coaches and athletes think speed development comes down to genetics and training. Genetics are often the first thing a coach sees when observing an athlete. Genetics determine your sprinting and speed potential. Some athletes have natural speed and some don’t.
Most coaches also know that training is important for speed development. But most coaches don’t know that recovery is just as vital to developing speed.
What Speed Isn’t
There is a twofold problem for why many sprinters and athletes are not getting faster.
First, most athletes don’t actually train for pure speed. Most of the “speed” training they do is completely misguided. I’ve seen many bad speed workout videos online. These fake hustle workouts have no value for sprinters who want to get faster.
Second, most athletes do not get quality sleep on a consistent basis. Sleeping 4 or 5 hours a night is not the way to get faster. Quality sleep is so powerful that it will improve your next sprinting workout if you get it.
Training for pure speed is not about doing high-volume running or conditioning workouts. Training for speed puts the only priority on getting faster.
Sleep For Sprinters
I recommend that sprinters get 7-9 hours of quality sleep each night.
Quality sleep will maximize your speed. High quality sleep is uninterrupted, restful sleep devoid of anxiety. Low quality sleep means being anxious and tossing and turning all night. On those bad nights, you only get brief bouts of good sleep.
Now nobody gets perfect sleep every night because life is unpredictable. There will be days when you get less than 7 hours of sleep. You more than likely won’t have your greatest sprinting performances on those days. You’ve got to make it a goal to get quality sleep the vast majority of the time if you want to get faster.
Quality sleep enhances sprinting performance. Quality sleep recharges your central nervous system (CNS). A recovered CNS enables athletes to feel fresh and powerful.
Your reaction time will improve when you are well-rested. You’ll feel bouncy and energetic when you hit the track. Your battery will be completely recharged.
The only way for an athlete to completely recharge is with quality sleep. Sprinters must get quality sleep to sprint at a high level. The tragedy is that many athletes skimp on sleep. So, they do not sprint as fast as they could on the track.
Conclusion
If you don’t prioritize quality sleep, you won’t get faster.
I’ll holla at you next time.
The People’s Trainer,
Fitman
