When I go to the gym, the only exercises that I do involve weight lifting ~squats, presses, dips, curls, etc. I do absolutely no cardio at all. My doctors and health metrics tell me that I’m very fit, luckily, so the lack of cardio hasn’t negatively affected me.
One reason that I don’t do cardio is that I don’t like distance runners’ bodies. I’m already somewhat thin and don’t want to get any thinner. However, I notice that sprinters seem to have very muscular bodies (for the most part). Even their upper bodies are usually massive and well-defined. So I’m contemplating waking up early to do sprints. Will I get any cardio benefit by sprinting, in lieu of traditional cardio? And will this also help preserve or contribute to a musculur upper body?
Let me try again: you can get an aerobic benefit from sprint training by increasing the distance and duration. According to Ross Enamait, sprint intervals beyond 200 meters contain a significant aerobic component; beyond 400 meters the work becomes more and more aerobic.
You won’t really get thinner as long as you consume enough calories and keep pumping iron. Your body will adjust. If you find yourself getting too thin, just eat more.
And if you are a decent swimmer, swimming is one of the best aerobic work-outs around. It’s low impact and works your whole body.
Thanks. Does the sprinting complement the weight training to increase muscle mass even further, or is it just the weight training that builds muscle in sprinters?
And these are basically variations on weight training. So then the follow-up question is: How will my body benefit from just adding sprinting to my schedule (assuming that the rest of my workout schedule stays exactly the same)? I guess the obvious answers are the cardio benefit described earlier, and the fact that I’d eventually get faster. But is there anything else? At 39, I really don’t have any aspirations of beating Usain Bolt in a race.
Get faster over what distance and why? Fitness is not measured by sprinting 100m. If you’re planning to compete at all comer track meets I can see doing this but otherwise no.
Sprinting training is not all running.
Training reaction time, starting and transitioning technique all play a part in a fast 100m.
Even then, the sprinter is doing a lot of work for a gain of maybe .1-.2 sec improvement.
As an example, a high schooler just ran a 10.06 for a new high school national record. The world record is 9.69-only .37 sec faster.
At your age, sprint training is high risk for injuries, building your endurance will do you far more good.
It is possible to do heavy cardio and lift heavy while maintaining mass.
2 years ago I rode a century on my handcycle while maxing a bench press of 315-bodyweight 190.
Originally, it was due to the fact that sprinters seem to have better bodies. Now it’s because it might save me time, while achieving cardio benefits. I should have mentioned that I absolutely hate time-consuming cardio. 5 minutes on an elliptical machine feels like 5 hours to me. I ran track as a high school freshman 20+ years ago, and was quite successful in the 800 meters. But I absolutely hated it, and quit after 1 year. My coach was pissed and actually tried to force me to stay on the team. I played tennis my last 3 years. I would much rather run sprints for 15 seconds a time than sit on a stationary bike for 15 minutes.
J.J, fair enough. As I pointed out. I don’t feel the article proved that sprinting improves cardio. They discounted warmup/cooldown and no mention was made about activity between sprints. This can add up to considerable distance, enough to affect cardio fitness.
Find an activity you enjoy but there are no shortcuts.
Sprints can work if you jog between sprints for recovery. You’ll maintain a high enough heart rate to improve cardio.
As an example 6-8x 200m, jog 400m recovery. This adds up to 1200-1600m(.75-1 mile) of sprinting plus 2400-3200m(1.5-2.0 miles) of jogging.
Assuming 35 sec for the 200 and 2.5 min for the 400, you get 4:40 of sprinting and 20 min of jogging.
See how the jogging adds up? That’s what the researchers in the article ignored in reaching their conclusion.
Plus a good warmup is vital if you’re going to be sprinting at high intensity, thus adding more distance.
Even the 800 requires a good amount of distance training. Jackknifed Juggernaut seems to be more a pure sprinter type and wants to improve his cardio through sprinting only.
Jackknifed Juggernaut, have you considered cycling? Being non-weight bearing, it’s not as mass destroying as running and far more interesting than a machine in a gym.
You should be aware that cyclists can have poor bone density.
After college one summer, I bought a used Trek road bike. I started riding 10 - 20 miles per day. I even did a 100km charity ride. But I eventually got bored of it. The bike is still in my basement. But I certainly enjoy road biking more than running or stationary biking.
I also recently read an article on the correlation between low bone density and bicycling. The article I read mentioned that they didn’t find a good reason for the relationship . My initial guess was that perhaps successful bicyclists already have low bone density to begin with, giving them a weight advantage, and making them successful. Perhaps the sport itself weeds out those with average or high bone density?
Omniscient: Now I’m having difficulty understanding what you’re NOT understanding. Are my posts not clear enough?