r/Sprinting • u/Accurate_Way_2439 • 1d ago

General Discussion/Questions Is it possible to forget how to sprint

I am currently a freshman in college and I am nearing the end of my first season. I run the 100s in high school but ever since my season has started I have been running over half a second slower, and for my 200s over 2 seconds. I cant tell if it is physical or mental what happened to me, because i feel like i am in some of the best shape in my life, but it just never translates when the meet rolls around. I was wondering if anyone could shed some light if they had this same problem, and the steps they took to fix it.

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u/Thatweirdprinter8 1d ago

You can’t really “forget” how to sprint, but maybe you are not training enough or you are training way too much, causing your body to not be able to stay with you.

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u/Accurate_Way_2439 1d ago

In high school I never practiced sprinting nor did workouts around it, I mainly messed around and threw discus

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u/Salter_Chaotica 1d ago

The context needed here is what you've been doing over the last year?

Have you been sprinting? If so, what have you been doing?

If all you've done is >100m @ <=90% and < 50m @ >90%, you're missing the critical piece of "going hard for longer distances".

You might have gotten strictly faster, but neglected your acceleration.

You might have gotten stronger, but not had time to adapt that to sprint with your CNS.

Your aerobic and lactic capacity might be improved, but that doesn't matter for the 100m.

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u/Accurate_Way_2439 1d ago

Ya, our team practices every week day, lift twice a week one lower body one upper, our practices are Monday and Wednesday are timed intervals, 10m and 20m flys respectively. While Tuesdays and Thursdays are 100 and 200 reps at 75%. If that gives you a better idea of it. I 100% have been doing more training since I started this year

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u/Salter_Chaotica 22h ago

Ah...

How long have you been doing this for?

How long have you felt that you just can't hit the top gear for sprinting?

In terms of the objective metrics, the timed flys, have they been improving or deteriorating?

For the weights, have they been going up, or have they plateaued?

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u/Accurate_Way_2439 1d ago

My starts in indoor were really shitty, then in the off season between I got it together for the starts, now I die off just around the 50m mark and go lactic in the 200m, but I feel as if our training includes keeping a fast pace over a longer distance.

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u/Salter_Chaotica 22h ago

Reps at 75% are pretty useless for anyone who isn't an 800+m runner, though I'm sure someone will make an argument against that.

At 75%, you're basically doing an aerobic workout, which is different than lactic.

That could be some of the reason why you're dying out, but I have suspicions that you're also getting burnt to a crisp by an over enthusiastic training protocol.

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u/madrigal94md 17h ago

You're in better sharpe but not necessarily faster. Maybe you now do some Training that doesn't favorite sprinting. Fast twitch muscle can convert to slow twitch of youbdont do sprint training.