In one of my last posts, I looked at a research review on what limits an athlete’s ability to perform repeated sprints.??That research team did a follow up article on what previous research indicates as recommendations for training an athlete’s repeat sprint ability.??A brief synopsis of the review indicates that:
there is not one type of training that can be recommended to best improve RSA and all of the factors believed to be responsible for performance decrements during repeated-sprint tasks.
Boo. So no magic pill. No quick and dirty answer. Basically, RSA is a complex form of fitness dependent on many physical qualities (metabolic, neural, biomechanical, etc). That said, two key recommendations did emerge from the review:
- It is important to include traditional sprint training methods to improve an athlete’s capacity in a single sprint effort.
- Some high intensity interval training is beneficial to improve the athlete’s ability to recover between sprint efforts.
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Mike Young
Director of Performance at Athletic Lab
Mike is the Head Fitness Coach for the North Carolina Courage and North Carolina FC. He is also the owner and Director of Performance at Athletic Lab sports performance training center. He previously served as the fitness coach for the Vancouver Whitecaps and Carolina Railhawks. He has a PhD in Biomechanics, an MS in Coaching Science, and a BSS in Exercise Physiology and has coached Olympic and professional athletes in Skeleton, Track & Field, MLS and NASL Soccer, PGA Golf, NFL Football, MLB Baseball and Olympic Weightlifting. He has lectured around the world and authored 2 books and dozens of research and coaching articles.
Latest posts by Mike Young (see all)
- Brilliant Hamstring Injury Observations from Dave Joyce - September 26, 2018
- Sprint exposure for speed enhancement AND injury reduction - April 4, 2018
- Variance in the Soccer Warmup - April 3, 2018