Sprinting has shrunk my body

[biz123]

Hello. I took the advice of this webpage:



...and started doing extremely intense sprints every other day for the last 2 months of the summer. I have gone from 144 pounds (10% body fat) to 124 pounds (6-7%body fat), I stand at 5 feet 6 inches. I have lost a lot of fat, but also a lot of muscle. I guess I should have checked my weight every week, but I didn't bother doing so because I heard that sprinting burns only fat and doesn't decrease your muscles.

The reason I practiced sprints was for me to simulate what an ice hockey shift is for my hockey team. At Moday's hockey practice I felt that all my summer training had gone to waste because I wasn't any faster.

Should I just do long distance running now (even though I heard it decreases muscles)? What heart rate should I do it at to build up muscle and be faster on my hockey team?

 

[Merciless]

How often did you do HIIT? It's only supposed to be done 2-3 times a week MAX because of how intense it is. No, running over time can lose more muscle. That's why HIIT, if done correctly, is more idealistic as it burns fat, and keeps muscle because running for a long time slowly burns off muscle. Thats another reason HIIT's are short.

 

[xswtsalvationx0]

30 second sprints are for track runners. You are not a track runner; therefore, you should be doing about 5-10 second sprints every 30 seconds. I have a question..In hockey, are you skating full speed for 30 seconds each time you do full speed? I don't think so.

This is what you should do...

pick every other day out of the week (3 days a week and leave the weekends a rest).

an example workout schedule...

Starting out (what you are about to do to get a real workout and become faster)...

Monday/Wednesday/Friday's (what I do) for 10 minutes each time I do HIIT

10 minutes of 25 second jog, 5 seconds sprint (repeat for 10 minutes). ex. When your stop watch gets to 0:30 (start to sprint), then when it gets to 0:35 (jog), 1:00 (sprint), 1:05 (jog) and repeat.

If you think you can go 15-20 minutes with HIIT with this schedule, than go ahead. 20 minutes is the max.

After you have gotten used to that and your body is ready for more, you can do 10 seconds sprint and 50 second jog. do 10 seconds at the most for sprinting. the website you gave is for track runners, not hockey or softball, or soccer, etc. Soccer would be 10 second sprints-15 seconds.

For me - I will only go up to 12 second sprints when I'm ready because thats how long it takes for a runner to get all around the bases (I play softball).

If you don't want to do Monday/Wed/Fridays, you can do tuesday/thursdays/saturdays. Do not do it on the same day you have hockey practice. I do HIIT monday/wed/fri because my softball practice is tue/thurs.

 

[R.Lewis]

How often did you do HIIT? It's only supposed to be done 2-3 times a week MAX because of how intense it is.

Acctually, because HITT is so intense and short it means that your recovery time is far quicker then middle and long distance running. Therefore it can be done every day once you have built up your strength and your diet is suitable.

Yes its best to start with 2-3times a week and build it up.
When I'm cutting I do HITT in the morning and in the afternoon for 3days running then have 1-2days complete rest.

 

[dswithers]

Are you doing any weight training? What is your diet like? Without sufficient calories and weight training you will almost cetainly loose muscle mass when you loose fat.

How many sprints do you do in a session? 6-8 is sufficient (and about all you should be able to do) if you are really going all out 100% sprints, which you should be.

 

[biz123]

Thank you all for your suggestions. I think now that the problem was me not eating enough, thus why I lost a lot of muscle too. The typical HIIT workout that I did was 3 minutes at 5 mph, 15 minutes consisting of a 30 second sprint (9 mph at a 10% grade on the treadmill) and a 30 second light jog each minute. I then did a 5 minute cool down/jog.

 

[Fit_Dude 101]

This is the exact problem that i had when i got back from 28-day last summer. I was in incredible condition, but i didn't lift so i lost alot of muscle with fat because i wasn't training the muscles.