Tried doing sprints, really messed up my leg, what did I do wrong?

M

MysteryGuest

0
So I started doing sprints recently in order to work off some pounds. I did five sets of sprints back to back, sprinting for twenty seconds and jogging or resting for 10 seconds. After the first day, my legs were kind of sore, which I know to be normal after starting a new exercise.

A couple days later I tried doing sprints again. My legs were still sort of sore, but I had mostly recovered. I couldn't do the full five sets, after about three or four my legs started hurting pretty bad, so I stopped and took it easy for the rest of my work out. The next day and for maybe two or three days afterwards, though, my right leg was so sore I walked with a limp.

Alright, so don't do sprints if your legs are even a little sore, lesson learned, but I'd like to make sure I'm not doing something fundamentally wrong with the exercise to begin with. Is there anything I should know about sprints other than "run at max speed for a short period of time, rest, and repeat?" Is there anything I might have done wrong that caused my legs to get so sore in the first place?
 
Sprinting is actually more technical than you might intuitively think. I am by no means an expert sprinter, but here are some things I've picked up on with regards to sprinting:

1. Posture is important, just as it is in strength training. Chest up, core engaged.
2. Elbows down at the side, hands moving straight up and down,
3. You want your hips to remain level. This will involve a fair amount of glute (including glute medius and glute minimus, not just glute maximus) and hip flexor strength and control.
4. High knees and high feet. Your knees should become about parallel to your hips during the stride, and as the knees come up, drive your heels up into your butt.
5. I've read some discussions over whether you should run heel-to-toe or aim to have your whole foot come down at once. I couldn't tell you which way to go, but either way your feet should make contact under control. Don't slap the ground with your feet, and your feet shouldn't be rolling from side to side throughout the stride. Alas, if you're doing this, you probably aren't aware of it (which is true for a lot of the finer details, really). If you ever run on a treadmill and your feet aren't coming down under control, there's a good chance that the noise will make you aware of it.
6. Lean forward to accelerate (while adhering to point 1).

There's also the matter of warming up. On the rare occasion that I do sprint training, I'll warm up with dynamic stretching, and then practice the high knees/heels movement while walking (also taking note of my posture and control over my feet as they come to the ground, and then ramp up my sprints in the same way that I'd ramp up my weights for heavy lifting: do a run at 50% speed, then one at 60%, 70%, 80% and 90% before approaching my top speed (obviously, this is subjective -- I don't know if I'm actually moving at those given speeds, I just know that I could be going faster). Note that each of these runs is at the same distance I'll actually be sprinting, if not shorter. The goal is to prepare me for the work I'll be doing, not to actually do work.

Since you're doing 20sec on and 10sec active recovery, you probably shouldn't be sprinting at your top speed (and in reality you won't be able to even if you try). If your goal were to do the best sprints that you can do, you'd rest several minutes between sprints. Since you're not doing that, I think it would be wise to dial your intensity back a notch so that you can focus on what you're doing without burning yourself out.

I hope this helps.
 
Goldfish said:
Sprinting is actually more technical than you might intuitively think. I am by no means an expert sprinter, but here are some things I've picked up on with regards to sprinting:

1. Posture is important, just as it is in strength training. Chest up, core engaged.
2. Elbows down at the side, hands moving straight up and down,
3. You want your hips to remain level. This will involve a fair amount of glute (including glute medius and glute minimus, not just glute maximus) and hip flexor strength and control.
4. High knees and high feet. Your knees should become about parallel to your hips during the stride, and as the knees come up, drive your heels up into your butt.
5. I've read some discussions over whether you should run heel-to-toe or aim to have your whole foot come down at once. I couldn't tell you which way to go, but either way your feet should make contact under control. Don't slap the ground with your feet, and your feet shouldn't be rolling from side to side throughout the stride. Alas, if you're doing this, you probably aren't aware of it (which is true for a lot of the finer details, really). If you ever run on a treadmill and your feet aren't coming down under control, there's a good chance that the noise will make you aware of it.
6. Lean forward to accelerate (while adhering to point 1).

There's also the matter of warming up. On the rare occasion that I do sprint training, I'll warm up with dynamic stretching, and then practice the high knees/heels movement while walking (also taking note of my posture and control over my feet as they come to the ground, and then ramp up my sprints in the same way that I'd ramp up my weights for heavy lifting: do a run at 50% speed, then one at 60%, 70%, 80% and 90% before approaching my top speed (obviously, this is subjective -- I don't know if I'm actually moving at those given speeds, I just know that I could be going faster). Note that each of these runs is at the same distance I'll actually be sprinting, if not shorter. The goal is to prepare me for the work I'll be doing, not to actually do work.

Since you're doing 20sec on and 10sec active recovery, you probably shouldn't be sprinting at your top speed (and in reality you won't be able to even if you try). If your goal were to do the best sprints that you can do, you'd rest several minutes between sprints. Since you're not doing that, I think it would be wise to dial your intensity back a notch so that you can focus on what you're doing without burning yourself out.

I hope this helps.
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Thanks for sharing this all about proper sprint guideline,Should I take any casein protein or whey protein before sprint?
 
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