sprints>hill sprints?

[gally]

just some advice and to see what you guys and gals do, and think of sprints guys.
How far, how long, how often, the improvements you gain from a good sprint training program?
think this could be a help to alot of the newer guys here including myslef.
thx.

[Blackvenom-2001]

Good question...

Sprinting is an an anaerobic exercise... and it is a lot different then jogging... in simple terms anaerobic just means that you are starving your muscles of oxygen... so doing exercises that deprive your muscles of oxygen develops your anaerobic system... and that is the system that you will need to have in boxing...

Now I'm sure there are a lot of people on here who can explain all of this better then I can so if anyone else knows better feel free to correct me...

But anyway... hill sprints build strength, speed... and if your doing it right, it's also going to develop a mental toughness... nothing like being halfway up a steep hill, with every ounce of your body screaming at you to quit but making yourself go on... it starts to build the mental toughness that you need in the ring...

So set goals... write it down... say to yourself, Today I am going to run 15 hill climbs... and then you don't quit until your finished or until you literally can not stand up... and then when you rest for five minutes you get up and do another one... and another one...

The steeper the hill the shorter the length... but think of it like this... most people that are in shape can sprint for 100 yards without slowing down to much... after 100 yards your pace will start to drop... now add in an incline and your distances will decrease...

Hope some of this will help ya... oh yea... how often... well if your in the beginning of building phase/training phase... then every other day won't hurt you... once it's getting closer to your fight you should be concentrating on the technical stuff more... your body should already be in shape at that point...

Blackvenom-2001

[Scrap]

Running up hills wont make you faster, running down them will get you injured. Isometric Stretch with rubber resistance will enable the muscle to prepare for optimum explosivenes and expansion. In preperation for better contraction without injury. Plus running up hills gives bad positional sense for Boxing it puts you on your front foot, a bad muscle memory pattern.

[Blackvenom-2001]

Listen to scrap... haha... see I told you there were better people on here to answer this question...

[gally]

cc to you both cheers guys, so you dont reccomend any kind of sprint training for boxing then scrap? even flat straight sprints?

[KoPunch]

I do 50 yard sprints, 20 seconds rest in between, i do about 10 of them and about 30 mins of jogging and 10 minutes of Skippin rope, my trainer told me thats a good circuit

[Scrap]

Hi gally never said that, big beleiver in running but in context with what you want to achieve. Theres so many things you can do for Speed Endurance, the permatations are endless, using elastics 25 metre lengths and Parachutes for resistance and speed. Using your imaganation you can achieve a lot of wonderfull stuff as Ive mentioned before elastic has wonderfull propertys. The more it is stretched the faster it becomes, and the resistance is less its not constant a very good point for your Biomechanics

[gally]

nice 1 scrap thx, just wanted it clarifieing.

[Chris Nagel]

Running up hills wont make you faster, running down them will get you injured. Isometric Stretch with rubber resistance will enable the muscle to prepare for optimum explosivenes and expansion. In preperation for better contraction without injury. Plus running up hills gives bad positional sense for Boxing it puts you on your front foot, a bad muscle memory pattern.

I like the idea of an isometric stretch before a movement. It's a good way to improve speed, and I can see how the elastic bands can help the pre-stretch necessary for explosiveness. Neat stuff.

[Sharla]

I used to have a few favourite hills. They were named the mini and major FOff hills because that's what my training partners said when we ran up there for the first time 

The mini was the mini because it was shorter but it made up a good workout because it was steep and got steeper in the last 15 metres. We used to run at about 75-80 % intensity up to the point where it became steeper and then really try to push out the last 15 m as hard as possible. It was only about 50 m in total but do 6 properly with a good warm up and cool down and you're legs are jelly!

I had large quads when I was doing this but I think while I was very strong at running hills my legs were not strong past the range of motion I used for running. Also my hamstrings were no where near as strong which might have partially contributed to the knee injury I ended up with.

So I'd say go for it because it gives you a lot of power and normal hills during a run will become old friends you use to drop people you're running against but also do other balancing exercises like a lot of stretching and plenty to strengthen the hamstrings, maybe a little bit of backwards running (on a grass oval without any obstacles immediately behind you )

I guess after reading Scraps post I should clarify that it's good for a runner who might encounter hills in a race they might be planning and since I know you're thinking marathon I can see they might be relevant to you. However, I can't say that it helped my boxing in any obvious way that I couldn't achieve from doing sprints on the flat.

In boxing I think it's always my arms that get tired first too so to achieve mental toughness and pushing through pain for boxing maybe it's not as relevant as pushups or hard bag work or just intense sparring. It does teach you to run hard on hills though which seems to be something many people can't do in running events.

[StrictlySP]

Hi gally,
You've gotten some good advice which I would heed. Anyway, here's my two cents...

My recommendation is to implement the Tabata protocol into your sprint training regimen. This is a protocol established by Dr Tabata of Japan when he was tasked with finding the optimal way of most effectively and efficiently developing the anaeorbic capacities of the Japanese Olympic speed skating team members. What his research bore out is widely considered, in recent years, to be THE "magic bullet" of the sports conditioning world in terms of interval training. Okay, enough background; here's the protocol.

20 seconds of anaerobic work (at the highest intensity you can muster for that duration) followed by 10 seconds of complete rest repeated eight times. Total time: four minutes

Any exercise, which can be continuously sustained at a high intensity for 20 seconds, may be used.

So, among other exercises, you can, for example, use sprinting (on flat lands or hills), hitting the heavy bag/punch mitts (my fav), rope jumping, power cleans, squats (try overhead squats for a killer workout), burpees, etc. I think I've painted the picture. Anyway, give it a try with the exercise of your choice. I think you'll love this protocol. I use various interval training schemes for variety, but this one is among my favorites.

If you want fiurther information on this protocol, do a google search to learn more about Dr Tabata's research. You'll be impressed because not only does it improve your anaerobic capacity significantly but also your aerobic capacity at the same time. According to his (Dr Tabata's) research, any variance from this "magical" 20 sec work/10 sec rest/8 rep scheme nullifies this dual benefit.

Hope this helps you out...

Take Care,
Lito