How to get a Sprinter's body

When you began training your training I doubt that you ever watched a marathon and thought “Damn I wish I looked like that” be you male or female but I'd bet my house that most of you when watching a sprinter, 100m, 200m for example have thought then that you'd love to have one of those bodies. Read on to find out how to make it happen....

When I used to work at one of the big chain gyms, I'd see the people come in and plod along for an hour on the treadmill, the stationary bike and the elliptical or rotate between all three then head back to the treadmill in pursuit of their goals. But unless you want to look like a long distance runner then don't train like one.

Our bodies were designed to chase our prey over short distances and then kill it or to use a quick burst or speed to get us out of danger, not run our prey to death over the course of three hours or jog away from danger at a steady pace.

That's why the body of a sprinter looks lean, healthy and impressive, whilst long distance runners are less muscular, thin and frail looking almost bordering anorexic. Whenever you run at a steady pace for an extended period of time you'll burn as much muscle as fat for energy by causing you cortisol (a stress hormone) levels to rise rapidly and another nice little side effect is that it will also age you quicker tha
David Dickinson's sun bed!

So what do I need to do? You need to mix your training between heavy weights and interval training or sprints for any Cardio that you do. Also make sure that you're sessions last not too much longer than an hour, get your diet right and avoid steady state Cardio like the plague!

For example you could train like this, Mon/Wed/Fri are heavy weight days where you'll perform exercises like squats, dead lifts and clean & press and then Tue/Thur/Sat are Interval training days or sprint days, I love doing sprints myself over Intervals especially in the summer as you can perform them anywhere, in the park at the track or even just in the street. Good Luck!