Becoming Bolt: wrap up

I became Bolt!

Well not quite, but I have just completed a 4 week phase of my sprint inspired training programme. Now remember its main aim was to change body comp (more muscle less fat) but I did also want to see if it made me faster at sprinting. Did it? In a word, yes.

In this post I’ll just give a quick rundown of how the programme went, what I liked, what I didn’t like etc.  If you remember before I began the programme I took a simple 60 yard sprint test, then after the programme I took the same test. My fastest times were:

before
60 yards: 7.95 seconds
after
60 yards: 7.05 seconds

That means I have shed 0.9 seconds off my 60 yard sprint time, not bad. But there are some things to consider. Firstly a lot of this is probably down to improved neuromuscular coordination and better motor unit firing. For example, just by practising sprinting my muscles learn to fire more efficiently for a sprinting action. So even though it looks like I have become faster, I haven’t. My body always had that speed capability I just had to unlock its potential. To see real increases in speed a long term programme would have to be adhered to.  Another thing I have to consider is I did my ‘after’ 60 yard sprint test in slightly damp conditions. It doesn’t take a genius to work out this would of effected my grip (without running spikes). So I may have been able to run a faster time in dry conditions.

So what things did I enjoy and what results did I see with this programme?  First off I enjoyed the challenge, each workout was tough! However remember what doesn’t kill you makes you a stronger person, mentally and physically. I saw some great strength results in my legs during this programme. They also looked fuller and felt harder after the 4 week programme. This is great because that’s an area I feel I need to work on. All the time I saw these results in my leg development, my body fat was kept down (I’m still hovering around 8-10%). Lastly I became a faster sprinter!

Anything I didn’t like? Well, if you’ve ever read any of my sports influenced training programmes before on my blog, you’ll know how frustrating I find it to make arms training take a back seat. After all my roots are in bodybuilding! With that said my arms didn’t exactly look worse after the programme. Believe me, 6 sets of pull-ups to fail gives a hell of a bicep pump! This candid iPhone shot I took during one of the workouts proves this point.

So overall a really good programme and something different to what I’ve done before. So what’s next in store for me? I’m currently planning on going back to a simple muscle building split to switch things up, and really focus on putting on some muscle size and strength. I'm really looking foward to it becuase its been a while since I've trained like that and certainly going to be a shock to the system!....