Taking part in track and field requires speed, balance and agility more than power and strength. The larger your muscles are the more power and speed you will be able to get from them, however simply building and increasing your muscle size without actually training them to deal with the demands of the sport is likely to decrease your chances of success. In order to improve all of the different fitness aspects that you need in order to be successful in track and field, it's a good idea to create a series of different workouts. We've put together some workout ideas that you might like to try.
Training Sessions
You should start working on training sessions many months before your season begins. Work on building muscles through different strength training workouts, and alternate upper and lower body exercises per workout as well as using as much weight as you can manage to lift. For the best results, you should be performing around three to five repetitions of an exercise before taking a break and repeating the same exercise about two or three times before moving onto a new one. Around six weeks before the beginning of the season, it is a good time to start decreasing your resistance or weight settings by around 50%, and instead concentrating more on muscular endurance and explosive movements.
Warm-Up and Stretching
Warming up by using moderate intensity movements is vital for all of your workouts, all year round. Before beginning any strenuous activity, it is important that you allow your muscles to warm and stretch. It is crucial that you don't static stretch or hold your muscles before activity as this will desensitize them. After a workout, it's just as important that you use similar moderate and low intensity movements to cool down. Static stretching should only be used as part of a cool down routine.
Exercises
Deadlifts, lunges, squats, and leg raises are great exercises for building your leg strength, whilst you can also improve your explosive strength through the use of box squats and box jumps. Reactive squats help to improve your jumping ability, and can be done by lowering yourself half way into a normal squat, then jumping up. In order to perform depth jumps for improved vertical leap, use reactive squats to jump off a box and then jump back up. Curls, extensions, rows, presses and kickbacks are all ideal exercises to work your upper body, and for shotput and javelin you should practice throwing much heavier and lighter balls and javelins in order to train your nervous system to both use more effort and work faster. Using overspeed workouts can also train you to run even faster.
If you are a track and field athlete looking to receive more training in your sport, Athletes-USA.com provides sports scholarships in a number of different sports, including track and field. Speak to your coach or personal trainer today about training for a scholarship and the work involved in applying to and gaining one.
