So my coach has told me to do this workout over the weekend, said it will help me improve my 1500m. Is that true? I'm having a hard time believing something so short will help me, will it improve my speed or something? Sorry...
From what I have read, maximal speed development and specifically the short 6-10 second hill sprints can have a pretty significant effect on running economy. It seems to follow that the more force you are able to produce will make you more efficient at all distances. The key, as mentioned, is proper long recovery and keeping them very short. I do them once a week with my athletes and have seen some success. It’s not overly time consuming, and not overly taxing with proper recovery in between reps. I usually do them on Mondays and follow up with a threshold type workout on Tuesday and no one has complained of excessive soreness or dead legs. In fact, many have mentioned they feel a little more “pop” in their stride.
Something I have struggled with doing on my own. I think the comment earlier about not trusting distance runners to rip sprints without getting hurt applies to me! Issue I had was doing too much and not recovering enough. Could get through speed dev sessions no problem but next day, threshold was on tired legs and was toast for recovery days. Solution I came up with was take day between speed and threshold but think I just had to dial back sessions. Currently doing more threshold and have dropped dedicated speed day but will probably add it back towards end of summer or fall. Found it actually helped hamstring issues for me and doing long warmup also served to improve form and get some light plyos in.
MoVB
MoVB - try starting with hill sprints. Week one I want you to do a 20 minute warm-up. Drills (look up feed the cats/tony holler, you don’t have to do the full repertoire. Pick some skips, high knees, stuff like that. A few of the plyo or bouncy stuff. 10 minutes on drills is plenty). 2 x 100m build-up strides. Then do 2 x 8 second hills with four minutes between. 10 minute cool down. Add one 8 second hill rep each week until you get to six reps. Hang out at six reps for a month, maybe a few months. Pay attention to how the reps feel. Are you getting slower? Is your form breaking down? I like the short hill sprints to be done on a more moderate gradient. Some people like them really steep. That’s fine too. I think the shallow gradient allows you to rip them a bit more, getting closer to a flat sprint, while still having a lower injury risk.
The flat sprints are great. For some people, they may not be worth the injury risk. I don’t think Mike Smith, at NAU has his athletes do any sprinting on the flat. I think they only sprint uphill. His athletes are plenty fast.