How to Run Faster, Throw Farther, & Jump Higher in the New Year

We have finally made it to 2022. As you develop your athletic goals and resolutions for the New Year, it is important to focus on the planning process that will make them a reality.

A key part in bringing your goals to fruition is consistency.

A former teammate once told me about The 1% Rule.

Let’s say a person is interested in getting better at an activity. If they improve 1% each day, by the end of the year they will be 3800%, or 38 times, better at the activity. This happens because improving by 1% has a compounding effect. In contrast, if they get 1% worse each day, they will have gotten 97% worse.

The moral of this exercise is that the best way to achieve a goal is to make some amount of progress every day. This progress can be minimal because as long as it is building on where you previously were, it will help

So, as you try to reach the marks you set for 2022, you must develop plans that enable you to consistently improve each day. For track and field, this improvement can take many forms, from mental resilience at the starting line to speed endurance.

The following are 5 areas that should be the focus of training either daily or every other day in order to help an athlete attempt to make continual increase each day.

Dynamics & Static Stretches

In order to make daily improvements, an athlete must minimize their chance of injury. Dynamic and static stretches prepares the tendons and muscles for the various movements that an athlete may go through in practice, which helps decrease the chance of getting injured. In addition to diminishing injury, stretching will help you get the most out of each practice sessions.

During practice, make sure to really feel your dynamic and static stretches. It may also be extremely helpful for athletes to include stretching or light recovery DAILY in the morning (before any training session) and in the late evening (before bed and after all training for the day).

Drills

Just as stretching is critical for preparing the body for peak performance, drills are critical for developing a connection between the movements your body makes and the form needed in competition.

An athlete runs the way they warm up. So, when practicing drills, it is essential to pay attention to every little detail, from your arm swing to the positioning of your feet.

Here are 3 key drills for sprinting.

Strength Training

Strength training is an absolute must for every athlete in the track. Each event in athletics demands high outputs of force, which can only be met if the athlete is strong enough.

Strength training often includes weights to provide sufficient resistance. This can take the form of weighted medicine ball throws, traditional deadlifts to increase hamstring and glute strength, Olympic lifts to develop explosive jumps and powerful starts, and many, many other strength training exercises.

Speed / Endurance Training

The majority of events in track depend on strong endurance and speed. Accordingly, it is necessary for athletes to continually work on these aspects to improve their skill at the sport.

For speed, acceleration and maximum velocity are 2 phases training programs often focus on. The type of training that is required in these phases differs depending on the event, i.e. 1600m acceleration is different than a 100m acceleration.

Similarly, there are endurance workouts for various distances that an athlete should integrate into their training to improve their overall performance.

Below are a couple speed and endurance workouts for jumpers, and sprinters to assist you in getting started.

Targeted Skill Development

Finally, to improve your athletic ability every day an athlete needs to identify and target their weaknesses.

This involves closely studying your form during drills, reps, exercises, and runs to see what is affecting your performance. You should try to identify problem areas that translate to poor performance within your event.

For example, if you do long jump, areas of weakness could include runway speed, translating horizontal speed to height during takeoff, attaining height, maintaining forward movement in air, or a clean landing.

Being able to identify specific areas that are impeding progress will enable you to then target them with different drills or strength training. Recording yourself is especially be useful for this. Talking to your coach can also be useful for determining areas that need improvement.

Continuing with the example of long jump, if attaining height is difficult for an athlete. They may add more plyometrics and jump focused weight training to their regimen.

Want more training sessions & workouts, check out the Track & Field Forever training page.