Can't sprint? Here's how to return without risking injury
10% of Adults continue sprinting after 30....
SPRINTING IS RARE.
Did you know that only 10% of adults over 30 can still sprint? It might sound shocking, but sprinting—a natural, explosive movement we took for granted in our youth—often fades from our lives as we get older. Injuries, busy lives, or simply falling out of practice leave most people unable to sprint by their 30s.
"But what if I told you that it’s possible to regain that ability, safely, without risking injury? Whether you’ve been sidelined by years of inactivity, injury, or the fear of getting hurt, there’s a way back to sprinting.
Why Sprinting Is Essential for Health Longevity and Athleticism
When it comes to fitness, there’s one exercise that stands above the rest in boosting your athletic potential: sprinting. Not only is it a quick, powerful movement, but sprinting also triggers a host of biological responses that can have long-term benefits for your health, performance, and body composition.
One of the most significant benefits? Sprinting can increase Human Growth Hormone (HGH) levels by up to 700%.
HGH: The Key to Muscle Growth, Fat Loss, and Recovery
HGH is often called the "fountain of youth" for a reason. This powerful hormone, produced by your pituitary gland, plays a critical role in:
Muscle growth: Repairing and building new muscle tissue.
Fat burning: Enhancing fat metabolism, making it easier to shed excess fat.
Recovery: Improving tissue repair and reducing recovery time between workouts.
How Sprinting Boosts HGH Levels
Research shows that sprinting is one of the most effective ways to trigger a massive release of HGH. In fact, a study published in the Journal of Applied Physiology found that just six 30-second sprints, with rest intervals in between, led to a staggering 771% increase in HGH levels. This hormonal surge helps your body repair and build muscle faster than many other forms of exercise.
Another study showed similar results, where HGH levels skyrocketed immediately following a sprint session. These findings suggest that regular sprint training could be one of the most potent tools to naturally elevate HGH levels over time, leading to significant gains in strength, lean muscle, and overall fitness.
Why People Struggle to Return to Sprinting
Returning to sprinting after a long hiatus isn’t as simple as lacing up your shoes and hitting the track. In fact, trying to sprint without proper preparation is one of the fastest ways to end up injured. Here’s why:
Years of Inactivity Leave You Vulnerable When you stop sprinting for a prolonged period—whether due to injury, lifestyle changes, or aging—your body undergoes changes that make it more susceptible to injury. Over time:
Muscles tighten: Your hamstrings, hips, and calves lose flexibility, limiting your range of motion.
Strength diminishes: The powerful muscles you need for sprinting—especially in the glutes, quads, and core—become weak and unconditioned.
Coordination suffers: Your neuromuscular coordination (how your muscles and nerves work together) also declines, which makes your sprinting form less efficient and more injury-prone.
The Common Injuries People Face When people attempt to sprint after years away without addressing these issues, injuries often follow. The most common problems include:
Hamstring pulls: Tight hamstrings that haven’t been properly stretched or strengthened are easily overstressed.
Knee pain: Weak quadriceps or misaligned movement patterns can cause excess strain on the knees.
Calf and Achilles issues: The explosive nature of sprinting places a huge demand on the calves and Achilles tendons, leading to strains or tendonitis when these muscles are underprepared.
Why Jumping Back in Too Fast is a Mistake One of the biggest mistakes people make is trying to sprint at full intensity too soon. Even if you used to sprint effortlessly, your body may not be ready to handle the speed, power, and impact you’re demanding from it. Jumping into sprints too quickly, without a gradual build-up, can overload your muscles and joints, leading to injuries that could set you back even further.
But here’s the good news: you can avoid these injuries with the right approach. By taking a step-by-step path, focusing on mobility, strength, and power, you can return to sprinting safely—and even improve your performance compared to your younger self.
THE SOLUTION
In this guide, I’ll walk you through the exact steps to safely return to sprinting—whether you’re coming back from an injury or haven’t sprinted in years.
You’ll learn how to rebuild strength, improve flexibility, and gradually reintroduce sprinting into your routine, all while avoiding the injuries that keep so many people on the sidelines.
STEP 1: Build Strength and Robustness in Vulnerable Areas
Before you can safely return to sprinting, you need to build strength and resilience in the muscles and joints most commonly injured during sprinting.
Sprinting puts a huge demand on your lower body, particularly the hamstrings, knees, and ankles. Without a solid foundation of strength, these areas are prone to strains, tears, and chronic pain.
Why Strength Training is Essential for Injury Prevention
Sprinting is an explosive movement that requires your muscles to generate significant force in a very short amount of time.
If your muscles aren’t strong enough to handle that force, they become vulnerable to injury. Strength training helps build muscle tissue, reinforces tendons and ligaments, and ensures that your body can absorb the impact of each sprint stride.
Here’s a breakdown of the most commonly injured areas in sprinting, and how you can strengthen them:
1. Hamstrings: The Sprinting Powerhouse
The hamstrings are perhaps the most commonly injured muscles in sprinting. These muscles are responsible for extending your leg behind you during the push-off phase and decelerating your leg as it swings forward.
Common Injuries: Hamstring strains and tears often occur when the muscle is overstretched or underprepared for the explosive demands of sprinting.
Key Strength Exercises:
Banded Nordic Hamstring Curls: The way I prefer to complete this exercise is controlling both the eccentric & concentric. This way they become less like a nordic ‘flop’ that I see majority of athlete’s use, but are in fact a true strength builder.
Single Leg Landmine Romanian Deadlifts: This is one of my favourite strategies to load the hamstrings under length whilst also getting some oblique and core involved simultaneously. As you can see I am elevated on plates to get the largest stretch possible through the hamstrings.
3. Calves and Achilles Tendon: Absorbing and Propelling Force
The calves, particularly the gastrocnemius and soleus muscles, are responsible for absorbing the impact of each foot strike and propelling you forward with each stride. Meanwhile, the Achilles tendon, which connects your calf muscles to your heel, is highly prone to overuse injuries, especially when returning to sprinting too quickly.
Common Injuries: Achilles tendonitis, calf strains, and Achilles tears are common in sprinters who haven’t properly conditioned these muscles.
We are going to cover more tendon specific training later on in the article, but some simple strategies to strengthen this area of the body are as follows:
Key Strength Exercises:
Calf Raises: Perform both straight-leg and bent-knee calf raises to target the gastrocnemius and soleus muscles. Start with bodyweight, and then progress to holding dumbbells or using a barbell.
Seated Calf Raises: This variation isolates the soleus muscle and helps build endurance in the calves, which is crucial for absorbing the repetitive impact of sprinting.
STEP 2: ADD JUMPS TO BUILD EXPLOSIVE POWER
Once you’ve built a foundation of strength in the key muscle groups, the next step is to add jumps (plyometric training) to develop the explosive power needed for sprinting.
Plyometrics, also known as “jump training,” mimic the explosive nature of sprinting and help your muscles generate force quickly—something essential for sprinting performance.
They also prepare your tendons for the high velocity demands of sprinting, and this step is arguably the most missing training piece I see in those that get injured when they have been away from sprinting for a very long time.
Why Plyometrics are Critical for Sprinting
Sprinting isn’t just about strength; it’s about how fast you can apply that strength. This is where plyometrics come in. These exercises train your muscles to contract quickly and powerfully, which is exactly what you need when sprinting at top speed. Plyometrics help improve:
Power output: By training your muscles to produce force rapidly, plyometrics enhance your ability to push off the ground with maximum power.
Neuromuscular coordination: These exercises improve the communication between your brain and muscles, allowing for faster, more efficient movements.
Speed and agility: Plyometrics condition your muscles and tendons to absorb and react to ground impact quickly, leading to faster acceleration and reduced injury risk.
Key Plyometric Exercises for Sprinting
To build the explosive power required for sprinting, focus on exercises that emphasize quick, powerful movements. Here are some of the most effective plyometric exercises to incorporate into your training:
DOUBLE LEG POGOS
Double Leg POGOs are a foundational plyometric exercise that develops elasticity in your lower legs, specifically the Achilles tendon and calves. This exercise focuses on quick, reactive ground contact—a crucial component of sprinting mechanics. The goal is to improve your ability to rebound off the ground quickly and efficiently, which translates directly into faster sprints.
A SKIP TO SWITCH
The A-Skip to Switch is an excellent plyometric drill that develops both sprinting mechanics and explosive power. This exercise emphasizes high knee drive, hip flexion, and rapid foot switching, all while maintaining proper posture. It simulates the motion of sprinting but breaks it down into a controlled, rhythmic pattern, helping you develop coordination and speed.
STRAIGHT LEG BOUNDS
Straight Leg Bounds develop hamstring strength, posterior chain power, and hip extension—all critical for sprinting. This exercise teaches you how to generate force through your hips and hamstrings while keeping your legs straight, which closely simulates the motion of sprinting’s mid-stride phase.
The Benefits of Plyometric Training for Sprinting
By incorporating plyometrics like Double Leg POGOs, A-Skip to Switch, and Straight Leg Bounds into your routine, you’ll:
Develop explosive power that translates directly into faster sprinting speeds.
Improve coordination and agility, making your sprinting form more efficient.
Build elasticity in your muscles and tendons, helping you absorb and react to ground forces better, which reduces the risk of injury.
By incorporating these plyometric exercises into your routine, you’ll develop the kind of explosive power that’s critical for sprinting, while also preparing your body to handle the physical demands of high-intensity speed work.
In the next step, we’ll discuss how to gradually reintroduce sprinting after building strength and power.
STEP 3: Gradually Reintroducing Sprinting
Now that you’ve built a foundation of strength and developed a foundation of tendon strength, it’s time to slowly ease back into sprinting. Sprinting is a high-intensity activity that puts a significant amount of stress on your muscles, tendons, and joints, so it’s crucial to gradually reintroduce it to avoid injury.
Jumping straight into full-speed sprints after time away is a common mistake.
To avoid pulling a hamstring or straining your calves, follow a phased approach that allows your body to adapt to the demands of sprinting.
How to Gradually Return to Sprinting: A Phased Approach
The goal here is to increase intensity and volume progressively over several weeks. By starting with lower intensity and gradually building up, you give your muscles, tendons, and nervous system time to adjust. Here’s how to structure your return:
PHASE 1: Walking
Accumulate Low-Intensity Volume (20-50% Effort)
To make the guide as comprehensive as possible, I am going to start from the lowest intensity activity.
That is walking. If you’re severely under trained, building into 1 hour of brisk walking daily, not only has a variety of benefits for your overall general health, but begins to build your base & foundation of lower body endurance & robustness.
Guidelines:
Intensity: 20-50% of your max effort.
Distance: Build up to 1 hour of brisk walking per day.
PHASE 2: Tempo Runs (Moderate-Intensity) (50-70% Effort)
Once your body feels comfortable handling low-intensity walking, increase the intensity to moderate-level runs. At this point, you’ll start challenging your muscles and cardiovascular system, but still not pushing to full speed.
Workout Guidelines:
Intensity: 50-70% of your max effort.
Distance: 40-60 meters.
Sets: Perform 3-5 efforts with ~2 minute rest periods.
Focus on:
Controlled acceleration: Start from a relaxed position and smoothly build up speed, focusing on mechanics.
Increased stride length: Now that you’ve developed strength and power, focus on covering more ground with each stride, but stay controlled.
Phase 3: High-Intensity Sprints (85-100% Effort)
This progression is highly variable based on your level of fitness & time away from sprinting. Do not rush to reach 100% maximal effort.
For this reason I have not prescribed specific sets, distances or intensities, simply some methods of how to make the transition into maximal sprints as smooth as possible.
WALK IN STARTS
A walk-in start helps you gradually build into acceleration by easing the body into the sprint. Instead of starting from a dead stop, which puts sudden strain on muscles and joints, a walk-in start allows you to progressively increase speed. This reduces the risk of injury and improves control over your form, letting you focus on proper mechanics like posture, arm drive, and stride length. It also helps develop a smoother acceleration curve, allowing your body to naturally build momentum without the immediate explosive force needed in a stationary start.
3 POINT STARTS
A 3-point start is a powerful technique for building acceleration in sprinting. It places one hand on the ground and the other arm behind, allowing for an explosive push-off from a low, crouched position. Here’s why it helps with acceleration:
Optimal starting position: The crouched stance allows for better force production, driving your body forward more effectively than standing starts.
Explosive power generation: With your weight distributed forward, you can engage your legs, hips, and glutes to produce maximum force, launching you into acceleration quickly.
Efficient transition: A 3-point start helps you smoothly transition from low to upright sprinting posture, enhancing speed while maintaining control.
CURVED RUNS
Curved runs help develop agility, balance, and the ability to accelerate efficiently while maintaining control on a curve. Here’s how they help with sprinting performance:
Improved lateral stability: Running on a curve requires you to engage stabilizing muscles, particularly in the hips, ankles, and core, which improves balance and coordination.
Enhanced turning speed: Curved runs train you to maintain speed while changing direction, which is crucial for sports and real-world scenarios that involve cutting and pivoting.
Strengthens specific muscles: The inner and outer leg muscles work differently during a curve, helping to improve muscle balance and reduce the risk of injury when running or sprinting in non-linear paths.
Curved runs are particularly beneficial for sprinters in sports like soccer, football, or track events where maintaining speed on turns is key.
How to Know When to Increase Intensity
It’s essential to listen to your body during this process. Don’t rush from one phase to the next—stay at a lower intensity for 2-3 weeks before progressing. For those of you who haven’t done any sprinting in years, I would even push this out to 4-6 weeks. The body can take a much longer time than you would think to adapt to these loads.
Remember, sprinting is the highest intensity activity you can possible do through your lower body, so it needs to be respected accordingly.
Signs you’re ready to move forward include:
No pain or discomfort in your muscles or joints after sprint sessions.
Improved recovery: You feel refreshed and strong between sprint days, without lingering soreness or fatigue.
Consistent performance: Your sprint speed feels controlled, and your form remains strong throughout the workout.
If you feel any discomfort, especially in your hamstrings, calves, or Achilles, slow down and reduce intensity. Returning to sprinting after time away is a marathon, not a sprint (ha ha)—take your time and ensure your body is fully prepared.
START THE JOURNEY TODAY
Sprinting is a rare and powerful gift that most adults lose as they age—but it doesn’t have to be that way. By taking a smart, gradual approach, you can reclaim your ability to sprint with strength, speed, and without the risk of injury.
Whether you’ve been away from sprinting for years or just want to improve your performance, following these steps—building strength, incorporating plyometrics, and easing back into sprinting—will set you up for success. Sprinting isn’t just a workout; it’s a gateway to unlocking your athletic potential, boosting your health, and proving that age is just a number. Embrace the process, stay consistent, and let sprinting remind you of the power your body is capable of.
Clark -
1: Typical suggestion of leg training is 2x per week for resistance training. This can be a lower body session in isolation or as part of a full body training session. If I prescribe 3 full body sessions for clients I'll get them to train legs 3x per week.
2: If you're 75 you need to take a very slow & gradual approach, my uncle is 60 and I am training him for Nationals javelin & discuss. What I would progress in 2-3 days for an athlete in their prime, I give him 4-6 weeks to build up.
As your questions are very nuanced, they require an individualised solution which unfortunately I can't prescribe over a single substack comment. If you want to learn more, more than welcome to email me personally at jack@paintoperformance.co
Hope this helps
Thank you for this very informative article. I am a 75 year old and for the last couple years been doing regular weight training, mostly upper body and core, and for the last 9 months been training in Krav Maga. I greatly grestly enjoy both however KM has showed me I made a big mistake in emphasizing upper body over legs. I will incorporate these exercises into my new leg workouts. I have two questions for the group.
1. How often should I do legs? I’ve learned how easy it is for a 75 yo to overtrain - need a lot of rest. Maybe twice as much as I thought. I’m considering doing legs 2x per week. Should I only do it once? Will I see any gains with 1x per week? I also hill walk at least once a week.
2. I have degenerated disks. 15 years ago an orthopedic surgeon told me I would later need extensive pain management. He was incorrect. I’m doing fine. However I do have pain in my lower back if I try to sprint even the shortest distance. The pain is in the lumbar spine area. Feels like disk pain. Is there anything I can do to help this situation?
Thanks in advance for your comments and thank you again for this article.