Why would you Sprint to save your Life? Find out why.
Why Sprint for your Life? Well, it’s a play on words, going back to our Primal Ancestors who definitely had to sprint for their lives on many occasions during their lives, simply to stay alive.
Hunting and Gathering and facing potential dangers and predators daily, must have kept them on their toes, and yes, running for their lives many times. Our Primal Ancestors had strong, muscular and lean bodies, which is what we want to strive to achieve in todays modern society, by following the natural movement and lifestyle patterns of our Primal Ancestors.
Moving frequently and naturally, lifting heavy things from time to time, sprinting, resting and getting plenty of sleep to recover, as well as eating as natural as we can, both animals and plants. That’s how we are made, to eat healthy animal meats, fats, and natural healthy plants and fats.
If you follow these basic rules, you will be able to regain your ideal health and fitness levels, and it’s never too late to start. But rest assured, doing one and not the other won’t work. It’s the combination of Nutrition – Fitness – Lifestyle and Wellness that makes the superior difference.
Adding targeted Strength Training (BodyWeight) after a sprinting session is another great idea. Once you have completed your sprint session (you need to be quite fit for this), you can add for example a Pull-up and Planking session, or a Squats and Push-ups session, to add to the muscle burn and rebuild!
The Multiple Benefits of Sprinting
First, let’s have a look at the many ways you can perform sprints, depending on your location, age, situation, there is always a sprinting method that will suit your situation:
Sprinting Options:
Track or Dirt Sprints – Hill or Step Sprints – Swim Sprints – Stationary Bike – Elliptical -Treadmill – Rowing Machine. They are all super efficient and will rip your body and make you feel great !
Benefits:
- Builds strength – Sprints are an anaerobic exercise; this means that they will trigger muscle building, increasing the size and strength of the powerful, fast-twitch fibers. A study conducted in 2012 showed sprinting can enhance protein synthesis pathways by as much as 230 percent! With the right nutrition and recovery, this will lead to muscle building, allowing your body to become leaner and enabling you to run (sprint) faster, longer, and more efficiently.
- Lose fat – Sprint training is one of the most efficient conditioning exercises that can create significant and notable fat loss. Compared to long and steady aerobic training, like running or jogging, sprinting enables you to lose body fat. In contrast, in aerobic exercise, you are more likely to lose body mass – which includes fat, but also water weight. When wanting to lose weight and become healthier, you should aim to lose fat. A Nutrition Journal study conducted in 2004 showed that fat metabolism is most effective during running at intensities between 47 and 64%, depending on athletic ability, while another study by Exercise and Sport Sciences Reviews showed that high-intensity interval training could improve skeletal muscle oxidative capacity and endurance performance.
- Expand endurance – Doing sprints will improve your general stamina. Sprinting is one of the most efficient ways to build your endurance. Going at max speeds on a sprint will improve your endurance capacity, amplifying your maximal oxygen uptake and increasing the time it takes for fatigue to set in. Since sprints train the body to burn fat for fuel, they preserve muscle glycogen and prolonging work capacity.
- Improves heart health – Sprinting comes with cardiovascular benefits. It can help lower your blood pressure. The fast-twitch muscles that you are building with sprints strengthen your heart function. Doing all those explosions and putting all that extra effort into your muscles makes your heart work and pump harder, which will improve your heart.
All of this results in a healthier heart and far less chance of heart disease.
- Builds mental toughness – Sprints are a challenging workout. There may be moments of uncertainty in the middle of your workout that challenge your ability to finish. It is essential, however, do not give in. Pushing through the discomfort will enable you to break records and build your confidence in your emotional and physical abilities.
- Reduce stress – Sprinting, like other forms of exercise, produces endorphins, which are chemicals in the brain that act as natural painkillers and provide you with a “feel good” sensation. The release of endorphins stimulates confidence and relief, especially after having completed a workout.
- Saves time – Sprints are quick bursts of movements, and as such, they are just as and often more time effective than jogging for an hour. Sprints are a great way to maximize your workout with half the time!
- Improves glucose control/insulin –A 2009 study by BMCEndocrine Disorders found high-intensity workouts substantially improved insulin levels and could reduce metabolic syndrome risk factors, including high cholesterol, high blood pressure, high blood sugar, and abdominal body fat. Sprints work so well for glucose control because they deplete the body of supply of glycogen, the sugar stored inside of our muscles. The only way our body can get rid of excess sugar in our blood is first to make it run down its glycogen inventories in our muscles. The only way to squeeze glycogen out of the inventories are exercises that involve intense contractions such as sprints.
Now you know how effective sprinting is, no matter what your fitness condition, heart health and or age, you can start sprinting in the easiest and gentle manner by using a stationary bike.
I tailor the overall fitness & movement program depending on each
As always, please feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns. Thanks for reading.
Rob Hourmont
“It is my mission to educate people on how to lose weight, how to build a healthy, strong heart, body, and mind, supporting a longer life.”
