Sprint workouts: 7 sessions with exact sets, reps and rest

How each session is built

Every session in the program has four parts:

1. A warm-up of about 15 minutes: easy jog, dynamic drills and build-ups. The sprint warm-up guide has the full routine.
2. A few short 10–30m primer sprints to wake up acceleration before the main set.
3. The main set, which trains the quality of the day and is written as distance × reps at an effort percentage with a rest time.
4. A warm-down of backward runs and a barefoot walk.

Effort is a percentage of your best. A review of elite sprint training puts acceleration and max-velocity work above 98% and speed endurance at 90–95%. Rest is long because your top speed depends on how much force you can put into the ground, and tired legs put down less.

1. Acceleration + sled

This is the first session of every week in the program. The short sprints build your drive phase, and a light sled push makes you hold a long, low push off the ground.

To progress it, week 2 adds a 30m rep. Week 3 is the biggest week (4 × 10m, 4 × 30m, 2 × 40m, 4 × 20m sled), and weeks 4–5 move the sled to about 20% of bodyweight over fewer, shorter pushes. The acceleration drills guide goes further.

2. Top speed: flying 20s

A flying sprint gives you a 20m run-in, so you enter the timed zone already near top speed. It trains the upright, bouncy mechanics of max velocity. The program asks you to film these reps.

3. Sprint-float-sprint + flys

Sprint 20m, float 20m (relaxed but still fast, with no braking), then sprint 20m again. You learn to hold speed without straining, which is how the middle of a 100m should feel.

In week 1 you run 4 reps at 95% with 4 minutes of rest. Week 2 goes to 5 reps at 100%, and week 3 lengthens the rest to 6 minutes and adds flying 30s.

4. Speed, 60s

A ladder of 10, 30 and 40m sprints primes you for three all-out 60m reps with 6 minutes of rest. At 60m you have room to reach top speed and hold it.

5. Speed endurance

This is day 5 of week 3, the biggest week of the program. Full-speed 40s and 60s come first, then 150m tempo runs at 75%. The session builds your ability to hold speed late in a race.

6. Recovery tempo

The optional easy day. Tempo runs at 65–70% keep you moving and build general fitness while leaving the nervous system alone. Walk back between reps and keep the whole session easy.

7. Taper: sharp accelerations

Week 6, the week you retest, opens with this session. Volume drops to four sprints and rest goes up to 4–5 minutes while effort stays at 100%, so you finish fresher and faster.

How to put them in a week

Run three high days (sessions 1–5) with a low day or rest day between each. A typical program week has acceleration on day 1, jumps and throws on day 2, sprint-float-sprint on day 3, optional tempo on day 4, flying sprints or 60s on day 5, and optional active recovery on day 6. The speed training guide explains why the week is built this way.

A brief review of 48 sprint-training studies found that sprinting itself was the most effective way to improve sprint times over distances from 0–10m to beyond 30m, and that strength and plyometric work added to it. These sessions are the core of your training, and the lifting and plyometrics support them.

Common mistakes

Cutting the rest

If the clock says 3 minutes and you feel ready at 90 seconds, wait anyway. The next rep needs to be as fast as the last one.

Adding reps when you feel good

Stop on schedule. Leaving with a little left in the tank lets you sprint well again in 48 hours.

Running everything at "pretty hard"

Speed reps are 95–100% and tempo reps are easy. Medium-effort reps are too slow to build speed and too tiring to count as recovery.

Doing speed work after a hard leg day

Sprint first, on fresh legs, and lift after the track or on a different day.

Never timing anything

Time or film your flys and 30s. If your times get slower for several reps in a row, end the session.