Long Sprints for One-Leg Jumpers

This article is again geared a bit more towards track and field jumps athletes but can be great for any aspiring single leg jumper out there as well. Early in the fall seasons of training, collegiate and professional jumpers are beginning their journey towards the upcoming season. One staple of training that is an essential part of the total training system of the fall is repeated, long sprint work (also known as tempo sprints) of 100-400m. An example of a tempo workout for jumpers would look something like 6-8x200m at 75% with 3′ rest in between efforts. Why this type of training is effective for short burst power athletes is not readily apparent. Many programs….in fact, many elite training programs really work to all but eliminate tempo style training in the general preparation of their athletes (they still produce awesome athletes, but I think that they could even be better with more tempo work). One very successful American jumps coach tends to use tempo only one day out of the week, usually on Saturdays. First of all, I would like to list the reason why a lot of really good coaches won’t put a lot of long tempo sprints in their fall workouts.

Not specific to the short, power-based efforts of the jumps
Excessive long tempo sprints can lead to a breakdown in sprint technique
General fitness can be acquired through other means such as general strength circuits

Now I would like to list the reasons that I do use tempo style work in my fall training.

Helps with specific strength and stiffness in the lower leg and plantar flexor/Achilles tendon complex. Try running 5×300 without much prior tempo work and let me know what your calves feel like the next day. It is like a calf workout that is actually specific to jumping because of the heavier involvement of the tendon as opposed to doing things like calf raises.
Helps with the stiffness of the whole leg in general by repeated efforts of the whole muscle-tendon complex.
Repeated efforts will increase the myelination of the motor neurons (through repeated efforts) as well as decrease the electrical resistance through the major muscle groups of running and jumping. (The reason tempo can be nice for short sprinters as well)
Tempo work can be used to actually re-enforce sprint technique if performed in reasonable chunks. By this, I mean instead of a workout consisting of 5x300m, it can be nice to instead perform a workout where 5x(100+100+100) is done with 30 seconds rest in between each individual sprint. This will help the athlete to maintain form.

Just some things to think of in fall training. Since the stiffness of the lower leg is pretty important in single-leg jumping, even if you are not a track and field athlete, you might want to look at some long sprint work to help your single-leg hops. Something to consider with this type of training, however, is that it takes some time to adapt to before gains will be seen due to the high physiological drain of doing repeated endurance-based sprints. Once your body adapts to doing them a couple of times a week though, the results are great!

Joel Smith

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