How to Start Sprinting: A Beginner’s Guide to Fast, Fun, and Sustainable Weight Loss
This article about how to start sprinting is part of my series of free and simple biohacking ideas for moms!
I wasn’t always out of shape. Maybe you can relate.
I didn’t realize how easy I had it in college, and how much less free time I would have after having kids!
Slowly, without me realizing it, exercise—always squeezed into the corners of my day, became an afterthought. Soon I was carrying 30 extra pounds, struggling to keep up with my kids, and even getting breathless just holding them.
One day I heard an about how someone used to run 10 miles a day but still had lots of visceral fat. He switched to sprinting just a few times a week, and his visceral fat melted away!
My ears perked up. I thought that running 10 miles a day was an ideal to aspire to, and felt discouraged that I couldn’t figure out how to be a high performer like that.
It was hard to find information on how to start. But eventually I pieced together a picture. Some research was showing that sprinting could build muscle, strip fat, and boost fitness MORE than cardio, in just a few minutes a week. It sounded ridiculous. But I was desperate, so I decided to try.
It took some faith and consistency, but things started changing! I started to feel a childlike joy and freedom when I sprinted. My extra weight gradually started melting off. Muscle returned. I could pick up my children easily, and run after them without losing my breath!
Six months in, exercise was still an afterthought in the corner of my day—but now the exercise had changed! With just a couple sprinting sessions a week, I was leaner and stronger than I had ever been—even in my marathon-running days.
I hope you are curious enough to want to learn how to start sprinting!
Table of Contents
Why does Sprinting Trigger Weight Loss and Muscle Gain more than Cardio?
The Adaptive Response
The reason that sprinting is so much more effective than long medium intensity cardio sessions (think jogging) is because it triggers the body’s adaptive response.
Actually, sprint interval training is not just more effective than jogging—it’s also more effective than HIIT! A study found that people practicing sprint interval training lost 40% more weight in 60% less time than HIIT!
The adaptive response is the body’s intelligence predicting what it will have to do in the future, and adapting to perform that task.
If you jog, your body will know that it can do that kind of mild exercise without needing to gain much more muscle. And it’s not a big deal if it carries a little extra fat along the way! By contrast, when you sprint, it is a powerful signal to your body that in order to reach those top speeds, pump the arms and legs, and breathe so heavily, it will need to create more muscle and get rid of all the fat it can!
I love to be active, walking, jogging, and swimming are all very fun activities for me when I have the time. But if I want to work on losing weight, I don’t want to waste any effort!
The Afterburn
Another reason sprinting triggers weight loss is the afterburn effect, also known as excess post-exercise oxygen consumption (EPOC). Sprinting causes your body to burn through stored energy very quickly and builds an oxygen debt. This causes your metabolism to stay elevated and burn extra calories for up to 72 hours after the sprinting session!
The Other Amazing Benefits of Sprinting!
I’m not trying to reduce sprinting to just a fat burning tool. It really is even more than that! Below is a list of some of the amazing benefits of sprinting that have encouraged me to keep it a part of my life!
Sprinting is a tremendous full body workout. It engages the core, back, arms, legs, and stabilizing muscles—and even strengthens the pelvic floor muscles!
The brief high impact nature of sprinting stimulates bone growth and increases bone density. This helps prevent osteoporosis and fractures which are big concerns for women as they age.
It is a big boost to your cardiovascular health! Sprinting increases circulation, lowers blood pressure, and improves cholesterol levels.
It enhances your VO2 max (oxygen efficiency) which makes everyday activities feel easier.
It increases Human Growth hormone which helps build muscle, burn fat, and keep your skin healthy and firm.
It regulates cortisol and supports testosterone and estrogen balance, it even increases insulin sensitivity!
Ever heard of a runner’s high? You get that with sprinting too, on steroids! The runner’s high is actually a release of endorphins.
Sprinting helps clear brain fog and improves focus. You will feel so energized and elated afterwards!
How to Start Safely
Consider the Timing
First of all, I would like to start with a caveat. Although sprinting is great for everyone, this article is written for moms. I do not sprint during my pregnancies. In the first trimester, I get very sick. Very quickly in the second, my hips get loose with relaxin and I don’t want to risk falling during the workout. I know pregnancy varies from woman to woman, so please listen to your body and be cautious.
I also would not recommend sprinting right after delivering a baby. There is no reason to rush to get fit in the first 6 weeks after delivering a baby! It’s normal to feel frustrated (and hormonal!) about your body and all the changes immediately postpartum. Please give yoruself the freedom to rest, enjoy your baby, and don’t worry about getting fit until exercise feels right to your body.
The risks: falling
There are two main risks when sprinting. The first is falling. If you have the option to sprint on a track or field, those are the very best options!
You can also “sprint” on an elliptical machine and get many benefits without the risk of falling or heavy impact if you have any injuries.
Please walk the area that you plan to sprint on before hand, looking for any obstacles, sticks, or pits in the ground before you run.
The risks: straining your ligaments
The second main risk is injuring a tendon or ligament by starting your sprint too abruptly. Luckily for us, we are not Olympic sprinters and don’t need to go 100% when a gun goes off!
The easy way to prevent this risk is by easing gradually into your sprint! Start by jogging, and gradually accelerate to top speed.
How to Start Sprinting
Find a safe location
To complete a sprinting session, find a safe location as near to your home as you can get. It needs to be about 200-400 feet long. A field, track, sidewalk, or road all work. Sometimes I sprint on a baseball field that is next to a playground while my kids play. Be aware that running on concrete isn’t as good for your joints, but sometimes options are limited.
Warm Up
It helps to warm up and stretch before sprinting. A short walk, followed by some leg stretches before you sprint is a great idea! We have found that the more we have sprinted, the less stretching we have needed to feel ready.
Run as fast as you can for 20 seconds!
Start jogging, and then accelerate gradually until you reach about 90% max speed. It’s good to maintain some control, and you don’t need to totally max out. Try to keep your top speed for about 20 seconds! (This will take some trial and error! Have a friend time you, or start a timer on your watch or phone before you start and try to time yourself).
Catch your breath
After your sprint, stand still or walk slowly to catch your breath. After a couple of minutes, when your heart rate has gone back to normal, you can do another one!
Repeat!
I usually do 3-4 sprints per session. Realistically, it would take me about 15 minutes from start to finish. There’s a lot more time catching your breath than actually sprinting during sprint interval training!
Am I doing it right? Shoot for 85% of your Maximum Heart Rate
A concrete and simple metric to know if you are getting all the benefits of sprinting is to measure your heart rate!
When sprinting, you should aim for 85-95% of your maximum heart rate (MHR)
MHR Fomula
220 – your age = MHR
Multiply your MHR by 0.85 to get your minimum target heart rate.
For example, I’m 28. So 220 – 28 is 192.
192 x 0.85 is 163.2, so my sprinting target heart rate is 163 beats per minute!
How to measure your heart rate manually
If you don’t have a smartwatch or heart rate monitor, you can check your pulse manually! Just be sure to do it immediately after running your sprint!
- Find your pulse (on your wrist, or on your neck)
- Look at your watch or turn on a stopwatch on your smart phone.
- Count how many beats you feel in 15 seconds.
- Multiply that number by 4 to get your beats per minute (BPM)
Subjective metrics
Another way to know you are sprinting hard enough is that you should be breathing very hard after your sprint!
You should also feel a strong adrenaline rush during and after your sprint!
Conclusion
I hope this guide on how to start sprinting has been helpful! I am so passionate about this exercise because it is so doable, fun, free, and amazingly effective! I really believe everyone should sprint—at least once in a while—if only to feel like a child again!
If you have any questions, or wins to share, please comment below!