The Best Sprint Workouts to Build a Body Like Noah Lyles

Most people don’t run at top speed unless someone’s chasing them. But here's a novel idea: “Practicing running faster will make you faster,” says Matt Nolan, an RRCA-certified running coach and master instructor at Barry's Bootcamp in New York, NY.

While sprints sound like something you were happy to leave behind in high school gym class, they're sort of like riding a bike—the more comfortable you get working through sprint workouts, the easier they’ll start to feel. Research shows that just six sessions of sprint interval training over a two-week period can improve running performance in trained athletes.

After just a few weeks, you’ll be surprised how much easier it is to hold your balls-to-the-wall sprint pace for longer than when you started.

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The Best Sprint Workouts to Get Faster, Build Muscle, and Drop Fat

1. Beginner Sprint Workout

How to Do It

• 1-min. jog

• 30-sec. sprint

• Repeat 6 to 8 times

Why It Works

“This workout is easy enough for anyone to follow and teaches you to pace yourself,” explains Nolan.

Pro Tip

“Try to match the same speed you do in the first round for however many rounds you do. Repetition like this leads to body adaptations to become stronger faster.”

2. Maximal Sprint Workout

How to Do It

• 3 x 10–12 sec. sprint at 85 percent effort (fast but not all-out) at 8 percent incline with 90-sec. recovery walk or jog

• 5 x 10–12 sec. at 95 percent effort (as fast as you can possibly go) at 1 percent incline with 90-sec. recovery walk or jog

Why It Works

“By working out at a very high intensity for super short efforts—with full recovery in between reps—you’re training the nervous system to optimize acceleration, top speed, force production, and efficient limb movement,” explains Alain Saint-Dic, a coach at Mile High Run Club in New York, NY.

3. Hill Sprint Workout

How to Do It

You’ll need a steep hill about a third of a mile long (or, if you’re on the treadmill, set it to a 3.5–4.5 percent incline).

• Run ? of the hill at a fast pace, then jog down at an easy pace

• Run ? of the hill at a fast pace, then jog down at an easy pace

• Run all the way up the hill at a fast pace, then jog down at an easy pace. Rest for 2 min.

• 4 x 20 sec. sprints up the hill followed by an easy jog down

Why It Works

“This workout will continuously push you outside your comfort zone as you increase the distance of the hill climb,” says Amanda Nurse, an elite marathoner and running coach based in Boston, MA. “Try to maintain an even effort on the way up and use the downhills as your recovery.”

Pro Tip

Don’t underestimate the short sprints at the end: “Strides improve your running form, help to lengthen all your leg muscles, and improve your efficiency and turnover.”

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4. Descending Sprint Workout

How to Do It

• 3 x 600m or 90 sec. at 80 percent effort (or 2 mph below top sprint pace) with 2-min. recovery walk or jog in between sets

• 3 x 400m or 60 sec. at 90 percent effort (or 1 mph below top sprint pace) with 90-sec. recovery walk or jog in between sets

• 3 x 200m or 30 sec. at 100 percent sprint speed with 1-min. recovery walk or jog between sets

Why It Works

“The payoff of speed efforts that get shorter and faster the closer you get to finishing is both physical, in terms of increasing your overall cardiovascular fitness, and mental,” says Nolan. “Your brain will see and know as you progress to the shorter sprints, and that will help you go faster and faster.”

5. Endurance Sprint Workout

How to Do It

• 4 x 18–22 sec. sprint at 85 percent effort at an 8 percent incline with 90-sec. recovery walk or jog

• 4 x 18–22 sec. sprint at 95 percent effort at a 1 percent incline with 90-sec. recovery walk or jog

Why It Works

Instead of all-out sprinting, “this time, you’re focusing on sustaining your maximum velocity for an extended period of time,” explains Saint-Dic. That’s going to train your body to feel comfortable holding a faster pace for longer durations—an important element if you want to race a half-marathon or marathon.

6. Power Sprint Workout

How to Do It

• 15 x 200m (or ? mile) at a hard effort with 200m recovery speed walk or jog between sets

Why It Works

Two hundred meters is about an eighth of a mile or half a lap on the track—an easy distance to wrap your head around. “It’s a great distance to improve endurance while also improving anaerobic power and capacity,” says Nurse. “Thanks to [an] equally long recovery, you should feel good enough to sprint again when you reach the next 200 meters.”

7. Pyramid-Style Sprint Workout

How to Do It

• 30-sec. sprint with 1-min. recovery walk or jog

• 45-sec. sprint with 90-sec. recovery walk or jog
  

• 1-min. sprint with 2-min. recovery walk or jog

• Repeat 4 times

Why It Works

Pyramid-style sprint workouts build speed, then gradually bring you back to your starting point. “They’re great for keeping the body guessing—no interval is a direct repeat,” says Nolan. “And the recoveries are double the length of the work efforts, so you always feel ready for the next interval.” You should feel like you’re flying by the end of each round.

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What Are Sprint Workouts?

Sprint interval workouts—short, hard efforts followed by easy recovery periods—help you become a better runner at all paces and distances. Research also shows this type of training is a time-efficient, cost-free means of improving both your endurance and power.

That’s because “they train the body to recruit and develop fast-twitch muscle fibers, build muscle, and improve heart rate and overall caloric efficiency,” says Nolan.

How to Incorporate Sprint Workouts Into a Regimen

When you’re doing these sprint workouts, make sure to leave enough time to warm up and cool down before and after. A solid warmup includes dynamic exercises like hamstring sweeps, high knees, quad stretches, and butt kicks, followed by an easy one-mile jog or three minutes of striders (15-sec. efforts at increasing intensities followed by 30 sec. walking or jogging). You can do the following routines on a treadmill or outdoors, either on a track or on the street.

Only do them once or twice a week since they're incredibly taxing on muscle fibers and you want to leave time for proper recovery so muscle fibers can rebuild.