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I'm an offensive all purpose semi-pro football player who's been out of the game a few years. I decided to get back into shape and report for training camp again. When i was there another running back told me not to run mileage anymore because it hurts top speed potential and acceleration. Is this true? I've been running 2 miles every other day, mostly i started it to lose the weight i needed to shed before camp. also I've been hearing alot about plyometrics and agility drills....I've never done many of these, I've just always been naturally fast. Can you guys answer the mileage question and give me some examples of what a good routine might consist of?

thanks!

Most and all sprint coaches have a training philosophy. Sprinters never use a slow run of any kind. Sprinters never take any slow run or 30 minute runs or even 15 minute runs. Most sprint coaches belief that if you train a fast twitch muscle to run slow, it will do just that and become slower.

Sprinters are born with an abundance of fast twitch muscles so sprint coaches give 100% effort at attacking the fast twitch muscle development. Sprinters get faster by running fast. Nothing builds speed in a sprinter except training fast. The faster you can train the faster you can become. To get fast you must run fast. You can not gain speed by running cross country and taking long slow runs. Sprint coaches make sprinters faster by concentrating on training the fast twitch muscles.