Track Warm-Up With Olympic Sprinter Rodney Martin

Olympic sprinter Rodney Martin performs an on-track warm-up prior to the start of his speed training with coaching by Cedric Hill.

Rodney Martin goes through step mechanics and lunges to strengthen his muscles and emphasize good basics in his warm up. Cedric Hill explains the importance of having a good warm up and how it affects the performance on the trackCedric Hill: I found that the warm up dictates the workout. Things that are going on in the warm up, most of the time they transfer to the track. Finding out what particular drills are going to fire the system to do the activity. He'll come and he'll start out with some strides and he'll do that till his heart rate is up and then from there we'll go into some light stretching and then from there he'll go into an A march. The A march is to reemphasize the position as a sprinter. Then from A march, we'll speed that A march up to and take it to what's known as a long A skip.I'd give Rodney queues not to skip because I don't want him to drag the ground. B skip is for recovery drill a guy like Rodney needs to do because his body can be in position or out of position at the type of forces that he's creating when he leaves the ground as a (inaudible) sprinter. I have him do lateral lunges which I think is most important for a 200 meter runner and those lateral forces that are created in the curve for a guy running 19 seconds you've got to be able to handle.Forward lunge, once again, is a stabilization drill so that he can lock in on the glutes, quads, hamstrings. For me it's just a matter of him transferring and keeping himself in proper alignment to make the next movement because as a sprinter those things are key. In doing forward lunge basically I tell him to keep his chest up, be mindful not to get over your hips because as a sprinter you don't want to do that. Some days we may do anywhere from five to seven reps of a particular drill, other days we may do three to five it all depends on how his system is firing. For more with Rondey Martin, check out Sprinting Strides With Olympic Sprinter Rodney Martin">