If you’re getting ready to dive into interval training, one thing that you will want to be focusing on is improving your overall sprint performance. Since sprinting is one of the primary methods that most people go about their interval training, the more capable you are at it, the faster your progress tends to move along.

So what can you do to ensure optimal sprinting?

Let’s look at a few of the main things to consider.

Relax The Hands

The very first thing that you’ll want to do is to make sure that you are relaxing your hands as best as possible as you go about the sprinting. This will help you avoid carrying unwanted tension in the body that will use up your energy.

The arms should be slightly bent as you go about your sprinting, with the hands relaxed and just very lightly clenched if preferred.

Don’t Hold Tension In The Hip Flexors

Second, also make sure that you aren’t holding tension in the hip flexors either. This is another very large mistake that far too many people make that will cause them to not only slow down in performance, but in addition to that, can also really increase their risk of injuries as well.

Holding a high level of tension will place additional strain on the hip flexor ligaments and tendons, making it easier for you to potentially pull them.

It can help to think of relaxing the quad muscles slightly as you go about the sprinting to achieve this – you’ll never relax them entirely since they are needed to execute the sprinting exercise, but the simple thought process of relaxing them can be enough to avoid tension in the hip flexors.

Don’t Forget To Breathe

Finally, while it may be difficult, as you’re going about your sprinting exercise, make sure you breathe. Far too many people hold their breath and then are really gasping for air after they come out of the sprint.

The more you can make sure you have a ready supply of oxygen coming into the body as you go about the exercise, the less chance you’re going to have of suffering from fatigue.

So there you have the main things to know and remember as you go about your running sprinting exercise. Make sure that you think about these so that you can stay injury-free as you implement your interval training.