Differences Between Sprinters And Long Distance Runners

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Everybody has at least sprinted a short distance on a track or have run at least a lap on a track for a period of time. Many people that have play sports have experienced sprinting or long distance running. Some sports like basketball, baseball, football and sprinting event in track require short burst of speed. While sports like cross country or some events for track and field require endurance for these events. In the Olympics for example there are many differences between sprinters and long distance runners. These differences include physical differences, motion, and different workout plans between sprinters and long distance runners.
When a baby is born, the child has 50% fast twitch muscle and 50% slow twitch muscle. However; over time …show more content…

As the topic above endurance runners have slower twitch muscles in the body. The anatomy build of an endurance runners differs from a sprinter. Scott Amato, (2013, September 27 explains long distance are typically tall. The article also explains that long distance runners have long arms. The long legs of a long distance runners helps with a making fewer steps while running. While these are the typical characteristics of a long distance runners, some runners are normal height but have long legs to be able to give them the advantage of long strides. Most long distance runners are really thin and have less muscle mass. However; there is a reason why long distance runners have less muscle mass. Less muscle mass helps the long distance runners run longer as well as allowing the runner to run fast during a race because runners are not held down with all that muscle mass. Most runners do not weigh a lot because long distance runners run burn a lot of calories while running, causing runners to gain no weight at all. Most long distance runners have high VO2 max, which leads to them running for long periods in time. While these are the characteristics for long distance runners, there are different characteristics for

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