Ground contact times change dramatically between sprint phases. In acceleration, the foot is on the ground for roughly 0.15 to 0.20 seconds. At max velocity, that drops below 0.10.

That difference matters because it changes the force profile, the joint torques, and the stretch-shortening cycle demands at every level. Acceleration and max velocity aren’t the same movement done at different speeds. They’re different movements with different mechanical requirements.

Your weight room should reflect that.

The framework below is adapted from Stuart McMillan’s zone-matching approach at ALTIS, used in a published full-year program for an elite female 200m sprinter preparing for the 2019 World Championships. It pairs the type of lifting with the type of sprint work happening on the same day.

Where coaches commonly get this wrong

The most frequent mistake is treating the weight room as its own separate program. The lifts get periodised, the loads progress, but the day-to-day content has no relationship to what happened on the track that morning.

Heavy squats after a max velocity session is a common example. You’ve spent the track session developing reactive stiffness and fast ground contacts, then you go into the gym and grind through long eccentrics under heavy load. The two stimuli pull in different directions. The speed signal gets blurred by the strength work that followed.

The other mistake runs the opposite way. Coaches who default to light, high-rep lifting on every gym day because they’re worried about fatigue. On acceleration days, that’s a missed opportunity. The contacts are long enough and the force demands high enough that heavy strength work is the best complement to what happened on the track.

How this shifts during competition phase

The pairing principle stays the same in-season, but the balance changes.

Weight room volume typically drops. The track sessions become the priority and lifting shifts toward maintenance rather than development. But the matching logic still applies. If you’re doing block work and short accelerations before a meet, a reduced-volume Zone 3 session (fewer sets, same intensity) still fits better than switching to light circuits.

What often changes is that competition-phase track sessions combine multiple qualities in a single session. You might do acceleration work followed by speed endurance. In that case, the weight room can reflect the dominant quality of the session rather than trying to match both.

The key is that even as volume reduces, the type of lifting should still be informed by the type of running.

A practical starting point

Look at this week’s schedule. For each track session, identify the primary quality being trained. Then ask whether the weight room that day is reinforcing it or competing with it.

You don’t need to overhaul your exercise selection. The same squat pattern can serve multiple days depending on load and intent. A back squat at 85% with a controlled tempo on an acceleration day. A jump squat at 40% with maximum velocity on a max velocity day. Same pattern, completely different force-time demand.

Want to take this further?

The Sprint Bundle covers programming, training structure, and sprint development in detail. If you want a complete resource for building faster sprinters or improving your own performance, start there.

If you want something built specifically for you, I offer personalised coaching for both athletes and coaches. Whether that’s a sprint program designed around your goals or professional program design support for the athletes you’re working with.