Workout Description

Why This Workout Is Hard

This workout combines high-intensity anaerobic sprinting with minimal recovery between efforts within each round. The ladder format (15-30-45-60 yard sprints) creates progressive fatigue accumulation, while prone position starts add explosive power demands. Ten rounds with only 2-minute rest periods prevents full recovery, creating significant lactate buildup and neuromuscular fatigue. The combination of speed, power, and volume over 30+ minutes makes this challenging for average athletes.

Benchmark Times for Ladder Sprints

• Elite: <0:42
• Advanced: 0:46-0:50
• Intermediate: 0:55-1:00
• Beginner: >1:30

Training Focus

This workout develops the following fitness attributes:

• Power (9/10): Extremely high power demand with explosive starts from prone position and maximum sprint efforts across varying distances.
• Endurance (8/10): Ten rounds of sprint intervals with 2-minute rest periods creates significant cardiovascular demand, testing aerobic recovery between high-intensity efforts.
• Speed (7/10): Pure speed work with sprint distances and focus on recording fastest times, emphasizing rapid acceleration and top-end speed.
• Stamina (4/10): While each sprint is short, the cumulative fatigue from ten rounds of explosive efforts will challenge muscular endurance.
• Flexibility (3/10): Prone position start requires basic hip mobility and the ability to transition quickly from lying to sprinting position.
• Strength (1/10): Minimal strength demand as this is purely bodyweight sprinting from prone position without external load.

Movements

• Ladder Sprint

Benchmark Notes

This workout consists of 10 rounds of prone position start ladder sprints at distances of 15, 30, 45, and 60 yards (150 yards total per round, 1500 yards total), with 2 minutes rest between rounds, recording the slowest time. Each round involves starting from a prone position and sprinting the ladder distances. For prone position starts, athletes need 1-2 seconds to get up and accelerate. Sprint times: 15 yards ~2-3 sec, 30 yards ~4-5 sec, 45 yards ~6-7 sec, 60 yards ~8-9 sec. Total sprint time per round: 20-24 seconds for elite athletes. Adding transitions between distances (2-3 seconds each): 26-33 seconds per round fresh. With fatigue accumulation over 10 rounds and the 2-minute rest periods, the slowest round (typically round 8-10) would be 15-25% slower than the first round. Elite athletes (L10) might maintain 42-46 seconds for their slowest round, while recreational athletes (L1) could see their slowest round reach 80-90 seconds due to greater fatigue accumulation and slower base sprint times. The 2-minute rest prevents complete recovery but allows partial restoration. Since this records the SLOWEST time, it captures peak fatigue performance rather than average. Final targets: L10: 42-46 sec, L5: 55-60 sec, L1: 80-90 sec.

Modality Profile

Prone Position Start Ladder Sprint is a running drill that involves sprinting from a prone starting position. This is purely a monostructural cardio movement focused on speed and acceleration.