Central promises of sports participation are to develop character and capacity and confidence. A strong and powerful person is more robust to physical hardship. A person who has adapted to progressive stress and overcome difficulty is more resilient to changing conditions. And a healthy, functional body ages independently with less dependence on medication.

When the goal of all sports is to develop a person, there’s a lot of compelling discussion around “which exercises and what sports are best for health & longevity?”

It shouldn’t be a debate.

Sprinting is the fountain of youth. Sprinting is a mark of physical intelligence. And sprinting makes you smarter.

That’s not just an on-brand claim. I mean, my business *is* called SHIFT Speed Coaching. At every opportunity, I remind athletes that Fast Kids Don’t Train Slow. I rant against jogging in many articles and letters to teams. I evangelize for Tony Holler’s “Feed The Cats” approach to training athletes, which is obviously and unabashedly pro-sprinting and anti-conditioning. You could be forgiven for thinking I’m biased about sprinting.

Because I am.

But that’s because sprinting is not only the ONLY way to consistently, measurably make an athlete faster (which…every athlete wants…because Speed Kills), it’s been demonstrated time and time again in biomechanics, physiology, kinesiology, and physical therapy research to be the ultimate coordination task in human locomotion. Sprinting is the fundamental motor pattern that precedes doing most athletic things well – tumbling, hurdling, jumping, stopping & turning, and even tackling.

This article isn’t even about why every athlete should sprint 2-3 times per week for 5-7 seconds with 4+ minutes of rest. This article isn’t about running faster or playing better because you run faster. This article is about sprinting as motor learning. Prepare to have your mind grown. Ahem, “blown.” Read on.

Sprinting Makes You Smarter (1): More movement skills = better coordination

Gerhardt Schemansky edited Track and Field: The East German Textbook of Athletics, which was a compiled research summary from the state-run East German sports establishment. Systematic doping aside, the work of socialist & communist nations east of the Berlin wall was comprehensive, thorough, and empirical. They wrecked thousands of athletes running training experiments, then only kept what worked for the athletes who survived the load. It’s not a humane way to study human performance, but it was effective!

A key statement from Schemansky’s work: “the more varied and numerous the dynamic stereotypes which an athlete has acquired through [their general] athletic training, the greater is the capacity to learn new movements and to modify known patterns” (Sports Books Publishers, 1992, pp96).

This means complex coordination forms and benefits from varied dynamic stereotypes.

The factors which determine the complexity of a coordinative task are:

• Number of joints involved in the task
• Speed of limb movement
• Sensitivity of activation & inhibition rate
• Force production required
• Energy availability (for sustaining the task)

And a “dynamic stereotype” is defined as the specific sequence of neural activation (turning on muscles) and inhibition (turning off muscles) to execute a specific task.

So bringing that definition and complexity factors together, East German sport scientists found that having more movement patterns available helps you learn new patterns faster. The greater number and more complex the movement patterns you have practiced, the more efficient you become at “novel” patterns and the more precise or powerful or both that you can be in existing patterns.

In part, this is why multi-sport athletes are superior athletes to early specialists. Only the versatile survive.

But this is the appeal of learning to sprint early, sprinting often, and constantly measuring improvement in your sprinting: it’s an unbelievably complex coordinative task!

• Sprinting involves every joint below your cervical spine (assuming your face is relaxed)
• Sprinting involves limb motions up to 20 meters per second (femur & humerus linear speed during swing phase) and global speeds up to 12 meters per second (Usain Bolt’s peak fly speed during is 9.58 sec 100m world record), which are the highest speeds a human attains doing anything
• Sprinting demands that specific muscles turn on only immediately before and during ground contact, which lasts 0.10 seconds (on average), then that those same muscles turn off immediately after toe-off
• Sprinting requires concentric forces in excess of 2 x BW on every foot strike and isometric forces in the Achilles tendon (Khazari 2021) and on the system (Stavridis 2025) dramatically exceeding 3 x BW
• Sprinting is massively demanding, with oxygen demands 8-10X respiratory capacity (Schemansky, pp40-41), which means big oxygen debt, which means strong alactic and glycolytic metabolism for energy production

Sprinting is the ultimate coordinative load for your neuromuscular system, which makes it a critical dynamic stereotype for athletic development.

But wait! There’s more…

Khazari, M., S. Bohm, C. Theodorakis, F. Mersmann, & A. Arampatzis. “Quantifying mechanical loading and elastic strain energy of the human Achilles tendon during walking and running”. Scientific Reports 11:5830 (2021).
Schemansky, G. Track and Field: The East German Textbook of Athletics. Sports Books Publishers (1992).
Stavridis, I., M. Zisi, G. Arsoniadis, G. Terzis, C. Tsolakis, and G. Paradisis. “Relationship Between Isometric Mid-Thigh Pull Force, Sprint Acceleration Mechanics and Performance in National-Level Track and Field Athletes”. Applied Science 15(3):1089 (2025).

Sprinting Makes You Smarter 2: More practice = more jelly

This is a central theme of the “Speed Is Electric” chapter of my book Fast Kids Don’t Train Slow.

As described extensively in K. Anders Ericsson’s Peak (the best of all books on skill development; see my article “Are You Paying Attention At Practice?” for discussion), practicing anything “deepens” the neural groove for doing that thing. The literal action of deepening a neural groove is increasing the strength of signal down the axon of a motor neuron and increasing the thickness of the insulation around that axon.

Blended motor patterns increase neuron responsiveness, activation/inhibition signals, and axon insulation thickness. That means:

• a wire used frequently is more easily activated by its specific signal
• a higher-density wire transmits signals faster and clearer
• and a better insulated wire “leaks” signal less often (reduced adjacent neuron excitation)

Insulating an axon is called myelination. Myelin is a coat of jelly made of cholesterol that protects electrical signals (Hardy 2015). (By the way, Saturday Sprinting subscribers, go back to the newsletter archives for “I Don’t Eat No Ham & Eggs…” for discussion of dietary cholesterol…your body produces cholesterol specifically to create myelin and do about 1,000 other things. Stop fighting cholesterol!)

By sprinting often, sprinting with full attention, and sprinting with the goal of technical excellence, you are watering a rich garden of nerve connections that can activate and inhibit muscle function quickly, can produce large forces, and can do it all in very little time – don’t you want to be strong, flexible, powerful, and quick to adapt??

But even more, by enhancing such a complex motor network, you protect more movement-related neurons from cross-talk, degradation, and damage. More on this later, but this means by sprinting frequently, you build a more resilient brain. And that’s one of the most exciting things to become widely accepted in neuroscience and medicine this century.

Ericsson, K.A. Peak. Harper Collins (2017).
Hardy, C. and M. Gallagher. Strong Medicine. Dragon Door (2015)

Sprinting Makes You Smarter 3: More practice = bigger brain

A plague of modern society is neurodegenerative disease. There are a variety of diseases that can rot away the brain from the inside and dramatically destroy quality of life, but just Parkinson’s Disease is estimated to create a $54 billion economic burden annually solely in the United States (Albarwami et al 2022).

Parkinson’s Disease is irreversible and progressive and its destruction is total. But reputable research shows its progression can be slowed and its destruction to emotional and social factors can be mitigated. This is the primary theme of Norman Doidge’s two books The Brain That Changes Itself and The Brain’s Way Of Healing.

Being a neurodegenerative disease, Parkinson’s is a valuable disease to study, because it reveals a lot about how the brain works and how movement, language, and motivation are generated. Critically, Parkinson’s massively disrupts the dopamine system. It literally kills your neural (and, eventually, emotional) motivation to activate networks (Doidge 2015). But what makes the research so fascinating is how strong the effect of vigorous, complex movement can be on slowing progression of the disease.

And what makes that research relevant to this article is that data consistently shows that cognitive decline in Parkinson’s patients who have certain adaptations begins later, progresses more slowly, and is compensated for more capably. If those adaptations are accessible to everyone, I, for one, would take them every single time. And, as it turns out, they are!

The meaningful adaptations that reduce the burden of Parkinson’s Disease are:

• Language proficiency (correlated with level of education)
• Metabolic health
• Grip strength & rate of force production measures

This article is mostly about sprinting as a youth-extending, quality of life-enhancing exercise, but amazing research from the 90s implied that ballistic movements and language proficiency may be related, as summarized in Supertraining: “ballistic movements involve a great amount of planning and problem solving and they appear to draw on segments of neural networks associated with language processing” (Calvin, W. Scientific American 1994/10).

Calvin’s theory in the referenced article goes on that ballistic movements “require the brain to determine every detail of the action in advance by…planning the exact sequence of neural activation for numerous individual muscles” (Siff, pp282).

Back to exercise. The two key findings that Doidge summarizes in the second book are:

• Focused, vigorous exercise increased brain-derived neurotropic factor, which is shown to drive hippocampus nerve cell growth (Gage & Eriksson, 1998)
• Focused, vigorous exercise increased glial-derived neurotropic factor, which is shown to facilitate nervous system repair and “padding” (structural matter that dampens key areas during impact and creates a consumable buffer zone for disease)

Those two points taken together directly mean that exercise can grow your brain. Vigorous exercise grows it faster. Focused exercise grows it more. And sprinting is both vigorous and focused exercise.

Run faster, bigger your brain. But wait! There’s STILL more! This discussion of neurodegenerative disease isn’t done just yet…

Alberwami, H., S. Zhou, L. Shulman, A. Gandhi, A. Johnson, D. Myers, D. Gray, J. Alvir, and E. Onukwugha. “The economic burden of Parkinson disease among Medicare beneficiaries”. J Manag Care Spec Pharm 28(4) (2022).
Doidge, N. The Brain’s Way Of Healing. Viking: Penguin (2015).
Siff, M. Supertraining. Supertraining Institute (2003).

Sprinting Makes You Smarter 4: Bigger brain = longer healthspan

BDNF and GDNF are incredible for more than those two findings, though. The act of focusing your attention and the stimulation of neurotropic factor release also drives dopamine production.

If you focus your attention on a complex skill, your brain looks for a workaround in your network that can process the skill. So focused, vigorous exercise can imprint new motor programs on to old wiring…or, if you’re not battling neurodegenerative disease, that same focused, vigorous exercise can solidify, myelinate, and enhance existing wiring to run those programs!

A denser, more versatile neural network better resists cognitive decline. Sprinting makes it harder for neurodegenerative diseases to degenerate your brain. Now THIS is a huge claim.

This is saying that sprinting transcends exercise. This is saying that sprinting extends life and the quality of your life. That is exactly what I intend to say.

Consider this finding from East German scientists, published in Track and Field: The East German Textbook of Athletics in the early 90s: “rapidly acquired abilities are usually lost again after a short interruption in training. Skills become stable only if often repeated at short intervals.”

To stabilize a skill is to practice it many times at intervals. Practicing a skill “grooves” the neural network for executing it, remember? To groove a network is to myelinate the axons on each neuron in the network. To myelinate an axon is to insulate and protect it; the process of stimulating that neuron so intensely releases BDNF and GDNF, both of which are shown to increase dopamine production. Dopamine functions as both a preemptive motivation center and a reward center for action.

And neurodegenerative diseases often go after the dopamine system. The most basic physiological law is “use it or lose it.” A system activated more often becomes more efficient at activating. At this point, I’ve crossed into speculation, but consider the logical leaps:

• Sprinting is an intense and complex motor skill
• Practicing a complex skill increases the size, efficiency, and protection of the brain
• A larger, better-insulated brain declines more slowly
• The brain’s pleasure center responds to opportunities to do something and to having done the thing successfully
• Thus, practicing sprinting will improve your coordination in every domain, will increase the size and function of your brain, and because of that increase will protect you against precipitous decline.

I don’t know what else to tell you. If you’re not sprinting, you’re leaving a lot more than athletic performance on the table. You’re compromising an opportunity to protect your cognitive function, diversify your movement potential, and extend your independent functioning (“healthspan”).

Which brings us back to where we began: Sprinting is the fountain of youth. Sprinting is a mark of physical intelligence. And sprinting makes you smarter.

Fast kids don’t train slow. Powerful, capable, adaptable kids don’t train slow. Functional kids don’t train slow.

It’s actually pretty ironic that one of my mottos is “Speed Kills,” since sprinting might just help you live better into old age.

As the saying goes, “the best time to plant a tree was 10 years ago and the next best time is today.” Speed grows like a tree (Holler). You better go plant that seed now.

Collected Citations

• Alberwami, H., S. Zhou, L. Shulman, A. Gandhi, A. Johnson, D. Myers, D. Gray, J. Alvir, and E. Onukwugha. “The economic burden of Parkinson disease among Medicare beneficiaries”. J Manag Care Spec Pharm 28(4) (2022).
• Doidge, N. The Brain’s Way Of Healing. Viking: Penguin (2015).
• Ericsson, K.A. Peak. Harper Collins (2017).
• Hardy, C. and M. Gallagher. Strong Medicine. Dragon Door (2015)
• Khazari, M., S. Bohm, C. Theodorakis, F. Mersmann, & A. Arampatzis. “Quantifying mechanical loading and elastic strain energy of the human Achilles tendon during walking and running”. Scientific Reports 11:5830 (2021).
• Schemansky, G. Track and Field: The East German Textbook of Athletics. Sports Books Publishers (1992).
• Siff, M. Supertraining. Supertraining Institute (2003).
• Stavridis, I., M. Zisi, G. Arsoniadis, G. Terzis, C. Tsolakis, and G. Paradisis. “Relationship Between Isometric Mid-Thigh Pull Force, Sprint Acceleration Mechanics and Performance in National-Level Track and Field Athletes”. Applied Science 15(3):1089 (2025).