Research

Hormonal

Performing repeated sprint exercise immediately after resistance training attenuates acute anabolic signaling (p70 S6K phosphorylation) and increases muscle protein breakdown markers (MuRF mRNA), suggesting that sprint activities should be isolated from resistance training to optimize hypertrophic adaptation.

If you train both strength and speed/sprints, do not perform them in the same session back-to-back. The molecular signals for muscle growth (p70 S6K) are suppressed when you sprint after lifting. Separate these modalities by at least 6 hours or place them on different days to ensure you get the full adaptive benefit from your resistance training.

ModerateQualifiesMEDIUM confidence
Repeated sprints may promote acute interference on resistance exercise responses by attenuating translation initiation signaling and exacerbating ubiquitin ligase expression. Indeed, repeated sprints appear to generate the overriding acute exercise-induced response when undertaking concurrent repeated sprint and resistance exercise. Accordingly, we suggest that sprint-activities are isolated from resistance training and that adequate recovery time is considered within periodized training plans that incorporate these divergent exercise modes.
Vernon G. Coffey et al. · American Journal of Physiology-Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology · 2009

Why this rating

Small sample size (n=6), acute measurements only (no chronic adaptation data), and mixed statistical significance (some P<0.05, some P<0.06).

Source

Effect of consecutive repeated sprint and resistance exercise bouts on acute adaptive responses in human skeletal muscle

Vernon G. Coffey et al. · American Journal of Physiology-Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology · 2009

DOI 10.1152/ajpregu.00351.2009

crossover · n=6Cited 120×
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DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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