Training for sprinting.

Ok, you want to sprint better (who doesn't!! 🙂)

But what's your idea of a sprint? do you want to be faster over an all-out say 8 seconds? faster over 45 seconds? ha ha, you are gonna say both right? :-)

Different energy systems come into play & predominate depending on duration. If you want to improve your maximal power (<15 seconds) & short-duration power (<= 90 seconds) try this

-10 x 1 min @ 150% of FT w/3-5 min easy btwn 'reps'
- 5 x 10 seconds all-out w/ 5 min complete rest btwn 'reps'

You could do them the same day or different days but i'd prefer on separate days.

Thanks for your response Dancen.

Here's the issue I haven't been VO2 tested yet. I want to hold of till I finish a year of my training. Let's put it at this I was bent out of shape before I started. I guess I will try to guesstimate what you have proposed here but not having a powermeter makes it tough as well. I was hoping for a more verbose (as compared to down to the numbers) kinda training set. But thanks again, I will try to see how I can adopt it.

If you burn out after just 3 45-sec intervals, my quess is that you should maybe take it down a notch, and also do 30-sec (or even 15-sec) instead of 45. So that you can do at least 5 intervals with a 30-sec recovery in between as a set, take a 5 min recovery, and repeat that set.

5 x 15 sec
5 min recovery
5 x 15 sec
5 min recovery
5 x 15 sec

Must warn you though, I am a newbie, so wait for some experts to chime in. 😉

edit: Ok nevermind, Dancen is one of them, and she beat me to it. 🙂

-Greg

gman0482 said:

5 x 15 sec
5 min recovery
5 x 15 sec
5 min recovery
5 x 15 sec

-Greg

Sounds like a good routine to me. Well you have 5x15. Whats the interval between each one of the 5's! I am sorry if it's a dumb question!

I was thinking 30 seconds (up to 1 min) between each 15 sec effort.

gman0482 said:

I was thinking 30 seconds (up to 1 min) between each 15 sec effort.

Thanks GMAN!

kausbose said:

Thanks for your response Dancen.

Here's the issue I haven't been VO2 tested yet. I want to hold of till I finish a year of my training. Let's put it at this I was bent out of shape before I started. I guess I will try to guesstimate what you have proposed here but not having a powermeter makes it tough as well. I was hoping for a more verbose (as compared to down to the numbers) kinda training set. But thanks again, I will try to see how I can adopt it.

your welcome 🙂

No powermeter? no problem.

People trained the same energy systems and with the same goals you have long before PM's. Greg Lemond has an excellent book with very detailed training routines. Old but insightful into how he trained back in the day, well before the advent of PM's and other gazinkas.

Use perceived exertion (PE) as a way of gauging your effort. IMO, it is way better than HR for anaerobic work because HR has a well-documented lag response to effort. In the duration that you are targeting, I think you are gonna know exactly that you are in the zone with PE.

With AC intervals, forget 5 or 10 minutes, these are at longest, 3 minute efforts and will not feel sustainable in the least. Seriously if you feel like you are almost burying yourself, then you are probably doing them right. You should be gasping for breath after - remember the name of the game here is maximal aerobic oxygen debt & maximizing the amount of work you do during the work interval. Style points if you feel like or actually throw up 😎

You want enough recovery to allow your AWC (anaerobic work capacity) to regenerate/replenish - that's why i suggested 3-5 minutes recovery. Less recovery is fine but then the intervals become more aerobic in nature - which if you want to target mostly anaerobic capacity, may not be what you wish.

Edit: Ha ha, Gman, what's this expert talk? A sage poster here once told me: regurgitation. Read & repeat :-)

DancenMacabre said:

your welcome 🙂

No powermeter? no problem.

People trained the same energy systems and with the same goals you have long before PM's. Greg Lemond has an excellent book with very detailed training routines. Old but insightful into how he trained back in the day, well before the advent of PM's and other gazinkas.

Use perceived exertion (PE) as a way of gauging your effort. IMO, it is way better than HR for anaerobic work because HR has a well-documented lag response to effort. In the duration that you are targeting, I think you are gonna know exactly that you are in the zone with PE.

With AC intervals, forget 5 or 10 minutes, these are at longest, 3 minute efforts and will not feel sustainable in the least. Seriously if you feel like you are almost burying yourself, then you are probably doing them right. You should be gasping for breath after - remember the name of the game here is maximal aerobic oxygen debt & maximizing the amount of work you do during the work interval. Style points if you feel like or actually throw up 😎

You want enough recovery to allow your AWC (anaerobic work capacity) to regenerate/replenish - that's why i suggested 3-5 minutes recovery. Less recovery is fine but then the intervals become more aerobic in nature - which if you want to target mostly anaerobic capacity, may not be what you wish.

Edit: Ha ha, Gman, what's this expert talk? A sage poster here once told me: regurgitation. Read & repeat :-)

:eek: The missing guide. Will you be my new best friend?

Two questions for now. PE, what's a good read/reference. I will try and locate Greg Lemond book at my library. Is this is btw.

Greg LeMond - Google Books

I think I know what I do wrong in my efforts. I do not have the recovery period. What's the way to recover? Off bike or on bike low resistance. I know I am doing wrong because my first three efforts are the same as you describe. But then I stabilize and go into my endurance training mode.

Most interval recovery is on the bike, in high gears, high cadence. Very very low, or no effort at all, just spin.

i used to train using Greg Lemond's method. As far as i remember sprinting day was the first day of the training week, doing 10 sprints in 1 or 1-1/2 hour ride. I picked up a flat circuit and i used to do 5 in one direction and 5 on the other, because it was a false flat so i could train speed going "down" and power going "up". Efforts are all out so you don't have to give it a lot of thought, just go as hard as you can on each one and recover enough in between in order to be able to tackle the next one !!

kausbose said:

:eek: The missing guide. Will you be my new best friend?

Two questions for now. PE, what's a good read/reference. I will try and locate Greg Lemond book at my library. Is this is btw.

Greg LeMond - Google Books

I think I know what I do wrong in my efforts. I do not have the recovery period. What's the way to recover? Off bike or on bike low resistance. I know I am doing wrong because my first three efforts are the same as you describe. But then I stabilize and go into my endurance training mode.

Lots of PE references out there & it has been shown to be good at correlating w/exercise intensity. A few people are um PE-challenged (not good at gauging their effort) but for most it works very good. This graph nicely summarizes PE:

[IMG]saris.comBorgScale.jpgOpen ↗[/IMG]

For AC intervals, I would expect RPE of about 8-9. A full, all-out 1-minute test would be a 10 and about the hardest thing you can do. You are training just below that level.

Not quite on the book, I was referring to this one:

[ame="http://www.amazon.com/Greg-lemonds-complete-bicycling-Perigee/dp/0399515941/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1264037317&sr=8-1"][/ame]

In chapter 6 he goes over many training techniques & workouts. Again, not using PM's or gazinkas.

About recovery: if your goal is maximizing Anaerobic capcity and wanting to emphasize that instead of making the intervals more aerobic, then go easy during the recovery. If you go hard or moderately hard then all you are doing is slowing down the AWC recovery rate, hence making the intervals more aerobic.

Using a landmark & starting from the same spot (especially a short climb) for these intervals and seeing how far you get - is one way to gauge how much you are dropping off or keeping power steady over all your intervals.

Caveat Emptor: most racers & serious riders do anaerobic or Z6/L6 work a few weeks out from their key events b'cause they a) hella hurt, b) can wear many people out after just a few weeks of doing them.

Kausbose,

I'd recommend aiming for 10 sprints in a workout. My profile is upward sloping, but I was able to raise my sprint 200 watts this past summer with some sprint workouts.

I like to keep sprint workouts loose. (I don't like to follow a sprint and recover for such and such minutes approach).

Sprint workouts are great to do with buddies. Pick a point somewhere up the road and sprint for it. Do sprints from a slow speed. Do them from a fast speed. Sprint uphill. And also do sprints on flats that come right after a downhill so that you're sprinting from a high speed like in a pack.

I probably don't need to tell you, but don't hold back anything. So when you are getting to 15-20 seconds, you are just blasted.

The 1-min. intervals at 150% are important. They simulate that last kilo. But in a race, that last kilo also ends with 15-20 sec of maximal sprinting. So work on both. Actually, work on both together sometimes.

kausbose said:

I would like to improve my ability to sprint. In short improve my AC (Anaerobic Capacity). Any thoughts on training specifically to improve my ability to sprint. I peak at about 30mph right now on a flat road for about I would say 45 secs before I burn out. I can do three sets of that before I have to call it quits or take a 10 min. break. I do NOT like doing the repeats. So was wondering if there are some other variations that people might present here to improve my sprinting ability. On the trainer routines are fine. But outside routines are preferred.

This is not intended as a slight, and you probably already know this, but 30mph peak seems slow enough that it makes me question your form and gearing selection as much as your fitness. Are there any experienced racers in your area that could watch you sprint and give you some tips on form or positioning? What gear do you use for your flat sprints? Do you have any idea what cadence you are reaching?

I might suggest some form sprints, such as being in the drops, weight back, small chainring, and slowly practice coordinating your arm motion with your legs -- pulling up and back on the bar while that same side is going forward and down. Concentrate on maintaining that coordination and only increase cadence as long as you can smoothly maintain it.

Also, while you're doing the workouts suggested by posters above, experiment with different gears (bigger and smaller) to see which one produces the highest peak speed. You might be surprised to find that a slightly smaller gear produces faster acceleration and greater top end. If your cadence isn't breaking 120-130 in a sprint then it's possible you're either using too big a gear or you could benefit from some leg speed/high cadence practice.

Just some random thoughts. Good luck! 🙂

frenchyge said:

This is not intended as a slight, and you probably already know this, but 30mph peak seems slow enough that it makes me question your form and gearing selection as much as your fitness. Are there any experienced racers in your area that could watch you sprint and give you some tips on form or positioning? What gear do you use for your flat sprints? Do you have any idea what cadence you are reaching?

I might suggest some form sprints, such as being in the drops, weight back, small chainring, and slowly practice coordinating your arm motion with your legs -- pulling up and back on the bar while that same side is going forward and down. Concentrate on maintaining that coordination and only increase cadence as long as you can smoothly maintain it.

Also, while you're doing the workouts suggested by posters above, experiment with different gears (bigger and smaller) to see which one produces the highest peak speed. You might be surprised to find that a slightly smaller gear produces faster acceleration and greater top end. If your cadence isn't breaking 120-130 in a sprint then it's possible you're either using too big a gear or you could benefit from some leg speed/high cadence practice.

Just some random thoughts. Good luck! 🙂

Thanks for the thoughts frenchgye.

Your random thoughts do make sense in a strange way. :p

Alas the "racers" that I have around me are pretty much busy bragging about their sprints. They are not "explaining much". I got to find someone else, hence the post here.

But it looks like you are right, I am "might" be gearing too high. I will attempt to drop the gears a bit and hit a cadence of 120. I shift gears at about 105. Maybe that's what I am doing wrong.

To answer your questions in the post. I am on the drops. But when I get tired I have a tendency to get up on the the hoods and go into a "steady-state".

As for buddying up for sprints. The guys I bike with RELY on their sprints to win. I can take them on the climbs but lose on the sprints. So they don't want to divulge their secrets because that's what keeping me from winning. But really this was insightful!

Thanks for the input guys. Really a lot of thoughts! But then again thanks.

@Dancen: Since it looks like you are the resident expert, I am going to print your post, and follow it like the bible. How long have you been riding Dancen? Are you pro?

kausbose said:

Thanks for the thoughts frenchgye...

+1 on frenchygye's advice.

A lot of folks talk about their lack of fast twitch muscle and how they're not sprinters but IME many of them simply don't understand 'how' to sprint and approach sprinting more like out of the saddle climbing - standing tall, rhythmically dropping their weight onto the pedals and working up to speed in too large a gear.

Sprinting is all about exploding onto the pedals and putting everything into those first few pedal strokes then winding out reasonably sized gears for the terrain. Focus on a firm upper body and an aggressive slightly crouched posture not fully extended and tall. Imagine a cat ready to pounce, with all your energy coiled up and ready to release with those first pedal strokes. Hit it with all you've got then wind them like mad (120 rpm is probably the point of entry to fast sprinting, 150 rpm or higher isn't unusual) shifting up if you need to as you approach the line but still winding the gears, no slogging away in big gears.

Practice in various gears and various terrain as suggested above. Try to find a downhill where you can easily get up to high speeds followed by a flat or a gentle uphill and hit some sprints as hard as you can from speed. It also helps to sprint to fixed targets like a certain lamp post or city limit sign instead of setting time goals. You shouldn't even be able to look at your cycling computer in a full out sprint so focus on a mock finish line instead and try to accelerate all the way to the line.

Good luck,
-Dave

kausbose said:

Hi all!

I would like to improve my ability to sprint. In short improve my AC (Anaerobic Capacity). Any thoughts on training specifically to improve my ability to sprint. I peak at about 30mph right now on a flat road for about I would say 45 secs before I burn out. I can do three sets of that before I have to call it quits or take a 10 min. break. I do NOT like doing the repeats. So was wondering if there are some other variations that people might present here to improve my sprinting ability. On the trainer routines are fine. But outside routines are preferred.

I did search for sprints in the forum but couldn't come up with something feasible.

Thanks,
K

Oh dear, I think of got the technique but like you I'd struggle to break 30mph. Oh well back to those threshold intervals 😠

kausbose said:

Hi all!

I would like to improve my ability to sprint. In short improve my AC (Anaerobic Capacity). Any thoughts on training specifically to improve my ability to sprint. I peak at about 30mph right now on a flat road for about I would say 45 secs before I burn out. I can do three sets of that before I have to call it quits or take a 10 min. break. I do NOT like doing the repeats. So was wondering if there are some other variations that people might present here to improve my sprinting ability. On the trainer routines are fine. But outside routines are preferred.

I did search for sprints in the forum but couldn't come up with something feasible.

Thanks,
K

Oh dear, I've worked on the technique but starting from a low speed I'd struggle to break 30mph on the flat. Oh well back to those threshold workouts and the beauty of winning solo😉

DancenMacabre said:

Not quite on the book, I was referring to this one:

Thanks Dancen. I ordered the book. I found it on Amazon for $4 🙂