Climbers vs. Sprinters

An interesting observation from the bunch.

Those that like climbing (or think they are climbers), climb more in training and therefore become better climbers! Those that like sprinting, sprint more in training and become better sprinters.

The moral of the story...
If you cant climb, climb! If you cant sprint, sprint!

I agree that one should focus on their weaknesses to be able to "ride the road" but there is an argument for
being the best at one discipline verses mediocre at several. For example, I can spend the next 4 weeks working on my climbing even though I know the course for Nationals is not anything I will do well on...OR, I can work on intervals and sprints and go for a top 3 in the TT and Crit! I chose the latter 🙂

Besides, I WILL be a climber by next season 😉 BECAUSE, I am spending the winter...you guessed it, CLIMBING!

I'm with you crankin,

During the off season, my riders work mostly on their weaknesses as this will help them 'not lose' races. Coming up to and during the season my riders work more on their strengths, because these will allow them 'to win' races.

During the short term, all you can hope to do is focus your strengths to allow you to do the best that you can in any particular race.

Don't get me wrong though I still think that you should practice all aspects of the event all of the time, however the focus and amount of time spent training any particular aspect will change through the year! Often these changes will be quite considerate.

Climbing is just as much technique as muscle composition. If you go out and hammer it with big gears the first few meters in a climb, you are going to be very tired and may "Blow" your legs.

The idea is to get a steady base pace holding the momentum as long as possible. A lot of people gear down as much as possible when they see a hill. They have lost the battle before it begun.

The best thing that works for me is to go in with a comfortable but high cadence into the climb and keep it as steady as possible by changing my gears rather my pace. I find that my body gets tired more quickly when I change my pace from fast and easy gears to slow and hard gears. Keep your cadence high. If it becomes to difficult to keep the cadence drop the gear ratio but maintain the cadence. Only after you run out of gears decrease the cadence. When nearer to the top slowly increases the gear ratio keeping the cadence. The reason for this is that our muscles don't want to suddenly increase the pace it's working at. You can also ride out of the saddle closer to the top to achieve this. For very long climbs.. Ride out of the saddle now and then to rest the different muscle groups and to increase the pace a little bit for when you sit down again.

My battle is that I'm not a natural high cadence rider. I've sat in bunches were I'm the only one not spinning, but I'm working on it. I try and do "climbing cadence" training whenever I can. I must admit that my legs do stay fresher for longer since I've up'ed my climbing cadence.

Hmm, try mountain biking up loose trails, often easier to keep up very steady spinning than pushing big gears or spinning unevenly. And when you know that it is too steep and loose to get going again when you stop, you develop a VERY steady spin. (This is not to say I spin well, but this did improve my desire to work on it, it gets irritating pushing up certain trails all the time)...

I find completly the opposite, i start a climb at a high cadence and in a gear im comfortable that i can complete majority of the hill in then i wack it up the hill not changing unless really necessary or unless im reallly hurting its a little game i play with myself during the hills great game really

I like to maintain a high cadence most of the time and keep the cadence more or less stable on the flat or on hills using my gears.

I do find that during TT's or MTB racing I tend to select a low cadence and have to think consiously think about using the gears to increase my cadence. The opposite is true during cyclo-cross and on the track where I tend to select gears where I pedal too fast.

I do find that BMX work is really good at increasing cadence, sprinting and is great fun.

Before you ask, I have 10 bikes! One for each dicipline except for cycle speedway!

2Lap, does that include stationary bikes like you see at the local gym? ;D ;D

I don't consider those a cycling discipline, but rather a healthy way to perv at the ladies doing aerobics in their tight fitting kit. . . . sigh 😄 😄 😄

I know what you mean. I don't own one of those bikes, I just wouldn't get the company at home 😉

I think that we could make a 'scenes from the gym' video for all those people training at home. Directed by Lab_Rat the video would consist of a video camera filming at the back of a series of spinning classes and the like.

Oh yes please. Perhaps we could do the video like those cheesy aerobic videos you see people watching in the gym, or heaven for bid, in the morning (when you should be out riding your bike) where there are a bunch of girls and some arb fellows doing those dance routines.

Hmm, backdrop could be a hawaiian beach, women, sunshine, women, cocktails, women. . . and a bike on rollers. er, did I forget anything? ;D

Use the KISS method, Keep It Simple Stupid!<br />Sorry, but theory and genetics only go so far. Sure your body has alot to do with this, but which do you prefer to do? Pick one and go for it. If you train hard for one or the other over years and years, your body will likely develop more into one form or the other anyway. I would think sprinting you would train for explosive, heavy weights, climbing, maybe more aerobic, etc. <br />The laws of physics tell you somethings about it also. If you weigh less, you should climb better, though maybe not for as long. Next time try riding your 30lbs mountain bike up a big hill hehe. You will decend faster, but that isn't the point. The point is that the Tour isn't won't by sprinters or climbers alone, but by endurance and which one requires longer sustained output, ie the Armstrong and Indurain. When was the last day race Armstrong won? There you go!<br />Excel at the one you like, but if you are 225 lbs you will have a better chance as a sprinter. If you weigh 145, you would be a better success as a climber. See, how hard is that? If you hate hills, be a sprinter, if you get some strange pleasure out of them like me, be a climber! <br />What are you going to do, wait until you are in your prefered biological form until you decide you want to climb a hill? : ) just being a smarty pants. but if you hate hills, you prob ain't gonna climb em too well ; )

I'm with you on that one. Genetics function as a limiting factor on athletic ability. Most people have not trained to their athletic ability, so if you want to be a climber (even if you are Lardy) start training like a climber!

For a good explanation about muscle fibre types, see: http://home.hia.no/~stephens/exphys.htm<br /><br />Type II (fast twitch) are split into IIa (better endurance, slightly slower force production) and IIb (fastest, less endurance)<br /><br />All muscle types are equally as strong, they just produce their force at a different rate.<br /><br />It is possible to change the IIbs into IIas over years of endurance training. How many sprinters have become all rounders over the years? Jalabert springs to mind.<br /><br />Anyway, part of being a good climber is a matter of attitude. If you are scared of hills, you will be dropped. If you love hills, and make climbing your goal, and an enjoyable part of cycling, you will become good at it.<br /><br />Assuming you put some effort and commitment into it! As one of my 200lb clubmates told me when getting over the top of a climb with the whippets: &quot;Sometimes you've got to be a [censored] to yourself&quot;. I like that one!

I like to think of Jalabert and Chipo as 'fast endurance riders' rather than 'sprinters'. Compare both these riders to BMXers, track sprinters, Kilo riders, speedway riders, (i.e. the real cycling sprinters) and you will see that they are far different in physiology!<br /><br />Get into a lab and test one, they will be classed as endurance riders when assessed by their physiological results.<br /><br />On a scale with endurence at one end and sprint at the other, Chipo and Jalabert will be far closer to the endurance end of the scale.<br /><br />If you dont agree check out the training that Chipo or Jalabert do and compare that to the training a 'real' sprinter does! 😉

[QUOTE][i][b]I don't consider those a cycling discipline, but rather a healthy way to perv at the ladies doing aerobics in their tight fitting kit. . . . sigh [/QUOTE]

Hey, whatever gets your HR up- that's considered training right?

Anyway, here is how my coach described the difference between sprinters and climbers. To be a good climber what is really essential is a good power to weight ratio-makes sense-, a high LT, and a slight penchant for pain. To be a good sprinter it takes a large amount of max force and a heck of a lot of leg speed.

I consider mycelf more of a TTer than anything and I really like long gradual climbs (6-9%) where I can stay in the big ring and in the saddle at 90-100 rpm. I do OK on the steep stuff (Where I live there are a lot of very short, very steep climbs, think 25+% for 1/2 to 1/4 mi) but I think that's beacuse I'm pretty light (140lbs) and can still rack up a fair bit of power. Accelerations= bad, I usually just ride people of my wheel on the climbs.

Also something we people have forgot is something called Gravity. Newton discovered it when an apple fell on his head right? Now think about it, if it was a brick it would have probably killed him!

Now we can apply this to sprinters and climbers. The higher the gradient the more gravity thats acting on u. As aformentioned climbers tend to be smaller and thinner. With these types gravity has a lesser effect than their sprinting counterparts.

Quoted post said:

Originally posted by rossoreduk
Also something we people have forgot is something called Gravity. Newton discovered it when an apple fell on his head right? Now think about it, if it was a brick it would have probably killed him!

Now we can apply this to sprinters and climbers. The higher the gradient the more gravity thats acting on u. As aformentioned climbers tend to be smaller and thinner. With these types gravity has a lesser effect than their sprinting counterparts.

Events for 'true' sprinters tend not to have much of a 'gravity element (e.g. BMXers, track sprinters, Kilo riders, speedway riders, etc.) unlike road racing. This is no accident I am sure.

From my informal research I have found that there are very real differences between people with predominately fast and slow twitch muscle fibres. If you are one or the other it is very difficult to train yourself to compensate for the lack of one or the other. For example, if you are the slow twitch Olympic marathoner with an 80/20 ratio of slow to fast twitch muscle fibre all the specialized training in the world will never change you into an Olympic sprinter with an 80/20 ratio of fast to slow twitch muscle fibre.

I can not recall any athlete who has so completely overhauled his/her physique to do such. There are plenty of examples of athletes who realize gradual changes and may go from running the 400 meters to the 800 meters, or cases like Jalabert who seem to accel at everything. But Jalabert was predominantly an endurance athlete first, probably more slow than fast twitch muscle fibers, just an extremely well-skilled cyclist.

Obviously those who are a 50/50 balance, or there abouts,are going to be harder to categorize and they will account for a good number of exceptions to the rule. But there is a lot more to cycling than just mashing pedals as the non-cycling press would like you to believe. Tactics, training, mindset, etc., all play a role in defining what type of cyclist you can be. Cycling is too complex a sport to be narrowed down to just being determined by physiology alone.

I have always excelled more at distance events than at sprint events. I love climbing, get bored with sprinting. I love to tackle a big hill and feel the excitement of going over the top and feeling gravity pull me down the other side (the reward for going up). I also like mountain and rock climbing, so I guess for me mindset does play a big role in how I attack a certain aspect of cycling.

But how to categorize Merckx???? He could do everything?!#*&$!

Quoted post said:

Originally posted by retrogeek
From my informal research I have found that there are very real differences between people with predominately fast and slow twitch muscle fibres. If you are one or the other it is very difficult to train yourself to compensate for the lack of one or the other. For example, if you are the slow twitch Olympic marathoner with an 80/20 ratio of slow to fast twitch muscle fibre all the specialized training in the world will never change you into an Olympic sprinter with an 80/20 ratio of fast to slow twitch muscle fibre.

But they can change the cross sectional area of which the muscle fibre populations cover, therefore a an endurance athlete has the potential to become a good sprinter.

Quoted post said:

Originally posted by retrogeek
I can not recall any athlete who has so completely overhauled his/her physique to do such. There are plenty of examples of athletes who realize gradual changes and may go from running the 400 meters to the 800 meters, or cases like Jalabert who seem to accel at everything. But Jalabert was predominantly an endurance athlete first, probably more slow than fast twitch muscle fibers, just an extremely well-skilled cyclist.

Jalabert WAS an endurance athlete, compare him to any match sprinter or 100 meter sprinter.

Quoted post said:

Originally posted by retrogeek
Obviously those who are a 50/50 balance, or there abouts,are going to be harder to categorize and they will account for a good number of exceptions to the rule. But there is a lot more to cycling than just mashing pedals as the non-cycling press would like you to believe. Tactics, training, mindset, etc., all play a role in defining what type of cyclist you can be. Cycling is too complex a sport to be narrowed down to just being determined by physiology alone.

As you said, muscle fibre composition actualy has very little to do with performance... almost to the extent at which its worth ignoring by coaches and athletes outside a reasearch setting. Muscle fibre composition is rarely a limiting factor (apart from in diseased states and elderly people), it can't be used to predict performance and cannot be measured easily; therefore its best to focus on other aspects during training and national squad/talent selection.

Quoted post said:

Originally posted by retrogeek
But how to categorize Merckx???? He could do everything?!#*&$!

He was an exceptional endurance rider and as such had advatages over other endurance riders that focused on sprinting and climbing. He could never be described as a 'sprinter' and I doubt if he ever won a top level sprint event (e.g. 1km, matched sprint, kerin, etc.).