Share your sprint workouts

postal_bag said:

I know it may be a bit early to be thinking of this, but after my first year of 'serious' training, I realised I've yet to include any sprint work. The fact that each of the races I entered last year had a sprint finish has me rethinking my training plan.

I'm wondering what a typical sprint workout looks like. Besides 5-10 reps @ max effort with ~5 min recovery between reps, what are the 'nitty-gritty' details? Without a leadout is it possible to achieve peak power? How long do you ramp it up for before starting to sprint? Is it best to do the approach at the foot of a hill, and then sprint once you reach the incline?

Thanks for any tips.

Its cold in boston right now. I do 20 minutes on my fixed on the trainer. Then do a few hill sprints in front of the house on my road bike. So far max watts 1346 on powertap. Nice weather I use a short downhill as a leadout to a flat. 30 mph on the hill, then sprint as far as I can on the flat.(I am dumb, and chase cars) I usually do this workout on a fixed.My gear is a 48x14 at around 150 max cadence. I dont think I am strong enough for that gear though. There are some really smart coaches on this forum...find stuff by fergie..ric stern , and some guy goes by accogan. I try and ask a question once in a while, but just reading what they write is a great resource. Have a nice day

I have two basic sprint workouts:

1) Toodle around for about 10 to 15 minutes then sprint full blast for about 15 sec starting from 10 to 15mph. Toodle for 10 minutes and repeat for a total of about 4 sprints. Goal is to hit a really high max power and be fully rested for each sprint

2) Do the same thing except I've got this hill by my house where I can hit 30mph at the bottom of it so, I start my sprint at about 30mph.

The bad news is that if you're already not a good sprinter, it's hard to make yourself into one.

Well, if you are looking to improve your speed there is no other way but by going fast.

Any kind of assistance work like using a short hill to get you to a speed that you normally would not attain helps when you train alone.

It is very important that you make each effort your max. This practice helps teach your body how to empty the tank ( as I like to call it) in a very short period of time.

If you find yourself recovering before 15 mins. you are probbably not sprinting hard enough.

And if you are looking to finish better at the end of road races, start sprinting early in the saeson, say, 15-20 sec efforts. And as your body gets used to the distance, increase the distance by 5 sec intervals. Eventually working up to 35-45 sec in length.

2006

beerco said:

I have two basic sprint workouts:

1) Toodle around for about 10 to 15 minutes then sprint full blast for about 15 sec starting from 10 to 15mph. Toodle for 10 minutes and repeat for a total of about 4 sprints. Goal is to hit a really high max power and be fully rested for each sprint

2) Do the same thing except I've got this hill by my house where I can hit 30mph at the bottom of it so, I start my sprint at about 30mph.

The bad news is that if you're already not a good sprinter, it's hard to make yourself into one.

Good advice... I have heard about elite pure roadies putting up some real good kilo times though. More than likely they are good natural sprinters to begin with.

The legend of endurance coaching Arthur Lydiard had his long distance runners do short sprint training all year round. Very short 6 sec type of efforts. Sort of like weight training on the running track.

I use the same with all my riders. Weight training on the bike.

6 sec efforts. 1 lamppost starting 10kph either in saddle or out, noting max speed, or rolling at 25kph (acceleration) or 35kph (leg speed) for two lamp posts again noting the max speed. Not too difficult but keeps a little bit of speed/strength/power in the legs no matter what the training priority is for that training period.

Hamish Ferguson
Cycling Coach

I don't do any traditional interval workouts. My hard rides are a variety of L4-L7 intervals, with recovery as necessary to attain a target NP for the entire ride. My "sprint" intervals consist of ~20s at 200%FT. I don't consider these "maximal effort" intervals. Rather, I just gradually ramp up to 200%FT and then hold it. Sometimes I do these at the end of an L4 interval and sometimes as a standalone interval (e.g., a small hill). I won't do maximal effort intervals until spring, and even then I'll just gradually increase my power to ~300%FT.

RapDaddyo said:

I don't do any traditional interval workouts. My hard rides are a variety of L4-L7 intervals, with recovery as necessary to attain a target NP for the entire ride. My "sprint" intervals consist of ~20s at 200%FT. I don't consider these "maximal effort" intervals. Rather, I just gradually ramp up to 200%FT and then hold it. Sometimes I do these at the end of an L4 interval and sometimes as a standalone interval (e.g., a small hill). I won't do maximal effort intervals until spring, and even then I'll just gradually increase my power to ~300%FT.

Can one do a sprint workout or 30sec effort workout and still try and attain a Normalised Power goal?

What would a match sprinter do? Some countries have their guys do 100m sprints and sit around eating cake and drinking Coke for 30min before doing the next rep.

Hamish Ferguson
Cycling Coach

RapDaddyo said:

I don't do any traditional interval workouts. My hard rides are a variety of L4-L7 intervals, with recovery as necessary to attain a target NP for the entire ride. My "sprint" intervals consist of ~20s at 200%FT. I don't consider these "maximal effort" intervals. Rather, I just gradually ramp up to 200%FT and then hold it. Sometimes I do these at the end of an L4 interval and sometimes as a standalone interval (e.g., a small hill). I won't do maximal effort intervals until spring, and even then I'll just gradually increase my power to ~300%FT.

I'm guessing you're not a sprinter as none of this is for training a sprint. 😕

When training your sprint, you've got to do maximal efforts to build it. That's why sprints should be done well rested. There is a time and place to do sprints when you've got some fatigue in your legs but that's much closer to the season.

I never considered sprints as "intervals" either. A sprint by it's very nature is so short as it is.

Two other points I wanted to bring up regarding my first post too:

The first sprint I do almost never lasts 15sec and is done at just below maximal effort - this is more of a warmup. I started doing this because even when I try, the first sprint is usually not very strong. I always hit my max power numbers on the second sprint.

Second, 15sec is a long time and depending on the time of the season, may be too long for a sprint. When I checked my files, it seems early season sprints are about 8 sec and then I gradually extend out to 15s trying really hard to hold a high power at the end of the sprint. For me, things are starting to go well when I can hold 1000w or better over 10s - however, different sprinters are better at different things. Find your strength and race it.

beerco said:

I'm guessing you're not a sprinter as none of this is for training a sprint. 😕

When training your sprint, you've got to do maximal efforts to build it. That's why sprints should be done well rested. There is a time and place to do sprints when you've got some fatigue in your legs but that's much closer to the season.

I never considered sprints as "intervals" either. A sprint by it's very nature is so short as it is.

Two other points I wanted to bring up regarding my first post too:

The first sprint I do almost never lasts 15sec and is done at just below maximal effort - this is more of a warmup. I started doing this because even when I try, the first sprint is usually not very strong. I always hit my max power numbers on the second sprint.

Second, 15sec is a long time and depending on the time of the season, may be too long for a sprint. When I checked my files, it seems early season sprints are about 8 sec and then I gradually extend out to 15s trying really hard to hold a high power at the end of the sprint. For me, things are starting to go well when I can hold 1000w or better over 10s - however, different sprinters are better at different things. Find your strength and race it.

The original question was pertaining to the sprint at the end of a race. Most likely a cat 5 crit. I think Rdiddio has a point, but this guy was asking how to increase peak power as to not get dusted at the end of a race. I think the only way to help his situation would be some period of the pure sprint workout (with some weights) as you suggest. I think he would loose the benifit though unless he did maintainance at least on the bike , year round

Billsworld said:

The original question was pertaining to the sprint at the end of a race. Most likely a cat 5 crit. I think Rdiddio has a point, but this guy was asking how to increase peak power as to not get dusted at the end of a race. I think the only way to help his situation would be some period of the pure sprint workout (with some weights) as you suggest. I think he would loose the benifit though unless he did maintainance at least on the bike , year round

Just sprinting (no weights) would be plenty to increase sprint power, especially for someone who hasn't trained that way before. Trackies do weights/plyometrics, etc, because sprinting is all they do, so they can spend time on things that may only give a slight benefit to performance. If a road rider did that, he would lose too much ft power to be competitive.

Billsworld said:

The original question was pertaining to the sprint at the end of a race. Most likely a cat 5 crit. I think Rdiddio has a point, but this guy was asking how to increase peak power as to not get dusted at the end of a race. I think the only way to help his situation would be some period of the pure sprint workout (with some weights) as you suggest. I think he would loose the benifit though unless he did maintainance at least on the bike , year round

Believe it or not, the best way to keep from being dusted at the end of a cat 5 sprint is to work on your threshold power.

e.g. Last year I won the Michigan State Championship cat 4 - a barely uphill sprint finish after a very flat race. My average power for the last 15s was only 644w. For comparison, when rested I can hit close to 1000w for 15s. Looking at the prior two minutes tells the story though:

My AP for the two min prior to the final sprint was 330w thanks to an excellent lead-out train. That 330w was in my teammate's draft and was well above my threshold. Luckily, it was high enough that it killed the other sprinter's sprint more than my own...something to think about.

p.s. I don't bother with weights to work on my sprint. I prefer on bike training for all of my cycling needs.

This is all good stuff. One of my concerns has to do with the force/power relationship. I've seen in other threads that pedaling at (x) cadence, at (x) watts= (x) kg of force per leg, or something to that effect. For interest's sake, what force would be required for 1300 watts at 150 rpm?

postal_bag said:

One of my concerns has to do with the force/power relationship.

What are you concerned about?

beerco said:

What are you concerned about?

Maybe confused is more accurate. The definintion of max effort. I know that if I am in a certain gear, I will achieve a higher speed during my sprint than if I am in a harder gear. However, I can still put out a "max" effort in the harder gear, only the force is higher and the power output is lower. Does this second example still benefit my sprinting?

postal_bag said:

This is all good stuff. One of my concerns has to do with the force/power relationship. I've seen in other threads that pedaling at (x) cadence, at (x) watts= (x) kg of force per leg, or something to that effect. For interest's sake, what force would be required for 1300 watts at 150 rpm?

Don't get wrapped around the axle with all that stuff. On a good day, I might hit 1300w for *1 second*. Sustaining 1300 watts will get you almost 42mph, and that's not really what we're talking about here, right? 😉

To improve your sprint you need high neruomuscular power in order to produce a moderate force *at a high pedal speed*. Jumps and sprint drills will help with fast-twitch fiber recruitment, as others have mentioned. Technique drills can help improve your ability to make power, too, by coordinating the actions of your arms and shoulders with your high speed leg movements. The advice given so far will take you a long way to holding your own at the end of a RR or crit.

fergie said:

Can one do a sprint workout or 30sec effort workout and still try and attain a Normalised Power goal?

Sure. Why not? Recovery from 20-30secs at 200%FT is actually pretty short. I can definitely do them with ~2min recovery if necessary, although I usually spread them out over the course of my ride for variety.

beerco said:

I'm guessing you're not a sprinter as none of this is for training a sprint. 😕

I don't think I agree. My goal with these intervals is neuromuscular adaptation. Are you saying that 200%FT will not result in neuromuscular adaptation? I think it will. As I approach racing season, I would increase these to ~300%FT, but probably seldom more than that.

RapDaddyo said:

I don't think I agree. My goal with these intervals is neuromuscular adaptation. Are you saying that 200%FT will not result in neuromuscular adaptation? I think it will. As I approach racing season, I would increase these to ~300%FT, but probably seldom more than that.

So do you win sprints or not?

200%FT will not result in significant neuromuscular adaptation. My sprint training hits a peak of over 500% of my FT with an average of around 400% of FT. The thing is that sprint power (when rested) is not related to FT. You've got to get near your max short term power to increase it.

Check out http://www.midweekclub.com/articles/coggan.pdf pages 16 & 17. You'll see that Andy does not use an FT reference for L7. There's a reason for that.

If you want to train your sprint, you've got to sprint. Sprinting is not ramping up the juice to 300% of FTP.

I'am quite sure that all of this information is very accurate. But!!

Like I posted earlier in this thread, just get out and go fast and forget about all of this scientific jargon.

Some many years ago while I was riding in the sprinting Gran Prix's in Europe, I had a 10 day break between GP Copenhagen & GP Arhus.

Australian world champ John Nicholson lived there. Ever morning 5 or 6 sprinters, which included the likes of Niels Fredborg ( Olympic Kilo champ) Pers Pederson ( World sprint champ) John, and a few of Denmarks best dudes & I, would go out for are daily morning rode ride. It was very lite 42x16 gear, flat terrain, nice weather. But, we would sprint for every village sign, we had an unwritten rule, stay in 42x16.

Well what a great workout, with speeds sure to hit 150 rpm.

We didn't measure heart rates or power percentages, we just tried to beat each other to the sign.

2006