How to improve sprint performance?

carmol

One of my cycling problems is sprinting. I'm not satisfied with my sprint peformance. I weight around 72 kg and my height is 1.84 m. My peak power in sprints is 1100 w (5 seconds). This is anything but great; my power profile is up-sloping (15 w/kg for 5 s, 8.4 w/kg for 60 s, 5.1 w/kg for 5 minutes, ftp is not precisely tested yet, but I guess around 4.3 w/kg).

So I could say - well, I'm a typical time trialist (according to Allen/Coggan).

But there is still something to makes me think, I could rather easily improve my sprint performance:

• I do get my peak power readings a relativly low RPMs - a little below 100.
• But I'm able to turn the cranks (without resitance) quite fast. I get easily over 200 RPM, peak for 10 seconds has been 217 so far.

Is there a training technique or something that helps me making better use of my ability to spin the pedals fast and using (more) power at the same time?

DennistheMennis

I'm no expert, but it seems to me that high cadence, as it pertains to sprinting, is mostly an advantage in that you can achieve a higher top speed with a given gearing. So, if you develop your power enough you'll be able to completely spin out in your 54x11! :-)

Lower cadence is where you get the highest force on the pedals, and is thus the best way to "jump" as you start your sprint.

p.s. 1100W seems super high to me. But I guess I don't know how that compares to your competitors.

breesej

I'm not a coach, but I would say intervals and practicing real sprinting should get you better. My brother used to race bikes in H.S. and college and he would sprint up and down the street with his friends as training.

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BullGod

1100 is not that bad at all....There are plenty of really good top end racers who are around that mark (usually they are really hot at climbing and TTing though)

As regards to the "jump" in the sprint - make sure you don't get into too big a gear too early. This will spike your power but won't necessarily spike your speed - you can accelerate faster in a lighter gear and then once your speed is high - say above 50km/h you can drop the back down to 12 or 13....often after you actually start your sprint for the line.

seems to me that lots of guys go straight into 54/11 from at 40km/h and then crank out massive wattage whilst not going anything like top speed. When I started I was doing this and i seemed to be going backwards in the sprints whilst my legs hurt like hell.....it took me a while to notice that my competitors were all riding a much easier gear.

The average sprint speed at cat 1/2 in these parts is around 55 kph - you don't necessarily need to be on the 11 or 12 to hit that. I know the pros sprint in the 11 but they are freaks and also get a 60kph leadout.

DennistheMennis

Really good point. I always used to spin a faster gear when sprinting, but when I started practicing jumps and sprints I used a higher gear. Maybe because I believed the extra force required to turn a taller gear helped train the muscles better. But even if that's true it would make sense to then use a lower gear during the actual race than you'd use in training. Does that make sense? Or use the lower gear for training too?

Also, what do the rest of you out there do to train for sprints? I do some plyomteric excercises (jumps and lunges with body weight only), plus the usual on-bike training. Including 10 sec jumps and 30 sec all-out sprints.

TrekDedicated

If you're near a city, ride the streets... Dangerous as hell, but you'll get the rush and the interval work outs..

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kopride

I ride interval "telephone poles" Find a long staight rode with utility poles evenly distributed and then sprint one set and then spin the next two. And I mean sprint the poles. As soon as you hit the pole sprint out of the saddle as fast as you can to the next one. (I try and visualize riders trying to catch me. Also, do wind sprints on the track. I jog the curves and sprint the straights. Do a few miles that way every week, and you will see a huge difference in your body and sprinting ability. Weight work, 8 sets of 3 reps very heavy close to max at a fast lifting speed is also great for sprints.

I find sprint workouts to be brief very brutal workouts

Billsworld

My work right now is starts and jumps from low speed in gears larger than I would use to sprint. 53x16-17? For me, the power is lower than for a 5 sec test, but I am improving. I do them up an incline so that I never quite get on top of the gear and I save the extreme cadence work for the end of the workout. BTW I only ride track

DennistheMennis

This forum tends to be very endurance oriented, so it's nice to get some sprinter's threads in here.

Your training is similar to mine, it seems, except I only use a HRM. Yeah, not the best for high-intensity sprints, but all I can justify at the moment. I also prefer short hills that I can cover in 30 secs, with 5 min breaks in between. I do this once a week. Seems pretty standard. Sometimes I also/instead do 10 sec jumps.

Are you training primarily for 200m? I mostly just want to get a sprint for criterium finishes/attacks, so 200m matches that well.

Do you do any weights? I'm reluctant to start squats and such, but will do them if I get enough feedback saying I should. For now I'm sticking with my plyo jumps/lunges, plus the on-bike.

Billsworld

I spent 22 years powerlifting and this is the end of my second season riding , first racing. At this point the riding with lifting puts too much demand on recovery, so I do mostly workouts like I descibed above. My lifting starts this week but is going to be very different than I did before. My weight has been 205-215 and now its 185-190. The focus will be low back and abs, some hamstring work, cleans and very easy upper body work.................. I got alot of advice early on and made the mistake of employing weight lifting principals to cycling. Had I been wiser I would have listened to the more experieced track riders instead of being a slave to peak power numbers and my own ideas . Your on the bike training sounds alot like mine . A good way to monitor your progress for sprints like this is to use the same road , hill ,distance etc.. and simply try to increase top speed . You will find that gear changes will only have a slight effect on speed unless you find more power . As your power increases so will your speed...........sort of............oops Mostly interested in sprints on he track, but mass start races are fun too. Most of them are basicly mini crits on an oval. It sounds like your ready to come over to the dark side

DennistheMennis

Yeah, done lots of crits and roads, but my first track event will be on the 30th! Not looking to set any records; just want to learn the ropes. After a few visits I'll get to work on the performance aspects.

DennistheMennis

Found a neat description of a National-level Master track racer's workouts:

http://www.kevinworley.com/trackworkouts.html

RapDaddyo

This is not necessarily true. For example, I generate my peak power at ~125rpm. If I started my sprint in, say, the 60s I would never get to my peak torque range. This is easily tested, but one shouldn't just assume that he generates his peak power at low cadence.

DennistheMennis

Well, I actually said peak "force," not power, but your point is well taken, and actually was already made by BullGod.

BTW, in my world torque is the same thing as force. And force, per Ric's postings, is highest at 0 rpm. But force doesn't win races, speed does, and so the point is that it's best to concentrate on power, not strength, even for sprinters. And peak power occurs at a higher rpm than peak force.

I think I got all that right...

So, what do you do for sprint-specific training?

Thanks!