Quick starts kill my racing



moto 1

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Jul 11, 2010
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How do I train for out of the gate fast starts without blowing up in the first 15 mins? My race pace is comparable to the top guys in my class but they kill me on the start. If I ramp up to fast my heart rate doesnt recover like normally does.I'm talking mtn bike racing by the way.
Thanks.
 
A very hard warm up between 20 to 30 minutes long should do the trick. Start easy and spend at least 5 minutes at, or above, threshold. Throw in a couple of very hard 30 second to 1 minute efforts and finish off with a fairly brisk cooldown before you head off to the start. The trick is to get your body upto speed prior to the start - which means some hard aerobic, anaerobic and neuromuscular power efforts during the warm up but as with everything else cycling it's mainly about threshold power and getting your aerobic system ready to rock 'n roll.

In addition to that, more threshold power is the other goal. Not only is it good for pretty much everything but the less you have to go over theshold, the easier everything including starts become..

Practise starts too. Compare what you do with what the top guys in your sport do - gear/cadence selection, technique etc etc. Look for the simple stuff.
 
I am not one for warming up.

I used to get on my bike cold (for training) and hit it hard from the start. After a while my body got used to it.

Typical training start: Increase speed from 0 to 25mph by 1mph each second, stay above 20mph to the stop sign (1/4 mile). Stop. Increase speed from 0 to 25mph by 1mph each second, stay above 20mph to the stop sign (1/4 mile). Stop. The next efforts are 1 mile, 1 mile. But you get the idea.

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20 minutes of hard warm up really affects how much you have left at the end.
 
Originally Posted by An old Guy .

I am not one for warming up.

I used to get on my bike cold (for training) and hit it hard from the start. After a while my body got used to it.

Typical training start: Increase speed from 0 to 25mph by 1mph each second, stay above 20mph to the stop sign (1/4 mile). Stop. Increase speed from 0 to 25mph by 1mph each second, stay above 20mph to the stop sign (1/4 mile). Stop. The next efforts are 1 mile, 1 mile. But you get the idea.

---

20 minutes of hard warm up really affects how much you have left at the end.

Well, he's racing and his body needs to get used to it right from the get go, especially if he gets stuck behind alot of people on the first lap on a course with lots of narrow trails/single track where there's no room to pass.

Note to Old Man - this isn't a training ride where you can randomly walk into people's front yards and douse yourself with their hosepipes without asking to cool off.

I wonder if he asks nicely if his competitors will start a bit easier for him so he can just ease into it nice and slowly and every once in a while stop to put up some stop signs for him to rest at predefined intervals. Jesus...

I'm not sure what part of the warm-up you think will drain his tank - "Start easy and spend at least 5 minutes at, or above, threshold. Throw in a couple of very hard 30 second to 1 minute efforts and finish off with a fairly brisk cool down before you head off to the start." If a really hard 5 or 10 minutes is going to break the bank then I'd say that racing competitively really isn't on the cards.

I'd head to the harbour if I were you, the failboat is about to set sail.
 
I'm with Swampy, you really need to warm up.
I also used to race mtn bikes and never warmed up, after a few races I realized that my 2nd and 3rd laps were always faster than my first.
Because I was so new to racing I thought all those people pre-riding the course or spinning the trainers were wasting their energy...Joke was on me. /img/vbsmilies/smilies/redface.gif
If the warm-up is wiping you out then you need more fitness.
 
My $0.02: I don't warm up either. As long as I've been riding a lot, say 5 days per week, and rode the day before the race, warming up doesn't help me much. My warm-ups are usually piddling around in L1-2 for about 20-30 mins with 3 30-second bursts at FTP, separated by at least 7-8 minutes. That's all it takes for me.

BTW what do you mean when you say that your race pace is similar to the top guys? Do you mean that your last lap is as fast as their last lap? Not sure that means anything if they're already way ahead of you. Also, maybe the problem isn't warmup but maybe they just have a better top end than you do?
 
Originally Posted by swampy1970 .




Well, he's racing and his body needs to get used to it right from the get go, especially if he gets stuck behind alot of people on the first lap on a course with lots of narrow trails/single track where there's no room to pass.

Note to Old Man - this isn't a training ride where you can randomly walk into people's front yards and douse yourself with their hosepipes without asking to cool off.

I wonder if he asks nicely if his competitors will start a bit easier for him so he can just ease into it nice and slowly and every once in a while stop to put up some stop signs for him to rest at predefined intervals. Jesus...

I'm not sure what part of the warm-up you think will drain his tank - "Start easy and spend at least 5 minutes at, or above, threshold. Throw in a couple of very hard 30 second to 1 minute efforts and finish off with a fairly brisk cool down before you head off to the start." If a really hard 5 or 10 minutes is going to break the bank then I'd say that racing competitively really isn't on the cards.

I'd head to the harbour if I were you, the failboat is about to set sail.
As I said you can train to not need a warm up. I even said how to do so.

I believe you said a very hard 20-30 minute warm up. And now you are down to 5 or 10 minutes of really hard warm up. Hard to determine what you really mean.
 
All good opinions. Yes my 2nd and 3rd laps are faster than my first lap. I need to warm up , I am going to try the swamp'ys method. No more piddling around.
thanks for all the advice.I'll post the results in the next 30 days after the next race.
 
Watch the TdF guys if you can before they do their time trial races. They sit on those trainers and ride and ride to get themselves warmed up before they head out.

I wouldn't put much faith in those folks here who say you don't need a warm-up.
 
An old Guy said:
 

As I said you can train to not need a warm up. I even said how to do so.
 
I believe you said a very hard 20-30 minute warm up. And now you are down to 5 or 10 minutes of really hard warm up. Hard to determine what you really mean.
Your reading skills fail you in this thread like they have in most other threads you post in. Re-read my first post in this thread. If you can't figure it out ask a 1st grader to read it and comprehend it for you. You also appear to lack the understanding of how important it can be to absolutely nail the start of a mountain bike race, especially if there's lots of single track. It ain't no road race where you can easily get to the front buy just riding up the outside... I think one of your mystery drinking spigots out in the back woods must have been hooked up to the pesticide tank and into the water mains...
 
Originally Posted by swampy1970 .



Your reading skills fail you in this thread like they have in most other threads you post in. Re-read my first post in this thread. If you can't figure it out ask a 1st grader to read it and comprehend it for you.

You also appear to lack the understanding of how important it can be to absolutely nail the start of a mountain bike race, especially if there's lots of single track. It ain't no road race where you can easily get to the front buy just riding up the outside...

I think one of your mystery drinking spigots out in the back woods must have been hooked up to the pesticide tank and into the water mains...
Nail the start of a race. Great idea. Sort of beginner mentality.

You only need to ride hard enough to get to the front before the trail closes in and prevents passing. No need to do your best. No need to work hard. It is sufficient to be a bit stronger than the competition.

In case you really need to do your best to be stronger than the rest: you will die off well before the end of the race. You only achievement will be to cause those trapped behind you anguish.
 
Originally Posted by Yojimbo_ .

Watch the TdF guys if you can before they do their time trial races. They sit on those trainers and ride and ride to get themselves warmed up before they head out.

I wouldn't put much faith in those folks here who say you don't need a warm-up.
Professional time trials - even the long ones are short easy days for the pros. They go out and ride for a couple hours after the time trial.

Until you can put out 450-500w for an hour it does not really matter what ritual you go through before a big event. The stronger riders will eat you up.

When I was young and racing, I never worried about guys who warmed up. I was much more interested in the guys who sat around looking at each other - the strong riders.
 
Originally Posted by Yojimbo_ .

Watch the TdF guys if you can before they do their time trial races. They sit on those trainers and ride and ride to get themselves warmed up before they head out.

I wouldn't put much faith in those folks here who say you don't need a warm-up.
I have two comments on this. One is that the TT stages are very light workout days for TdF cyclists. They are at most about 110 TSS points for a cyclist that averages 150+ TSS points per day. This means that doing a substantial warm up won't significantly hurt their performance in the TT by tiring them out too much. Also note that just because they are spinning on the trainer doesn't mean they are working hard. (I actually don't know how many TSS points their typical warm is.)

My second comment is that recent research suggests that professional cyclists warm up too much to the point of tiring their muscles and hurting their performance. See this article:

http://jap.physiology.org/content/early/2011/04/28/japplphysiol.00253.2011.full.pdf

(Of course none of this is likely very relevant to the OP, but I thought I would throw it out there.)
 
Originally Posted by lanierb .



I have two comments on this. One is that the TT stages are very light workout days for TdF cyclists. They are at most about 110 TSS points for a cyclist that averages 150+ TSS points per day. This means that doing a substantial warm up won't significantly hurt their performance in the TT by tiring them out too much. Also note that just because they are spinning on the trainer doesn't mean they are working hard. (I actually don't know how many TSS points their typical warm is.)

My second comment is that recent research suggests that professional cyclists warm up too much to the point of tiring their muscles and hurting their performance. See this article:

http://jap.physiology.org/content/early/2011/04/28/japplphysiol.00253.2011.full.pdf

(Of course none of this is likely very relevant to the OP, but I thought I would throw it out there.)
1. TSS is a poor indicator, unfortunately. Most TdF riders sit in on long stages. Lots of seat time, very little effort. Compare that to going full-boogie at FTP for X amount of time. It's much easier to recover from three hours at an IF of .6-.7 than one hour with an IF over 1.0.

As for the research, it's a very active topic and new ideas are coming out all the time. Andy Lim was big on having people keeping their core temperature down while allowing other temperatures to rise. And he got winning results from doing it.
 
Originally Posted by rizz .




1. TSS is a poor indicator, unfortunately. Most TdF riders sit in on long stages. Lots of seat time, very little effort. Compare that to going full-boogie at FTP for X amount of time.
You don't know what you're talking about. TSS specifically takes this into account by using a fourth order moving average. Full FTP for an hour is NOT a hard workout for a highly trained athlete. Heck, it's not even a hard workout for me, and my CTL is only 90ish whereas theirs are in the 150 range. The really hard workouts tend to involve going into the red way above FTP for too long or too many times in a day (something also accounted for pretty well by TSS).
 
lanierb->you got me thinking about CTL. In the past I had tons of CTL and did not see much improvement but now I stay in the 90s and notice better results recently in improving my FTP. Is having lots of CTL suppose to be the key or is it more just the right type of CTL meaning made up of L3/L4 rides?

-js
 
Originally Posted by jsirabella . .....or is it more just the right type of CTL meaning made up of L3/L4 rides?...

More like, enough CTL made up of the right type of training which addresses your particular needs and the demands of your events.

That may or may not mean L3/L4 depending on the athlete, their training history, their strengths and weaknesses, the time of year relative to their target events and the specific demands of those target events. But yeah for an awful lot of amateur riders focusing on building FTP a lot of L3/L4 work is a good idea.

-Dave
 
Originally Posted by lanierb .

You don't know what you're talking about. TSS specifically takes this into account by using a fourth order moving average. Full FTP for an hour is NOT a hard workout for a highly trained athlete. Heck, it's not even a hard workout for me, and my CTL is only 90ish whereas theirs are in the 150 range. The really hard workouts tend to involve going into the red way above FTP for too long or too many times in a day (something also accounted for pretty well by TSS).
"A greater limitation to the entire concept, though, is that the basic premise – i.e., that you can adequately describe the training load and the stress it imposes on an individual based on just one number (TSS), completely ignoring how that “score” is achieved and other factors (e.g., diet, rest) – is, on its face, ridiculous. In particular, it must be recognized that just because, e.g., two different training programs produce the same weekly TSS total, doesn’t mean that an individual will respond in exactly the same way."

So says Andy Coggan, and word on the street is that he knows a thing or two about TSS.
 
Originally Posted by rizz .




1. TSS is a poor indicator, unfortunately. Most TdF riders sit in on long stages. Lots of seat time, very little effort. Compare that to going full-boogie at FTP for X amount of time. It's much easier to recover from three hours at an IF of .6-.7 than one hour with an IF over 1.0.

As for the research, it's a very active topic and new ideas are coming out all the time. Andy Lim was big on having people keeping their core temperature down while allowing other temperatures to rise. And he got winning results from doing it.
FTP (and TSS) is a correct measure for a 1 hour race. It is perhaps not a correct measure for a 5 hour race. While it is true that most of the riders sit in for several hours a day at the TdF, their power output for the entire ride is on the order of what most of us (you not me) can do for an hour or so. Those guys are working hard. Just look at them at the end of the race. (Much the same can be said the the RAMM riders. 15mph average. I can hold that for most of the day without feeling pain. :) )

But all these letters (FTP, TSS and so on) are just measures. Many people get into a habit of misusing them.
 
Originally Posted by jsirabella .

lanierb->you got me thinking about CTL. In the past I had tons of CTL and did not see much improvement but now I stay in the 90s and notice better results recently in improving my FTP. Is having lots of CTL suppose to be the key or is it more just the right type of CTL meaning made up of L3/L4 rides?

-js
Just saw this now. You're basically asking the $64000 question. There are all sorts of things that go into improving your FTP and it seems to depend somewhat on the person. However, more CTL is generally viewed as better up to the point where your body hits its limit and can't recover anymore (and this cutoff is different for different people). So for most people 100 would be better than 90, for example (and 110 better than that). Personally I've never had the time to go over about 95 and I've always thought more training would help me more.

As for make-up of the CTL again it's really person specific. If you're not super highly trained (like probably most people here), it almost doesn't matter what you do -- any training will make you better. Later on you will plateau and then things get hard. One thing I will say is that recovery is key. Obtaining CTL=100 by doing one ride a week at TSS=700 (if that's even possible) will not be nearly as good training as riding 5 days per week at an average of TSS=140. Throw in a couple hard rides per week spaced out by easier ones (L3) in between. Eat enough to cover your training deficit every day, and get good sleep and that will go a long way. Sorry I don't have a better answer!