How to improve sprint?

yep, this is one change I made to work on improving my sprint - starting in a smaller gear to reduce the power I lose getting up to max power. If I end up spinning out then I know next time to use the next gear up, assuming I feel the same way for that sprint.

Agree with Gerrie as well - what seems to work for me (87 kg) is higher RPMs. My peak 10-sec power (from February) was 827W ending up at 110 rpm about one gear up from my normal flat-riding gear. My balance doesn’t feel quite right standing for too long (among other things, I don’t practice standing much) so I tend to only stand to get up to full power and then I finish the sprint seated.

But if very high RPMs don’t seem to work right for you, it might be better to try to make smaller adjustments (small increase in RPMs, down one gear) and see if that helps.

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To each their own, I suppose, but I don’t find this to be the case at all. If the percentage was this high I don’t think Cav (and others) would have put the little shifter button on their drops.

Thanks!
Got a look at my usual ride:


77 rpm indeed.
So, in order to improve:

  1. Higher cadence, everywhere.
  2. Sprint intervals - I think I need 20-30 sec more instead of 5s.
  3. Gym work - deadlifts, squats. Never did it before, because I was not allowed by doc to lift larger than 20kg. But 15-20 kg may well be enough for start.

I am on Wahoo Kickr Core V4, smart one. Higher rpm feel easier by same power, also I have feeling that I can sustain that longer. Standing or seating is still a question for me.

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Yeah, I’m totally in the tough gear high torque camp.

It’s all about practice. When I was getting into it I could start to do 1000w at 175cm and 60kg and eventually got it up over 1200w.

Gym work is the major part and look at the workouts Anna Meares used to do, box jumps and the like.

Not very efficient because you’ll fatigue quickly. You want to spin fast, really fast. A guy I knew and trained with (BMX rider) could spin at 180rpm or more and do this smoothly punching out 1600w+. They have no gears, so they just have to spin really, really fast.

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if doc doesn’t let you lift then he probably wouldn’t advise sprinting either :thinking:

you can do low weight / high reps with squats / deadlifts though which can help with 1-2min power (useful for attacking from 1-2km out if you think you can get a gap - but generally doesn’t work too well in zwift :smiley: )

efficiency is not really a major concern during a sprint though, top speed is what you are going for and you are not going to hit that if seated. you are also not going to be doing 180rpm out of the saddle :smiley: (120rpm probably a more realistic maximum rpm out the saddle)

if it works for him great, but would say it is quite an unusual technique personally and not something I would recommend everyone to aim for :sweat_smile:

but yeah power = force x speed so increasing either works.

He did that RPM seated when I saw him training.

I also saw a video of a race he was in, just completely mad! :scream:

Those BMXers are just insane! He was physically huge as well. My FTP on the other hand was quite a lot higher. :wink:

Thanks all for your suggestions.
I hit today my all-time best power of 790W for 5 sec, improvement of 100W just in 3 weeks!
What I did:

  1. Some very light weight lift, with dumbell and many reps helped already a lot. Not yet a member of fitness club, will get some already next week.
  2. Dedicated sprint workouts.
  3. Squat jumps with dumbell.
  4. Higher RPMs are indeed easier, and starting with easier gear is a key.
    Grinding a higher gear makes only an impression of hight watts and lots of pain.

More to come. I believe I can hit 1000W for 10 sec in next months.

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high watts and lots of pain is the sprinter’s motto :smiley:

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Some of our muscles are hybrid muscles that can convert from slow twitch to fast twitch. By doing more explosive workouts like box jump and squats with weights, you can convert some of these muscles to fast twitch. Of course once they convert, you might see a decrease in your lower power bands.

Also increasing muscle size and training these muscles for better neuro recruitment would increase your 15s power.

Beyond that a lot is base on your phenotype, and looking at your stats, you look more like a marathoner than a sprinter.

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