I am involved with the coaching of a track cycling sprinter where specialist events range from a flying 200m TT (11-12 secs), a standing 500m TT (33-36 secs), and group races where the final all out sprint might be launched up to 300m out from the line after several laps building up (< 3mins). I have had some discussion about the training of these sprinters recently. My belief is that while there is an endurance element to these events, in training a “pure sprinter” there is no requirement to go out a log huge mileage on the road. The opposing school of thought is that early in the season you send these riders out to log 75-100km rides for 4-6 weeks before focusing on strength & speed. I have taken the attitude that you do not send 400-800m runners out to run 1/2 & full marathons for several weeks before their season starts. Now I’m not a running coach - not even close, but this is the parallel I have drawn. How close am I? I have been training my rider on a short - long periodisation, focusing on extensive intervals for endurance (performed as part of a medium length ride on the road as weather prevents full year training in the velodrome). My rider who is racing in the States at the moment (she is only in her 3rd season racing track with no road background) has been criticized for not being able to hang in there on the endurance races she is doing (around the 8-10km) mark. Would an 800m runner be able to stay near the front of a 5k race? I would be keen to hear the thoughts from coaches of 400m-800m runners on how they train the endurance aspects of these distances.
I think you’re on the right track and are discovering that one training regime cannot cover the spectrum of all events once the level of performance gets high enough in each individual one.
Generally, a lot of good 800m runners, can run an OK 5k. Somewhere in the 14min low to 15low range. Good enough for state level, for the faster guys. The “slower” ones, the 15min low guys, are generally faster in the 400m. Generally.
As CF says, as you get more specific, so will your training. Will she go more for the 11sec to 33sec races or the 33 sec to 3min races with sprint finish? I perhaps would try to specify in one side or the other. After all, 11sec ish sprinters in cycling are huge (comparatively), as are runners. where as 3min runners are slender and smooth, (not sure about the cyclists in same time frame??)
You want to look to the strengths she already shows to decide which side of the equation to favor.
Unfortunately in track cycling you do not get to specialise that much - certainly not in NZ. As a sprinter wanting to compete on an international stage, she has to do the 200m flying TT to qualify for the match sprints (the cat & mouse one). And she would be expected to be a solid 500m TTer. Recently for the women, there has been introduced the Team Sprint. For my rider, she would likely be a “second wheel”, effectively making it a 500m race for her. These would be her bread and butter races, but would be expected to have enough versatility over the 11sec - 2-3min range. The riders in this bracket are usually pretty solid! So I guess that we can liken her training to that of somewhere between a 100m - 800m runner. But my point is that you do not train these runners over very long distances & when put up against a specialist in these longer distances, you certainly wouldn’t expect a top performance relative to what the specialist should be able to do. This seems to be the case with many coaches in track cycling - the belief that sprinters are built on Km’s not on strength & power. Time will tell for my rider I guess. Thanks for the input so far.
What side of a coin would you look at? ie
They are fast now but not very fit.
or
they improve slowly in speed but fast in fitness? or vice versa
or
body composition, and the ability to gain gym strength or not?
or
simply the mental ability to want to go hard for 3min or 15sec
or various combinations of all? Its something that after a season of training and racing one should be able to diagnose.
Also, it all sounds like there will be a lot of races requiring endurance. I would recommend looking at the lactate threshold thread and at KitKat’s posts. It would cover a lot what would be needed in the cycling races. At least it would give a few good ideas?
Fixed Gear,
stay true to what you believe. You are going against the norm in cycling and people will knock it. Summer is track , winter is road…that’s what we’ve always done!
Where in NZ are you?
Thanks John. Yeah standard answer seems to be “this is the way it has always been done” or “this is the way it is done by the other countries”. So therefore it is the right way!! I’m sticking to my guns as my rider (my wife) is going great guns for such a short time in the sport. We are based in CHCH.
That almost sounds like the mindset of the rowing community. Row in the summer, erg in the winter and more is better. What da ya mean
ya got an overuse injury?
TNT
In Australia they… :rolleyes: umm weather conditions, facilities and investment are incomparable. At least Invervagas has a decent velodrome now although not much use on a regular basis for you though.
I can just imagine it there, but all cyclists in ChCh incorporate the Port Hills as a standard part of their training, If you aren’t doing that then you are doing it wrong. .
I’m in Dunedin but lived in ChCh for 13 years.
Many of the rising international stars in track are coming from BMX backgrounds and return to this in their off-season. And look at the style of riding that BMX is. Small gears, fast leg speed, short burst, lots of recovery. John hit the nail on the head. Here in Christchurch, we have a set of hills (Port Hills) that are great training grounds for endurance cyclists, with lots of different routes & climbing gradients - all up to about 350m above sea level. My rider does ride the road, but competes exclusively on track, and exclusively in the sprint events. She does not compete in endurance-based events on track or road. Here is the programme given to her by her main track coach (I focus my coaching on strength & energy system training - I do not ride track so have deferred to people who are supposed to be more in the know here):
Mon - 2 hours flat road (50km)
Tue - 3 hours hills (Long Bays Ride) (70km)
Wed - 2.5 hours flat road (60km)
Thu - 2 hours hills (Short Bays Ride) (45km)
Fri - Day Off (yes she is allowed one)
Sat - 70km hills or 100km flat or Road Race
Sun - 4 hour bunch ride (100km - hard)
When riding hills, the last 800m of each climb should be at 90-95% of max HR for that period!!
Same every week for 6-8 weeks
Suffice to say, I didn’t let her do this. She is now racing in Trexlertown, PA and is doing pretty well against both the enduro’s & against her fellow sprinters who followed the programme above. I had her on the following:
Mon - VO2 intervals (~170% peak aerobic power) 30:270 W:R 4-6 sets
Tue - Gym1
Wed - VO2 intervals
Thu - Gym2
Fri - Off
Sat - Hill intervals (full power up a decreasing circuit) + Gym3 (upper body)
Sun - Easy long (2 hours) (recovery spin)
(3 weeks load, 1 week unload) x 2 cycles
Unloading week - volume reduced (2 gyms, 1 VO2, 1 easy).
Her coach was none too impressed when he found out she was on this & not his endurance programme. Though interestingly enough, he seemed impressed with her efforts on the track when the weather allowed training there 
For those interested in the keirin which is the 2-3 min “sprint race” that they do, follow these links:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGnLDr6jRSI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMsotvad5nA
Keirin races are motor-paced up to speed, and the time is taking over the last 200m.
An impressive kilo time trial
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meTomy4M8dw
The match sprint:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4rGDMYcq4k
BTW - the above training was at the start of her training season, having just come off national champs. I had targeted a focus on her VO2 initially as for many of her events, she needs the ability to get to & sustain a high aerobic power output before even launching her sprint. Obviously though, I wanted to train this in such a way as to enhance her fast twitch capability rather than through traditional sustained aerobic intervals. To do this, I selected the 30:270 W:R protocol as used in a University of Queensland study. This lead to a 4% increase in VO2 in 4 weeks.
Her peak power (wingate) is ~1400W in 2 seconds.
hi fixed gear,
I’v also run into the problems of Cycling culture.
I’ve trained amateur B-level cylcist for criteriums (1 hour, with a lot of bends, and thus interval).
My cyclists trained roughly 50% of the volume of the other cyclists, but were in the top 6 all the time.
My program was based on extensive interval, learning to accomodate the velocity changes in the race. My cyclists were good former 800-1500m runners in track (PBs 1.48 / 3.46).
Doing a lot of long slow distance, will make especially this athletes slow, I think. On the other side, a lot of volume may not be necessary for eacht athlete (that’s why the Lydiard program did not work universally, but did for a good share of the running athletes).
Regarding endurance training. Speed has a big transfer to endurance in my opinion for races up to 2 minutes in duration. Compare to speed skating for example! Speed skating is similar to cycling in my opinion
Endurance should be trained in my opinion, by doing extensive interval (focussed on absolute relaxation at relatively high speeds), by sprints, possibly extending over time, dependent on where the speed drop-off occurs, and by competition (1 REP!) of overdistance/race distance/time or cutting race time into parts and then exercise fast-faster than race pace with short recovery.
read the following articles which can be downloaded here
http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~pweyand/
If you can’t find them all, email me (sijmker@hotmail.com)
For more information, you can go to bearpowered.com. Look for anaerobic speed reserve, see also the forum-archives.
Bundle MW, Hoyt RW, Weyand PG.
Related Articles, Links
High-speed running performance: a new approach to assessment and prediction.
J Appl Physiol. 2003 Nov;95(5):1955-62.
Weyand PG, Lin JE, Bundle MW.
Related Articles, Links
Sprint performance-duration relationships are set by the fractional duration of external force application.
Am J Physiol Regul Integr Comp Physiol. 2006 Mar;290(3):R758-65. Epub 2005 Oct 27.
PMID: 16254125 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
Weyand PG, Bundle MW.
Related Articles, Links
Energetics of high-speed running: integrating classical theory and contemporary observations.
Am J Physiol Regul Integr Comp Physiol. 2005 Apr;288(4):R956-65. Epub 2004 Dec 2.
PMID: 15576662 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
Weyand PG, Lee CS, Martinez-Ruiz R, Bundle MW, Bellizzi MJ, Wright S.
Related Articles, Links
High-speed running performance is largely unaffected by hypoxic reductions in aerobic power.
J Appl Physiol. 1999 Jun;86(6):2059-64.
regards,
Stefan IJmker
In the archive yoiu can find a good article on power and strenght training for track cycling…for those who do not know, keirin isn’t really 3 minutes effeort…like 5 laps jog and 2 laps sprints…so it is not the same as a flat 3 minutes…btw, on ESPN classic down here, run a very interesting documentary on th rivalry btwn france and Germany…and how german dominated using weights, sprints and bounds…wheres french where still doing mileage…( all of a sudden, a kind DDR coach passed thei r program and france dominated again…)
Do you have the name for this documentary? BTW i posted the weight program you are tolking about in the archives.
Hi Pierre jean…we met almost 1 year ago in golden gala with Rauno, remember?..Hop Olu is getting well…also Pognon…The name? I do not remember…was in rivalry section…in Italy espn classic sucks, so I’ll see it other 45 times…and will advise yoiu the name.
Of course i remember. The stadium is one of those big ones where i always lost my way like Berlin ! I’m glad i wasn’t there this year because what happened to Salim was hard enough to watch on TV.
I ESPN channel in France but can’t find this program.
If I get across it again, I’ll try to record it…
Charlie, i am a sprint swimming coach and love your site. At what point/age do you make this assessment?
Charlie, i am a sprint swimming coach and love your site. At what point/age do you make this assessment?