Cadence sprints

Why should I do it?

When it comes to executing a fast sprint, a lot comes down to how many muscle fibres you can recruit at once. When you open up a sprint, an electrical signal is sent from your brain to each muscle fibre, which tells it to contract.

To optimise your sprint, you want to be able to fibre as many fibres at the same time as possible. More muscle fibres = more force, more force = more power, and more power = a faster sprint.

What is the session?

20 minutes warm-up – steady riding in zone two. This is important as sprinting is a big effort and not something you want to do on cold muscles.

5 x 12 second sprints

With your hands in the drops, roll along (in a slight tailwind, if possible) at around 15 mph (25kmph) in the small chainring and middle of the cassette (17-19t is perfect). Sprint at maximal intensity for 12s, aiming to keep as high a cadence as possible.

Take 5-6 minutes recovery easy riding between each effort

20 minutes cool down

Standing starts

Why should I do it?

There are two sides to sprinting – it’s a combination of leg speed and power – and the ability to push the biggest gear you can, as fast as you can, is going to make you go quickly.

We’ve already worked on leg speed in the cadence sprint session, so now it’s time to focus on how much force you can put through the pedals.

Doing sprints from a standing start gives you extra resistance to push against. It’s the same idea of weight training in the gym but the benefit of doing it on the bike is that you are training your muscles specifically to cycling. Once again, this session is also great for improving muscle fibre recruitment.

Lead-out sprints

Why should I do it?

If you think about when you might need to sprint, then chances are, unless you’re a kilo rider on the track, it’s going to be at the end of a hard effort. Think of a stage in the Tour de France; the peloton is in one long line riding at 60kmph+ before the sprint even starts. Therefore, it’s important to be able to sprint when you are already in the red.

That is exactly what this sessions tries to replicate with repeated 90 second efforts, of which the last 15 seconds is a flat out sprint. The first 75 seconds are designed to put you into the red and replicate the effort you will have to make before you kick-start the final sprint.

The one key area you should be focusing on in this session is how hard you kick at the start of the sprint – stamp down on the pedals as hard as you can and then try your best to hold it to the line. Don’t save anything in that initial kick.

A great example of this type of sprinting is with Mark Cavendish – he will put a couple of bike lengths into everyone in the first five seconds then hold that to the line. Once everyone is up to speed its difficult to make the difference – sprints can be won or lost in the initial kick.

What is the session?

20 minutes warm-up – steady riding in zone 2

5 x 90 s – the first 75 seconds should be in zone five, then kick as hard as you can and try and hold the speed until the 90s are up. Ideally in the first 75 seconds you will have a tail wind or be riding down a false flat. This helps to represent the speed you will encounter running into a sprint.

Take 5-6 minutes recovery easy riding between each effort

20 minutes cool down