Some useful notes from Australian Sprint Cycling Coach

a final word on this from me ...

I find the interest people have in very specific forms of advanced track training rather curious, as in fact most novice track racers need only to get much fitter than they are. I guess it depends on what they are really interested in - track as a vicarious pleasure, something to watch, and talk about, or something to actually do, and keep doing.

When I say fit, I mean it in two simple ways: lose weight and improve lung capacity. I have found that most people that try racing are, at first, overweight and generally lack the aerobic capacity to recover rapidly enough to cope with the frequent accelerations and duration of most HH races.

I speak of this not as a high level (and very successful!) cycle coach but as someone that has in the last three years raced regularly at Herne Hill, first as a novice rider and then as a moderately quick racer.

weights on leg press can vary greatly from sled to sled, those figures are impressive of course but then again shouldn't they be? We are talking about some of the worlds best female sprint athletes.

To put it in comparison my best slp is 260kg on a 45degree sled and 450 for 5 double and I'm 91kg! Lad i coach who has only been seriously weight training 4 months has hit 150slp and 300 double and he is 68kg.

As for being interested in elite training dulwichrider for the most part you are right, those who are novices need to ride their bikes more and make sure they are lean, however you can still pick up useful things from elite programs that when taken with common sense and the help of a coach or more knowledgeable rider can get you where you want to end up much quicker.

Couple of small points - losing weight does not make you fitter, it does however raise your power to weight ratio, making changes of pace and acceleration easier and should make you more aerodynamic ;-)

Also a higher lung capacity doesn't necessarily make you recover quicker by itself (which is why good testers often struggle with short rack races), thats also down to the bodies ability to cope with anaerobic work and tolerate and deal with its byproducts eg lactate.

sorry I don't mean to nit pick but I do think its impotent to consider what terms like fit mean, it then helps us have a greater understanding of what we are really training to do.

this guy sometimes races at HH. he's massively strong, huge gym-built quads etc. he rides round with the fastest guys for a lap. then he tails off badly, drops back and stops, pissed off. then I don't see him back for a month. he wonders what he's doing wrong ...

people want to be inspired by the elite racers, but few - I suspect - will ever have the time or motivation to do what is necessary to train like that. but I want everyone to race, enjoy it and keep coming back. as such, I boringly find myself advising simpler, longer-lasting training advice - get out of breath a lot! - so that people turn up at the track and find they can actually have a go and get involved.

well hopefully some one will either give him training advice or get him to try sprinting!!

HH is all endurance driven..

yeah, the big race on league nights is 20km ...

I guess if there's enough call for sprint categories, we'll get some

is Bryan Taylor still doing the program?

I do think its impotent to consider what terms like fit mean

Did you mean 'important'? If so, that's radically changed the sense of your sentence. Or is it something more worthy of psychoanalysis? Tell me about your relationship with your mother...

The two points I found most interesting were the dissing of the whole fit ball/pilates/yoga core strength stuff and the "if you hit a PB you go home" method.

what do you do if you hit a PB on the SwissBall?

Set up the Union Swissballistes Internationale.

I have no idea what I am capable of leg pressing ( correct term? ), having not been to a gym is 16 years. I guess it would be interesting to find out, but I would imagine it would not be very much though, as pure strength has never been one of my strengths. It was an interesting post, as I said in my response.

But I don't know enough about correct training, or have the time or inclination to follow a structured training program for a specific goal. I just do what works for me which is to cycle as quickly as possible as far as possible as often as possible. Although my recent purchase of a heart rate monitor has made me appreciate some of the science behind training for different events

what do you do if you hit a PB on the SwissBall?

+

=

?

Just to point out, im incredibly unfit, weak & slow. Thats how I came across the piece, researching training methods.

I have fucked lungs (70% capacity, damaged tissue & asthma) and I know ill never get good at endurance no matter what amount of work. Short sprint which rely on strength (which I dont yet have) is the best I can hope for.

So im focusing on strength work & explosiveness so I can be better at all round sport & get less injuries. Of course im doing riding too, fast interval type stuff.

Hopefully it means I can try out track riding later in the year and I can at least keep up with other newbies (thats very hopeful im really slow)

The articles got loads of invaluable information about sprint training that I find incredibly useful. And reinforces some of the things Ive started doing and points me in the right direction of what to do next.

Hmm. Not specifically talking about track, I've noticed some people get strong at the gym and wonder why they can't run/ride fast and get puffed out quickly. Equally I'm aware that I've been doing a lot of cardio work over the last few years, and while my endurance, speed and (latterly) cadence have all improved, my explosive power is now a bit lacking, so clearly I have to do some more strength work.

At a basic level, I think dulwichrider's right - you start by slimming down to a reasonable weight, riding your bike a lot (and fast) and you go from there. Once you start working on one skill or another you start having to compensate by doing other work - building your strength along with your cadence, or your endurance along with your speed. But once you've got to that stage you're already a bit further along the way, and even fairly rudimentary work (without all this talk of phosphate pathways and lactate processing) will help you perform.

I think once you're at the level that basic speed and strength drills aren't resulting in noticeable improvements, then all this metabolic stuff is probaly going to be quite useful (if you can parse it all...) But until then, just working at it sensibly (without getting caught up in all the details) is probably enough.

my take on a few points, most amateurs I see training don't train particularly well for the events they wish to compete in, they tend to spend too much time going what they think is hard but actually its usually a fair bit slower than the races they compete in and they pretty much neglect recovery all together. I believe you actually need to train more smartly the less time you have if you want to get results.

Specificity is the key, if you want to win track races you had better be able to recover quickly (interval training) have a fairly high top speed (sprint training with adequate rest) and have enough aerobic power to stay in the longer races (longer endurance training) yet most guys i see/speak to spend almost all they time going out on 2hr plus rides at 15/20 mph when even modest track races will be averaging 25mph plus. For most of us wanting to do well at a track league who have say 3 sessions a week to train after a 6-8 week road block of 3 x 2hrs a week i would say something along the lines of one fast group 2hr ride, one speed session aiming at high rpm and no longer than 500m efforts and one interval session a week would get them better results than just riding around flat out all the time. add a recovery session or two or either 30mins easy on rollers or 45-60 mins spinning in a very small gear on the road and you would be getting in very good shape.

Further easy to do points, eat well, as little processed food as possible, have a protein shake after every training session.

I don't believe any on the above is complicated or difficult to do and should bring fast and consistent results. Oh and only hit the gym if you want to be a sprinter or look good on the beach ;-)

That's probably the most useful piece of training advice I've seen on this site so far! Nice one.

Interesting what you say about not training hard/specific enough. Often I've seen new racers on the track be openly surprised at how hard they push it in a sprint. This frequently leads to (involuntary) shouting down the back straight!

Specificity is the key, if you want to win track races you had better be able to recover quickly (interval training) have a fairly high top speed (sprint training with adequate rest) and have enough aerobic power to stay in the longer races (longer endurance training) yet most guys i see/speak to spend almost all they time going out on 2hr plus rides at 15/20 mph when even modest track races will be averaging 25mph plus. For most of us wanting to do well at a track league who have say 3 sessions a week to train after a 6-8 week road block of 3 x 2hrs a week i would say something along the lines of one fast group 2hr ride, one speed session aiming at high rpm and no longer than 500m efforts and one interval session a week would get them better results than just riding around flat out all the time. add a recovery session or two or either 30mins easy on rollers or 45-60 mins spinning in a very small gear on the road and you would be getting in very good shape.

Further easy to do points, eat well, as little processed food as possible, have a protein shake after every training session.

That's very useful Lee. I've been meaning to ask you about this on the training rides.

As someone who hopes to race on the track for the first time this year, the above is a manageable (hopefully) programme that I can attempt to follow. I still think I'll struggle with the recovery rates on a full evening race programme. Must find more time to train!

yeah, the big race on league nights is 20km ...

45 odd laps..

sorry, but I'd rather have my testicles boiled in oil than do that. Even if I could keep up..

anything above a 12 lap scratch race becomes horrible to me, much prefer a straight fight instead of all that sneaking around.

I can manage 30 laps when we do rotation, then turn the last 5 into a race. last time we did that I nearly hung on the very fast guys till the end. still not my bag at all

I used to do those 20k races on 86" when i was young and stupid as traning......

If you were to do them again, now that you're older, what gear would you use?

90" but so wouldnt do them now!!

c'mon BMMF challenge him to a duel!?