Recently, after losing yet another Zwift race which finished in a pack sprint, I had an epiphany: my sprint sucks.
It’s all relative, of course. ZwiftPower shows my 15s power today as 878W (10.7 w/kg.) If you look at the top 20 B racers on Zwift, they probably average around 1150W, and around 13.5 w/kg. That’s a big difference.
This first epiphany was followed by a second: I’ve never really trained my sprint. Sure, I lead the Pacific Sprintapalooza ride every Friday morning. But that has always been more about timing my sprint, drafting smart, and using my powerup at just the right time. I’ve done a lot of aerobic endurance, VO2, and sweet spot work. But I’ve never actually trained to improve my sprint power or duration… and it shows.
The Big Idea
So I’ve decided to start a training project, and I’m calling it “Sprintbooster” since the goal is to increase my maximal and 15s sprint power by 20%.
Boone is riding next to me as I write this, and he says 20% is too much because I’m already well-trained. He says 10%. I guess we’ll find out soon enough…
To meet my goal, I’ll complete a variety of workouts and training including:
- Gym work (strength training): deadlifts, squats, and anything else that will help my sprint
- On the bike work
- Cadence: power is a product of torque and pedal velocity. Being able to pedal at a higher cadence increases the velocity side of the equation.
- Force: working on pure pedal force (low cadence work like standing starts or tractor pulls) increases the torque part of the power equation.
- Form: working on seated and out of the saddle form to maximize sprint power.
I’ve already done a fair amount of research on the topic of sprinting, and have identified key areas of improvement including increasing my cadence in standing sprints, “exploding” faster/harder, and strengthening my core.
While the project is underway I’ll continue researching all things sprinting by talking to coaches, reading articles, and watching videos. The information is out there – I just need to find it and apply it. And you’ll get to benefit from my research, as I’ll share the useful stuff I find in upcoming posts!
4-Week Sprintbooster Plan
Phase 1 of the project will be 4 weeks long. Here’s the plan:
- Week 1 (Feb 7-13)
- Baseline tests for maximal and 15s power (including video recording)
- 1 gym strength session: 3-5 reps in 3-5 sets at 85-95% of my one-rep max
- Bike workout: 5 sets of 5×30/30 (30s maximal, 30s recovery), with 4 minutes of recovery in between each set.
- Bike workout: standing starts. Start in a decently hard gear at 0 rpm, then spin it up at maximal effort to 100 rpm. Repeat 3x seated, 3x standing.
- Week 2 (Feb 14-20)
- 1-2 gym strength sessions
- Bike workout: jumps. Start in an easyish gear and spin it up to my maximum cadence, then hold that for 10 seconds. Repeat. Mix standing and seated.
- Bike workout: 5 sets of 3×15/45, where each set of sprints is followed by 4 minutes just over FTP, then 3 minutes of recovery.
- Bike workout: torque intervals (4 sets of 4 minutes at FTP at 50 cadence with 5 minutes recovery in between each set)
- Week 3 (Feb 21-27)
- 2 gym strength sessions
- Bike workout: jumps. Start in an easyish gear and spin it up to my maximum cadence, then hold that for 10 seconds. Repeat. Mix standing and seated.
- Bike workout: torque intervals (4 sets of 4 minutes at FTP at 50 cadence with 5 minutes recovery in between each set)
- Bike workout: standing starts. Start in a decently hard gear at 0 rpm, then spin it up at maximal effort to 100 rpm. Repeat 4x seated, 4x standing.
- Week 4 (Feb 28-Mar 7)
- 2 gym strength sessions
- Bike workout: jumps. Start in an easyish gear and spin it up to my maximum cadence, then hold that for 10 seconds. Repeat. Mix standing and seated.
- Bike workout: 6 sets of 3×15/45, where each set of sprints is followed by 4 minutes just over FTP, then 3 minutes of recovery.
- Finish line tests for maximal and 15s power (including video recording)
This will evolve as time goes on, but I’ll document all of that in upcoming posts.
Questions, Comments, Tips?
Got anything worth sharing? I’d love to read some sprintboosting tips you may have! Want to join me on my Sprintboosting quest? Comment below.
This is advice for anyone looking to copy Eric’s plan. When you are in the gym doing deadlifts or squats, make sure you have the correct form before lifting heavy.
If you haven’t been lifting, expect to be unable to do much quality work for a few-several days after your first session. I’m sure we’ll at least get some humorous descriptions of challenges involving stairs.
4 weeks is enough time to make neuromuscular adaptations i.e. take advantage of what’s already there…I bet if you continue with longer-term training you’ll have the ability to make more gains than you do in the next month.
6 weeks + for lasting change
I’ll save it for me. I’ll do it in future
A part often overlooked when people try to improve their sprint is the core and the arms. I see Eric has a point on working on his core strength, but I can’t emphasize this enough: Your core and upper body strength will help you boost your sprint massively. Really, at the point Eric is at, the bike work isn’t going to boost the sprint all that much, the squats and core work are. The stronger your core and upper body is, the less your leg muscles have to work to just hold you up, thus enabling them to put more power into the sprint.
Another good sprint booster workout is to start at relatively normal cadence, then shift down to a good low cadence (say 60rpm) and “stomp” at a fairly high power for 10sec. The goal is change from low torque high cadence to high torque low cadence as fast as possible. You won’t come close to hitting your peak power, but training your muscles to respond to sudden changes in torque and cadence will improve your acceleration and ability to sprint when caught in a low gear.
Awesome. My sprint ain’t bad, but I’ve been looking to improve it. Thanks for posting this!
Since you put so much effort into the community! A few suggestions:
Its all about the gym both for pmax and a decent chunk of glycotic system development.
Second only to the gym is rest. have long rests between your sprints. don’t over train yourself generally, nothing will put your watts in a hole like fatigue. High quality work and rest build power.
Unless you are relatively experienced in the gym, don’t anchor yourself off a 1rm test with % based programming for a 4-5 week block, you are likely to be capable of faster progress than % based programming will schedule.
Also 85-95% is also too high – %85 is pretty much 0 RiR for a set of 5 (ExRx.net : Predicting One-rep Max), you don’t want to be lifting this close to failure (but the rep range overall is right) you will build terrible form and probably injure yourself. Look up a novice program, something like greyskull LP and hack the legs bit out of it – the AMRAP stuff is actually a pretty sophisticated autoregulatory method for someone fresh to squats and will let you maximise the gains you are capable of starting out with the barbell.
Strength work is very similar to endurance, in that if you go completely to failure you don’t actually get that much additional cellular signaling for growth and just massively ramp up the training stress / injury potential, don’t push to the limit until you have a really solid squat pattern and confidence with the weights. Having said that always (even on warm-ups) lift with maximal intent (fastest bar speed you can).
Whilst barbell/strength work is basically z2 equivalent for sprinters (on bike sprinting just won’t add that many watts for very long, you just have to get stronger – fibre type is b/s How do track sprint cyclists train, Tokyo Olympics, and W’ research findings with Mehdi Kordi, PhD | EP#307 (scientifictriathlon.com)). Its actually single leg strength that will have the tightest correlation to your on bike max watts. Its also all about quad strength so if you leg press keep the feet low. If you want the magic sauce for single legs imho, its this Supported Bulgarian Split Squat, Hatfield Style – YouTube.
trap bar deadlifts have much better carry over to the bike vs oly bar fwiw.
upupup (Up! Up! Up! — Up! Up! Up! An introduction to track sprint cycling (aboc.com.au)) is still a great resource to start from.
Thanks so much for taking the time to compose this reply, Robert. One reason I posted this article was because I hoped knowledgeable folks would comment with valuable advice. Looks like it worked!
I’m definitely going to be careful in the gym, especially in these first weeks. My hunch is my back is pretty week (thanks to not working it out consistently… ever… and working a desk job). I definitely want to avoid overdoing it there.
I’m a fan of the Bulgarian Split Squat, but have only ever done them with fairly light dumbells in hand. That Hatfield variation looks killer.
I started a lifting program in December with squats and dead lifts and some upper body based off of “Starting Strength” – many many videos on youtube. The key to their program (which is based on 3 days a week) is just add 5 lbs every session- your work sets will increase 60 lbs in a month. You start at a low weight and hone your technique as the weight increases. Without ever increasing training stress you won’t increase your max lift.
The “one rep max” for an untrained beginner is a moving target, it will increase rapidly as a result of the training and improving technique.
Looking forward to hearing about this, good luck Eric! I would consider adding in some plyometrics once a week if you have the time, especially as you’re reasonably trained in sprinting.
Good post! I bet there are a lot of people in the same boat, who never trained their sprint.
I’ll take Boone’s bet and believe you‘ll reach your goal of +20% and then some. Sprint power can increase super fast when you really focus on it! Mine tends to drop to +/- 1000W peak if I just ride/race, but improves 25-50% when I focus on specific sprint training (strength and form). The 15s values improve even stronger…
Read Friel on gym work, as has been commented, your wk1 will kill you with doms and you haven’t allowed for an adaptation phase as a warmup to lifting big. Doing heavy stuff straight away will certainly kill any explosiveness on the bike, not to mention motivation as it will likely seem counter productive. Why not work on light stuff first and add in box jumps etc to boost neuromuscular focus and work with what you have.
Agreed. You may want a couple easy weeks on bike while you build up to lifting. When I go to two days in the gym my on bike is more base focused. You’ll get more gains in the gym than on the bike for a sprint anyway. I second the needs for upper body strength especially on a rocker plate.
Noted! I’ll check out Friel’s stuff… I’ve got the book.
I’ve been doing strength training for 4 years now (the main 5 lifts). I have just started cycling (but only using zwift), it’s been a bit over 6 months now. From my experience with strength training and cycling I’d say:
a. Strength is probably not going to be as helpful as you think, what you are after is power. With that, you should probably be looking into power cleans and power snatches instead of deadlifts and squats. Now, training DL and squats would also increase your power (even though the opposite doesn’t stand true). But if what you are really after is optimal improvement of your sprint, then increasing your power, rather than strength, will probably give you the best bang for your buck.
b. I don’t think anything under 6-12 months of consistent (3-5 days per week) strength and/or power training will give you much of a tangible outcome. These are definitely long term things and not something you can get around with a couple weeks, not even for a marginal improvement.
In terms of power vs strength, as many confuse that, strength is your ability to move mass over space, it doesn’t matter if it moves very slow. A DL, for example, is typically a very slow lift. Power in other hand, is about moving loads through space as fast as you can. In a power clean, the faster you move the bar, the higher it goes, allowing you to catch it. I’m pretty sure improving your clean and snatch will have a direct transfer to your sprint.
NOTE: I’ve been also training power snatches and cleans over the past 2 years. They have definitely helped me out with explosiveness overall, particularly for Muay Thai and sprints (running).
I’m not sure this is the best advice for Eric’s situation. You were a lifter coming to cycling but he’s the opposite. He will get massive benefit from adding these core lifts. Think of it like building base strength and breaking out of his plateau by varying his muscle loads. Lots of research supports this. Any track cyclist can tell you sprint power gains are all in the gym.
A DYEL-cyclist would spend a month just working on technique for olympic lifts, and never get much in much hypertrophy or even neuromuscular adaptations.
This is great stuff: This is one of the areas where it would be of great help if you could refer to more stuff to read and watch. Hands-on tutorials on youtube would be awesome. It is a bit difficult to reproduce, even though you explain it really well. Thanks in all cases!
Since you put so much effort into the community – a few suggestions from a track sprinter, your program is better than not doing anything but there are definitely some issues in it:
Its all about the gym both for pmax and a decent chunk of glycotic system development.
Second only to the gym is rest. have long rests between your sprints. don’t over train yourself generally, nothing will put your watts in a hole like fatigue. High quality work and rest build power.
Unless you are relatively experienced in the gym (and it reads that this is fresh training to you), don’t anchor yourself off a 1rm test with % based programming for a 4-5 week block, you are likely to be capable of faster progress than % based programming will schedule.
Also 85-95% is also too high – %85 is pretty much 0 RiR for a set of 5 (look up some rep tables on exrx), you don’t want to be lifting this close to failure (but the rep range overall is right) you will build terrible form and probably injure yourself. Look up a novice program, something like greyskull LP and hack the legs bit out of it – the AMRAP stuff is actually a pretty sophisticated autoregulatory method for someone fresh to squats and will let you maximise the gains you are capable of starting out with the barbell.
Strength work is very similar to endurance, in that if you go completely to failure you don’t actually get that much additional cellular signaling for growth and just massively ramp up the training stress / injury potential, don’t push to the limit until you have a really solid squat pattern and confidence with the weights. Having said that always (even on warm-ups) lift with maximal intent (fastest bar speed you can).
Whilst barbell/strength work is basically z2 equivalent for sprinters (on bike sprinting just won’t add that many watts for very long, you just have to get stronger – fibre type and sprints is just historic nonsense, look up the latest papers by mehdi kordi who knows what he is doing). Its actually single leg strength that will have the tightest correlation to your on bike max watts. Its also all about quad strength so if you leg press keep the feet low. If you want the magic sauce for single legs imho, its had supported bulgarian split squats hatfield style with a safety bar (needs a google).
Trap bar deadlifts have much better carry over to the bike vs oly bar fwiw.
Ignore plyometrics or explosive olympic lifts, you will get power stimulus from squat warms up sets with intent, the technicality of the oly lifts is very consuming and RFD training is just no required anywhere near the start of sprinting training.
upupup (online book by carl brewer, google will find it) is still a great resource to start from.
For someone not lifting that much weight why the safety bar vs holding dumbbells? I can’t split squat more weight than I can hold anyway. Just curious.
It enables the ‘hatfield’ variation which is the (very light!) handhold to keep the torso upright (quad focus) and also takes the balance out of the equation, making it safer and easier to just concentrate on the velocity. The bar itself is also shifting your balance forward and you really want to get as much quad focus as you can.
Its possible to develop a quite powerlifty squat pattern where the drive is posterior chain/hip dominant, shins are very vertical. Good for your 1rm in the gym but will limit your carryover to the bike.
Don’t get me wrong, standard squats are necessary for total strength, just doing single leg will put a lower ceiling on your maximal strength but its the unilateral stuff that is really bike specific. You should have a bilateral deficit of about 75% (so what you can lift single leg is about 75% of your two leg lifts), much less than this and you would see much more benefit from a single leg block, about that range and just do some post main squat sets to keep the wiring going.
Thanks for the response. I’ll give it a go this week. Hit my limit for what my back can safely handle squat wise so this alternative is very appealing.
there is definitely a squat cult out there in the weight room but leg press works almost as well for bike power. Its worth looking at belt squats (which really takes the back out of it) if you can hack together a machine/lever that will work or have access to a specialist machine. try/borrow a proper belt too, you might find with a belt and proper bracing you find a new level of back/core strength for squats
pps, everyone is right you will just have mad DOMS for days starting out this way. its a few weeks of progressive barbell work before you should even try and go near maximal. I honestly shudder if I’m reading this right that someone has you trying to do a 1rm block benchmark if you don’t have significant squat experience!
you have waaayy to many reps in your sprint sets though you will find this out anyway! You are going to need 10-15mins rest (spin at 50w or just fart around at your desk doing some work) between each rep fwiw.
the 50rpm torque stuff is going to do very little for you. the whole program should be weights/accelerations (multiple durations in one session is fine/great) and capacity/power (long duration flat out sprints like sprintapalooza, 20-40s, but with more rest at lower power inbetween). If you do any cadence stuff make it flat out max rpm for 20-30s, really try to ‘pedal smooth circles’ rather than just stamp as fast as you can. This stuff turns the barbell strength into on bike power via. wiring in the movement pattern, maximum stamp speed is not the way to make that happen.
I would experiment with your technique quite a bit Eric, watch some videos of others producing high power. My general strength certainly hasn’t improved since I began riding indoors, but my sprint numbers have. Just from refining technique and generally being more aggressive
If your watts have gone up, you have to have gotten stronger. If you are not in the weight room give it a go, it will definitely add much more to your sprint.
Just a simple linear progression of squats or leg press followed by sets of single leg work x2 a week (ideally right before a rest day) and the power will come far far quicker than with just turbo sprinting.
Single leg lifts are a track sprinter’s best friend. Just saying.
This is the way
This is a very timely article for me. It’s become increasingly apparent that my sprint needs improvement. I’m going to integrate these suggestions into my training plan over the same time period and see if I can move the needle on my sprint capabilities.
Do you have a target % of ftp for the 5X30/30 and 3X15/45 interval days (or just max sustainable, figure it out as you go?) Those sound more VO2 max since 30-45s recovery is not sufficient recovery for full sprint efforts even if only doing 3-5 repeats per set. Very hard efforts put close enough together become an aerobic workout is basically what I am getting at.
Would you consider single intervals at full sprint for say 15-20s, then a good 4-5 minutes recovery between each at 50-60% and just do 8 intervals, something like a 45min to 60 min session with mark up and cool down.
Eric, I’m in the same boat! Would you be willing to make available your .ZWO workout files as you go along? Looking forward to this series.
Get a BMX bike
Zwift is pretty weird compared to IRL on the road and probably has a lot of it’s own considerations for sprint training.
The biggest thing I can think of, and maybe it’s specific to certain trainers, is smaller gear high cadence working better. Think track sprinters spinning it out at 180rpm-200rpm+. For some reason bigger gear road style sprinting bogs down in an ERG like way on some machines where you can’t get to spin out, Zwift just keeps adding resistance that you don’t get in real life.
So if getting smaller gear high RPM works better with your machine, then pedaling smoothness to get the high RPM -like track sprinter RPM- is critical and after the initial jump you’re looking at seated sprinting.
Exactly. Personally i find the lack of side to side movement (coupled with pulling back in counter balance) is leaving out a good amount of power. My best sprinting locked on the trainer is usually in the 130+ RPM range for that reason.
One thing I’m curious about is do you want to increase your sprint power when you’re fully rested or at the end an hour long race? I find as my overall fitness / FTP increases, my end of race sprint power goes up, even though my max rested power hasn’t changed. I assume this is because I’m not as tired from the first 59 mins of the race.
Eric, I feel your pain. I honestly feel that I have one of the worst sprints of any Zwift racer. I lose every single race in the sprint. What’s odd is that I FEEL like I’m going to snap my crank and tear the bar off my bike … then I check and see that 52/12 only got me a smidge above 10wkg for fifteen at a cadence in the mid 80 rpm range (when I felt fur sure I was pushing 100). It’s seriously like my Kickr flywheel won’t hold the torque I need, and after a few seconds my power nose dives by over 200w. Drives me insane! I can’t keep blaming my trainer, seeing as it’s the same thing over three Kickrs. Needless to say, I’ll be keeping an eye on your training and progress. One thing to add, though, to the weights … Bulgarian Split Squats!
Eric, This article couldn’t be better well timed. I am in a very similar situation as you. 10.2 15 sec power but excel more at 5m (4.7) and 20m (4.1). I can usually finish near the front just not #1. I think I’ll follow your plan just one week behind!
Hi Eric, thanks for the programm.
Just wondering.
We can see your power curve before the training.
What was the power curve after the 4 weeks?
Did your 1s power improve?
Or were you able to hold the +1000W now longer (15s or even more)
Would be nice if you can add it and it completes your post.
Just to know If you can really make a big difference in just 4 weeks.
Kind regards,
Tom