Transform Your Sprint!
Sprinting is a unique aspect to the sport that a lot of cyclists struggle with. For some, sprinting comes naturally…your mind-muscle connection knows how to fire a massive load of torque through the pedals at one o’clock, while the same-sided arm flexes and pulls the bar up and backwards, all while balancing with the other side of your body.
In a fraction of a second, the opportunity for maximal force expires at the bottom of the pedal stroke, and the other side of the body takes over and does the exact same thing.
For others, it is like a baby giraffe on ice.
Cade Bickmore of Project Echelon shared these thoughts: The mind-muscle connection is really crucial for high impulse movements like sprinting. Really think about driving your legs down through your glutes and your quads and also driving that leg that's coming back around up through the knee, just like in running.
Let’s dive into all of the nuances of a sprint. And remember, the reason we sprint is to make the bike go faster—to RAPIDLY ACCELERATE. We want maximal torque with maximal leg speed.
Power = Torque x Cadence
Setting Up For A Sprint
Let’s quickly dissolve this misnomer because you can’t always “Set Up” for a sprint. Sometimes things in a race or group ride pop off before you can “get dialed”. This setup needs to become second nature; not something you can think through and queue up.
So, when we use the term “set up for the sprint”, this is Ground Zero for where we want to teach your body to get to in order to SNAP OFF your best sprint possible under the race conditions.
Starting a Sprint: Gearing, Hand Position, Body Tension
For a sprint, you want to come right over the top of the pedal stroke and hit it with maximum force. Push all of the torque into that pedal, while PULLING up/back on the bars with the hand on the same side.
Gearing: this probably deserves to be a section all its own. If you aren’t in the right gear, the entire point of a sprint can be ruined. Too hard of a gear and you won’t have the POP to get moving quickly.
Too easy of a gear and you don’t have enough torque to move quickly over the first 5 seconds of the sprint.
Torque first, then leg speed.
How do you find the right gear for the sprint? PRACTICE. Practice sprints on slight uphills, slight downhills, roads with slight curves (where you can still see down the road), off camber portions of road, etc etc. As you practice, you will start to be able to feel the tension of the chain and each gear, and you will intuitively know, “I can start a sprint/acceleration from here”.
This skill is invaluable.
Hand position: your hands shouldn’t be at the very end of the drops…that would only allow you to pull upwards. You want your hands to be on the curved portion of the bar underneath the hood, so that you can pull towards your core. Maintain the tension so that as you pull up, you counteract the force applied as you are pushing down on the pedals.
Core Engagement: you’ll hear people mention that we should engage our core for a sprint, which is true, but there’s actually a massive load of tension through the entire body for a sprint. Instead, for those of you that strength train, consider the tension that you place in your body as you deadlift. As you initially pull on the bar before putting the entire lift in motion, that “tension set up” is exactly what you want to bring to your sprint.
As we mentioned before, you won’t always have time to mentally queue through all of this and “set up”. The goal is that when your brain thinks “Time to sprint!”, you naturally deliver the necessary tension through your body.
Also, your core should not be twisting side to side. You need to utilize the tension throughout this whole portion of your body as you are sprinting.
Technique: Cadence and Shifting
It’s important to note that technique changes over time: the beginning of the sprint is different from the end of a sprint.
Cadence: The start is HIGH TORQUE, full smashing, no gear shifts. Your cadence will probably be around 90 rpm.
As you continue to sprint, cadence will naturally increase, and you should wind it out around 110-120 rpm…if you can avoid shifting, great, that is the fastest way to go from point A to B. This might not be possible though, and shifting will be necessary.
Shifting: You barely lay off the gas and it feels as if you are hovering over the gear. When you hear it shift down, you then lay on the gas again. This will take some practice, but just as finding the right gear becomes second nature, learning to shift through the sprint becomes more and more natural.
Sprint Workouts
Before we start hitting the big watts, don’t forget to warm up! Complete some easy sprints at 400w, 600W, 800w. Get the neuromuscular patterns firing at lower wattages, and then try to go full send with them during your interval set.
Alex Kirsch of Lidl-Trek: "Sprint training is something that is very hard to simulate. If you want to simulate a proper sprint like in a race, you would basically need to ride hard for one or two kilometres and then increase the speed all the way to almost 60 kmh—that gives you the different torque, the different speed, different cadence and different heart rate!"
Low Cadence Sprints: Try some low cadence sprints to feel all these microdynamics in slow motion. Get into a big gear and sprint: take note of the dynamics between pushing the pedals, pulling on the bars, and the full body tension, especially in the core and upper body.
Seated Sprints: huge notation that you probably have already picked up on, but for maximal wattage and speed, you don’t want to be sitting down for the final sprint. However, there are still many intermediate “sprints” that take place—following moves, huge surges when still in the pack, etc. While these Seated Sprint Intervals are designed to help with these scenarios, we also find that many athletes see benefit from the leg speed utilized in this workout and it carries over to their standing sprint work.
Advanced Workout: When the basics are nailed, you want to ensure that you can sprint in the most aerodynamic position possible. Do this with friends to see where you can get more aerodynamic, film it, or run some speed tests if you have a usual loop that you can use.
Cade Bickmore of Project Echelon emphasized the importance of aerodynamics.
Aerodynamics are more critical the faster you are going, which is normally when the sprint is taking place. In order to win, you have to come OUT of the draft, so aerodynamics play a huge part in sprinting if you want to win! It's important to find a position that gets you low. Make sure not to sacrifice your stability though! It's easy to try to get too low and end up with weight way over the front wheel which is not good - always make sure you're in a position to make an evasive maneuver. Also make sure you have those elbows out a little bit and bent so you can absorb some bumping - rubbing's racing! When contact is imminent, try to transition it from your elbow to your shoulder - your shoulder is much more stable and more separated from your bars.
So get aero but don’t allow yourself to get knocked to the deck!
Luke Lamperti, professional cyclist from Soudal-Quickstep, uses his rides with friends instead of a specific workout. "Most of my sprint training actually is to city limit signs... the best way to train is sprinting against someone you're training with. It's really hard to get a max sprint just out riding.
Positioning for the Sprint - Less Watts, Better Result
If you are a bike racer, and not just someone looking to increase your sprint watts, then this really could be the start of the article, because if you don’t have a good position to start your sprint, the watts are irrelevant!
There are many scenarios that can affect where you want to be positioned for the final sprint, but most of the time we talk about “How many wheels back” you should be. A few things that affect this are the speed of the finish, how close the final turn is to the finish, wind direction, size of lead outs, etc.
We could talk on and on about positioning, but one huge thing we want to drive home is from sprint legend, Greg Henderson, who preached Position Over Power on the podcast.
"Position over power. And so what does position over power mean? It means get in the position that you are able to sprint from, a top five position. You have to be within the top five at 200 or you've got no chance these days."
So while this article is all about the development of better sprint technique to increase your sprint watts, we would be remiss in not mentioning that positioning is just as important, if not MORE important, than the maximal watts!
Another thing is to realize that the “final sprint” might include a few sprints within that, and it is imperative that you go with these moves to obtain the best position, even if it knocks 100-200W off your final sprint. Remember, that bigger watts but a worse position won’t mean a better result!!
Lastly, be confident! Luke Lamperti had this to say: “A lot of the sport, and then especially sprinting, is confidence. When you have that confidence and the ball is rolling, you're halfway there, even if the fitness isn't. Just having that confidence is huge."
About Brendan Housler
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