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How to do sprint workouts?

Many people are asking about sprint workouts.

Check this guide to master your sprints/finishes to perfection.

Sprints are “must” at criterium, track racing.
Sprint is the most important track skill.

1. But how to do it?

 

Below you can see one of the sprint workouts. (more advanced level 2-3 years experience).

Start with 10 – 20 min warm-up, in 1 zone. Maximum getting to the second zone adding some high cadence, low gear 30s – 60s high cadence intervals to pump more blood to legs.

After the warm-up, do one maximum 8s sprint to finalized warm-up.

5 min easy spin (Zone 1).

Here we start workout so plan is to do 3 x 4 x 8s – 10s maximum sprints.

2. What is that mean?

 

So first do a set of 4 jumps by 8s with 2 min recovery between (below 100 W).

After one set, take longer “break” around 5 min, take some drink and eat something sweet.

Then do second set and third set, getting to 10s, but the third set, do as long as you can hold your watts (When to stop intervals). After all, do 10 – 15 min. easy spin.

If you doing your first sprints, start with 4 x 8s intervals and full recovery between around 2-2,5 min. 10s jumps are building your fast twitch fiber and they don’t produce lactate in your muscles, you can do it whole year long. It will help you to increase your maximum power, hold wheel during attacks, finish the last 200m during criterium or track events.

3. How to do sprints?

 

Another important thing is technique, it is just 10s and you need to put every single watt into pedals.

One of my tricks is to hold upper body as stiff as possible and then pull my hands up and back and push my legs down and forward straight to pedals.

There is no movement on sides just back and forward. It can take you around half season to figure out how to do it and you have to practice at least once a week get into it naturally, so be patient.

Leave a comment if you have any questions!

Coach Damian

Damian is a head coach and founder of Cyklopedia, which was created with one goal to help everyone be faster cyclists by structured training plans, healthy recipes, and nutrition plans. Damian is racing and coaching for over 10 years, working with athletes all around the world.

4 Comments

  • Avatar Francois K says:

    How to know the watt for each 8s-10s sprint from your recommended workout?
    I have reproduced it in Zwift as a custom workout.

    It is for sure more than Z6…. but in Zwift I must set a value … or do I simply set the free ride of 8-10s and go to my max power each time..?

    Or I should do one single sprint of 8-10s to my max and check the watt there in order to deduce a % of that value for my intervals like 80-90% of it?

    • Coach Damian Coach Damian says:

      Hello Francois, it’s a good question.
      When you are trying to improve your maximum power, every one of those sprints should be done at maximum. Imagine that every sprint is a finish of world championships and put everything you got. That the way to improve maximum power. I hope it helps

  • Avatar Betting Exchange says:

    I appreciate the practical tips provided in this blog post “How to do sprint workouts?”. The actionable advice and step-by-step instructions make it easy for readers to implement the suggested strategies. Kudos to the author.

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