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What do you do in the off season?

Old 08-29-17, 12:25 PM
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dijos
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What do you do in the off season?

I'm new to the trackj this season, I'm just getting my groove on, but Major taylor is going to close for track, and open for cross. Besides lifting, and roller work, do you do any road work? A guy I ride with wants to show me lead-outs and some other things on a stretch of road that should be perfect for developing skills. I don't know what else I can do to stay ok for next year.
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Old 08-29-17, 12:52 PM
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Originally Posted by dijos
I'm new to the trackj this season, I'm just getting my groove on, but Major taylor is going to close for track, and open for cross. Besides lifting, and roller work, do you do any road work? A guy I ride with wants to show me lead-outs and some other things on a stretch of road that should be perfect for developing skills. I don't know what else I can do to stay ok for next year.
Not really sure how roadie lead-outs will train you for track racing. Actually, I'd advise against learning road/crit tactics for use on the track (as has been mentioned before). Lead-outs are very different on the track and lead-out trains simply don't exist. The closest thing to a lead-out on the track is simply providing cover for your teammate to draft off of you leading up to a final sprint. Basically, you burn all of your matches and don't pull off and let other people pull. Or you two (or more) trading pulls during a breakaway. This should be trained on the track.

Basically, just spend the off-season working on strength and conditioning. Save the skills work for the track. The only exception being learning to carry a high cadence for long periods of time (not sure if this is considered skill or conditioning or simply both), but that can happen on the rollers.

As a bonus, watch the hundreds of hours of track racing videos that are available on YouTube. Pick a race like a Keirin or a Scratch and note the winner, then watch what he does 3 laps before the finish. Next, do the same for the 2nd and 3rd place riders. Now note the guy/lady that you thought was gonna win but finished off of the podium. Watch what they did 3 laps out. This will teach you what works and what doesn't work when the riders are evenly matched.

At all levels of racing, greater ability usually beats greater tactics most of the time. But when the riders are evenly matched on ability, then tactics decide who wins and who loses.
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Old 08-29-17, 03:47 PM
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Originally Posted by carleton
At all levels of racing, greater ability usually beats greater tactics most of the time. But when the riders are evenly matched on ability, then tactics decide who wins and who loses.
I have to disagree on this one. At my best I was pretty strong but generally not among the strongest riders in the field most of the time (certainly with some exceptions in some local races) and had a lot of success beating people who were significantly faster or stronger than me by racing smarter. Training your brain is very important in mass start racing.

(edit to say that I know quite a few other racers who succeeded as much or more on tactics as on strength & speed. IIRC Jamie Carney even said something to that effect on the old FixedGearFever site about Colby Pearce , who apparently didn't have great numbers but was/is a great racer for a long time)

(another edit to add that a certain level of fitness & speed is the price of admission to any particular level, but there can be big variations within a level among the people who do well)
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Old 08-29-17, 06:51 PM
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I think you are both right to an extent.

As one person said to me, if you're looking at a half second difference in 200s, tactics will decide the sprint.

But as another said, your tactics may be great, but they're never going to make up for 1s.
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Old 08-29-17, 07:31 PM
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And then you get the guys that can't qualify well. I did a sprint GP round robin type thing and was racing a guy that qualified 0.1 faster than me. He then proceeded to clock a time 0.5 faster in the timed 200m of our race! Where the *&%$ did that come from??? He came over and apologised saying he could never seem to qualify well!

As for off season, it all depends where you're at and what you do/like to do race wise. These last couple of years I've gotten some great assistance and am having a good go at concentrating on sprinting. So I had about a full month off, did some road rides and then hammered the trainer and slotted in some gym ready for this coming season. I've also found zwift to be interesting and another tool to keep the off season blues at bay
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Old 08-29-17, 07:57 PM
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Originally Posted by topflightpro
I think you are both right to an extent.

As one person said to me, if you're looking at a half second difference in 200s, tactics will decide the sprint.

But as another said, your tactics may be great, but they're never going to make up for 1s.
In a match sprint you're probably not going to make up a full second, but in a slightly longer race you most certainly can. One of my favorite examples was a 6 up, 6 lap scratch race at Encino where everybody had me in a 200 by at least 1s, and a few of them 2s. They all spent most of the race staring at each other with nobody wanting to spend the energy to close the gaps I kept opening and then the race ended with them all a quarter lap back.
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Old 08-29-17, 10:31 PM
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Originally Posted by bitingduck
I have to disagree on this one. At my best I was pretty strong but generally not among the strongest riders in the field most of the time (certainly with some exceptions in some local races) and had a lot of success beating people who were significantly faster or stronger than me by racing smarter. Training your brain is very important in mass start racing.

(edit to say that I know quite a few other racers who succeeded as much or more on tactics as on strength & speed. IIRC Jamie Carney even said something to that effect on the old FixedGearFever site about Colby Pearce , who apparently didn't have great numbers but was/is a great racer for a long time)

(another edit to add that a certain level of fitness & speed is the price of admission to any particular level, but there can be big variations within a level among the people who do well)
I think we are saying the same thing.

As dijos progresses from CAT 4 to 3, 2, and possibly 1, the ability gap gets smaller and smaller as the riders become more evenly matched because as you wisely state, "a certain level of fitness & speed is the price of admission to any particular level."

We've all seen the new CAT 3/4/5 rider who is simply really strong either by virtue of coming from another cycling discipline or from another sport just walk all over the field until (s)he makes it to about CAT2 and starts to face others with similar strength. Then they lose a lot before they begin to win even just a little.

I guess the bigger takeaway from my post is that learning tactics by "watching tape" is valuable at all levels of racing. And if you are the fast CAT 3/4/5 racer that's eating up your field, you will have to learn good tactics to get to the next level.
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Old 08-29-17, 10:37 PM
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Originally Posted by brawlo
And then you get the guys that can't qualify well. I did a sprint GP round robin type thing and was racing a guy that qualified 0.1 faster than me. He then proceeded to clock a time 0.5 faster in the timed 200m of our race! Where the *&%$ did that come from??? He came over and apologised saying he could never seem to qualify well!

As for off season, it all depends where you're at and what you do/like to do race wise. These last couple of years I've gotten some great assistance and am having a good go at concentrating on sprinting. So I had about a full month off, did some road rides and then hammered the trainer and slotted in some gym ready for this coming season. I've also found zwift to be interesting and another tool to keep the off season blues at bay
I have a better story:

My final 200M split from a standing 333 is FASTER than my flying 200. Meaning, I can go from 0mph at the start/finish line and do a standing start and have my final 200m timed and beat my flying 200M using a full windup.

I have power files, splits, results from where I rode Team Sprint and Flying 200s at the same event on multiple occasions to prove this. It's crazy.

I'm obviously doing something very wrong in my flying 200m, but I haven't figured it out. So, yeah, I'm similar to the guy in your story.

I have theories as to why.
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Old 08-30-17, 12:02 AM
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Originally Posted by carleton
I have a better story:

My final 200M split from a standing 333 is FASTER than my flying 200. Meaning, I can go from 0mph at the start/finish line and do a standing start and have my final 200m timed and beat my flying 200M using a full windup.

I have power files, splits, results from where I rode Team Sprint and Flying 200s at the same event on multiple occasions to prove this. It's crazy.

I'm obviously doing something very wrong in my flying 200m, but I haven't figured it out. So, yeah, I'm similar to the guy in your story.

I have theories as to why.
I was the same. I think that guys who can qualify fast are "speedy". Having a high top end, they are the Man 2 types when it comes to a team sprint. Myself I was never like that. There are sprinters that are "torque-ier", and do well off of standing starts and being able to stay on top of a gear at the end of a Kilo. A more sudden, but flatter power development. That's the category that I fell into. I think if I were to get back into the game, I would have to roll a much bigger gear in qualifying than in the matches.

As far as off-season work, I played lots of hockey growing up, which was great training. Once I got out of that to focus on one sport, the off-season was about weights and rollers, with low level cardio done as whatever outdoor activity I felt like doing. My winters would be spent with a month off, just allowing my body to recover, and then I would slowly add in the riding and the weights over a couple of weeks. Winter was a time to focus on strength and cadence, later marrying the two together over the course of the pre-season.
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Old 08-30-17, 05:31 AM
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You guys.

It goes both ways.

Sometimes, having good tactics is enough to beat faster riders. Sometimes it's not. The difference is that more speed can make up a bigger tactical hole than "more tactics" can make up a bigger speed hole. I've beaten some faster riders... and I've also hit my head against the wall racing for 6th place against MUCH faster riders.

Meanwhile... in the offseason... get faster.
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Old 08-30-17, 08:58 AM
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Outside of pursuit work and weekly racing, I spend almost all of my time riding on the road. Personally, now that nationals are done for me, I plan on getting in base miles on my road bike, playing more bike polo, riding my mountain bike, riding my bmx bike, lifting weights in the gym, practicing yoga, and maybe some running? lol. Anything you can do to stay active is going to benefit you during the offseason.

Practicing road lead outs isn't a perfect crossover with track racing, but learning how to hold a wheel never hurt anyone. I say go for it.
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Old 08-30-17, 09:10 AM
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Originally Posted by taras0000
I was the same. I think that guys who can qualify fast are "speedy". Having a high top end, they are the Man 2 types when it comes to a team sprint. Myself I was never like that. There are sprinters that are "torque-ier", and do well off of standing starts and being able to stay on top of a gear at the end of a Kilo. A more sudden, but flatter power development. That's the category that I fell into. I think if I were to get back into the game, I would have to roll a much bigger gear in qualifying than in the matches.
My issue is that I feel like I was "burning a match" (or two) during the windup. Basically, a normal human would use aerobic energy during a windup then switch over to anaerobic during the jump. I could ride the same pace but could actually be anaerobic during the windup. So, as far as my legs were concerned, the Flying 200M would be a "double-kick" effort with a kick for the windup and a harder kick for the jump.

I think my fast twitch % is really high. This doesn't make me special, it just is what it is. This sucks in terms of general cycling. I can't ride road, crits, mtb, cx, long commutes, group rides, etc... The longest I've ever run in my life without stopping was the 1-mile run in high school physical education class (and I was in peak youthful fitness as a baseball and tennis player).

For me to love cycling as much as I do is like being a short, lightweight guy loving American football. My options are severely limited

...but I can dig deep and activate close to 100% of my muscle fibers at once a few times during a workout/raceday.

At this point, in terms of competing, I simply need to just pick my battles.
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Old 08-30-17, 02:27 PM
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Originally Posted by carleton
I have a better story:

My final 200M split from a standing 333 is FASTER than my flying 200. Meaning, I can go from 0mph at the start/finish line and do a standing start and have my final 200m timed and beat my flying 200M using a full windup.

I have power files, splits, results from where I rode Team Sprint and Flying 200s at the same event on multiple occasions to prove this. It's crazy.

I'm obviously doing something very wrong in my flying 200m, but I haven't figured it out. So, yeah, I'm similar to the guy in your story.

I have theories as to why.
This.

I seem to have a very similar issue and I can't logically explain it whatsoever. I find it really easy to torque the gear up from a standing start. If you find an answer I'd love to hear it!
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Old 08-30-17, 04:10 PM
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I think @carleton pretty much answered that above. Burning out in the windup is an issue. IMO and recent experience, conditioning is the key. Being much fitter on the bike is a big part to sprinting I have come to realise. For a long long time I was under the impression you could just do short drills and expect to front up on sprint day and be fast. Not so! To get faster and to be fast, you really do need to be fitter than a lot of people realise.
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Old 08-30-17, 07:41 PM
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Originally Posted by carleton
I think we are saying the same thing.

As dijos progresses from CAT 4 to 3, 2, and possibly 1, the ability gap gets smaller and smaller as the riders become more evenly matched because as you wisely state, "a certain level of fitness & speed is the price of admission to any particular level."

We've all seen the new CAT 3/4/5 rider who is simply really strong either by virtue of coming from another cycling discipline or from another sport just walk all over the field until (s)he makes it to about CAT2 and starts to face others with similar strength. Then they lose a lot before they begin to win even just a little.

I guess the bigger takeaway from my post is that learning tactics by "watching tape" is valuable at all levels of racing. And if you are the fast CAT 3/4/5 racer that's eating up your field, you will have to learn good tactics to get to the next level.
I think we're sort of saying the same thing, but I might claim tactics can make up bigger speed/power gaps.

With people coming over from the road it's always a mixed bag. When I thought I was a terminal 3 a few decades ago at Blaine, some cat 2 roadies showed up and could barely hang on in races where I was comfortable. It's enough of a different sport that that happens. Other times people in upper road cats can ride circles around people, and then minor road pros like Joe Parkin would show up (he had family in the area) and pull around the motorcycle from 40 mph like it was nothing.


Originally Posted by carleton
I'm obviously doing something very wrong in my flying 200m, but I haven't figured it out. So, yeah, I'm similar to the guy in your story.
We should have a race day where the most points go to the biggest difference in flying 200 time vs 200 m race time... I always finish the 200 and start looking for the pack because I'm so used to points racing.

Originally Posted by queerpunk
Sometimes, having good tactics is enough to beat faster riders. Sometimes it's not. The difference is that more speed can make up a bigger tactical hole than "more tactics" can make up a bigger speed hole. I've beaten some faster riders... and I've also hit my head against the wall racing for 6th place against MUCH faster riders.
I mostly agree with this, but it seems like there are always a few stupid strong riders floating around who are also so tactically bad that you can still make up the difference.

Originally Posted by carleton
I think my fast twitch % is really high. This doesn't make me special, it just is what it is. This sucks in terms of general cycling. I can't ride road, crits, mtb, cx, long commutes, group rides, etc... The longest I've ever run in my life without stopping was the 1-mile run in high school physical education class (and I was in peak youthful fitness as a baseball and tennis player).
My girlfriend has really high fast twitch - she beat everybody in her skate club (male or female) on the fast-twitch tests when she was inline skating, and develops muscle just from thinking about lifting. So what's her favorite type of riding? "Super-six" randonees that are 600 km deathmarches with 10km of climbing. Maybe you're even more extreme - but I always thought high fast-twitch types could develop a reasonable amount of slow twitch, but if you're a high slow-twitch type your 10 s power and 10 hour power are the same and there's nothing you can do about it.
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Old 08-30-17, 09:47 PM
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Originally Posted by brawlo
I think @carleton pretty much answered that above. Burning out in the windup is an issue. IMO and recent experience, conditioning is the key. Being much fitter on the bike is a big part to sprinting I have come to realise. For a long long time I was under the impression you could just do short drills and expect to front up on sprint day and be fast. Not so! To get faster and to be fast, you really do need to be fitter than a lot of people realise.

This is very true of sprint cycling.

When I stopped racing, I stopped working out for a long time (6-8 months). I put on 15 lbs in that time, and started paramedic school. At the end of our first semester, we had a fitness test taht ended in a 2.5 mile run. We were required to sign into the gym and work out an hour a day, 5 days a week as part of our one class mark. I would sign in and study in the bleachers because I knew I had the base fitness to pass the test, and studying was a better use of my time. The only guy who beat me in the run after the test was a nationally ranked 5k/10k runner. He beat me by about 10s. We were neck and neck the whole run, and he kept trying to drop me and cruised away in the last 200m. I just cruised by on my residual fitness left over from being a sprinter.

It takes a lot of "slow" fitness to be competitively fast.
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Old 09-01-17, 10:05 AM
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Originally Posted by bitingduck
but if you're a high slow-twitch type your 10 s power and 10 hour power are the same and there's nothing you can do about it.
I dunno. Had a teammate who did RAAM solo 6 times and decided he wanted to be a crit sprinter. He did a bunch of work towards that goal and they eventually force upgraded him because he was cleaning out the prime bucket.

Off season I go skiing (DH and XC) and hit the weight room. If we have a long period of weather I'll jump on Zwift for a bit or do one of the Tacx videos.

After a good DH season my peak and sustained sprint numbers are always their highest.

Day out will look like this:



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Old 09-01-17, 10:46 AM
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Originally Posted by Racer Ex
I dunno. Had a teammate who did RAAM solo 6 times and decided he wanted to be a crit sprinter. He did a bunch of work towards that goal and they eventually force upgraded him because he was cleaning out the prime bucket.
He (and maybe you) might not be natural slow twitchers, but that's the part of sport you gravitated to. Particularly you since a lot of track enduros would be road sprinters (at least if they want to - I don't read the 33 enough to remember if you sprint much on the road). My GF is like that - she did a some power test for skating and they interpreted her profile as "untrained sprinter". It's there but she never trains it, and has gotten into the deathmarch randonee thing.

When the Carson track first opened there were a couple triathlete women who were becoming trackies - they started out as big gear, steady speed riders and then after a few years started showing some sprint and were riding mass starts in world cups. So there are plenty of examples of people switching, but it's not obvious that they were natural slow twitchers, so much as that's what they'd trained for (which might be a "no true scotsman" problem...).
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Old 09-01-17, 11:00 AM
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Originally Posted by bitingduck
but it's not obvious that they were natural slow twitchers, so much as that's what they'd trained for (which might be a "no true scotsman" problem...).
I think when you can plot a noticeable increase in 0-20s sprint numbers over a few years with a person who has been successful at "slow twitch" events, or see marathoners develop a "kick" after being flat liners, you can pretty much figure there's some fast twitch recruitment. There's always some mix there, no one is 100% one or the other. The ability to recruit one over the other is, no doubt, an individual response to training stimulus.

I was always a pretty decent sprinter, and was a top end TT guy. Since moving the focus over to sprinting, the TT stuff has really suffered. My "long" wattage dropped a fair bit, my sprints have added that few percent that matters and my leg speed has gone way up.

Part of that "long" drop could be attributed to the preponderance of AARP and retirement plan applications that keep showing up in my mail, but that's kind of a flip of what's supposed to happen.

Kids, listen up. Don't get old.
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Old 09-01-17, 11:04 AM
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I dunno. My favorite old guy just keeps getting faster, gets more and more Master's WC jerseys, and I think he's 50 now.
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Old 09-01-17, 11:28 AM
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On a somewhat related note: I had this thought the other day and thought about this thread.

I think American culture promotes the idea of identifying one's weaknesses and spend more time building those up. For example, for me, that would be focusing on endurance such that I can hang in a 40 lap points race and take focus away from strength/power training. And for another rider who is naturally an enduro, having him focus on strength/power.

I think that Track Racing has such a broad range of events that it could (would?) be in an athlete's best interest to identify what their innate strengths are and make those even stronger and spend a much smaller amount of time/energy on shoring-up the weaker parts. I'm painting with broad strokes here. But, hopefully you see what I mean.

So, if a rider is naturally predisposed to having power, FOCUS on becoming unbelievably powerful and try to dominate the power events and forego the endurance events. And if a rider is naturally predisposed to endurance strength, then focus on building more endurance strength and becoming unbelievably strong in endurance events and forego power events. I think that's where racers will make the podiums at their respective skill levels.

All of this starts with recognizing what one's body is predisposed towards.

(All of this is from a competitive/coaching point of view. If you are riding/racing for fun, then it goes without saying: Do what is fun to you!)
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Old 09-01-17, 12:08 PM
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Originally Posted by queerpunk
I dunno. My favorite old guy just keeps getting faster, gets more and more Master's WC jerseys, and I think he's 50 now.
I think it should really be "don't drive a car". I got old when I had to drive to work for just two years.
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Old 09-05-17, 01:49 PM
  #23  
Franklin27
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When I was teenager, I did lots of road racing. I specialized myself on road time trials. When I finally got to the track (not track at the town I was living those years), it was obvious that my race was the Individual Pursuit. I can't say I was really fast (PB for 4k was 4:55 in my first and only Elite Champ) but it was fine enough at my national level. Now I am living on a different town where is a velodrome. But now I have significantly less time for racing bikes. I'm trying to be an track sprinter at the tender age of 30. I took the Up-up-up book guidance with the Starting Strength training on the gym (and Track Bikeforum wisdom) and I have already reached a nice level.

In my experience, it’s hard to know if someone is born as a sprinter without a muscular biopsy properly analized by a sports myologist to check the concentration of fast-twitch muscular fibres (this is my significant other wisdom, I am a lawyer). And anyway, this natural muscular capability IT IS NOTHING WITHOUT THE RIGHT TRAINING. Of course, at the maximum level (right on-bike and gym training and planning SPECIFICALLY FOR TRACK SPRINTING, good diet, good bike fitting, good gear choice, good core training, British-magic wheels...) you probably will get the best of the best of your fast-twitch muscular fibres... and it won’t be enough for winning. But honestly, so few people will do all right things listed before (at least at an amateur level), so I think there is always a little space to get better as a wannabe sprinter.

I am quite happy with my sprinter adventure especially because it's incredible different from road racing. As said, cycling has so many varied disciplines (and so specialized each one) that starting a new specialty is like starting a whole new life. Oh boy, it's addictive.
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Old 09-05-17, 02:15 PM
  #24  
carleton
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Originally Posted by Franklin27
In my experience, it’s hard to know if someone is born as a sprinter without a muscular biopsy properly analized by a sports myologist to check the concentration of fast-twitch muscular fibres (this is my significant other wisdom, I am a lawyer).
High school athletics is a good predictor. In HS, the children are all relatively the same size with similar levels of training (or lack thereof) and what differentiates one athlete from the next is simply natural predisposition (aka: "talent"). Your muscle fiber type could be inferred this way.

Slow Twitch signs:
- You were unbeatable in the 1-mile run in Physical Education class (part of the Presidential Physical Fitness test)
- You ran cross country or long distance races on the track team.
- You could run until the cows came home.
- You were a distance swimmer.
- You couldn't sprint yourself out of a wet paper bag.

Fast Twitch signs:
- You were unbeatable in the 100M dash in Physical Education class.
- You were one of the faster running athletes on the football, baseball, softball, track teams.
- You couldn't stand distance running.

50/50 Mix signs (aka: Omnium Types):
- You were pretty good at distance and sprint running events.
- You ran the 800M event in track.
- You didn't really complain about distance or sprint training.


I don't think one's muscle fiber type percentage changes over time (outside of the small percentage that is trainable).
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Old 09-06-17, 06:18 AM
  #25  
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Thought I'd write a little more about what I do in the offseason - which, for me, starts right about now.

Big picture is, it's about taking the time to build new foundations for another season of work.

I take a little break - a couple weeks barely on the bike.

Then, I return to aerobic development, and strength development. Tempo rides and weight lifting. I maintain weekly sprint work.

I take some damn vacations, which is nice.

I race RRs and crits in the spring and prep for track season.
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