Training help top speed
 

hello sprinters
i need some ideas for improve my top speed.
im stucked in 60km/h +-1
i make the same f200 time in 49x13 and 54x13. same top speed. 60kmh.
i wheight 80kg and lift in the gym 135kg squat no problem (i do plyos too), two days at week.
in rollers i can reach 180rpm, and behind a motorbike or a friend faster than me
i can go to 65kmh.
i have good strenght so i try with 54x13 but i make the same time!
this test are made in outdoor concrete 250m.velodrome and clincher training wheels.
maybe more motorbike work?
more plyometrics work in the gym?
i have training for 2 years
sorry for my english.

There is a progression: strength, then power, then speed. Each one is necessary to achieve the next.

Based on what you lift, it sounds as if you have the strength. It's not too hard to convert power to speed via track-specific workouts (which it sounds like you're doing), so, I'd say you need to focus on making power: if you sprint for 20 seconds you need to make as many watts in the last 5 seconds as in the first 5. Power is more important later in your sprint - that's where it really requires the power to continue accelerating.

There are a lot of ways to do this, in the gym via olympic lifting and plyos, and bike workouts. I'd say that the golden goose is rolling accelerations, targeting good 15+ second power and shutting down when you bog down.

But the thing with this sort of question is that there are a million tricks, tips, caveats, and pieces of context - it's where a good coach can really help you out.

thanks queerpunk
i gona focus more on power and do more rolling acelerations

Hi, Lean88,

Your question is a good one...that we all have.

I understand why queerpunk wrote this and agree with him:

You can also get this information from:

- Fellow club members.
- A training partner or teammate.
- Track open training sessions
- Track clinics (paid group training sessions with a coach or pro)

It's really difficult to offer such personalized advice over the internet based on words.

How are other athletes at your track getting their advice?

if you talk to fasters sprinters they say work on motorbike for top speed.
and work on cadence (using small gearing).

maybe i have to put more work on the range of rpm i want using a small gear.

:bang:

Are you doing what they suggest?

Are you asking if you can join them?

i work on motocycle when is available. and do some high cadence work.

and yes i join them when they train.
i ask and read and try diferent thinks.
i do some progress but at the moment i think im stuck ( or maybe the progress is more slow now)

How is your bike fit? Maybe post some pictures if you can.

How is your diets and food supplements?

Its critical for developing power if your diets is not on points, its would be waste (not entirely, but you will definitely took a lot time to make a progresses).

Yes.

To go from 14.0 to 13.0 is easy.
To go from 13.0 to 12.0 is hard.
To go from 12.0 to 11.0 is very hard.
To go from 11.0 to 10.0 is extremely hard.

Also, look at the Stopwatch app on your phone and see how quickly 1 second passes by. Any small thing you can do to your system (body, nutrition, bike fit, equipment, bike handling, etc...) may help OR hurt you. You have to pay close attention to everything.

No, no and no. This is 2018, not 1990 :twitchy:

Can I ask what time you did on those gears? Also, if possible, the next time you do a F200, try and get 50m splits and include the leading 50m. That will give you some indication of where your problems will lie. Top speed is something that will come in time with progression of strength and riding position. Also, don't underestimate just how fit you need to be to sprint. Laying around all day and doing some weights and a few bike efforts won't get you there. To be fast you actually have to be very fit, and I think a whole stack of sprinters don't realize that - I didn't

Advice I've had on this is motor work and flying 100's. Try flying 100's in a range of gears, with in order to find your sweet spot and to work different cadence ranges.

Edit: And this would be after prioritizing strength then power/acceleration as QP rightly suggests above

Additional speed here by switching to aero wheels and tubulars.
(Plus safer to ride at higher speeds.)

When you say fit, what does it entail apart from gym and on the bike work? or more specifically, what kind of fitness are we talking about?

In the circles I'm in, FIT ENOUGH means a pretty even split F200. So splits become fairly important. It actually takes a fair amount of fitness to go through the wind up and pull a fast F200. Looking at your splits will give you more of an idea of how you're going wrong in your F200. It could be hitting top speed too early which commonly shows up in the pre-F200 50m split (that's why you take that one too). Perhaps you have good splits, which means your fitness is ok, you just have to get faster. Perhaps your top speed is good but you die in especially the 4th/5th splits which means you need fitness.

Last year when I hit my PB 11.8 I only topped out at 61.8kph, so I need more speed, but fitness was good and splits were good. I get my fitness by doing interval style work on the trainer in between hard days.

I would say that unless you are fat, gym work and sprint specific work on the bike is enough to make you fit enough. Though where this really comes into play is endurance in the rounds of a sprint tournament, but I would say even this is taken care of by typical sprint training, for example a session of rolling 500's on 12-15 minutes rest will be pretty good preparation for this (as a side benefit of the main training focus). Throw in some lactate tolerance stuff closer to events and you'll be pretty damn fit. I don't think anyone needs to do three+ hour road rides these days, unless they are trying to lean down. Long stuff will definitely blunt your speed.

maybe i drop too much speed.
in the entry line of f200 i go in top speed.
i gonna split the first and last 100m next time.
the time was 12.4 in 49x13 and 54x13 (different days)
i know with a 60kmh average you can do 12.0.

so i need more top speed and keep them more time.
what recommend for improve the last 100m?

for the first 100 i think motorbike f100.
rolling accelerations 250m? or 500?

my diet is good, and take protein and creatine supplements. sometimes vitamins too.

You'll hit your top speed in the first 100m. If you want to improve top speed, work that area. Training the second half for minimal fade is not top speed training, that's called speed endurance, and that's a different question.

This gets at part of what I was saying, too. We all know that air resistance increase with the square of speed. that means that it takes more power to go from fast to faster than it takes to go from quick to fast: the initial accelerations are the easiest and the later ones are the hardest. And unfortunately the former happen first, and the latter happen, well, later. When you're already tired.

Long power is necessary not just to gain speed endurance and ensure even splits, but also to keep accelerating. If you have a power fade through the 20 seconds (wind up and effort) of a f200, you're not generating the ability to accelerate from the speed you're at - you're just trying to reduce how fast you slow down. Speed endurance is the ability to keep applying power that accelerates you deep in an effort, and this is how you raise your top speed: not by increasing your max power in the first 5 seconds of an effort, but by lengthening your power output, increasing the power you apply in the 10-15 or second range of an effort. That's a) where more power is required to accelerate, b) where you're going faster, and c) the range that most people don't have. You can try to get to your top speed faster, or you can try to spend more time at it.

Indeed, a flying 100 is not 100 meters of effort, it includes the wind up and acceleration. But if you are negative splitting your 200 (as I am sometimes known to do...) you didn't get the first 100 right, you needed to be faster quicker. The best 200's are always fading slightly in the second 100. It's all necessary, of course, and you can't get your top speed by doing only rolling half-lap accelerations (but there's a place for those too...). Rolling 500's are a staple of mine, but I don't consider them to be top speed work.
Nuts and bolts- reduce fade in your 200 by doing flying 300's. They are painful.

so you need to get fresh at your top speed (down road or try to pass the motorbike at your top speed) and then start your effort?

Thank you.

BTW, this applies to me and perhaps other older athletes. Saving energy in the windup is crucial to my speed endurance. On a 250 (VSC), I use a very shallow windup, never going all the the way to the balustrade. The top of the banners in 3 and 4 is plenty high for me, and I've got enough left in the tank to get up to speed where I need to and hang on to it through the second 100 meters.

Like I know what I'm doing or something... ;)

Not only will long stuff blunt your speed, but doing your sprint training too deep into exhaustion will also blunt it. I see people doing "sprint workout" where they're bogging down, their power is dropping off, and they're grinding out low-rpm work. That doesn't help your muscles fire harder faster.

When you're doing sprint work you should stop when you bog down. You should focus on the period when you are applying maximum power. You should try to extend it, but you shouldn't dig yourself into a pit teaching your muscles the wrong lessons.

There are a lot of areas covered in this conversation that is only 22 posts long. That's how difficult a Flying 200M can be.

To add to this (as some have alluded to), the best advice I got from a former world elite racer and coach: "The Flying 200M is not a 11 or 12 second effort. It's a 1 minute effort with the last 200M being timed."

Look at your files from F200M and see what he means.

When I started looking at it that way, it opened my eyes a bit and showed me that I was spending waaaay too much energy in the wind up with not-enough left for the timed bit.

Also, being that it's a 1 minute effort, the work you put into the windup (or save during the windup) affects the last 200M.

Further, the same rider, same gear, same conditions, same line, can ride dramatically different F200s by changing the jump points.

Remember that your average speed over the 200m is what counts, as @brawlo illustrates with his post.