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Old 10-12-15, 02:28 AM
  #515  
Dalai
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Nice Racer Ex!

Discussion on weight weenies has brought 11.4 out of the woodwork.

Track training exercises - Weight Weenies

Question was:
"I've started organising a weekly training session on a nearby cycling oval (not a real track for 6-days etc) and I'm wondering if someone with experience can recommend some exercises."
11.4 reply

Start with a precision pace line warmup session -- 20 laps @ 20 mph, 20 laps @ 23 mph, 20 @ 25, 10 @ 28, 10 @ 30, 10 @ 33, changing every lap up through 25 and every half lap after that. Do this in a relatively small gear -- I usually do a 46x16 but a 48x16 is fine for most. Then go in and rest for 10 min.

Then do some 200 meter jumps off the rail. Do a line of 3 or 4 riders, ramp up to a high speed through the last lap and then kick max effort down to the next turn and through the finish line. After each one, roll around for 5-10 minutes -- you should be wiped enough from each jump or you aren't doing a max effort. Check your speed and if you drop off through two successive jumps, your legs are tired and you should go on to the next part of the workout -- pushing harder to go slower doesn't do much. I'd keep the gearing low on these. The point is to get very high cadence and high power output.

Next do some intermediate intervals, 1000 to 2000 meters, standard pace line with 3-4 riders per line and push the speed. On this and all workouts, at least have a speedo on your bike and ideally for the longer intervals have someone calling out lap times and tracking your speed so you have a record of performance level. This is a good place to put on your bigger gears, but only do so if you've been staying to low gears for a while in this effort and you are feeling really fit. Putting on a 98" gear for 2K when you aren't fit will just slow you down.

If you are focused on sprints and time trials, finish up with some rails -- basically ride fast laps up at the rail -- going up and down and not easing off on the downhills. Those are killers. Doing 3-4 kilos worth will wipe you out. Speed will be slower than on the 2K efforts, of necessity. Probably only need to do one. If you are focused on longer distances or massed start, you can do rails but perhaps better is to gear down. You can gear up on rails, but frankly they are most effective if you can turn an intermediate gear (say, 48x15).

When this series is done, gear back to a 48x16 or lower and do a 20 mph pace line for 5-10 minutes minimum. Then go in.

On pacelines it's important to manage your speed precisely. Jumping up 2-3 mph or dropping 2-3 mph just messes up everyone else, and you need to have a really good feel of your speed at a cadence. You're warming up and you're doing a precision workout here.

You can mix it up with efforts called Russians, where a pace line rides the track at race speed and the rearmost rider launches from the back and sprints up to the front and pulls into the line in front. Rotate until everyone has done 2 or 3 sprints.

When you are getting really fit and fast and big races are coming up, it's time to get some motor pacing. In your case you may need to do it on the road, but ideally do a very fast session behind the bike, either going faster and faster until you lose the motor, or have the motor increase at a lower rate and keep jumping past the motor, then back in. Motor pacing can get quite involved, and you really want to have a coach or someone else monitoring your performance carefully so you don't overdo it or waste your effort.

There are many different workouts beyond these, but this is a fundamental program that will work for a lot of people. As you get better, you'll get more into specialized drills -- standing starts, 500m or 1000m time trials, jumps, and so on. As such, your question should be broken out to address different levels of riders, riders with different focus areas on the track, and so on. This is just a basic starter package.
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