I’m mid-way through my short power build (rest/light week coming up) and although I’ve seen overall performance gains outside (when I’ve been able to get out) my peak power (1s: 780w this season 945w in 2019 & 5s 746w this season and 885w in 2019) still seems low compared to others and my mid and longer power figures.
This is my indoor/outdoor curve besides short power builds are there any workouts and/or home excersides that can improve this?
I would do it outside. Once you’re warmed up and have a clear section of road (maybe a slight incline) do 15 seconds of max effort. Don’t worry about any kind of target power or make any attempt to pace yourself, just go as hard as you can and hold it as best you can. The power will decline over 15 seconds, that’s fine. Ride easy for as long as it takes to fully recover, could be 10 minutes or even longer, then repeat. Do maybe 6 of those if the quality is good, but if the quality is starting to dip then call it a day.
Also worth listening to and watching some of the TR pods/videos on sprinting, there’s quite a bit of technique involved. Could also look at doing some explosive, plyometric type work in the gym. But if you’ve never really trained to sprint before then you can make a lot of quick gains just by figuring out how to actually apply power properly.
Explosive yes, …
not convinced about the plyometric work as isn’t very specific to cycling, more bounding motions using momentum, works well for running as you recoil and release the stored energy in the muscles / tendons. Plus there is a high risk of injury particularly for cyclists that tend be a bit one dimensional, weaker joints / tendons / bone. Might be worth slowly introducing to be a more rounded athlete though.
Squat Jumps is a good option though, low to squat position, pause and then explode jumping as high as you can using legs only to drive up.
PS. My peak power is shockingly bad, so maybe I should take this advice. Oh and my plyometric power is excellent, but that isn’t why I posted the above about that. But in my case shows it doesn’t transfer to the bike.
Technique has something to do with it. This video helped me increase my peak power
I’m not sure why you have the impression you are bad at sprinting, your sprinting power seems to be better than your FTP would suggest. In fact, your best ability seems to be 15 second power, which is still a sprint in anyone’s book! Don’t sell yourself short.
Still, you may want to get better. What trainer are you using? IMHO quite a few of TR’s workouts include sprints (e. g. Pettit +1 and Mokelumne), but if you really want to go for it, you must switch from erg to resistance mode. Otherwise you are limited to 180-200 % or so that TR seems to prescribe max.
The only small accommodation you have to make is you have to be slightly less explosive than on the road. Otherwise the belt slips on my direct drive dumb trainer, and I reckon this will be a problem for wheel-on trainers, too. Nevertheless, It’s not a problem fore me to put out max sprint power, or something very, very close to it.
If you want to practice sprinting outside, I recommend you do this in addition to TR indoor sprint drills. Because the technique is different, especially if you go out of the saddle. However, make sure you find a suitable and safe piece of road, though.
Well that’s a nice thing to say! I guess I am just watching/reading about/riding with folks putting out 1000w plus and feeling inadequate/watching them disappear.
For an VO2 workouts I’m not using erg, too much slip and lag in my turbo (Cyclops M2). Will just keep on trusting the process then.
I reckon if you work on raising your FTP, your sprint power will rise as well. Note that sprint power is trained the most easily and quickly — but gets lost just as quickly. That’s because, roughly speaking, it takes the same amount to gain power in different regimes than it takes to lose them. So increasing your FTP takes the longest, but you won’t lose it quickly either.
Cool, thanks for both the advice and compliment.
Will keep on track to finish short power, then a base and reevaluate.
