I recall hearing/reading somewhere about how long it can take for certain athletes to recover from all out sprints. I’m not sure if it was from a AACC podcast or not, does anyone happen to know what I’m referring to?
Basically, aerobic athletes won’t dump as many watts in a sprint but can recover and repeat the sprints more often. Anaerobic athletes can dump a lot of power but take a long time to recover. But the key thing I’m looking for is a statement on some athletes that can take a whole day to recover from a sprint and why that happens; I can’t for the life of me remember where I heard/read this.
I want to dig in deeper because I think I fall on that end of the spectrum, I can drop a watt bomb and it takes me a day and a half to recover from it. It doesn’t feel the same as finishing a long threshold workout or even a VO2max workout, I know it’s a weird comparison but it’s that feeling you have after sex where you just feel spent, but it lasts for a day or more. I’d like to see if there’s any way for me to stop feeling like that after sprinting, or if that’s just how it is for me.
If that were the case for me, I’d sprint a hell of a lot more! (I don’t want to get into too much detail here, but I think the feeling you are referring to after sex leaves a warm glow with me. Not exactly how I feel after a hard sprint session.)
But yeah, sprint, even form sprints can really zap my legs. I remember one time I overdid form sprints on a mellow Z2 workout. My fast twitch muscles were not ready for action the next morning. So yeah, I’d use sprint workouts more wisely.
Hmm, I enjoy a good romp, but gotta admit to never having felt spent in either the bedroom or after doing some sprints. Did some hard sprints/accelerations on Saturday, which for me was peaking at 1138 and 5-sec at just above 1000. That’s about as big as the watt bombs get around here.
Anyways, the other day I got a notification about a new blog post on the W/kg site:
Give that a read.
Speaking of good romps, sexagenarian here (sixty something) with six and a half years training. Earlier this year did max effort 6 x 45-sec on / 30-sec off sprints on a Monday, 2.5 hours endurance on Tuesday, 105 minutes with sweet spot on Wed, allergy attack on Friday, and then on Saturday ripped a 32-minute threshold effort at my highest power since 2017 and that was conservative effort compared to the two from 2017. So I’m with Kolie Moore on this article You're Training Too Hard for Criteriums—Here's Why | TrainingPeaks and have found that it is possible to recovery fairly quickly from max effort sprints if you’ve built up a strong aerobic foundation (lots and lots of endurance work).
Maybe I’m doing sex wrong . Even heavy lifting doesn’t affect me as badly as a max effort sprint. For context my peak power is 2200 watts, 30 second sprint is 1300 watts. My FTP is around 275 watts and I weigh 97kg.
I can do 3x10 30-30’s at 200% FTP relatively easily, but one all out sprint for 30 seconds and I’m done for the day. Everything feels sluggish and I don’t want to move.
it’s not that warm glow. Maybe I’m doing sex wrong. I just want to lie down, not move for a very long time, and don’t even want to think; best I can explain it.
I googled sprinting refractory period and actually found an article so maybe spend some time doing other searches. It’s an interesting question and I’d like to hear opinions or see/hear more.
Check out rule 11 from this great article I re read from time to time and consider the ideas behind the PB protocol. Made me wonder how unaccustomed your body is to the sprints, maybe you’ll have other ideas. Just something to read and consider.
with six and a half years training. Earlier this year did max effort 6 x 45-sec on / 30-sec off sprints on a Monday, 2.5 hours endurance on Tuesday, 105 minutes with sweet spot on Wed, allergy attack on Friday, and then on Saturday ripped a 32-minute threshold effort at my highest power since 2017 and that was conservative effort compared to the two from 2017. So I’m with Kolie Moore on this article 
. Even heavy lifting doesn’t affect me as badly as a max effort sprint. For context my peak power is 2200 watts, 30 second sprint is 1300 watts. My FTP is around 275 watts and I weigh 97kg.
it’s not that warm glow. Maybe I’m doing sex wrong. I just want to lie down, not move for a very long time, and don’t even want to think; best I can explain it.