Training & Nutrition - Running stairs, and other sprinting exercises.

In a previous thread (http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?s=&threadid=29001) I realized I am an above average sprinter. I would like to develop this ability further.

I believe with the right training, I could really excel in sprinting. Too bad we don't have a local velodrome! I would love to try track sprinting...

Anyhow, back to training. Right now, I always include one or two 90% effort sprints in my daily ride, and a 100% all out sprint at the very end of the ride. Last year, I could sprint to 35mph or so at the end of each ride, this year I am upto 38mph. I would like to hit 40+ by the end of the year. I have hit 41mph once or twice on fresh legs, so i know i can get to that speed if i really try.

Right now, other then my sprints in my daily rides, I run stairs for 15 - 20 minutes a week; should I do more then that? Running stairs kills me, I always have to have a day off after a hard day on the stairs. I know squats are great for building up quads, but this is not something I can do at home, and i can not afford the gym membership fee at this time... What "at-home" exercises can I do to improve my sprinting?

I would love to "race into form", but due to my pectus (http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?s=&threadid=20984) I don't feel safe racing with other cat 5's. I am looking forward to entering the weekly crit races next year (and with a 40mph sprint, winning!).

Intervals on the bike,hill sprints,and slow cadence uphill intervals....careful they are tough on knees,but high load/slow cadence recruits fast twitch muscle.Add lost of recovery between sessions and do them standing and in the saddle.Thats one thing many in crit training neglect...you have to be able to handle long periods of out of the saddle hard efforts in order make up gaps and pass people sometimes.

I have found the best exercises to make me faster on the bike at my ice hockey goalie school during our dryland training. With all the time they had us on the stationary bike it got me to go out and try real cycling. So I'd suggest trying to find a goalie training book, I Googled for a while and found this (http://www.champonline.com/hb-264.html) that might help you out.

Good Luck!

-Middi-zon

try walking backwards down the stairs(hold onto the handrail!) this was told to me by a national runner and he swears his hammys are so much stronger for it.
how about lunges.. check out this site
http://www. worldfitness.com
they have a lot of home exercises for you :)

I would do romanian deadlifts explosively ie heavy weight/low reps exploding into the positive contraction and recoiling on the negitive stretch phase (sort of like a pitcher recoiling on the windup and exploding into the pitch.Allyou need is a barbell and a few plates and perhaps a rubber mat.

I think you should really try running the stairs. I saw Rocky I and Rocky II and he ran the stairs to get into shape, and wow, was he ever in shape to fight Apollo Creed!!!

;)

Eye of the tiger, baby! Eye of the tiger!

Koffee,
I don't think Rocky is REAL!

Nah, it has to be real. I saw it on tv.

Of course it's real!

:D

I don't know much about sprinting on a bike, but I have been told that running stairs is a first class Bad Idea, and should be avoided. If you run stairs your chances of injury are much greater than with other, more effective training schemes.

The only other things I can add would be to note that the weightlifting mentioned above seems like a good idea, and that hills are really speedwork in disguise, so you might want to find a nice hilly training route and ride it regularly.

Good Luck
Dan

I don't run stairs per se, but I need to go down and then back up three flights of stairs every time I need to use the bathroom at work. Since I drink water throughout the day, this happens reasonably often. I take the stairs two at a time going up and I've found that it's actually helped my climbing A LOT.

Joe,
One word Rollerblades.
ok, two words, ice skates for winter.
very good for developing massive quads.
alot of sprinters (i.e Eric Heiden, Marty Nothstein)
use speed skating as a method of cross training.
there is a thing called a slide board (or something
similiar) that you can use indoors (wearing socks), check
some of the skater magazines.
I believe that skating in conjunction with intervals, sprints
etc. on bike will help.
Another suggestion (here we go again) is the HRM book
for indoor and outdoor cyclists, there are some very
good workouts tailored to specific goals.

Marty