Originally Posted by
canklecat
Sprinting in HIIT, including on climbs, helped some. But adding simple squats without weights helped too. Ditto calf raises, etc. Can't say it's improved my speed but my recovery time is improved and I can recover from being winded on climbs and sprints just by easing up a bit while riding. Last year I often needed to pull over and stop for a minute to recover.
You may want to consider what Alex Simmons had to say on the subject.
Anaerobic adaptation
"Keep in mind that recovery from any effort or efforts, no matter how hard, is a wholly aerobic process. And that the higher your sustainable aerobic power (i.e. threshold), the less deep you go when you do "surge", and when pace settles back down the further below threshold you will be, meaning recovery of oxygen deficit and anaerobic reserves will happen more quickly, enabling you to sustain harder efforts more frequently and with shorter recovery times. Just 10W higher threshold can make a large difference in your recovery ability."