Good morning!

I come from a distance running background, am self-coached in cycling, and base most of my training on running. There are many similarities - long, slow base periods, longer intervals at lactate threshold, shorter VO2 max work in the mid-season, easy days, etc., etc...

At the university where I coach (as with many places), our distance runners do 4-8 FAST accelerations at the end of an easy/recovery day. The purpose of these is to "shake out" the legs a bit, practice high speed muscle coordination/efficiency, and to keep high-end speed throughout the entire year. The accelerations are short (<20 seconds), and not all out (up to about 400-800m pace). Full recovery (>1 minute) is taken between accels. A healthy runner can do these accelerations 3-4 times per week throughout the entire year without injury or negative consequence.

Here's my question: is there any value to doing the equivalent in cycling? That is, at the end of (or during) an easy 2 hour recovery ride, do any folks throw in some sprints? Is this common practice? Advantages/disadvantages?

I happen to be a terrible sprinter (skinny distance runner legs), and was thinking that throwing in an extra 20 sprints / week during the base period could help build muscle, coordination, etc.

Thanks for any help/feedback.

I would advise against that. There's a time for sprint training and there's a time for active recovery. If you throw sprints into your recovery ride it's no longer a recovery ride, is it? Sounds like a recipe for overtraining to me.

According to Friel, one of the most common mistakes people make is going too hard on easy days and not going hard enough on the hard days. Try to stay away from that. If you have a hard time controlling yourself, just take the day off completely.

That's what I'm asking - if the sprints are short and the recovery is long, can one not fully recover for the next day?

I understand the principle of "no grey zone" training - things should either be black (hard) or white (easy), not somewhere in between. But to the extent that one is fit enough for a 2/3 hour ride to be considered "recovery," can't a few 5-second sprints also be considered "recovery?"

Here's my question: Are you a racer? If no, then why care?

Why even bother with "recovery days" if you aren't in a structured training program?

It's not the length of the ride that makes it recovery, it's the intensity.

Think of it this way. Say you're a weight lifter who did a hard chest workout on Monday. You're going to want to rest your chest as much as possible on Tuesday to give it time to recover. Let's say you do an hour of cardio on Tuesday. Would it make sense to do a quick 1-rep max bench press at the end of that hour?

Yes - somewhat of a newbie, but have done a few races in the last few months and plan to race regularly once the season picks up.
I am not "coached," but my training is structured. I plan VO2max workouts, Lactate threshold workouts, long aerobic days, and short anerobic threshold workouts weeks in advance. From what I can tell, it's pretty similar stuff to most cyclists (nothing unorthodox).

I'm simply wondering if anyone has any experience with sprinting on recovery days, or any opinions thereon...

Recovery day should be just that.. recovery. There is nothing about sprinting that is recovery, no matter how short or "easy"

Thanks to all those who have replied - sounds like the consensus is pretty against it.

I agree on not doing sprint training on recovery rides.

Also, I think the cycling equivalent to shaking out your legs would be fast pedals, i.e. high cadence drills with low resistence, high cadence, not sprints.

All that said, sprint training doesn't give you a very high training stress score, so it's not unusual to do sprint training on easy days, or during easy weeks. (note I didn't say on recovery ride days.)

So you can throw sprint training in during a rest week, to work on sprinting, and to keep some intensity going, while you're decreasing the total volume of work for the week.

Recover on recovery days. Sprints aren't recovery.

If sprints aren't all out, they're probably not much good in training you to sprint.

It can be good to do some short hard but not all out efforts like you describe during an easy ride the day before a race.

I don't even believe in recovery rides. If I need recovery, I take the day off.

That said, there's no reason your aerobic systems can't be on vacation while you train your ATP mix. You should be able to do a dozen VERY hard sprints from 5-15 seconds and not stress your other systems. You don't want them to be long enough that it's tough to hold. Just explode and let up. You won't even build up lactic acid. If your legs get sore, it will be mostly fast-twitch fibers that are sore, so your aerobic recovery will be intact. I've found that after a sprint workout, or even heavy weightlifting, I can still maintain my threshold power as usual, it just hurts a bit more at first -- totally just a mental challenge to stay high aerobic/threshold.

QFT i don't understand the logic of full recovery days... as a rower, i don't recall having all that many days off period, and even on 'off days' where practices aren't mandatory, i still did 10ks at race pace +3 (basically zone 3 work. if it applies to other sports that use similar muscles, i don't see why the hell you shouldn't be able to apply it to riding.

overtraining... i doubt most of us even come close to this point. olympic athletes do about 4-6 hours a day, and even as a collegiate athlete we do about 3+ on a consistent basis.

just my 2 cents

Consensus gone.

It looks like it's either
a) never sprint on an "easy day" because sprinting isn't easy
b) don't do easy days, because they're useless, or
c) don't even ride on recovery days.

Let's get more specific. Assuming one is in good shape, plans on racing, has 12-18 hours/week to train, and feels that a 2 hour ride allows for full recovery (and thus rides 7 days/week), then (s)he should
a) sprint, or
b) just go slow
?

If you need sprint work, then sprint, and do it early in the ride so you can more easily induce the proper training stress.

It depends on what "in good shape" means. If that means you have an FTP of 4.5 W/kg, then that's different than saying you can complete a century. Go over to the 33 (racing forum) and lurk in the training update thread to see what people are doing. Everyone is different. You need to learn your race limiters and mitigate those while developing your strengths (note that strengths and limiters might not be related to fitness, but strategy, bike handling, gear selection, etc.).

If you're really doing an all-out sprint, you're stressing different systems. I think WR is probably right; it's unlikely to do much harm. It might give you a bit more "snap," though something to keep in mind is that those systems respond to training much faster than your aerobic systems; most periodization plans leave high-end work to the last month or so before a peak because it's much faster to come up. Sprint work is more fine-tuning than the basis of a training plan (unless you're a track sprinter, obviously), and doing it months before competition just isn't necessary. The most important things to sprinting well are 1) Good aerobic fitness, so you have the reserves to really sprint well at the end of the race, and 2) natural ability. Either you have a good jump, or you don't, and you can only build on what you start out with. By all means, work on your sprint! Just understand that if you (a skinny long-distance guy) focus your training on sprinting well, and I (a skinny sprinter guy) focus my training on climbing well, when we come to the end of that hilly RR together I'm still going to destroy you in the sprint. If sprinting isn't your strength, your goal in racing is to drop the punchy sprinter guys who can also climb so that you're only up against your fellow slow-twitch climbers in that final sprint. That's where sprint work will get you a good placing.

By the way, when you're doing your sprints, you should think of trying to do the cycling equivalent of a 100m effort. 400 and especially 800 are a completely different sort of effort.

i wish that were true. i was overtrained last october, and the september the year before when running. the way you do it is to be stupid (training by pace instead of training by heart rate). in addition to that, i didn't have enough of a base for the hard cycling workouts last year, so that also pushes you to the limit.

LeMond is in favor of sprints on easy days.

"Include short, 10-15 second sprints in “recovery” rides to help maintain testosterone and growth hormone levels."
https://www.lemondfitness.com/trainin...-training-tips

I just got into cycling myself so I'm base training. I think if your base training it would be sensible to throw in some hill sprints (if no access just sprints). Nothing excessive say start at 4 hill sprints lasting no more than "10-15 seconds " -Lemond, full rest between sprints and progress with +1 sprint each workout.

Hill sprints used during base training to maintain the anaerobic system. Hills intense enough lactate accumulation is small, but intensity is high enough that anaerobic system is used and with the full recovery lactate accumulation is cleared.

the thing is, i've been doing this long enough to know my approximate heartrate at a certain rate. the splits correlate directly to wattage i.e. 2:00 is 200 watts, so to do a hardish 5k is to go ~225-250 watts for ~19 mins

my HR would be about 175-180 then, which might sound high, but it's about 10 beats over ss