I understand that there are some pretty good cyclists on here of which some are decent sprinters.

What tips have you got for weight training to maintain and increase explosive power without compromising weight loss goals? EDIT: and the abilty to cover long distances!!

gentle leg presses apparently;

burpees whilst wearing a 45KG backpack?

I do drills when on the bike and they have helped me massively.

Power revs – change into into a big gear and come to almost a stand still, then do 12 revs whilst remaining seated, keeping your upper body still. Do these every five minutes throughout a ride.

Half hour blocks of riding two or three gears harder than you usually would.

Mulletus – those sound good… do you keep your cadence up on the latter drill?

I think, although I don’t know for sure, that the kind of sprinting Sir Hoy does is probably different to the kind of thing Cav does.
Away from the track sprinting is more about leg speed, about banging up to a high cadence rather than pure leg strength. It’s also about getting to the place where your sprint can be used, so requires endurance and tactical ability, not just weights.

Think about the actual physical movement involved in sprinting; its a limited range of movement pushing a relatively small amount of weight very, very quickly.

My feeling would be that on bike training would be much more specific and therefore useful.

Standing starts have helped me loads, but thats not related to weight training. The other things that have helped me are kettlbell swings and the step ups that make me feel like jane fonda.

Good strong core helps too. For the first time ever, i realise have a strong core and its great! 😀

I’d share what my coach has me doing, but then you’ll just be faster than me 😛

P-P-P-POWER is more than just strength, you need to get fast too. I have been doing lots of big core lifts, deadlifts, squats etc but with them, at least once a week i do FAST explosive deadlifts and squats at about 50% of my 1rep max, about 3-4 reps, 5 sets with a good rest in between. Plus sprints oo the bike at the bmx track and on my commute home, i’m pretty pleased with my speed.

Dirty – you said you were going to share it with me!!
Afterall, I put you on the Jane Fonda plan! Yoga has given me a strong core.

I know, i know, I’ll share. But only so we can both beat Molly without even trying! 8)

Anyone any ideas how to get faster climbing? I’m riding much faster on the flat these days (20-23mph) but my climbing muscles don’t seem to have developed quite as fast so i’m still climbing at my old speed, which seems so blooming slow! Or is this something we should talk about on the idave thread?

Anyone any ideas how to get faster climbing?

Climb more hills!
Actually, it’s to do sprint intervals uphill – not full on blow your brains out but tempo changes. Knock it up a gear, power out the saddle for a few seconds, drop the gear back down, recover, repeat.

Doing that means you’re not forever dropping down the block to lower and lower gears then running out of gears. First few times it’ll hurt like hell and you’ll probably finish the climb at half your normal “steady” speed but keep it up and you’ll find you can effectively change pace on the hills to chase down attacks without killing yourself in the process. And your climbing gets quicker too. 🙂

Anyone any ideas how to get faster climbing?

A drill from my coaching.
Find a hill that will take 4 minutes to climb and do 8x reps with 1,3,5,7 attacking as hard Z4/5 and 2,4,6,8 in Z2. Only use the down hill as a recovery.
Again help me massively.

the answer is in the picture but it’s not leg presses…

I’m not getting any coaching til mid- end of April so just wanting to keep on plugging away til then. I’ve been trying to sprint into climbs to keep the speed, i’ve tried moving to the front of the bunch and staying in the big ring. Staying in the big ring on a hilly course/race is what kills my legs the mostest.

Where do you put your hands on the bars when you’re climbing Dirty?

Hoods mostly. If very steep, on the tops. Have been experimenting using the drops which has been interesting. Why do you ask?

I was told at my bike fit to move back from the drops and to slide slightly back on the saddle as this encourages you to more fully engage the bigger muscles.

Climbing on the drops seems like a bad idea… compressing the space you’ve got to breath in?

Squats, deadlifts and romanian deadlifts – like chamley says do some heavy, some fast. Some people say train strength then power then endurance, some say you can do them at the same time.

Here is a video from the former camp:

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHjxsS08kBI[/video]

the answer is in the picture but it’s not leg presses…

Box jumps FTW

I read on the race squad page that its all about what works for you so if climbing on the drops works, then its fine. I don’t / wouldn’t normally, but have done to get a bit more power/speed out of my legs, especially if i’m sprinting into or up the hill or attacking on it. I don’t feel compressed when in the drops.

Of course *slaps forehead* all i need is cheesecake and coke to become better! 😆

Oh, and the high intensity weight intervals that my PT set me (trx pull ups/sumo squats/bent over row/jumping squats/trx press ups/mountain climbers/kb swings) followed by more endurance / lighter weights / higher reps seems to work well…i think changing my weights has = faster, more power and less muscle.

the answer is in the picture but it’s not leg presses…

bloke in lycra sitting on your feet?