I started training as a pure track sprinter in 2014, with my coach, Jeff Solt. The main reason I hired Jeff was that I was very unsure what the best track sprinting training would consist of, and he had many years of World-level training in his background to draw from.
I had been looking for several years for scientific studies to validate the training that sprinters typically followed, as I hate relying on anecdotal "me too" recommendations. The problem is that track sprinting is a very small niche sport, and there are very few publicly available studies that address it — most studies focus on runners.
But I finally did find a few studies that seemed relevant and reputable enough. Here are some random ones:
Here are some other good starting points:
There are others, but it's hard to dig through them all to find the good ones, and many are not large enough or specific enough to help much. As you can see if you read them, many athletes lift weights as part of their training for non-weight lifting sports, like running sprints and ball sports. And weight training has been common in track cycling for a century or more.
We can also draw some limited conclusions based on our own experiences, though that's a 1-person study which makes it anecdotal; much less definitive. All studies I've read are never specific to an individual, just to groups, because the study authors are trying to reach conclusions that apply to a majority of people. Yet aren't one's own results more relevant than the results of others? After all, even large-scale studies usually conclude something like "72% of the athletes improved," in some measure while the rest didn't... and who knows if we are in that other 28%?
Hence why I hired a coach, Jeff Solt. Conventional knowledge is often correct ("empirical evidence"), as coaches have tried so many approaches over the years, and stuck with what their observations supported. Jeff has prescribed me a variety of exercises to do, based on his World-level track cycling 4experience, with a nice mix of cycling workouts and weight training workouts. And, as it turns out, it seems likely science agrees that a mix of workouts is best.
An interesting aspect of my training is that my sprint has improved at the same time as my cycling mileage has plummeted. I used to ride 8,000 to 11,000 miles each year, but am now only hitting somewhere around 1,500-2,000 miles. This is partly because sprinting requires very little endurance, and partly because long rides erode the benefits of the weight training and lead to fatigue that can extend into the next weights workout.
Also, riding my bike less prevents the type 2 muscle fibers (sprinter's "fast twitch" fibers) from converting to type 1 (endurance "slow twitch" fibers) behavior. Instead, the fibers can revert to the stronger type 2 behavior with resultant strength increases.
So, have my own experiences shown positive results by following the traditional sprinter's workouts with a mix of cycling and weight training? The below table shows some of my PRs from various years, starting in 2012, before I focused on track sprinting. The areas in yellow highlight the years I have included substantial weight training.
Interesting...
I have steadily gotten stronger every year, and have never been as strong in my life as I am now, at age 56. (I don't have comparable weight PRs from earlier years, as I only started doing the big free-weight lifts in the last couple of years.)
Yet while I did get faster after I first started weight training in 2013, my speed improvements seem to have stalled this year, even as my strength continues to improve. There may be some mitigating circumstances that held back my results this year, but it's really hard to say for sure what the exact relationship is between strength and speed.
Or maybe it's too soon to draw any conclusions based on one year of stagnation. Or who knows, maybe my age is starting to limit my potential for speed improvement.
My own feeling is that there may be no definite causality, but rather a modest correlation between strength and speed. In non-scientific terms, being strong can help lay the foundation for speed, but does not by itself guarantee we will be fast.
And I think there might be a point where the higher strength stops yielding an improvement; that is, we only need to be somewhat strong, not super strong. I think that it might be progressively harder to transfer strength gains to the bike's rear wheel and translate it to speed the stronger we get.
So, I am pretty sure weight training for strength has allowed me to become somewhat faster, but that my speed improvement is now limited more by other factors. I need to work more on my cycling technique, form, and the complicated non-strength physiological characteristics, and mental focus, that generate the highest percentage of the theoretical maximum speed we are capable of.
But there is a lot of guesswork in this post... I wish I could know with greater certainty what is helping and what I still need to do better or differently, and how close I am to my full potential. I don't know exactly how to go from here, so I will have to learn more.
I had been looking for several years for scientific studies to validate the training that sprinters typically followed, as I hate relying on anecdotal "me too" recommendations. The problem is that track sprinting is a very small niche sport, and there are very few publicly available studies that address it — most studies focus on runners.
But I finally did find a few studies that seemed relevant and reputable enough. Here are some random ones:
- Effects of half-squats on cycling sprints (PubMed)
- Strength training improves supramaximal cycling (PubMed)
- The profile of a sprint (road racing sprints article, just for fun)
- The Relationship Between Strength and Sprint Times (sportsscience.co)
Here are some other good starting points:
- Track Cycling Academy (coaching)
- The Glute Guy (general weight training articles and links to many studies)
- Up! Up! Up! (track cycling ebook)
There are others, but it's hard to dig through them all to find the good ones, and many are not large enough or specific enough to help much. As you can see if you read them, many athletes lift weights as part of their training for non-weight lifting sports, like running sprints and ball sports. And weight training has been common in track cycling for a century or more.
We can also draw some limited conclusions based on our own experiences, though that's a 1-person study which makes it anecdotal; much less definitive. All studies I've read are never specific to an individual, just to groups, because the study authors are trying to reach conclusions that apply to a majority of people. Yet aren't one's own results more relevant than the results of others? After all, even large-scale studies usually conclude something like "72% of the athletes improved," in some measure while the rest didn't... and who knows if we are in that other 28%?
Hence why I hired a coach, Jeff Solt. Conventional knowledge is often correct ("empirical evidence"), as coaches have tried so many approaches over the years, and stuck with what their observations supported. Jeff has prescribed me a variety of exercises to do, based on his World-level track cycling 4experience, with a nice mix of cycling workouts and weight training workouts. And, as it turns out, it seems likely science agrees that a mix of workouts is best.
An interesting aspect of my training is that my sprint has improved at the same time as my cycling mileage has plummeted. I used to ride 8,000 to 11,000 miles each year, but am now only hitting somewhere around 1,500-2,000 miles. This is partly because sprinting requires very little endurance, and partly because long rides erode the benefits of the weight training and lead to fatigue that can extend into the next weights workout.
Also, riding my bike less prevents the type 2 muscle fibers (sprinter's "fast twitch" fibers) from converting to type 1 (endurance "slow twitch" fibers) behavior. Instead, the fibers can revert to the stronger type 2 behavior with resultant strength increases.
So, have my own experiences shown positive results by following the traditional sprinter's workouts with a mix of cycling and weight training? The below table shows some of my PRs from various years, starting in 2012, before I focused on track sprinting. The areas in yellow highlight the years I have included substantial weight training.
| 2012 | 2013 | 2104 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Flying 200m: | 12.6 | 12.26 | 12.04 | 12.1 | 11.94 | 12.12 |
| Standing-start 500m: | 39.2 | 37.9 | 37.2 | 36.2 | 36.579 | 36.262 |
| Back squat: | 275 | 300 (3x) | ||||
| Bench press: | 185 (3x) | 205 | 220 | |||
| Deadlift: | 335 | 365 |
Interesting...
I have steadily gotten stronger every year, and have never been as strong in my life as I am now, at age 56. (I don't have comparable weight PRs from earlier years, as I only started doing the big free-weight lifts in the last couple of years.)
Yet while I did get faster after I first started weight training in 2013, my speed improvements seem to have stalled this year, even as my strength continues to improve. There may be some mitigating circumstances that held back my results this year, but it's really hard to say for sure what the exact relationship is between strength and speed.
Or maybe it's too soon to draw any conclusions based on one year of stagnation. Or who knows, maybe my age is starting to limit my potential for speed improvement.
My own feeling is that there may be no definite causality, but rather a modest correlation between strength and speed. In non-scientific terms, being strong can help lay the foundation for speed, but does not by itself guarantee we will be fast.
And I think there might be a point where the higher strength stops yielding an improvement; that is, we only need to be somewhat strong, not super strong. I think that it might be progressively harder to transfer strength gains to the bike's rear wheel and translate it to speed the stronger we get.
So, I am pretty sure weight training for strength has allowed me to become somewhat faster, but that my speed improvement is now limited more by other factors. I need to work more on my cycling technique, form, and the complicated non-strength physiological characteristics, and mental focus, that generate the highest percentage of the theoretical maximum speed we are capable of.
But there is a lot of guesswork in this post... I wish I could know with greater certainty what is helping and what I still need to do better or differently, and how close I am to my full potential. I don't know exactly how to go from here, so I will have to learn more.
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