Sunday 1 April 2012

Sprinting - A Rant!

I can forgive just about anything but sprints done wrong are unforgivable! When a "sprint" is executed by unloading resistance and pedalling like a frantic lunatic that just shows total and complete ignorance of anything cycling related. I found this on a website for a spinning studio; "Two common speeds for spinning are light resistance, to mimic sprinting, and medium to heavy resistance, to imitate hills" (it goes on but that's another rant). Seriously?? Do you really think that Mark Cavendish (possibly one of the world's best sprinters) sprints for the line in a gear ratio of 39x23?  Sprinting means you want to get from here to there FIRST!! It means that you are going to put out your biggest effort, you are going to push your biggest gear with the fastest cadence you can muster at that gear! Big gear means lots of resistance. Big gear and fast cadence means lots of power - a 10/10 effort. At C.O.R.E Cycling@ a sprint demonstrated incorrectly during the practical exam is an automatic fail. 

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  2. LOVE love love this Clair! "Light resistance to mimic sprinting"??? This is how terminology becomes so misunderstood - the wrong use of techniques (and even words to describe those techniques) creates a bunch of misinformed instructors and students. It's not just semantics. It IS WHAT IT IS! A SPRINT is a VERY hard effort in a big gear.
    Thanks for holding this torch along with me!

    Jennifer Sage, Master Instructor
    Indoor Cycling Association
    www.indoorcyclingassociation.com

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