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COACHING CLINIC
CLINIC OPENS FOR YOUR QUESTIONS
Spokesman-online has teamed up with arguably the best cycle speedway coach in the World to provide our readers with a Coaching Clinic.
No-one knows more about the sport and its coaching techniques than former World and British champion Jim Varnish, a fully qualified British Cycling coach.
Now you can have your chance to put your questions direct to Jim through our Coaching Clinic.
What training routine would suit you? Should you go to the gym? How can you peak before the Nationals at the end of August? Should you have a Mars bar before you race? How much should you drink on race days? The list is endless.
All you have to do is send your question to Jim at and we'll do the rest - and we'll share Jim's advice with other readers.
HOW SHOULD I PREPARE FOR A RACE MEETING? - posted 9 January 2010
Jimmy
I still race and want to do the best I can, still reasonable from the gate but it's the other 3 ¾ laps that matter. Do you think preparing the track prior to the match starting is good preparation? I have my own set of personalised brushes as no else appears to want to do the work!!! Although this is a bit tongue in cheek, the question is genuine. What's the ideal preparation for a match?
While I wouldn't want to race on a Phillips Track-star, I do think the Veterans standards are still high and in fact improving each year as riders find that the racing is taken very seriously. Whether the Commission could hold a series of Vets events is debatable due to lack of dates. Fred Rothwell, Dave Murphy and Chic Mackie have done a great job with the Euro-Vets over the past three years.
Unfortunately I was unable to race this year. Hopefully they will press on again this year and hopefully receive some further support.
John Whiting
Jim replies:
Right - the ideal warm-up! Well I am not sure how brushing the track will help you with your pre-race warm up John but I'm sure a selection of expensive titanium end shovels will be a help as they are much lighter and will certainly help when removing the shale. Rod Witham
has promised to buy these for you. Remember always keep your back straight though. I am surprised you dont just make the juniors do it. I think your losing your touch mate...
Anyway on the subject on warm ups..
This is a very neglected part of most riders racing (me included). I bet everyone has come in the pits after the first race, light headed, legs shaking, feeling sick etc. Well imagine what you have just asked your body to do!!! Going from a sedentary state to full explosive maximum effort in 50 seconds!! No wonder is it really. The blood will be rushing to the limbs so quickly that the brain will be starved, your stomach will want to empty its contents and not forgetting that the muscles will be close to be strained if not pulled. You will be lucky to recover for your next race.
So how do you get ready for your first big efforts. Ideally this would be on static rollers (I'll go through rollers another time) over approx 45 minutes...yes - 45 minutes. This would be progressive and start very steadily and building up to a good 90% pace finishing off with three or four 15 second maximal sprint efforts. You will be ready to in about 15 minutes then.
The question is how can you do this for CS (Short Track). I would suggest starting an hour prior to racing, gently turning over the legs. If it's not appropriate on your race bike why not use a road bike. Steadily building heart rate keeping the leg speed nice and high until you are working at around 85%. You can incorporate, at around 30 minutes, some shorts sprints (not uphill) to really activate you and start getting into race mode. With approx 15 minutes to go I would suggest some gates, hitting the first to pedal strokes hard and then easing off. If you worn out after a good warm up your not fit enough to race.
So its time to get into race mode now...
* After the warm up change into fresh race kit. It's surprising how much that will effect you.
* Have a fresh water bottle ready for your own supply in the pits.
* Have a copy of the draw / programme.
* Energy bar to have a small bite of through the event.
* Go through the draw if applicable and work out how long it is until your first and second race.
* Keep very warm with layers and hat (I used to wear two pairs of trackie bottoms in parade to keep quads warm).
* Stare out your opposition (smiles!)
* Race.
Jim
HOW CAN CORE STABILITY HELP IN CYCLE SPEEDWAY - posted 27 December 2009
After Jim Varnish's first advice column, reader Chris Parish wanted to know more.
Hi Jim, you mention in your first response that core stability greatly improves gating and pick up. How does improving core stability improve them and what things can I do on my bike/in the gym to improve them?
Jim replies:
OK, core stability for Cycle Speedway. The key reason why core stability is important is that it will support all the major very strong limbs ie your arms and legs. As cyclists we tend to train the muscles we use the most and neglect the ones that keep them together, ie the lower back, stomach gluts etc..
Cycle Speedway is very hard to replicate and train for, as you are constantly in and out of the saddle moving around people and being
pushed about. Strong general core stability will take the pressure off the legs and enable more endurance and therefore you will race faster
for longer.
I'm no expert on this but I can assure you all the top GB track sprint riders have a massive core programme that they work on at last twice a
week.
Buying a Swiss Ball will be a great start and I have enclosed a link below for some great exercises. Believe me it works.
http://www.tri247.com/article_3319.html
http://www.thestretchinghandbook.com/archives/core-stability.php
PEAK PERFORMANCE - posted 27 December 2009
One of the country's top women racers Rachel Edge is keen to be in peak form at the National Women's championship in August. So she asked our resident coach Jim Varnish how best to go about it.
If I Want To Be At My Peak For August What Time Do U Suggest I Start Training...? How Can I Ensure Im At My Peak At This Time...?
Jim replies:
This is really interesting. To peak for one event or period would really mean you would need to sacrifice the rest of the season. As you can imagine, an Olympian will work on a four year cycle to bring the form on just perfect for the event.
An easy way of working this out is working to four cycles of training. Race-Recover-Train-Prepare
If you want really big gains these will be very large periods of time, like the Olympian example. However most of us compete more often than
that so these periods could actually be over a week, ie
* Race. Saturday / Sunday.
* Recover. Monday. Resting maybe a gentle short ride to help the legs recover.
* Train. Tuesday. Hard session with plenty of volume (laps) and hard efforts four lap efforts with little recovery etc. Basically working
as hard as you can to build strength and power.
* Prepare. Thursday. Lots of short fast sprint work getting sharp but not over hard as you won't be recovered for Saturday.
* Repeat....
As you can imagine with such short timescales improvement will come but the improvements will be smaller.
So to answer your question about peaking. You can build on the four cycles above to really bring you on and be "pinging" in August. This is very general ...
* Race. July, August and September
* Recover. October, November, December January. In the gym doing weights core work and also getting some good steady conditioning mileage in. This will keep you in great shape ready to start the hard stuff.
* Train. February - June. In the gym still, on the track doing plenty of hard training as above getting very strong using bigger gears,
seated effort etc, not worrying about real speed. Two hard sessions per week.(as you can imagine this training will not really help your
performance during this time!)
* Prepare. June-July. No gym. Lots of short fast sprint work (downhill sprints!) getting sharp but not over hard as you won't be
recovering, lots of racing getting sharp.
* Pinging...
Appreciate this is a bit complex and needs to set up for each individual but I hope this helps.
"I raced the indoor. Can't wait for the new season. What's the best way to keep fit over the winter."
Jim replies:
Good question.....Mainly you should be thinking about your fitness and conditioning to enable you to training hard when you start your pre-season race training. Forget speed and racing for now and concentrate on building your strength, endurance and power. So how do you do that then?
Endurance
Should be aiming at doing three rides per week of around 1 hour 15 minutes. Keep leg speed up to around 90-110 revs per minute.
Strength
Try doing some seated starts on your road bike (after a good warm up) using a gear of approx 52 x 15. Roll to a point in the road very slowly and then accelerate (seated) for approx 50 metres. Repeat after three minutes, then break for 10 minutes. Repeat for three sets. For younger riders keep the gear lower and maybe do two sets.
Power
I would strongly advise getting in the gym mainly doing some weights - dead lifts, squats, cleans etc. Also ask if they can advise you on core stability. Believe me for cycle speedway this will give you a huge advantage and will really allow you to pick up and gate more effectively.
Stretching
Don't forget to do a good stretching session every day. The more flexible you are, the more chance you have of getting through those gaps.
Hope that helps you and good luck...
Editor's Note - thanks for that Jim. That's really good advice. Now it's over to you readers. Keep the questions coming and we'll publish Jim's advice online.
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