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Athlete’s Corner

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One of the best forms of exercise is cycling, especially as people start to get up in age.  It is known to build stamina while burning body fat, and most importantly, it doesn’t put much impact on the joints.  For that reason, a number of African American cyclists hit the bike lanes in Los Angeles on a daily basis.

On the professional levels, cyclists are some of the fittest people around and they participate in one of the most grueling sports. Just like with running, there are different forms of cycling. Some athletes cycle for distance, and some for top speed. Most recreational cyclists incorporate distance in their routine, but mixing in the sprints can produce some great results.

Cyclist Jamie Staff, who has numerous world championships in the sport, is the High Performance Director of Sprint Programs for USA Cycling, where he has his athletes on the track five to six days a week for intense training. The emphasis is on the sprints, as his athletes have to produce as much power as possible over a short distance. These short bursts are called “efforts.”

“Each effort is only about seven to eight seconds, which doesn’t sound like much. If you add up the amount of seconds, you really haven’t done much at the end of the day in terms of time,” Staff laughs. “But the main difference between sprinting and endurance is that when sprinting, it is 100 percent intensity, 100 percent effort. It is as hard as you can go for that effort. Where as with endurance riders, you’re riding at 30 percent, 50 percent, of your capacity over a long period of time. Sprinting is the exact opposite because you give everything that you’ve got.”

This type of training builds muscle mass and strength, which in turn burns body fat. The workouts are similar to high intensity interval training, where an athlete works hard for a short burst, followed by a rest period to recover long enough to perform the exercise again.

“For sprinting the intensity is always 100 percent,” Staff said. “You never go out and do an 80 percent sprint. You always go as hard and as fast as you can. Where as in endurance, you’re training a different energy source.”

The top sprint cyclists in the world are using these training methods to excel at their sport, and the every-day person who is simply looking to get into great shape can use the same principles. Staff performs distance riding at times, but he prefers the sprints.

“Going out and doing three hours on flat ground, that would be pretty boring,” Staff said. “Sprints just makes the workout more interesting. I go out with my music on, and I kind of hold a certain pace for one song, and then I’d ramp it up for the next song to get my heart rate up.”

Simply perform a sprint for 30 seconds to a minute, and then coast to recover. Once recovered, perform another sprint.  Another challenging routine would be to perform the sprint up hills and then coast back down to the bottom. Repeat as many times as possible. A perfect place to perform such an workout would be in the Baldwin Hills area.

Picking up the pace can lead to some great results, and it is a good change of pace from the slow burn of distance cycling.

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