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Olympic Bobsledders Ride Too!

Posted: Nov 08 2011 in Commentary, Random

Olympic  Bobsledder Justin Kripps

Discusses how he incorporates biking into his training

Justin Kripps made his Olympic debut in Vancouver at the 2010 Olympics as a push athlete on Pierre Lueders’ team and has now moved up to the driver’s seat looking towards Sochi 2014. He has been competing since 2006.

Instead of sitting on an indoor bike when the weather is nice, Justin chooses to incorporate his training intervals when he is riding outside. Because Bobsledding is mostly an anaerobic sport (sprinting), it requires high intensity, short bursts of energy. Because the intervals are short, they are easy to do while riding around the city.

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In Justin's words:

Riding my bike is one of my favourite parts of training. As big heavy athletes, bobsledders don't go jogging to keep our fitness up, we bike. We still want knees when we're old. Doing intervals is hard work, but the payoff is big and it’s nice to get going fast in the off season as well.

Top three reasons I do intervals:

1. Low impact high power output anaerobic (or aerobic depending your intervals) training. Save your joints!
2. Huge calorie burn. Bike intervals are the big game changer if you're looking to lean out.
3. It gets me out of the gym and off the track. When you train as often as I do it’s nice to have a change of scenery...

My two main interval workouts:

Pyramid Aerobic Bike (a.k.a. Fat Bike)

Moderate intensity 2,3,4,5,4,3,2. Rest 1 min, (easy pedal) in between.

Do whatever warm up you like to do, then 2 minutes moderate intensity followed by 1 minute easy spinning then 3 minutes moderate intensity, followed by 1 minute easy spinning, etc. up to 5 minutes and then back down.  What's moderate intensity? Good question. It depends on the individual, but, in my opinion, in terms of heart rate it’s between 60-75% of your maximum heart rate. Personally, I go by feeling, but anytime I do check my HR during a moderate intensity ride, it’s in that range. I call this “Fat Bike” because it helps you burn fat like crazy. It takes about 30 minutes.

Anaerobic Bike Sprints

Moderate-High intensity 5x (1 on, 2 off)

This is 1 minute of Moderate-High intensity sprint, followed by 2 minutes easy spin, done 5 times. I call this Moderate-High intensity because for me this is supplemental training and it isn't meant to be maximal. If I were to do this maximally, I would take closer to 6+ minutes in between sprints.

I probably wouldn't do these workouts on Robson street, but I've actually (sort of) done these Downtown in the bike lanes when it isn’t peak traffic. You just can't get upset if you have to stop for a red light right in the middle of your interval. The bike streets around Shaughnessy work well, as does the bike loop at UBC. Be imaginative, have fun and stay safe by following the rules of the road, i.e. don't bomb through red lights to keep your interval going.

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