There's a number that came up on the Cory Williams episode of the Roadman Cycling Podcast that should reframe how every amateur sprinter trains.
His peak sprint power is around 1,640 watts. The biggest race of his career — a major US criterium — was won with roughly 1,100 watts.
That gap. Roughly 540 watts between what he can produce in a controlled, fresh sprint and what was actually required to win the race. Around a third of his peak. The race wasn't won by being the strongest sprinter in the field. It was won by being the rider who could still deliver 1,100 watts after two hours of high-intensity racing, in the right position, against the right wheels, at the right moment.
That insight is the most useful thing for amateur cyclists who are training their sprint. Most of you are working the wrong number.
Why peak power is the wrong target
The cycling internet loves peak numbers. Strava sprint records. Power meter screenshots. The 5-second peak from a fresh test on a sunny day. These numbers feel like progress. They show up in training files. They feed the ego.
The problem is that peak power, in isolation, doesn't predict race outcomes very well. A criterium isn't won by who can produce the highest watts in a controlled test. It's won by who can produce sufficient watts in a specific situation — late in the race, with legs that have been at threshold for 90 minutes, with positioning that's been earned through tactical work, against riders who have also been racing at the same intensity.
The relevant variable is the percentage of peak that you can deliver under those conditions. If your peak sprint is 1,400 watts and you can produce 950 watts after two hours of racing, your useful sprint is 950. If your peak is 1,200 and you can produce 1,000 after two hours, your useful sprint is 1,000. The second rider has a lower peak and a stronger race.
This is the core of Cory's insight. He doesn't have the highest peak in the L39ION roster. What he has is the ability to keep producing high-percentage power deep into races. The ability didn't come from sprint training alone. It came from doing race-specific intensity in a way that taught his body to retain power output under fatigue.
What race-specific training actually looks like
Race-specific training isn't a category that shows up in most generic training plans. It should.
The principle: structure intervals that mirror the demand profile of your target events. For a criterium, that means repeated short efforts at high intensity, separated by recoveries that aren't long enough for full recovery, with the hardest efforts placed in the second half of the session. For a road race, that means longer threshold blocks with surges layered on top, executed with substantial accumulated fatigue. For an ultra, that means long endurance work with the hardest efforts in the back half of the longest rides.
The session that prepared Cory for criterium sprints wasn't just sprint repeats. It was sessions like:
- 90 minutes of tempo work, finished with a series of 30-second sprints with 90 seconds recovery
- Long rides where the final hour included maximal efforts at predetermined intervals
- Race-pace simulations that included not just the physiological demand but the tactical mental work of choosing wheels and positioning
The point is that the sprint at the end isn't the focus of the session. The fatigue underneath the sprint is the focus. Generating high power output when you're already tired is a trainable skill, distinct from generating high power when you're fresh. Most amateur sprinters train the second skill and wonder why their race results don't improve.
The interval training piece and the hill repeats guide cover the structural principles. For sprinters specifically, the key adjustment is placing the maximal efforts late in fatiguing sessions, not early.
The positioning math
Cory was direct about another variable that gets underrated. Positioning.
In a criterium, positioning isn't decorative. It's a power-saving variable that often determines who has the legs to sprint at the finish. A rider in the front 10 of a 60-rider bunch is doing roughly 70% of the aerobic work that a rider at the back is doing. Across 90 minutes, that difference compounds into a significant fatigue gap. The rider who arrives at the final lap at 80% of peak isn't outsprinting the rider who arrives at 60% — that race was decided long before the sprint.
Cory's path through races prioritises positioning for the entire duration, not just the closing laps. He works to be in the top 10-15 from the gun. He fights for wheels in the middle of the race when other riders are saving energy. The positioning work itself costs energy, but it costs less energy than getting moved to the back and having to surge to recover.
For amateurs, this is one of the highest-impact tactical adjustments available. Most amateur racers position passively for the bulk of a race and then try to surge to the front in the final laps. They burn the matches they were going to need for the sprint. The corrective is to position actively from the start, treat the middle of the race as a positioning exercise, and arrive at the final laps with both location and energy.
What strength training does for sprinters
The strength side of sprint development is one of the more misunderstood pieces. Cory's framing on the podcast was that pure sprint power isn't really the variable he's trying to maximise — it's how much of that power he can put down when the moment arrives.
The strength training that supports this isn't bodybuilding. It's targeted, heavy, and focused on the specific neurological and structural adaptations that support high-power outputs. Heavy squats. Deadlifts. Trap-bar deadlifts. Olympic-style work for explosive recruitment. Sets in the 3-6 rep range, at loads that recruit type II fibres, separated by full recoveries.
The aim is to build the structural capacity that allows the legs to produce force without breaking down under repeated efforts. A rider whose legs feel "tight" by lap 30 of a criterium often has a strength deficit, not a power deficit. The structure isn't there to support repeated force production. The strength work is what builds it.
The strength training for cyclists piece covers the minimum effective dose. For sprinters specifically, the heavy work gets prioritised in the off-season and held at maintenance during the race season. The pattern is consistent across studies and across coaches: cyclists who do real strength work outperform cyclists who skip it.
The L39ION model and what it tells us
Cory and his brother Justin built L39ION of Los Angeles into a continental team with a profile that exceeds its UCI ranking by a significant margin. The team uses social media — YouTube, Instagram, direct-to-fan content — to build commercial value beyond pure race results. They've made cycling more accessible to audiences that traditional cycling media missed. They've shifted what sponsors expect from US continental teams.
This matters as a side-note for amateurs because it points at how the sport is changing. Performance still matters — the team is structured around real race results — but the value the team generates now extends well beyond results. Sponsors don't pay for race wins alone. They pay for audience, attention, and brand alignment. The teams that figured this out early are the ones with the most stable financial picture.
For amateur cyclists, the practical takeaway is in how to evaluate cycling content. The trustworthy voices are the ones whose work is auditable — whose data is open, whose biases are visible, whose mistakes are part of the public record. Some of the best cycling commentary right now is on YouTube channels and podcasts run by individuals like the Williams brothers, who train, race, and document their work openly. The format isn't the signal — the work is.
What to do with this if you're sprinting
Three positions in order of impact:
Train under fatigue, not just fresh. Place your sprint work late in long sessions. The session that builds race-relevant sprint power isn't the one with sprints in lap one. It's the one with sprints in lap 30, after 90 minutes of tempo, repeated week after week. This is the structural adjustment most amateur sprinters miss.
Treat positioning as a skill. Spend deliberate practice time on bunch positioning during group rides and races. Front-of-pack riding is a discipline, not a luck variable. Riders who spend 20% of their training time deliberately practising positioning improve faster than riders who only train physiology.
Add real strength work. Heavy lifting in the off-season, maintenance through the race season. The goal isn't bodybuilder size — it's the structural capacity to produce force repeatedly without breaking down. Two sessions a week is a reasonable starting volume. The cycling deadlift guide covers the basics of the highest-leverage lift.
The full conversation with Cory — including the L39ION story, his early years on rough public transport between races, his thoughts on cycling's diversity problem, and the team's evolution — is in the full episode. The other strength and conditioning conversations cover the cycling-specific lifting work in more detail.
The race isn't won by your peak number. It's won by what you can produce when it matters. Train for that.
