In 2003, Sarah Hammer had retired from track cycling, hanging up her jersey and selling most of her equipment after eight years of racing. But when she watched her former teammates compete in Athens the 2004, she got a bite from the Olympic bug. Since returning to the sport at age 21, Hammer, now 28, has won the individual pursuit at the Track Cycling World Championships four times. In 2010 she set the world record for the 3000 m individual pursuit and the following year became the first American woman to win three medals at a world championship.
London will mark Hammer’s second Olympic appearance—she finished fifth in the individual pursuit in 2008—but this time around she’s got some new training tricks up her sleeve. We recently chatted with her about these techniques and were surprised to learn that they are things we could be incorporating into our own fitness regimens as well.
1. What does your training regimen look like as you prep for London?
In the run-up to the Olympics, most of my training days involve two-a-day workouts, which replicate the same racing format for both of my Olympic events [the omnium and team pursuit] where I have to compete twice in one day for four days. (Search: What is an omnium race?)
Most days include gym work or a road ride and track training in the afternoon, or some combination of these elements. Training pretty much always starts at 9:00 AM and goes for two to three hours, and then I have lunch and take a bit of a break, and then I’m back at it around 3:00 PM.
We finish up the second workout of the day around 6:00 PM and then I’m off to shower, have dinner, and then sleep. This will be my training schedule for five to six days a week as I try to achieve peak conditioning for the Olympics.
2. What element of your training is most crucial to your success?
I think the most important thing I incorporate into my training (and what most successful athletes incorporate) is a structured and consistent routine and schedule. Success is all about chipping away at your goals on a daily basis.
We always say take one training day at a time, one training effort at a time, and focus on giving 100 percent on each. Ultimately that is all I can control. To be the best, there is no getting around the hard work. You have to be willing to pay the price—every day.
Free: Print these posters to motivate your summer training sessions
3. Beyond the basics, what tools are you using to enhance your training?
There is so much great technology out there right now and I think track cycling, in particular, is at the forefront of sporting science. The biggest innovation in cycling is that we now have powermeters, which quantify all the work we do on a bicycle.
We also spend a lot of our budget on wind tunnel training, as we want to make sure we have not only the fastest equipment possible, but we also want to make adjustments to my riding position so that it’s as efficient as possible.
Lastly, I've had some exciting results from a performance consulting company called Optimized Athlete, which is bringing innovations from the field of personalized medicine to athletes. It's probably the most complete 24-hour picture of my body that I've ever had.
4. How would you describe your experience using Optimized Athlete? What did you learn about your body and eating habits?
InsideTracker, [a service that uses a blood test to pinpoint nutritional deficiencies and excesses and helps you adjust your diet accordingly], was the most exciting performance partner that Optimized Athlete brought to my attention and I think most people could truly benefit from this service. I personally had two big discoveries that have had a direct impact on both my performance and recovery.
After a simple blood test, I had my results back in around a week. My report showed that I was highly deficient in vitamin D, which was a pretty big shocker as I train outside several hours a day.
What was really nice, and what I think makes InsideTracker pretty unique, was that when I received my online report after my test it not only showed what I was running high or low in, but it also showed me what I needed to either eat more or less of.
In addition to being deficient in vitamin D, I also discovered I was running too high in vitamin B. My report also showed that my cholesterol levels were high, which runs in my family but is always a good reminder.
Next up: Rebecca Soni’s Road to London
