That’s it, I’ve put my foot down and I refuse to look at the scale anymore this winter, it’s too upsetting to see the weight I worked so hard to lose come back on in the winter. Unless I starve myself and train like a man possessed I don’t lose weight and esp. in the winter when I think everything is working against me to lose or maintain a lower weight. I think it’s normal to put a little back on in the winter, most people do, esp in places like North East Pennsylvania with it’s long, cold, gloomy winters and culture of drinking the winter months away.

I’m sure if you work hard at it you can keep it to a minimum, and if you’re lucky even lose weight, but at what price? Maybe you’ll be burnt out in the regular season because you pushed to hard in the off-season, or you’ll feel wasted all the time in the winter, since you’re making your body do something it doens’t want to do, I find it hard to push myself as hard in the winter as the summer, and I bet there’s actual biological reasons for this, probably with the shorter daylight hours it effects your body’s hormones and ability to train at the same level or something. All I know is it feels wrong to ride 100% effort VO2Max when it’s 20F out. And all the pro level coaches advocate base miles and strength training, not going out there and riding at your limit in the cold and dark of winter.

The worst thing I think would be to get discouraged from training because you’re putting weight back on and think it’s a losing battle and give up your winter training routine. Just think you could probably burn off 10lbs in a month or two of riding once the weather is nice out, but you can’t build a base in a month which normally takes the whole winter. So that’s why I refuse to look at the scale right now, it was just making me crazy. I think it’s better to just focus on building a quality base and check the scales later when the weather is better and I’ve been putting in the miles outside. Avoid eating too much sugars and refined starches and alchol and stay consistent with your training, and don’t’ fret over putting on a few pounds.

And who knows it might even be desirable to have a little bit extra weight in the winter, at least that’s the clue nature gives us. I know for strength training etc. the worst thing you could do is not eat enough to fuel the workouts and protein and fat to help rebuild your muscles to be even stronger. I think the trick in winter is to reduce the number of carbs, unless you’re actually training at the same level as the summer.

How much weight have you put on or lost so far this winter?

So every week I try to do a least one day of each  type  of  training endurance, intervals, sprints, efficiency/skills training etc.  Most rides are endurance or recovery rides and I’ll have my intensity day either be a race, or a strength session on or off the bike. My favorite is racing or hard group ride for my high intensity day, I get a bunch of hard intervals of various lengths in and some sprints and jumps. The powerfile for races is always very spiky and interval like, something hard to replicate in training, that’s why racing is important training I think. Nothing motivates me more to push myself to a new level of intensity then a good old fashion drag race on the bike!

So yesterday my goal was to do a combined efficiency/endurance day and try spinning at 100rpm+ for my 44 mile 2 hr ride I’ve been doing a lot lately. I wasn’t sure if I could do it esp. since there are a few hill climbs on the way and even in my smallest gear at 100RPM I’m butting out almost 500watts. I usually end up doing 400w something on these couple climbs that take about 7 minutes and my RPM will drop a bit down to 90 something rpm.  So I get to the halfway point in my ride to refill my water bottles and I see that my average speed is almost 21mph average! Normally I do 18-19MPH average even when I’m trying to hammer the whole way. Not only was my average speed higher then ever, it felt easy to do because I wasn’t going anarobic at any point expect maybe for a couple minutes on the one big hill climb.  Only downside was that my butt was noticeably more chaffed, when you pedal that fast for that long you need some seriously good shorts, seat and cham lube or something ahaha.

What I noticed is that by spinning this fast my legs had more momentum, my legs never felt like they where getting bogged down and I was starting to smash. I notice too that my pedal form is better when I spin at high cadence, and when the effort becomes more muscular then cardiovascular I start pedaling in an inefficient mashing style that ignores the hip flexors and lifting and kicking over the top leg muscles. I also noticed that at first it can feel wierd pedaling fater then normal but after a while my legs get use to it and adjust and like it better. The biggest thing I noticed is that I would average a bit slower speed on the flats as I spin and my power would be a little low, normally I would put it in a harder gear and get the speed and power up and the cadence down. But this time I stuck with the 100RPM goal, interestingly every time I’d hit a hill I had a lot more snap and power in my legs and I would spin over it in a fairly big hill and keep my momentum up where before I’d try smashing up it to power over it and my legs would be fried after doing it and I would have to slow way down and let my legs recover.
So I learned that I should  “Rest and recovery and spin on the easy parts, and put in 120% effort on the slow hard parts the hills to keep your speed up” You have the most to gain by doing really well on the inclines. and relaxing a bit more on the flats.

So here is a list of benefits I’ve noticed first hand from riding at higher RPMs

1. Reserve leg strength and power for hills and sprints where you need it most to power over them and keep momentum up.
2. Higher RPM makes it easier to have all of your leg muscle groups join in the circular process of pedaling, you’re more efficient at high rpm
3. It’s easier and surprising at how much more power you can put out spinning faster, or how a high wattage can feel much easier at high RPMs
4. The cardio system seems to have more capacity and ability to endure then leg muscles, shifting as much of the burden as possible away from the muscular system can be very helpful for some cyclist I believe.
5. Spinning helps you use the lifting muscles in your legs more to help on the upstroke and kick across the top.
6. Spinning at a higher RPM helps you pedal easier when you’re going on flats or downhill and recovery, and lets you recover for the next jump or hill climb when you need that leg strength most. Even though it feels very easy and you could pedal harder gears, don’t because it shifts more strain to the leg muscles and takes away their snap for the next hill that is usually just around the corner.  And when that hill or jump comes up you’ll be able to spin a big gear and have the snap you need.
   Even though it’s temping to pedal harder or spin a bigger gear on the flats, it’s best to just spin and let your body rest for a couple minutes before the next roller or hill climb.
7. Spinning at easy and moderate sections of the rides gets your leg motor units use to firing in a certain sequence that’s more powerful, I notice when I spin on a ride that when I need to jump I tend to do it at faster RPM then usual and it’s easier to do. If I was riding on the flats or downhill sections of the ride in a bigger gear lower RPM, my leg muscles/nerves seem to get use to that pattern and changing RPM dramatically to climb or sprint feels very awkward.  So another benefit of spinning is that your legs are use to the timing the firing pattern and you can spin a moderate gear with lots of power much easier then if you would have been mashing previously.  I usually feel a bit weird at first when I spin at 100RPM or higher, once I warm up after 30 minutes or so my legs start to feel a lot smoother and settle into the cadence.
8. I also notice that I’m less tired when I do a ride at higher RPM, if I try to hammer on rides at lower RPM I feel wasted at the end of ride from using the muscles more then the heart and lungs.
9. I notice that higher RPMs make the same wattage feel easier, less anaerobic, less intense and riding fast more enjoyable.
10. I notice too that I loose more body fat riding more aerobically at higher RPMs
11. Since I’m not as tired esp. my legs which often are the thing that determine how much rest I need, I can ride more often and require less rest days which means faster improvement faster weight loss and more miles in the bank.
12. Spinning helps you use more of your legs muscle groups and distribute the load more so they’re less fatigued.
13. Spinning at higher RPM I believe teaches you to pedal more efficiently.
14. Spinning makes you ride more efficient and change gears more often, a really good habit for when you hit the hills. If you’re mashing in general, then when you hit the hills you’re probably beyond smashing and grinding slowly away at 50-70RPM which is less then ideal cadence even for mashers I think.
15. There’s a certain type of momentum you carry up a hill when you spin up and you’re “on top” of the gear vs. fighting to turn over the pedals. I don’t know how to explain this, but going up a hill at 95 or 100RPM vs. a harder gear at my typical 70 something RPM grind, feels like you’re going faster up the hill and able to have less resistance on the up stroke and kick across the top of the pedal stroke, as soon as you slow down everything starts to feel much less efficient. So I think it’s probably critical to keep RPMs up on hills and stay in your power band and optimal muscle firing pattern etc.
16. Spinning also helps you train  your aerobic system more as you can stress and target it more efficiently. If you mash too much and let the effort be mostly muscular your legs may give out before your heart and lungs.
17. I have a theory too nothing I can prove easily, but I believe that when you overuse a muscle or group of muscles in your body your heart rate and pattern spike and make you feel very winded and light headed, not because of the stress on the cardio system but because a hard muscular effort triggers body to be flooded with the byproducts of anarobic energy production and you feel really wasted. For example try doing a bunch of pull ups or squats, you’ll be winded and light headed by the time you max out but in a different way then if you where to run a mile at your fastest pace. I think the body bonks when you overload the muscular system, it makes the cardio system to get overwhelmed and over react or something. So if you are pushing your cardio system cycling up a hard hill and then let your RPMs fall to 70RPM and your mashing and and your legs are getting worked really hard then I think it triggers something that quickly puts you in the read zone. If you would simply just spin an easier gear, yes you might breath harder and your heart might feel like it’s working really hard, but surprsingly you can keep pushing the legs don’t bonk out and your heart rate is high but you don’t get that nasty totally wasted feeling and light headed over-reaction like you feel when do a hard muscular effort in the gym. To trigger that effect cycling means slowling way way down to recover. I wish I could explain this better and in scientific terms, but if you lift weights you know the incredablly winded feeling I’m talking about that seems more like an adreal over reaction of the heart and lungs then the real cardio load you’re going through.

    I think cycling hard should feel like running hard, not like doing squats or something, you’ll have that blown up weight lifting cardio reaction before you know it if you try smashing up a hill vs. spinning.

A final word on cadence and riding at a higher RPM

For all the great things I mentioned above, everyone is built different and some people might have weaker legs but better cardio system where a higher cadence works well for them. Where someone else might be built in a way that they can do more by riding a harder gear at a slower rpm to produce the same power, spinning doesn’t work for them, probably because they’re more fast twitch muscle fiber and they need to feel a certain amount of tension in their legs for all the motor units to be trigger to contract efficiently. But it takes months to get efficient at high rpms, at first it will feel very wrong, and your heart rate will be through the roof but over time your heart rate will drop sometimes by 20bpm at the same wattage I’ve read and then spinning feels much more doable. So give spinning a try you may find it really works for you.

I’m having a really great season this year cycling, I’ve made a lot of progress since last year and most of that I attribute to having trained like a machine all winter and spring, I never took off more then a week in the last year and half. Granted I have plenty of scheduled rest days and recovery weeks so I avoid getting fried like I did this spring when I got a little too carried away ahaha.

What I learned this season was I reached my peak strength in about 3x months, after that point anymore squats or weights or power training or intensity wasn’t going to give me much more significant improvement, I tried really hard for the first half of the summer to take my strenght and power on the bike up another level put no matter what I did I couldn’t do more. What I did notice a good improvement on is power endurance I can repeat those short hard race spike efforts over and over where in the winter and spring I could only do that a few times before I’d blow a gasket.

Cycling fast and long requires both strength and endurance. I always thought of myself as having good endurance, and that strength was my limiter. I failed to recognize that yes endurance might come easiest for me, but that doesn’t mean I should only work on strength. Even if it is a strength if you don’t use it you lose it and cycling is 80% endurance and 20% strength unless you’re doing short track efforts. So the 80/20 rule should apply to cycling I think and so do other top coaches I’ve read about. They say 80% of riding should be aerobic sub-threshold training and only 20% or less should be high intensity. Of course depending on your genetics, time of year in your schedule, and target events you may do more of one or the other.

I only started training seriously 1.5 years ago, so I basically really screwed up by going out and hammering on almost every single ride then spending the winter hammer the weights and obsessing over power. Yeah it helped develop my anaerobic system much much better, and improved my VO2max etc. but my endurance was so neglected that it has now become my limiter even though it’s historically always been a strong point for me in running and cycling.

Focusing to much on intensity and not base was a bad mistake also because I don’t have years of cycling and training under my belt, I’m building up from nothing, I could barely ride my bike around the block last spring and I was 80lbs over weight too! Base and aerobic cycling should be the focus esp. the first couple years of cycling or longer as strength and power are built on top of a big aerobic base and synergisticly help your anaerobic system work better.  I was all icing and no cake.

Even though I did mostly group rides last year,  every ride was a race for me as I was riding at my limit to keep up, I was out of shape and over weight, and I suffered the whole summer long, I was exhausted and burnt out by fall and it felt good to ride a bit slower and on my own schedule in the fall. But that lasted about a couple weeks then I was hungry to make a big improvement over the winter. I wanted to lose as much weight as possible and improve strength as I thought that was my limiter. I was only half right though, yes strength was my limiter, but in only 3 months I was much much stronger a rider and my endurance was now dwarfed and now the limiter. But I thought I could keep improving strength more I worked on strength all winter spring and half way through the summer, but never got stronger of faster then where I got after 3x months of focused strength and power training. I should have spent the fall and most of the winter doing lots of aerobic base miles, then did 3x months of strength work in the gym, then more base miles in the spring and early summer while converting gym strength into on bike strength.

I don’t regret what I did, as it was really neat to see my strength make a big jump, and help my riding a ton, as strength was my biggest limiter but not my only. The other limiter was endurance and that you can’t improve dramatically in 3-4 months like you can with strength. Endurance base training is miles in the bank, paying your dues.

I think for a bigger rider like myself having a big aerobic engine is even more important as it’s so easy to go anaerobic on even the smallest hill because of the power to weight ratio is so poor. I think if you’re a lighter rider, you can get away with more as your weight doesn’t trigger you body to go into the red as fast.

So needless to say I’m focusing most of my training now on aerobic training, and throwing in some on bike strength training and racing once a week or so to maintain the anaerobic system. This winter I’ll hit the gym again in January and do that until the start of April, I’m still going to do base miles during these three months but I’ll be cutting down on volume
a bit, but will still do at least one 3-4hr ride a week in to maintain the aerobic system. Then in March I’ll start to do more on bike strength work and start ramping up miles and then in April I’ll be putting the miles on and merging gym strength with bike strength and bike endurance and working on power in the May, then by end of May beginning of June I should be coming into really good form for some A events and I’ll try to carry that form through most of the summer and fall.

But I know now how to build up my anaerobic system and that racing helps build anaerobic endurance, but that the meat and potatoes of my riding in my training schedule for the week, the month and year need to be 80% aerobic and 20% anaerobic.

So what things have you learned from first hand experince in regards to your own base training over the years? Did you skip weight and power training, or cadance and effientcy training and not improve much? Or did you spend your entire winter on the fixie and blow everyone away the nex season. Let me know your thoughts I’m curious.

In regards to the Facebook poll  on strength maintenance training in the season.

I believe that correct use of weights in the gym that is converted into bike strength makes sense, esp. for guys like me that aren’t naturally strong but have lots of endurance,  i.e slow twitch muscle fiber or poor neuromuscular strength, and for people new to riding or getting back in shape. One of the first things Lance did in his comeback training was regaining muscular strength by weight lifting. Don’t believe me check this out

I was asking cycling friends in Facebook because I’m having trouble fitting in even one strength maintenance session a week, as it leaves me sore and interferes with my bike schedule it seems. I’m concerned about losing strength gains from the off-season if I don’t strength train to maintain it during the season.

My concern is that I would loose what I gained this winter if I don’t continue, but I think what I’m finding is that I’m riding  harder now and that riding itself when you’re hammering  at a new harder level is enough to maintain strength during the season, you’ll probably loose a some maximum strength, but that is probably good as you want to convert it into muscular endurance anyway for the most part, unless you’re track sprinter or something.

The authorities on training agree that you have to do at least some strength training in the season to maintain gains made in the off-season, but I think that if you’re racing and training hard enough, you can get by without it perhaps.

What I’ve been doing is reducing the volume and frequency of strength training in the gym, but I think I need to also reduce the intensity just enough so that I’m not sore the next day, the point is not to break down muscle to get stronger but to maintain it’s ability to generate force, and also to keep neuromuscular coordination efficiency. I think this can be done by doing a weight that lets me do about 15 reps,  and making sure I’m not going to muscle failure, and only doing the minim 3-4 sets and doing it only once per week. I think the critical thing to modulate is the intensity,  and I think it’s different for different people, so I might only need to do 15 reps of 50% 1RM (one rep max) where another person might need to do more or less to maintain. I would decide by how sore you are the next couple days and also when you do your training fitness progress tests, I would check your 1RM and see how much you’re losing, if you’re losing too much you might need to do more? But I think this also has to be taken with a grain of salt as it depends what type of physiology you have, what type of event you’re training for etc.

So someone that is a slowtwich fiber dominant person, training for an iron-man probably can get a away with doing less weight then someone that is a track sprinter. But I believe everyone should be training strength and endurance and maintain it through the season, regardless of their individual specality,  it’s just a matter of how much focus and time you’d put into one vs. the other that matters.

If you want to get faster on the bike, it’s not going to happen by riding around mile after mile at a moderate pace when training. It’s not going to happen by going out and trying to hammer on every training ride. It’s not going to happen if you double your millage or your weekly training time. Yes, saddle time is very important, tempo rides are important, but to move up to new levels of speed and power requires careful control of training intensity.

Go slow to go fast

To get faster, you have to train faster, but also slower too, let me explain. To ride and train really hard so that you break through new barriers, you need to prepare yourself for these breakthrough training rides by letting your body fully recover from the last hard breakthrough ride.  You actually get slower when you’ve trained hard, it’s on your recovery days or easy days that you heal and recover from your last hard training session and get just a tiny bit faster. It’s very easy to screw up the rhythm of your training and mess up this tiny improvement they call “super compensation”. If you’re not fully recovered and try to go out and do another hard session you won’t be able to do it at 110% effort, maybe 90% and it will take even longer now to recover let a alone reach a state of super compensation.

It’s much easier said then done though. It’s very tempting to “test” ourselves on every ride, to start hammering with reckless abandon, to get competitive on “easy” group ride days. To want to win so bad that you find it impossible to ride slow on easy days. But have faith, those easy days are probably more critical for getting fast then your fast days, if you can hold yourself back and let yourself recover fully and listen to your body, and only go all out when you’re 100% you’ll see much better results, be less tired, less likely to get injured, less frustrated, less likely to just quite cycling all together out of frustration when you’re not improving. Be patient, let the training process work, you have to believe in it.

Recovery day rides are not meant to test you or challenge you, they are meant to speed up recovery. It’s very easy to push to hard and re-stress your body when it shouldn’t be. Here are some tips I use to make sure my recovery days are just that

1. Don’t do group rides on your “easy” days as it’s too easy to get caught up in friendly competition of if the ride leader is  feeling good that day they might take you on some killer hill climbs etc. that you should not be doing on your easy day.
2. Use a heart rate monitor with it range alarm function to “yell” at you when you start to push to hard. Most monitors allow you set a maximum BPM you want it to go to, when you go higher the alarm goes off to tell you to ease up.
3. Ride on roads with little traffic that are scenic, there’s something about cars flying by you on the road that forces you to ride faster, sometimes there are legitimate safety reasons for not riding slow on certain roads or sections of roads.
4. You could also cross train on your easy days, go for hike, go for jog, swimming, even a fast walk will work
5. Just as bad as training hard before you’re fully recovered, not doing anything and sitting around on stiff sore legs can be just as bad and delay recovery.
6. If all else fails and you are a hammer and find it impossible to ride slow, then take off on your easiest days, but try to at least go for a walk etc. if you can.

Train faster to get faster

As obvious as it sounds, you’d be surprised at the number of cyclists that just keep doing moderate training rides, thinking slowly but surely they’ll get faster some how. They ride miles and miles and miles day after day, always pushing to go faster, but wondering why they’re not improving or improving very slowly. They only ride slow when they’re forced too because they’re exhausted from the volume of moderately hard rides and lack of recovery, or injury, some even get so discouraged they quit.

The “secret” to riding faster is that you’re going to have to make sure you’re fully recovered before a hard day, and then on that hard day, you want to give it 110%.  Hard break through sessions don’t need to be long, and probably shouldn’t be as you only need a taste of intensity to stimulate your body to get a little stronger, you don’t’ want to rip yourself to shreds by doing high intensity and high volume at the same time, you’ll only dig yourself a deep hole from which you need to recover from then. So hard training days should be shorter in general. You get faster not by volume but by increasing intensity, so be very careful with the volume of high intensity riding you do, it’s very easy to push yourself over the edge and actually get slower not faster.

The tricky part of getting this training rhythm right is knowing when your body is ready to train at 110% again.  Just because you have a hard day planned doesn’t mean you should be going hard that day. There are signs and signals your body will give you to let you know you need back off for another day or two or longer. Like

1. Increased resting heart rate at waking
2. A sudden drop or gain in weight, you may be dehydrated, or be holding water in your muscles because they’re swollen, or both.
3. Darker urine, you’re probably dehydrated
4. You may feel moody or cranky
5. Lack of motivation to train
6. You may feel weak or jittery
7. Have a headache
8. Difficult to get out of bed
9. Legs feel heavy
10. Difficulty sleeping
11. Lack of appetite
12. Inability to concentrate
13. If you train, your heart rate will be higher then normal
14. The amount of watts you can produce at a given heart rate is lower then normal, or heart rate is higher then normal
15. Lowered Libido
16. Inability to raise your heart rate to it’s max if you’re doing max efforts that normally would push your heart rate there.
17. Leg muscles that feel weak when riding
18. Leg muscles that fail and burn much faster then normal
19. Difficulty spinning at higher RPMs

And most importantly, sometimes you just don’t know that you need to rest more, you may have no symptoms or signs, this is why it’s critical to have planned in recovery weeks in your training cycles through the year, and also to have a transition period at the end of the season where you let your body recover from the entire season in general. I’ve started training in phases and at then end of each phase I have a full easy week, where I let myself recover, even if I feel a 100% and want to go hammer I make sure to take it easy this week, they’ll plenty of chances to hammer in the next 4-5 week training phase. They call this week an “unloading” week. you ramp up your efforts over 3-4 weeks then have an unloading week to make sure you’re fully recovered. You are ramping up and recovering during your weekly training cycle too, with unloading days, and ramp up days.  Being too enthusastic and not letting yourself recovery fully is probably the most common training mistake, and also not riding hard enough on your “hard” days.

Everyone’s  training rhythm is different, so you may be able to do two or three really hard days a week, where someone else can only handle one really hard day a week, and need to take it easy the rest of the weak. In general smaller fitter riders seem to recover faster, then larger more unfit riders, also genetics plays a role too.

Don’t let this season be mediocre for you, have it be a breakthrough season!

I’ve learned from training this winter for cycling that each method of training has it’s good and bad points. Each method usually is best at targeting one particular thing best. So it makes sense to identify your strengths and weaknesses as a rider and use the “tools of the trade” in the most effective way possible to target the specific weaknesses you’re trying to improve and strengths you’re trying to make stronger.

Before I say anything else, let me say that there is no substitute for riding a real bike to get better at riding a real bike, cross training is great and can help you a lot, but I think it’s the 80/20 rule. 80% of your training should be done on the bike whenever possible, now keep in mind this can change depending on what your weaknesses are and what you want to improve, but in general I would say that you should never let using off bike methods of training distract you so much that you’re not putting much quality miles, or your not riding a real bike outside in real conditions. Cross training means cross training, not primary training. Of course if you’re using periodization in your training your time and intensity on the bike will vary, also depending on what your trying to improve.

There are a lot of different methods of training like

1. Running- This can be a nice compliment to cycling as it works other muscles in your legs and hip, back and core and upper body then cycling. Some cyclists like running to help improve cardio.  It’s easier to get your heart rate up and keep it up when running on a flat road then cycling, it’s hard to “coast” when your running at 8mph, the ground doesn’t stop going by underneath you lol :-}
2. Stretching- many cyclists don’t stretch, so as crazy as it sounds I include stretching as cross training and find it helps me recover faster and feel more comfortable on the bike and running.
3. Strength training on the bike- I think strength training on the bike is really good to do, and is very specific, and is great for muscular endurance MS. It’s not really accurate to call it “strength” training as it’s impossible to really do strength training on a bike. Your chain would snap and cranks break if you really had enough resistance to be building “strength” on the bike.
4. Strength training in the gym- The gym with heavy weights is where you train muscular strength. The goals is to get as strong as possible without putting much if any weight on, you might even lose weight as a couple pounds of muscle can really burn up fat even when you’re resting. Plus lifting weights really boosts your metabolism and helps burn calories too, esp. in combination with doing cardio. It’s easy to train muscular strength with doing heavy squats and leg presses, these two exercises rule supreme.  The key though is transfer the strength into power and strength on the bike. So you’ll need time to convert that new found leg strength into muscular endurance and power endurance, but if everything goes right, you should be spinning a bigger gear then every once you  go through a successful periodization cycle of Adaptation, Hypertrophy, Strength, muscular endurance and power training.

   You can also use the gym to train hypertrophy and muscular endurance as well. One legged exercises are good etc.  Shorter muscular endurance can also be training in the gym, but you want to try to do a lot of muscular endurance training on the bike esp. for longer duration efforts. You may find doing 30 seconds of repetitions in the gym with a light weight is good for short term power type endurance, and longer hard muscular efforts are better trained on the bike with over gearing on flats and up hills.

5. Tempo riding- Tempo riding is great to build up miles and improve general fitness.
6. Endurance riding Long slow distance LSD- I’m not a big fan of this, unless you have issues with being able to hang in on longer rides.
7. Intervals- Intervals are probably the #1 training tool people use to go faster longer on a bike.
8. Time trials- Can be seen as one long interval, great for pushing the envelope and getting your body use to taking long hard pulls.
9. Group riding- The irradiate nature of races and their efforts are best simulated by outdoor riding in a group. Be careful to not do them too often at your limit as you’ll easily get over-trained.
10. Sprints- Often neglected, but a powerful skill to develop as a road racing competitor.
11. Power starts- Great for catching people if they try to jump and ride away from you, the ability to catch up easily to each attack and not let them drop you is a very valuable tool.
12. Indoor rollers- This is really good for helping develop a smooth efficient pedal stroke, but I believe so it riding outside from lots of miles.
13. Indoor stationary bike, with a real bike- The realistic position of a real bike on an indoor trainer I believe is superior to riding on any other kind of stationary bike.
14. Stationary expresso bike
15. Spinning type flywheel stationary bike.
16. and more…

What different tools of the trade do use and why? What benifts do you find that a particular training methods has helped you improve or not improve?

An idea dawned on me a couple weeks ago about that has stayed in my head like a “thorn in the mind”.

My question is, “Could it be possible that having stronger legs will force the cardiovascular system to also get stronger?”.

I’ve noticed a big improvement in my cycling from working on my main weakness which is strength. When I used to do my threshold efforts before it would be my legs that where burning and failing that slowed me down. Granted my heart rate was sky high as I was riding at threshold, I felt like when it came down to it, I could have kept pushing harder, but my legs just wouldn’t do it, they where spent.  Another big clue was that after doing a short time trial and riding until failure then recovering my legs felt like butter, they where done, even riding slow my legs would feel weak for the rest of the training session. It’s like once I pushed my leg muscles past a certain point, that was it, there was not coming back, the muscle had failed not my cardio system.

The biggest thing to improve with cardiovascular improvement is your heart muscle and it’s stroke volume. But you can’t lift weight with your heart muscle, you can’t make your heart muscle do squats or bench presses. So what is the best way to work the heart muscle? Is it through riding miles and miles of  riding? Or riding intervals? Almost everyone that I asked in a recent survey I did agrees that intervals are one the best known ways to get faster, but why? Did you every stop to wonder how intervals change your body?

1. they make your leg muscles stronger
2. they make your heart muscle stronger
3. they also cause other adaptions but I think the first two are the main improvements

Now it would seem to me that the heart and your legs would have to be somewhat balance to match each other’s ability. It would seem strange to me that someone with skinny little legs that can barely sustain 15mph pace would need or have, or be able to develop a big strong heart with a large stroke volume. You’re body’s muscles don’t have the ability to build up enough demand to stress out your heart enough to make it burn and want to grow bigger and stronger.

I guess it would be possible with a lot of effort, maybe by running or doing something that used more then just your legs muscles, maybe like running or swimming or cross country skiing, to force your “fuel pump” to work overtime and get stronger. But from what I’ve experienced in cycling training is that it’s easier to blow your leg muscles out before your cardio system is exhausted. I think running is “better” for cardio then cycling for a lot of people because the muscular strength demand is less and spread across the whole body, both the legs and the upper body, so the demand for the heart to feed all the those muscles and to feed your legs which are moving fast but with little resistance cause you’re heart to work hard. I think to get an equally hard cardio workout on the bike requires leg muscles that are fairly strong, but more importantly have strength endurance, the ability to pedal hard for long periods of time.

Another thought too is that spinning at a faster RPM can also help target the heart muscle and cardio system better. But when riding for maximum speed I find that the effort is balanced over the cardio and leg muscles for the most part, and depending on the rider they may be riding at a faster RPM easier gear and using more cardio, or using more muscular strength by riding a lower rpm harder gear. 

I guess the counter arguments would be that

1. because of your weak cardio system, it’s making your legs fail prematurely, if you had a stronger cardio system it would be able to feed your legs more fuel and oxygen and not cause you to go anaerobic.
   I was a fast runner at one point, and got into racing MTB, it wasn’t until I increased my intensity and started doing hard hill climbs and put on some leg muscle did my riding improve greatly, also my running improved a lot as well.
   We use to do intervals running etc, but nothing seemed to push me to the puke level like charging up steep hills on my bike, esp. when my legs got stronger and I could ride harder longer, this I think really forced my heart to catch up in strength as well.
2. Strength training doesn’t help cycling it’s not specific
   If you train wrong that could be possible, but I’ve seen with my very own eyes what a huge improvement strength can make in cycling and other sports. I’m a strong advocate of strength training for cycling, and almost any sport, and in life in general. I also believe in doing cardiovascular training as well of course. I think for athletes with a lot of natural strength, it might be possible that they don’t get as much benfit. But I am very suspcious of any serious athletic coach that doesn’t recommend at least some strength training for their athletes. I’m not alone on this either, there’s a reason why Lance’s coach has him hitting the weights in the winter.
3. You can still push your heart muscle hard by doing full body aerobic sports, even if your leg muscles are failing to push you to the limit in cycling.
   This I could see as a valid point and perhaps why two of the greatest cyclists Eddie Merckx and Greg Lemond both did cross country skiining in the offseason.
   But for many cyclists, they don’t do much cross training, so I question their ability to train their cardio system hard enough if they’re riding with legs that aren’t very strong.

These are all my crazy theories, but I just wanted to write them down so I dont’ forget what I’m thinking.

I think mileage is a poor measuring tool in training it can be misleading and cause you to be either be over-trained or under-trained easily, and probably not much faster of a rider either. A mile is not always a mile, ask your body it will tell you. If you ride down by the ocean and it’s flat and you have a tailwind the whole ride and end up doing 100 miles, and the next day you ride 10 miles of endless hill climbs the milage was very different but you feel like it was just about the same amount of effort. I’m training my body not my bike, so instead of measuring the mileage that my bike endured, I measure what training load my body endured. I look at

1. Training sessesion time
2. Average watts
3. Average heart rate
4. Perceived rate of exertion
5. And if you have a power meter, using tools like training peaks software you can measure training load even more accuarately.

There are other things also to think about as well when planning your training load like

1. How much time does your target event take at your projected race pace?
2. What type of intensities occur during this length of event, what energy systems will you be using?
3. What type of event is it, what riding positions will you be in?
4. What are your strengths and weaknesses, how is your body built, dominate muscle fiber type, cardio strength etc.?
5. What specific events and goals are you targeting with your training?
6. How well does your body respond to certain types of training?
7. What types of training methods do you like doing, and can tolerate doing all winter?
8. What types of training in the past have you found helped you most? I think this is a key thing that is not mentioned often. I think for some people they’ll find their bodies react differently then others to different types of training. So it’s important to keep training logs, and also measure improvements in fitness to gauge which training methods worked best for you as an individual, what types of loads, duration, intensity, frequency helped you most?

The main thing to keep in mind I think when planning your training load is to measure your duration and intensity, and not to worry about mileage, and to train specific to your own body’s needs to reach your targeted goal’s length and type of intensity.

The thing I find interesting too is that by training your weaknesses you often end up being a better all around rider as well and should be able to do well in a wider range of event durations and intensities. It’s been shown that training your weaknesses can also make your strengths even stronger. The track sprinter, who also does longer rides when training ends up making improvements to his sprints as well, the iron man that lifts weights and does on bike strength training, achieves a higher average sustained pace and experiences less muscular failure and ends up having more endurance because of his new found strength. But of course you would spend most your training time on building up the energy systems that are mostly used for your event. And if your event requires a balance of systems like road racing, then you should be training each system, and in particular the systems that are weakest that would give you the highest pay off if you improved it.

For my own training my goals this season are to build up as much strength and power as humanly possible as I discovered that strength and power are my body’s main weakness and also the thing that I would need to improve the most to be competitive at 1-2hr long events. I naturally have above average endurance, but below average strength. My target events for this season are almost all around 1-3hrs long, and the faster I can ride the shorter the duration of the event will be, the 3hr event will be closer to 2 hrs. if I can make a big improvement to my average power output, even more reason for me to train to get faster, then I can be home in time for lunch this year at my favorite local triathlon ahhaa. I love being fast, even if it’s only for part of group ride or a race, I’m most excited at the idea of riding very fast even if it’s only for a few miles. I want to be able to go 30MPH for a mile or two at least and be able to sustain 25mph for at least 5 miles, with plans to continue to increase my top end speed and the length of time I can sustain 25MPH+. I also want to focus this season more on road cycling and crits then triathlons, but as I mature in my training I will be aiming at ultimately at longer and longer events hopefully eventually getting to where I’m doing ironman races and being competitive. But we’ll see, I’m playing it by ear, as I haven’t trained and raced long enough to know what events I’d be best suited for, and which ones I like the most.

So taking into account my goals, my target event duration and types of events and the energy systems they call on. This season and probably next season I’m focused mostly on becoming fast, so I have something more then just mediocre speeds to endure.  For me to be fast I need more strength and power not more endurance, esp. since I have no problem with endurance. So my current training consists of mostly improving my maximum strength, speed, and power, and also stretching that new found speed and strength out to longer and longer times. So far I’m seeing very good progress, because I’m focusing on my weakness, and because this is the first real off-season that I’ve trained for cycling, I’m sure next winter I will be seeing a 100+watt threshold improvement in a couple months of training like I did this winter. Probably I will see a 20-30w improvement in the next year as from what I read that is about the average rate of improvement for most people in the off-season.

I think after a couple seasons of focusing on being as fast as possible for short durations I should start seeing my rate of improvement decline as I start to get closer to my genetic strength potential, then I will probably get more out of my training by focusing on extending the amount of time I can sustain a fast pace.

I learned today that using the correct technique for box step ups makes this exercise much much harder and really gets the quads fired up like nothing else! The trick is to do this exercise with proper form and technique by

1. lifting the opposite leg into the air at the top of the position and NOT resting it at the top of the bench or chair etc.
2. coming back down with control, so that you get more out of the down part of the motion and it makes it harder
3. focus on blasting up with power and speed, then coming back down with control
4. basically it’s one fluid motion from start to finish
5. don’t alternate legs either, you blast one leg at a time.
6. Don’t rest to long when you come back down, pop right back up

If you do this right, your quads will be on fire! I could only do about ½ the reps this way compared to when cheating. And doing this after having done squats and leg presses, my quads where on fried lol I could only do one working set. I think it made it even harder by saving this one for last after having already done 10 sets of squats and leg presses.

I also learned today that the 45 degree leg press sled might not be the best thing for muscular endurance high rep sets as.

My heels where coming off and my feet moving around when I don’t have a bunch of weight loaded on it, probably because I’m not the flexible either.

Since your legs are basically in the air, I think this interferes with the blood flow, I think it’s easier and more natural to get the blood circulating when you’re upright. But on the other hand maybe not having enough blood flow and get a wicked burn because of that will teach the leg muscles to deal with working in a fuel starved, high lactate environment better?

I’ve been riding bikes on and off my whole life and through the years I “trained” as best as I could, but I think since the last time I was seriously biking about 9 years ago I have learned the most about training and my own body and how it reacts and what works best for me. I might not be 20 years old and have the suborn strength and endurance of someone that age, but I think I have learned a lot more in recent years that’s really helping me now, things that I wish I had known then, I really wish I would have had a really good coach when I was younger.

Here’s a highlight of some of the things I’ve learned over the years

1. Strength: I’ve learned that my body is built for endurance but at the sacrifice of strength, I have above average endurance esp. for someone of my size, but I have average or below average strength.  I think for every sport a person most become technically good at the sport, but there comes a point where speed, strength, agility, flexibility etc. are the things that need to be improved on to reach high levels in most sports. I’ve found this to be very true with rock climbing and in cycling, but of which I’ve trained for very hard and specifically to improve strength. My climbing improved by 1/3 and I was climbing at an elite level after spending an off season of strength training. My body seems to respond well to strength training,  and training in general. I’m not sure if other people would see such an improvement, I imagine they would but I don’t know other people’s bodies like I know mine. Now I’m employ the things I learned from strength training for rock climbing, and just general strength training and body building and apply that to my cycling.  And from what I’ve seen over the last 3 months of strength training I’ve been doing for my legs and core and even my heart muscle which I’m “strength training” as well, the improvement in my power output on the bike has been dramatic for me. And I’m excited as I’ve never been in such good cycling shape and I know that I’m only scratching the surface since I still have weight to lose and there’s no way that in only 3 months of strength training I’ve reached my genetic potential in my leg strength.
2. Natural diet: I’ve learned about how critical a healthy diet is, how important fresh raw organic vegetables and fruits are for our bodies. How some foods make us weak and tired, and other foods make us feel strong, energetic, light and fast.
3. Periodized diet:  I’ve learned that you should eat differently depending on what your body needs, what type of training or stress you have going on at the moment, the climate you live in, and your body type etc.
4. Strength to weight ratio: I’ve learned that when I was running a lot and was very light, I was able to rock climb much more gracefully and efficiently, with little forearm strength training I was able to jump on what where hard climbs and actually climb them.
5. Cardio stregth and how it helps rock climbing: I noticed also when rock climbing that not only was it easier when I was light from running a lot and being very thin, but also that my new found cardio endurance helped feed my arm muscles fuel, and also most importantly my climbing technique was very good even things got tuff because I was able to breath through it and have oxygen going to my brain so I could think clearly and have cordination. Usually when you climb at your limit your often start holding your breath and becoming stiff, when that starts it’s only seconds before you pop off.
6. Rest: I learned from bodybuilding that if I was patient and waited 5-6 days to let my muscles fully recover that I grew more muscle and got stronger, and when I did train that muscle again, I could really tear it up and train savagely. This was after having been bodbuilding for a year though, and going to the gym and not feeling sore anymore after training. Once I started resting fully and training more intestly I started to progress again. Lesson learned, Train really hard, but rest really hard too. If you rest half way then train again you won’t be able to truely train hard.
7. Patience: I gave up MTB racing after my first season because I had no patience and I was unrealistic about how fast I could progress. I have to really laugh at myself now, but my first MTB race I did, I entered as “elite” class, I was fast, but not that fast, and of course got left in the dust.  It was a very humbling experince and I trained hard and did more races that season and had one problem after another, besides getting dropped all the time, I kept breakign my bike and crashing from riding at my cardio limits and having nothing left for cordination. I honestly expected of myself to be winning elite class MTB races my first summer of racing. I didn’t understand that it takes at least a couple years training summer winter summer winter long to start to get really fast for most people, and then even longer to reach your genetic potential.
8. Not taking one training session or week or even one season of biking performance too seriously. I would make judgments about my potential and talent as a cyclist on a daily basis always re-evaluting myself and trying to figure out if I’ve become a pro today, or if I am kidding myself that I could be great one day. I would let one bad race, one bad training sessesion descourage me from riding, sometimes leaving riding all together for the whole season or years.
9. Periodization in training:  I’ve learned about periodation in training, training different aspects of athletic performance at different times of the year then brining them together and trying to be in “peak” form at the time of your target events.
10. Peaking: I’ve learned that when you’re peaking you’ll be breaking new records on a daily basis, feeling as strong and powerful and fast as ever, then as quick as that comes, a week or two later, you’re feeling like you’re at 50% riding is really off etc.
11. Tapering and doing it properly: I’ve learned that tapering before breakthrough training sessions and before competition is important, better to be under trained and over rested then over trained when starting a race. But I’ve learned too that tappering and taking it too easy can leave you feeling stiff and slow in a race esp. during the begining part while you’re warming up.
12. Warming up is crtical before races for me.
13. Cross training and avoiding staleness: It’s good to avoid riding or running or doing any sport too much, it’s good to maybe run one day instead of riding etc.  so you don’t get stale.
14. Training your weakness and racing your strengths: We all are born with certain body types, and respond to training differently, and have different weaknesses we have to train. It’s important to be honest with yourself and identify exactly the things you need to work on to reach your goals. It’s also important to race in events or courses that are suited for your body type if you plan on winning. If you’re a light rider, then climbing will generally be easier for you and hilly courses. If you’re a big powerful rider, then maybe shorter, flatter events suit you, or sprinting etc.
15. I use to think that training on a stationary bike was silly, and artificial and not as good as a real bike. But what I have learned is that on a stationary bike you have many advantages. You can train any time of day, in any weather condition, there’s no excuse to cut a training session short because of rain or hot weather either. You don’t have to worry about getting run over by cars or smashing into rock and trees, so you are able to focus on the pure physical effort of cycling and put all your focus into it. Coasting feels really silly on the stationary bike, I avoid doing it. I am able to focus on my pedaling technique better as I’m not distracted. I am able to focus on my bike position, breathing etc as well. Also doing one legged pedaling drills is much easier on the stationary bike. And there is always, water, fuel, bathroom, towel, music etc. on the stationary. Granted riding out on the open road is very exciting and fun and what this sport is all about, the stationary training, rollers etc should not be overlooked as one of the tools in your arsenal. Just make sure to take enough rest days and do a little cross training to avoid getting stale or over trained on the trainer as it’s easy to do when weather and darkness don’t slow you down.
16. And most importantly have fun! What good is winning or reaching your goals if you’re not happy? Just chill out and be patient train hard, rest even harder, have fun and don’t pressure yourself so much