Daily Archives: January 29, 2009

An old dog and his new tricks

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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

Leg press vs. squatting vs. one legged exercises

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I’ve been weight training my legs a lot more seriously this off season more then I ever have before even when I was bodybuilding. I’m becoming a student of leg training lately trying lots of different leg exercises and thinking about the pros and cons of each exercise. I’ve learned a coupled things recently like

  1. I’m absolutely convinced at the effectiveness of leg strength training as part of well balanced training plan especially for riders not blessed with natural leg strength, I wont’ even waste my time debating with the cycling geniuses out there that say it doesn’t help. Only if your bike touring perhaps would I say the reward might not be the effort, but even for bike touring you could cycling with more comfort and be injury free, so it still has a place even in that example.  It’s pretty neat to be able to hold the same wattage for 45 minutes at a lower heart rate then which you struggled to hold for 10 minutes at your threshold only a couple months ago. Strength training is the missing link, at least  for me.
  2. Single leg exercises seem to put more stress on the knee with the exception of perhaps the box setup.
  3. But on the other hand single exercises seem to be great for muscular endurance phase as it reduces the chance that your cardio system fails before your leg muscles do. When you’re doing sets of 50 or 60+ reps and using both legs like in squats or leg presses etc. the demand of both legs needing oxygen and fuel can easily set you in the red zone and put your heart rate through the rough. I don’t do these sets with baby weights, these are very challenging sets that push your leg muscles to failure and beyond. When doing these challenging endurance sets I’m finding I prefer single leg exercises in particular box setups. Single leg lunges, or single leg smith machine squats all feel like they’re bad for the knee. I don’t like doing leg extensions either as that is not a sport specific motion and puts too much shear stress on the knee.  But I do appreciate the burn that leg extensions are good at inducing.
  4. I haven’t done box setups heavy yet, but I don’t think this exercise would be suited for doing it heavy.
  5. When I do go heavy as in the hypertrophy and strength phases of my off-season training I prefer doing heavy squats and very heavy leg presses. I feel much more secure and stable when going heavy with these exercises.
  6. I like the smith machine squats because I can get my legs more underneath me as I would be when pedaling a bike, I can also get my legs closer together as well as when riding on the bike. Trying to put my feet like this doing a normal free weight squat would having my falling forward.
  7. I also like the smith machine squats because you dont’ have to worry as much about balancing yourself and you can put all your effort into pushing, this is good and bad. Your core muscles and balancing muscles don’t get the same workout, but I’m trying to bike faster by pedaling harder, not winning a strong man competition rolling tires over hahaa.
  8. I find that super slow reps can be especially good during the strength phase as it seems to really dig into your muscle and trigger more motor units. If you’re going heavy and doing reps until failure then your last 1-2 reps will probably be super slow anyway, if they’re too easy then you need to put more weight on. For strength you don’t want to be doing more then 6 reps. If you get to 6 reps then put more weight on.
  9. I bet 80% of your strength improvement happens during the last 1-2 reps where you can barely push the weight and it’s slowly moving, I bet that is when your muscles learn to fire off more nerves and more muscle fiber is challenged. It’s almost like the first couple reps are to exhaust the strong muscle fibers and the last couple reps are to punish the weak that are still standing ahahhaa. This is probably why I had such great success with my rock climbing training when I did negatives and static strength positions, eventually I was able to do multiple one arm pull ups.
  10. I think you can and should incorporate some of your resistance and strength training on the bike itself. I think this works good more for muscular endurance and building up power and sport specific strength. I like doing sprints on the bike trainer, power starts, over gear work pedaling at really hard gears at low cadence. Hills, hills in low cadence gears.
  11. Single leg exercises are great, they are really good for helping to strengthen the shin muscle to prevent shin splints I noticed. As well as help with eliminating dead spots in your pedal stroke.
  12. The days after a really hard leg workout when your legs feel pumped but not necessarily stronger is usually because they’re swollen and healing from training, I like when they feel like this because it feels like they’re growing which they might be, but until that feeling of puffiness goes away I would rest before doing any hard leg session, swelling=microscopic damage=growth, if you train hard too soon then you’re just breaking yourself down again, remember training is the stimulus to improvement, real improvement happens during rest. If you’re not improving anymore instead of first trying to just ride more miles, think of ways you can increase the intensity of the miles you are already riding, this will increase the quality of the stimulus. Make your rests between intervals shorter, ride harder, ride faster, pedal faster, there are lots of things you can do to make your works more intense.
  13. I’m really starting to like doing heavy leg presses, we have two machines one  machine you’re basically lying flat on your back pushing up against the shoulder pads, the other leg press is a sled where you are sitting upright 45 degrees pushing up. They seem to be very different, even though at first glance you’d think they’d be the same.  Since we bike bent over and not standing straight up, I think the leg press sled at 45 degrees is superior, plus you don’t get those nasty shoulder hickeys from going heavy with weight o the shoulders. After doing a couple heavy sets with the 45 degree machine I was left with the impression that this is more sport specific to cycling. Also my legs where finally sore again the next day just like when I first started working my legs 3 months ago.
  14. I still like doing squats and smith machine squats, but I think I’ll be putting more attention to the 45 degree sled from now on. From what I read Lance only does leg presses as his coaches are worried about him hurting his back by doing squats, maybe he had a back exercise before I’m not sure, either that or they realize that his upper body and back muscles are not strong enough to handle his leg strength and the chance of injury is higher?
  15. I think that single exercises can be more sport specific to cycling then double leg motions since when we pedal we don’t push down on both pedals at the same time. That’s also another reason why I like single leg exercises. I think that it helps strengthen the core and balancing muscles that have to be strong when we pedal hard. I noticed that when I keep my upper body quite when riding and hold the trainer handle bars hard to keep my upper body as rigid as possible while pedaling that I notice that my wattage output usually goes up as more power is transmitted to the pedals and not lost in upper body motion and flexing. I think this also proves to myself that having strong core muscles is really important in riding faster especially when you start riding really fast and you’re pedaling with a lot more force and longer. Strong core muscles will help stabilize your body and let you have a none moving object to push off of when you push down on the pedals, as oppose to having something that bends and flexes when pressed hard that absorbs some of the pealing effort. I probably would not have learned this had it not been for training on the stationary trainer while having
  16. It’s important not to hold your breath when lifting weights especially when doing muscular endurance training when you have sets  with a high number of reps, you need that oxygen.