Monthly Archives: February 2009

On bike strength training, get strong like Conan

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*Big note, keep in mind that the training I’m doing is specific to my strengths and weaknesses, If I was able to ride 25-30MPH for a few miles, but had trouble finishing a century ride, then my training would be very different.  But I have no trouble with endurance, it’s my strength and speed, acceleration etc. that have always been my weak point. I spend 80% of my time working on my weakness and 20% of my time improving and maintaining my endurance.

Having strong legs in cycling is an asset no matter the naysayers might preach. Of course strength isn’t everything, but I believe it is one of the main raw ingredients to improvement in most sports including cycling. Being stronger means that you can convert this new found strength into endurance so that you can ride fast for longer periods of time. Yes spinning is important, but if you’d try to “spin” the kind of gears the pros are spinning you’d quickly find out in a matter of seconds, that there certainly is an element of strength involved when you try to ride or “spin” the same gears.

I’ve been training strength and muscular endurance over the whole winter and it’s really amazing what it’s doing for my riding. I’ve been at if for 6 months now, and I’ve seen my 1 mile TT test I do on the stationary bike jump from 330watts to 500watts average. My longer ~12minute TT test I’ve also seen improve by over 100watts as well. And that was only after Base1 cycle, now I’m in Base2 cycle and the ME muscular endurance phase, which is where I last saw the biggest jump in my times and power and expect to set some new PB this month. I can hold over 500watts for about 3/4 of the distance on my short TT test course, and I’m sure once I do 2-3 weeks of ME muscular endurance training, I’ll be able to finish the last 30 seconds of the course over 500watts. And I’m sure the longer 10 minute TT should see some improvement also hopefully.

I think it makes sense to do both weight lifting and on bike training to build cycling strength.  I think starting the offseason by emphasizing weights, and then as spring draws near doing more on bike strength training so that your new found strength is specific and translates to real improvement on the bike.

I split my offseason training into two periodization cycles, the first was more general, building raw leg strength in the gym, cardio endurance, core strength etc. My periodization plan has been roughly a 15 week cycle as follows

  1. 1 x month of Hypertrophy
  2. 1x week unloading/rest preparing for the start of the next 4 weeks of hard training
  3. 1 x month of MS maximum strength training
  4. 1x week unloading/rest preparing for the start of the next 4 weeks of hard training
  5. 1x month of ME short/medium/long – Since road racing, requires not only endurance, but the ability to close gaps and sprint to the finish
  6. 1x week rest again

Now I’m on the second strength cycle and I’m alternating between working strength in the gym and on the bike.  I still like doing to the gym once a week or every other week, because I find that I can work on my main weakness which is strength more effectively in the gym, but I can’t do it all in the gym because it’s not specific enough to rely on by itself, that’s where on bike strength training kicks in.

I’m also starting to build up my base miles more around this time as well, but I try to keep my long 2-3 hr rides at an easy or moderate pace so it doesn’t interfere with my hard key training days of the week, but I find it’s difficult to have an easy to moderate day around here, because I live in a hilly terrian, and I’m at least 25lbs overweight from my ideal weight.  Plus it’s hard to ride slow on the roads, with cars flying by you. I find it easier to go for an low intensity mountain bike ride instead, just drop it into the granny gear and spin away for hours.

Depending on which of the 3 periods I’m in, I’ll adjust how I do my on bike training sessions.

  1. For Hypertrophy periods, I do on bike training by focusing on short efforts like short steep hill repeats, maybe for 1 minute or so and I try to keep the rest between short too, the idea is fatigue the muscle fibers and exhaust them, not necessarily push them as hard as possible. If I was in the gym, I’d be doing squats and leg presses aiming for 10-15 reps, with short 1 minute rests between sets. and doing enough sets to make sure the muscle is exhausted.
  2. For MS maximum strength periods, I’ll do very steep but short hill repeats with a long break between sets so that I each hill repeat is maximum effort. I the idea is not to tire out the energy reserves in your muscles like Hypertrophy, but to stress out the muscle fibers ability to maintain maximum tension. I drop the bike down into a low gear to where I’m barely able to pedal up the short steep hill, I get in maybe 20-30 pedal revolutions. It’s almost like weight lifting on the bike, and I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before I snap another chain doing this lol. This is my first offseason training for cycling, so I’m just experimenting and trying different things. I still think that nothing beats weights to train strength, you’ll break your bike or hurt your knees or simply fall over if you really pushed hard enough I think ahhaa. The neat thing is that it’s gets so hard going up hills like this I start using my upper body and I get out of the saddle like I’m doing a sprint, pulling on the bars etc. I’m sure this is building core strength too, it looks really stupid, but I can’t image doing super hard hill repeats like this isn’t beneficial. If I was in the gym, I’d be doing really heavy squats and leg presses where I could only do the maximum 6 reps.  I’d take long breaks between sets, and possibly do a high number of sets.
  3. For ME Muscular Endurance short/medium/long – I do more cycling specific training as I think you want to be much more careful about translating ME strength to the specific motion of cycling then with Maximum strength, you can only really train MS in the gym. You can train ME in the gym also, but I focus mostly on the stationary bike, and single leg exercises. I do some high rep squats, with some sets having 50 reps or more, but I do this mostly to build endurance in my back muscles,  and pre-fatigue my legs for the real torture that’s to come.  On the stationary bike, I’ll do a few hard 2 minute all out efforts, for ME short/medium, then I’ll also do 1-2x 10 minute TT efforts on the expresso bike, these are basically all out efforts. I’ve read that some coaches say on bike strength training should have your heart rate in zones 1-3, but I don’t know what they’re talking about, because when I’m donig high reps in the gym with a moderately heavy weight, my heart rate is high, same thing when I’m on the bike. Also I think ME should be trained at a high intensity, each repetition should be preformed explosively and fluidly and without stopping, you should not be executing this reps slow or pausing and taking breaks, even though it’s very tempting as this training is some of the hardest I’ve done, but also the most rewarding as it forges together in a hot fire the raw ingredients of raw strength and cardio endurance you’ve been building, into one synergistic effort that resembles the most demanding aspects of cycling, charging up hills, closing gaps, Time Trialing turning yourself inside out.  Also it only makes sense that your big leg muscles being worked to the max are gonig to send your heart rate flying, as your heart is a muscle too that feeds those legs. Keep in mind that one of the most significant improvements to cardiovascular endurance is increased heart stroke volume, and doing really hard efforts in ME can only help this, I’m sure that your LT/AT will also go up as well.

How cold tempatures effect your body when cycling

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Today was one of the coldest road rides I’ve done yet, and I’m slowly but surely figuring out how to dress for it. I started to get cold after a while and noticed that I was having real trouble producing much power, but my heart rate was pretty low, so I knew that something was up, just couldn’t figure it out. I felt really heavy and slow, more then normal, the only thing I could think of was that the cold was effecting me someone limiting my performance.

I did a little research and I found out that was once it gets cold enough and your body starts to react to the cold your body will slow the blood flow down to your arms and legs to keep your core temperature up. I was getting a chill once I got sweating and started going downhill. This might explain why I felt so heavy and sluggish on the bike, my muscles didn’t feel sore or weak, and my heart rate wasn’t that high, but yet I felt like something was holding me back, I guess that’s the reason why, also it’s hard to breath deeply when the air is really cold.

I wonder if there is any benefit to training in the cold, that must put an extra burden on your leg muscles, basically they’re trying to operate in a fuel starved environment because of the reduced circulation, much like when you’re riding really hard in warm weather and your leg muscles aren’t getting enough oxygen so you start producing lactic acid. I wonder if any research has been done on the effects of training consistently in the cold, that would be wild if it ended up having some kind of superior benefit.

There are some things you can do from what I’ve read that will help you be comfortable and perform you best in the cold

  1. Dress warm enough so you don’t get cold, once you cold enough your body will start to shut down your legs, you want to avoid that.
  2. Drink plenty of water, it’s easy to not drink enough when it’s cold out, maybe even more so then when it’s warm.
  3. Keep your blood sugar stable, eat small meals through the day, don’t eat sugary foods, or soda etc., fats and proteins and quality carbs are good
  4. Don’t drink alcohol
  5. Don’t eat too big a meal before a ride, eat more smaller meals
  6. Try  ginseng, which is a warming herb
  7. ginger tea is warming also

Reference

It is well verified that subnormal body and especially muscle temperature has an adverse effect on neuromuscular and physical performance capacity (e.g. 2).

http://www.sig-temperature.com/environmental-effect.aspx

http://www.healthsystem.virginia.edu/internet/pmr/coldweather.cfm

http://www.ehow.com/how_1363_eat-optimal-athletic.html

A cold ride, snaped chain, crazy drivers, and legs made of lead, yeah!

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It was suppose to be 40F today, maybe it was at some point, in the sun where there was no wind, but not where I rode today, burrrr.  I thought maybe I was over dressed for my 25 mile road ride I did today, I was ok until I did the first 1 mile 4-10% grade climb, I was wet with sweat at the top and it only took a few minutes of coasting down the back side of the hill to realize the I was in for a fun next hour, esp. since the sun was starting to set and things where cooling down more, and I was riding in dimly lit hilly woods.

Then I almost got side swiped by some 200 year old lady that had no business behind a steering wheel anymore, I was on the shoulder and instead of moving away from me, she actually swerved towards me and came inches of hitting me, a few minutes later my my poor shifting problems I’ve been having the last couple rides since the mechanic “fixed” it, got a lot worse then my chain ended up snapping about 2 miles from my house, luckily I had my chain tool with me and had myself back in action in a matter of minutes.

And then to top things off I felt like my bike weighed 100lbs, it was really weird, or I just felt really weak. Maybe I just didn’t have much power because I’m just getting over a cold? I wonder if riding in the cold makes you ride slower because the metabolism in your legs isn’t at an ideal temperature? I don’t know but I’m not impressed with my riding right now cold or not. My hams and glutes where cramping up in the first 15 minutes, but eventually got better, not sure what that was about, probably my new position I’m experimenting with.

I’m jut getting over a cold and I wonder what effects that has on your ability to ride fast?

But there where some good things today I noticed too

  1. I was climbing slow, but my heart rate was a lot lower then where it would be last summer doing the same hills, even though I was climbing and pushing a bit on the flats today the most my heart rate got up too was maybe 86% and that was my peak heart rate most of the ride was 70-80% even when climbing, normally I’d be at my threshold around 92% MHR most of the time when climbing.
  2. I can tell I have more strength and leg power etc. but I need to put the saddle time in to take full advantage of it as I don’t have much muscular endurance, but I definitely have more power then before, and my legs don’t feel sore at all now after riding where before they’d be all rubbery and tired. If I pushed myself a little I could see that I could average over 20MPH on the flats without too much trouble, I just need to do a bunch of riding on the road and get my position dialed in.

Things I learned in general today

  1. I need to get thicker gloves for when it’s down near the 30′s
  2. Might not be a bad idea to have a dry shirt or two to bring with you change out after any killer hill climbs, or just wear more layers so even if you get wet you won’t get a chill. Maybe just wear a scuba diving suit lol
  3. It’s smart to have your tools with you, glad I had a chain tool with me, I would have been screwed without it.
  4. The crappier the conditions the more you should focus your route closer to home so you can back inside if you have trouble with the cold or you have a major mechanical.
  5. You might want to get one of those side view mirrors, so you can see if someone is coming up behind you and about to swerve into you.

Review of  position changes

    1. the handle bars feel much better in my hands now that they’re rotated up a bit
    2. I think I put the seat up to high now? I’m just guessing as my lower back and back of legs where hurting
    3. I think I need to move my cleats forward I think I want my foot more under me.
    4. I’m probably too far forward on the seat’s fore-aft now

Clothing adjustments

I need to make some changes to my cycling clothing when riding when it’s in the 30′s, I have down to 40′s figured out

Today Temperature ~33F, and I had on

  1. Head: Hood:
    Seemed to be fine until I was going down the hill after climbing, probably not much you can do hear about it though.
  2. Hands: Crappy gloves:
    The gloves got to go, they sucked once they got sweating from climbing, they turned into ice cubes
  3. Upper body: Thin underarmor type shirt> realitevly think polar feelce> cycling wind breakerMy upper body wasn’t too bad, but once I started climbing and got slightly sweaty the downhills got chilly, and I could feel my back get a little cold and the muscle in my back started to tighten up. So I’m thinking next ride I’ll put either another layer on or use the thicker polar fleece I have.
  4. Legs: Thin pair of cycling shorts>long underwear>cycling tights>wind/rain pants
    I didn’t like how the rain pants where a bit tight, but they blocked the wind and I don’t think I was over or under dressed there.
    I think I was dressed good in the legs but I need to either get tights that are windproof or find slightly loser wind/rain pants.
  5. Feet: regular cycling shoes and neoprene booties
    Feet where fine, no problems

Crank length, two different formulas

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I’m not going to argue if cranks should be different lengths depending on how big or small you are, it’s obvious to me that someone taller should use a longer crank and the opposite if you’re short.  I’m beyond debating that point. But what I’m not clear about is who’s formula is most accurate. Keep in mind no formula is exact because I’m sure leg ratio, the type of riding you’re doing, your preferred cadence etc. all will effect these numbers a little bit.

Formula #1 by Lennard Zinn

multiplying your inseam (in millimeters) by 0.21 or 0.216 = length of crank in mm

http://www.zinncycles.com/cranks.php

Formula #2 by Kirby Palm

L(mm) = 5.48 x I(in)

http://www.polaris.net/palmk/Crankset.html

http://www.polaris.net/palmk/resume.html

I’m currently leaning towards Zinn’s formula and my tests I’ve done so far seem to prove it right, at least to me. Also keep in mind one of these formula’s was made by a bike builder, avid cyclist and former racer, where Palm well, I think he’s a smart guy, but I don’t know where he comes up with his numbers for his formula and I his about page does not paint the picture of someone who practices what they preach. I see Palm not having any history as an elite cyclist or bike builder and avid cyclist, but that of recreational cyclist that happens to be an engineer.

Let me know what you think?

Have you ever tried different length cranks, what was your experience?

Crank length tests

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I’ve been experimenting with crank length the last few months, I’m currently riding 190mm, as much as I like them the verdict is still out if I’m going to stay with them though. I’m going to ride them for the next couple months continously while I work on my cycling position as well, then throw my 175mm back on for a month or so and then make up my mind. I might even just go to something inbetween like 180′s as a comprimise.

I rode the 190′s the end of last season for about a month, after the end of the month they really grew on me and I felt that I was onto something as I was faster and more comfortable, but I’m not sure if that was just because I finally got a needed break from all the group riding I had been doing all summer.

Also my riding position was bad, and I’m sure was aggravated by the longer cranks, as the longer cranks made my KNOPS out even further backwards, when my knee needed to move foward, actually my knees and whole body needed to move forward. But even with the bad position I still experienced about a 2.5MPH average speed increase on my 1 hour TT loop I do at least once a week.

I’ve very curious to see what happens with my new improved position and the 190′s and then having a couple months of saddle time in on them, I think it will work out good, but we’ll see. And I’m even more curious to see what will happens when I go back to the 175′s.

What makes this testing difficult is that my body is changing and getting stronger and faster, and that it can take several weeks for your legs to adjust and get smooth and powerful on the new length of crank.

I think what I should do is shorten the time I spend on one length and go back to the other, because if I spend too much time on one length by the time I go back I’ll be 2 months stronger and it will be hard to take my results seriously when I switch cranks.

So I think what I’m going to do, is ride a bunch of easy and moderate rides for 2 weeks, and when it feels like I’m pretty much adapted and use to the new length I’ll switch to the other for two weeks and then at then end of those 4 weeks I should know which I want to say with.

Cycling position changes 2/13/09

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I have been working on my cycling position lately after discovering I had major fit problems, currently I’m fine tuning and experimenting and trying to get closer to my perfect fit. I had an expert fitting the other day, but, I think fit is such a personal thing that they can only get you close, in the end you’ll have to know for yourself if a small change is helping.

So I spent some time yesterday marking and measuring where the fitting had me, so that I could come back to that position and reset my fit position if my position experiments don’t work. I know that I need to give each position a couple weeks to get used to and judge, but some of the things I could tell right away needed to be adjusted because it was obvious after a short one hour ride.

So these are my latest changes

  1. Switched from my WTB saddle to my San Marco saddle that originally came with the bike.
  2. Moved my fore-aft position forward about 3/4″
  3. I assume my KNOPS is moving forward by moving my saddle forward, but when I measure with a plum string it doesn’t seem to be moving forward, but I know that it must be? I think I need to find a way to measure KNOPS better. I need to be on a trainer or someone holding me straight while I get a real plumb string not just a string with a tool hanging on the end.
  4. Moved the saddle up 1/4″

These changes are based on the feeling of not engaging all of my leg muscles fully, I think my KNOPS was still too far back.

Also I don’t think I like wear the fitting put my cleat further back, it feels like it’s to far back now,  I think the ball of my foot is now actually slightly forward of the pedal axle where I like to be either right on it or slightly behind.

I was careful to make sure that I didn’t make the mistake of putting my saddle too high like I had it before, it was giving me a dead spot in my pedal stroke the fitter said, I think he was right. I like the saddle on the high side, but you have to know what the limit is.

I still need to move my brake levers closer though I think, the fitter suggested that but I haven’t had time yet.

The scourge of the moderate cyclist

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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!

Tools of the trade

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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?

Why you should get a cycling fit to make this season your best.

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I am new to road cycling, it was only since last year that I switched from riding mostly MTB to now riding mostly road. My unfamiliarity with road bikes made me forgiving of the uncomfortable position I had been riding around in the last year. Not knowing that their where major problems with my fit, I rode around it a terrible riding position for the past 11 months, suffering from leg muscle pain, stiffness, cramps, premature failure etc. People that I’d pass up on the MTB climbs  would pass me behind on the road bike climbs etc, I couldn’t figure it out, I keep working on these theories of why. On the road bike when climbing or riding hard my ham and glut muscles would be the point of failure, also the lower front of my quads would burn and I felt generally weak. I assumed that because I started riding again last spring and started on the MTB bike and I had more time last season on the MTB bike then that was the reason I was better on it and had “weak road” muscles.

When I originally bought my bike last spring, I only received a partial fitting, I distinctly recall asking the shop rep. if I don’t look to stretched out as I feel pretty stretched out, he said I look good and I trusted his judgment, because what did I know  I never bought a real road racing bike before.

This winter I had been riding the stationary expresso bike trainers in our local gym, I discredited indoor training on a stationary for years, but finally gave it a try and found it to be a lot of fun and nice alternative to riding out in the windy cold snowy conditions of where I live. This winter I discovered the good and bad points of riding on a stationary bike trainer. One of the good points I found was that I could really think and feel and focus on how I felt on the bike, and what my body was telling me etc.  One day I was experimenting with the fore-aft position on the bike and for some reason decided to try moving it more forward like on a triathlon bike. What I found was that I had more power and comfort and could spin better if my knees where in just the right spot over the pedal axles, for me I even feel better with them 1-2cm forward.

So last Saturday I went for my first ride in months on the real road bike outside since it was very warm 50-60F, and I was disappointed with how weak I felt on the bike. I could tell I was stronger but I couldn’t send my power into the bike properly, within 5 minutes of not riding that hard my front lower quads where on fire. I couldn’t figure it out. I just thought that since my road bike has long 190mm cranks and the trainer in the gym has 172mm crank arms that was the reason why, and or also having not ridden on the road bike position which is partly true. Yes I was no longer adapted to the terrible riding position my road bike had.

The next day Sunday I went for a hard trail run and a road ride with a group of the fastest riders around, again I felt very weak on the bike, and had trouble keeping up, and had to drop out after 10 miles. My legs felt so wrong and off when pedaling, I though maybe again it was because I was adapted to the trainer not the real bike, which I’m sure is part of the problem, also my legs where tired from pedaling yesterday in an unfamiliar wrong position, then doing a death run on the trail with the local super fit bike shop owner, we did a “slow run” that pushed me really hard.  So after being dropped and feeling like crap for not being able to hang on I decided that I’d never let that happen again, or I’d make sure I have ever advantage possible so that I can ride with the best. I was embarrassed, frustrated, angry with my lack of performance esp. after having trained very hard this winter so far.

So I went for a ride again Monday as I was convinced my problem was that I was putting all my ride time on the trainer and not on the real bike. I vowed never again to ride an indoor trainer, even if that meant riding outside in all conditions.  I will never be dropped again like that. I want to ride at my full potential. I want to ride fast, and I don’t want to make a training mistake that could have me spending months of time training wrong.

As I was riding Monday evening, I tried moving onto the rivet, ie. the nose of the seat and pedaling on the flats to see if I would feel the same comfort and power improvement like I discovered on the road bike. I was pedaling at 27MPH on the flats with relative ease when I got more over the pedals and put my hands in the drops, I was onto something. I immediately went home and tried sliding my seat forward, but I could see that it would only move forward maybe 2 cm, I felt like I need to come forward more like 5 or 6 cm lol, so I actually turned my seat post around. I could tell this was better right away as I didn’t feel so stretched out, and like I read earlier that day about fitting I now could not see the front hub.

In my excitement I threw on the night light on the road bike and went for an hour ride in the wind, cold and blackness of the night. It was solved, the source of all my ham and glut pain and weakness, the strange burning pain in my quads, the hand numbness from stretching out far and putting so much weight on my hands in the process etc. all where fixed. That was the funnest 1 hour of riding I had ever had on the road bike, I felt both comfortable and powerful at the same time! I felt like I could really enjoy riding more and more miles. I felt like a kid discovering the joy of just riding. I was both very happy to make this discovery in my position, but also upset that I had not  know about this sooner, oh well at least I didn’t ride the next 20 years like this on the road bike.

My bike looked really messed up with the seat post turned around and I went to the bike shop the next day looking to see if they had post that was either straight with no set back, and also to air my frustration with the lack of proper fitting they made when they sold me the bike.

I went to a different local bike shop and they suggested I do a fitting with them, they spend at least an hour, and have been doing fittings for 20 years, and since they build bike frames they had to know how to fit with an above average “bike shop” knowledge of fitting. It was the best $45 I ever spent, I think that they where not charging what they should for their fitting as it was night and day treatment compared to where I originally bought my bike.
They fixed a number of issues in my position, in general they found that I was too far back and way too stretched out, as I have long legs in relation to my torso.

They fixed

  1. My left cleat had be worn way down from dabbing at stop lights, I didn’t even notice, but I did notice that it felt like my left pedal felt lower or I had a leg length issue or something.
  2. They moved my cleats back a little, they turned my seat post back around, but a different seat on it and moved me forward and up from where I originally had been but not as far forward as in my test.
  3. put a shorter stem on
  4. rotated the handle bars up slightly
  5. dropped the handle bars on the spacer 1cm
  6. Suggested that I move my break levers up the bars more towards me, thus shorting my reach to the hoods.
  7. Tilted the tip of the seat down a little bit as this new seat wasn’t comfortable tipped down.

I was excited and went for a test ride when I got home in the cold and dark.  Riding in this new position I could tell that it was a big step in the right direction, but that I still needed to make some changes, but we where 90% there I think now.

Changes I’m working on

  1. This fitting position still felt like I was back to far and my legs weren’t getting used optimally, so I’ve moved myself forward about 1cm yesterday with the fore-aft position on the bike, that seems to be getting closer, but I still think I need to come forward 1-2cm more to be in my strong spot. I think this will put my KNOPS at +1-2cm, my kneed over the pedal axle. I’m just going to make small changes until I feel the strongest and most comfortable. Even if in theory I should be right over the pedal axles with my knees, for some reason it feels weaker to me, not sure why though, might be ratio of my upper to lower leg, or the way my tendons attach etc. or I’m just use to that position more, I’ll have to test it out for a couple weeks both ways to rule out adaptation. But I think they big clue you should notice is when one particular set of leg muscles consistently get sore first. I think when you’re fitted right, your legs burning is an overall feeling not just isolated excessively to one muscle, or one area of a muscle, when pedaling there should be a contribution to the pushing phase by both the front and back of leg muscles. And incorrect position could mean either the one side of the leg’s muscle are more sore and stiff then the other, or they’re both sore because the leg is being used wrong. I think that correct position on the bike is a bit of an art as everybody is built different so it takes an expert fitter and your own experimenting to find your sweet spot.
  2. Since I’m more forward, I think I’m going to move the saddle up a little bit, I prefer my leg bend at the bottom position to be as shallow as possible so I’m up as I high as possible.
  3. I need to put a different seat on, the seat I’m currently testing out sucks, it’s the worst one I have I have out of the three saddles I brought down. I’m going to try my two other saddles and replicate my fit to what the fitter had me at. I just have to measure what he has and transfer that over to the new seat, as each seat has it’s own thickness and fore-aft sweet spot.
  4. With the new seat I need to adjust the seat to be more level as I was sliding down off the front of the crappy seat I have on now, and it’s putting much more weight on my hands as I’m holding myself back.
  5. I need to rotate my brake hoods back as suggested I think that will be better.
  6. Just for the heck of it in a couple weeks or so I’d like to throw my 175mm cranks back on for a few days and see what it’s like going back to them. I think the 190mm fit me good and I like them and everything, but I just want to double check, as I can’t believe more tall pro riders don’t ride longer cranks, it baffles me. I’ve only heard of Indurain using I think it was 180mm or 185mm? And only on his TT setup?

Conclusion:

Get a fitting, even if it costs you hundreds of dollars, get a real expert fitting, in fact get a second opinion. Fit is a very very important thing that’s often overlooked, and could be the key to why you’re having discomfort or lack of speed on the road bike etc. You’ll be faster, more comfortable, ride more miles and enjoy cycling a whole lot more.

Mid-offseason cycling progress report

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We had some really nice weather this weekend it was about 50F and partly sunny, so I went out road cycling both days. I was very rusty on the bike, the last couple months on the espresso trainer and hitting the weights was not translating as well as I’d hoped, but I was happy to find that some other issues that where bothering me last year are now fixed. This is what I learned this weekend from my real riding mid-offseason progress report

Improvements

  1. On the road bike last season I’d always have problems with sore hams and glutes, but since I’ve been doing lots of squats and leg presses, I no longer have that problem now.
  2. My legs do feel stronger, but strength is very specific to joint angle, speed etc. I’ve found
  3. My legs don’t get as sore on the bike, I recover much faster from hard rides since I’ve been lifting.
  4. I have less knee soreness from hard days
  5. My running has improved a lot from having stronger legs
  6. Stronger legs help a lot on trail runs where you have to deal with more lateral forces and twists etc.
  7. I’m seeing a big jump in my watts on the trainer, but …
  8. I’m sweating less, and need less salt replacement it seems since I’m getting better shape and losing weight.
  9. The weight training has helped strengthen my back and neck muscles where they don’t feel fatigured during rides now.

Issues to work on

  1. My bike trainer needs to be the same length crank, and riding position etc. I’m seeing a big improvement in watts, but that was on a unique type of stationary bike that is using a crank length that is about 3/4″ of an shorter then my 190mm road bike cranks, the Q factor is much wider on the espresso bike, the seat position, handle bar position, the resistance, the coast down, everything is just way to different then my real bike.  I found out the hard way this weekend when I got dropped from a ride I should have been able to hang in on that you have train as closely as possible to the exact thing you’re trying to improve at.And I should be riding 80% of the time on real bike, even if that means getting out there in freezing temperatures. I’m annoyed, but not surprised or too worried though, as last fall when I first starting riding my long cranks it took me about a month to adapt to them, and once I did my average speed when up 2.5MPH on my TT test loop I do, and spinning and cranking felt more natural. But I’m not 100% sure if the increase in my TT speed was the cranks, or the fact that I was able to train and rest at my own pace, where the whole summer I was tired most of the time from doing so much group riding.
  2. There is no better training for riding a bike, then riding a bike, you can improve certain aspects of road riding by doing specific training, you can spin on trainer to work on leg speed, you can do single leg exercises easier on the stationary, you can improve pedal stroke smoothness on the rollers, you can increase your raw strength with weights, but only real hardcore, honest to god riding is going to bring those pieces together in a meaningful way. “Ride lots”, as Merckx said, I don’t think he meant on a trainer lol
  3. I need to get a system down for on bike fueling that I use in training that I can use in racing. I haven’t been doing any pre or during training session fueling because I’m forcing my body to dig deep into fat reserves, and get my body use to burning fat as fuel. I only do post training fueling with pieces of fruit or juice, vs. some nasty artifical garbage that costs lots of money.
  4. The on and off bike strength training I’m doing is paying off but I need to do my on bike strengthening, on a real bike preferably out side. I”m currently riding one of these expresso bikes, and as I said before it’s too different from my real bike for it to help me much, maybe if I rode the mountain bike with normal length cranks then it would help? But I think the bike position and the resistance etc. are all too different from the real thing.

Conclusion

All in all I’m happy with my offseason progress,

  1. I’ve lost another 15lbs,
  2. according to the espresso bike I have increased my average watts by 120, but that doesn’t mean much if the improvement doesn’t translate to the bike, I think it will, but it’s going to take me a month on the real bike to transfer and adapt to the longer crank length and riding position etc.
  3. I need to ride outside as much as I can even if it’s freezing out, I can’t kid myself anymore that training so much indoors is going to help me reach my goals.
  4. I need to get an indoor trainer I can put my bike on too, for days that it’s just too nasty out, and also since I want to burn as much calories as possible in a day with a couple extra trainner sessions.
  5. I’m done with the expresso bikes, they’re just too different from a real bike, in particular my bike with it’s 190mm cranks.  I may still ride it once a week just to test myself and see if I’m improving, as riding on shorter cranks shouldn’t effect me as much as the other way around.
  6. I should have my hard day be a group ride or training with my local bike shop owner who is an animal, even though I’ve been training year fairly hard, training with him one day feels like I’ve just started training. I’m going as hard as I physically can when I’m trying to keep up with him, it pushes me harder then I could push myself normally. I’m not sure how I would coordinate my weight training around this though, as I’m going to be spent from a group ride. I guess I lift weights, but I have to cut the number of sets down, but I’m sure it’s better to do that, then to ride less.
  7. I need to start running more, I did a trail run yesterday and I could tell that my running muscles where suffering. Today, there are so many muscles sore that normal road or treadmil running just doesn’t activate. Trail running and trail running in snow as fast as you can, seems to be really good for cardio, agility, core muscles etc.

Update 2/14/08

The results and conclusion of my mid-offseason cycling report have now to be taken with a grain of salt as I discovered a couple days later that, I had a really bad bike fit which was the majority of my problem of transferring my expresso bike fitness to the real bike. The crank length difference and position difference still matter but I think 80% of the trouble I had last weekend was all because of poor bike fit. I just didn’t know about it, and last season I was getting better and better at riding in this bad position, so the expresso trainer was actually a better fit then my road bike, not the other way around.

I’m still going to start doing most of my riding outside though, and I’ll ride the trainer inside on days once and a while, just not all the time like I was doing.  The experince I had last weekend really made me think about riding a real bike for real benefits. By training outside on the road in the winter I know it will be challenging and miserable at times, but I know that I will be training as close to ideal as possible and not be risking major disapointment in my training when it wasn’t specfic enough. There’s just no substitute for riding the road bike on the road, the next best thing would be mountain biking, but even with mountain biking the position, the types of efforts are not the same as on the road, I’ve found that my MTB riding improved a lot by my hard road riding, but not the other way around. It’s just easier to push yourself longer and harder without intruption on the road bike in a way that would be hard to replicate on the MTB unless you’re riding on fast smooth trails with road like inclines.