Cycling position changes 2/13/09

Posted on February 14, 2009 by admin

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

Switched from my WTB saddle to my San Marco saddle that originally came with the bike.
Moved my fore-aft position forward about 3/4″
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.
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

Posted on February 14, 2009 by admin

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

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.
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.
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.
You could also cross train on your easy days, go for hike, go for jog, swimming, even a fast walk will work
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.
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

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

Posted on February 13, 2009 by admin

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

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 :-}
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.
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.
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.
Tempo riding- Tempo riding is great to build up miles and improve general fitness.
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.
Intervals- Intervals are probably the #1 training tool people use to go faster longer on a bike.
Time trials- Can be seen as one long interval, great for pushing the envelope and getting your body use to taking long hard pulls.
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.
Sprints- Often neglected, but a powerful skill to develop as a road racing competitor.
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.
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.
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.
Stationary expresso bike
Spinning type flywheel stationary bike.
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.

Posted on February 13, 2009 by admin

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

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.
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.
put a shorter stem on
rotated the handle bars up slightly
dropped the handle bars on the spacer 1cm
Suggested that I move my break levers up the bars more towards me, thus shorting my reach to the hoods.
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

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.
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.
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.
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.
I need to rotate my brake hoods back as suggested I think that will be better.
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

Posted on February 9, 2009 by admin

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

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.
My legs do feel stronger, but strength is very specific to joint angle, speed etc. I’ve found
My legs don’t get as sore on the bike, I recover much faster from hard rides since I’ve been lifting.
I have less knee soreness from hard days
My running has improved a lot from having stronger legs
Stronger legs help a lot on trail runs where you have to deal with more lateral forces and twists etc.
I’m seeing a big jump in my watts on the trainer, but …
I’m sweating less, and need less salt replacement it seems since I’m getting better shape and losing weight.
The weight training has helped strengthen my back and neck muscles where they don’t feel fatigured during rides now.

Issues to work on

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.
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
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.
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,

I’ve lost another 15lbs,
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.

Is it possible to increase cardiovascular fitness through strength training?

Posted on February 4, 2009 by admin

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?

they make your leg muscles stronger
they make your heart muscle stronger
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

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.
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.
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.

How many training miles should you target in your cycling training plan?

Posted on February 4, 2009 by admin

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

Training sessesion time
Average watts
Average heart rate
Perceived rate of exertion
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

How much time does your target event take at your projected race pace?
What type of intensities occur during this length of event, what energy systems will you be using?
What type of event is it, what riding positions will you be in?
What are your strengths and weaknesses, how is your body built, dominate muscle fiber type, cardio strength etc.?
What specific events and goals are you targeting with your training?
How well does your body respond to certain types of training?
What types of training methods do you like doing, and can tolerate doing all winter?
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.

Why good form and lifting technique BURNS!!!!

Posted on January 30, 2009 by admin

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?

An old dog and his new tricks

Posted on January 29, 2009 by admin

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

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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Warming up is crtical before races for me.
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.
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.
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.
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

Posted on January 29, 2009 by admin

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

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.
Single leg exercises seem to put more stress on the knee with the exception of perhaps the box setup.
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.
I haven’t done box setups heavy yet, but I don’t think this exercise would be suited for doing it heavy.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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
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.