Wtd : Fitness Advice

[howard c]

Over the winter it is the aim to transform from `plodding donkey` more used to endurance events, to speedster over an hour of effort. Now, these are the absolute ends of the spectrum - low heart rate to anerobic margin. How do I do this most efficiently without killing myself ?

[Deleted]

I have a few suggestions:
1. Go on the club runs and work your way up from easier runs to faster/longer runs, at your own pace
2. Search the interweb for training sites, buy specific cycle training books and read them.
3. Attend the Racers' Meetings. The last meeting was about winter training.
4. Take advice from more experienced riders

[daniel]

Though you won’t have to kill yourself unfortunately you will have to put yourself through a degree of pain.

It does depend on what your goals are. Is the hour of effort you mention for a time trial or are you looking at racing at Palace (or other crits)?

Whatever the goal the most effective way is probably to start doing interval training, ideally on a turbo trainer as this way you can be very specific in terms of your effort, cadence, heart rate, power output etc.

Now depending on your goals you should tailor your intervals (length of interval, cadence, heart-rate, power output). But whatever the interval, you should be working around your lactic threshold. Again depending on the type of interval you should either work just below or above it.

I have found the Chris Carmicheal turbo training dvd’s quite good (if a little cheesy at times). The ones I find most useful are the Time Trial session and the Crit session. Both do very different intervals but are hard work outs.

If turbo training is not for you I would say the chaingang is probably your best bet. Start with the Wednesday group and work your way up to the Tuesdays and Thursdays group.

Good luck.

[howard c]

Looking to do the impossible !! a 25 in 50 mins. 596 on way so need to get fast. Do I need to get a road bike or can it be done on Turbo ??

[daniel]

I would imagine the 596 should be fine on the turbo. I would just check with the shop you ordered the bike from just to make sure but I don't see any reason why not.

You will need to do a field test to work out what your Lactic Threshold is. Once you've got that you can start to work around it.

On the Carmichael TT dvd there are two types of intervals. One that are repeated 5 min intervals at way above your threshold at 100+ rpm (with 5 min recovery in between). The other is a series of 6 minute intervals at just below your threshold at different cadence with your heart rate staying consistent. It recommends you do this session twice a week.

Craig may have some handy hints on tt training.

[andyw]

Here's some links for you to look at. I've been doing the session from PPonline quite regularly. Seems pretty effective. PPonline has some good stuff — have a look around.

www.pponline.co.uk/encyc/1030.htm
www.bicycling.com/article/1,6610,s1-4-41-16493-1,00.html

Everyone seems to be doing 2x 20minutes with 10 to 20 mins recovery for the last year or so. This should be done at 25 pace. This is a good session to do in a longer road ride too.

With intervals, keep things fresh by introducing a new session every 5 weeks or so. This will keep you on your toes.

You should ride your TT bike a couple of times per week at least to get used to putting the power down in that position.

Club runs can be useful as recovery rides and for maintaining your hard won endurance - Saturday and Weds rides particularly - but will do little to help you achieve your goal of a 30mph 25. The only thing taht will do that is training at and above the power required to achieve that speed.

A lot of coaches will recommend motor pacing to get used tot he speed, and it is an excellent way of getting fast. Unfortunately it's not very sensible in the south east of england. Instead, maybe try and find some long gradual descents where you can maintain a really high speed, and a high cadence in a big gear for a longer period of time. The problem with the turbo is that it encourages you to use a bigger gear than you're likely to use at 30mph on the road, where you're more likely to revving at 95-100rpm.

Riding a few road races will help you hone your top end and provide a lot more interest than the turbo. Even better is cyclo-cross: typically a 1 hour hovering around threshold. Is it a coincidence the world CX champion Lars Boom is also the World U23 TT champ from 07?

[chamoniards]

I'd echo what Andy is saying about cyclo-cross. It's no coincidence that the top riders in the E,1,2 race at Crystal Palace all do cyclo-cross through the winter, both 1 hour races. An hour of balls out racing at around your lactate threshold is going to improve your fitness no end, it's fun and it's a good break from the mid week intervals on the turbo.

[Deleted]

There are several studies out there that show positive effects from doing intervals at 70rpm - that's a much slower cadence than you will race at, but it's supposed to be very good for developing power. That might be another reason cyclocross riders are good at time trials, as you have to tend to pedal slower than on the road.

[howard c]

Thanks guys . This is excellent. Just have to try and absorb it all.

[Deleted]

My own personal favourite is www.trainingpeaks.com (a.k.a. Joe Friel's Training Bible website). What I like most about this is the way it can plan out your entire year's training - with the periods of training stress and recovery all sync'd to the races you want to win.

Of course, I'm not saying this is a guarantee of hitting your target - but it helped me lose 25kg, and graduate from a vomiting lapped Cat4 all the up to a vomiting lapped Cat 3 rider.

R.