How slow can you go?

Keep in mind that Lance spends 5 to 6 hours a day on the bike so he may be able to elicit an adaptive response at 65% of his MaxHR. As for the rest of us mere mortals, I don't know how long a person would need to ride at this level of intensity in order for it to be beneficial. Logic would tell me that a more seasoned, better conditioned cyclist would need significantly more time in the saddle at that heart rate than a beginner to itermediate, but I am unsure.

My plans are to spend the bulk of my time between 65% - 75% of MaxHR and once or twice a week do a 2 x 20 interval session or something very similar. I also plan to do some weight training but that is more for all around fitness and not to improve my cycling abilities.

mjh said:

Now that we're approaching the winter base building season again I've been wondering about the correct pace for aerobic effort (Friel zone 2) rides. In the past I've gone by 70-75% max HR effort (140-147 bpm) but have also read on another thread that Lance does his long/easy's at <130 and that early base phase rides should be at about 15mph. Are there adaptations realized from real easy and long rides, say 60-65%max HR that we don't get from the 70-75% rides? Come to think of it 70-75% isn't necessarily a conversational pace in the early season.

What level of effort, be it HR, speed or power should we ride at this time of year for better performance in the next?

[quote="Doctor Morbius"]Keep in mind that Lance spends 5 to 6 hours a day on the bike so he may be able to elicit an adaptive response at 65% of his MaxHR. As for the rest of us mere mortals, I don't know how long a person would need to ride at this level of intensity in order for it to be beneficial. Logic would tell me that a more seasoned, better conditioned cyclist would need significantly more time in the saddle at that heart rate than a beginner to itermediate, but I am unsure.

My plans are to spend the bulk of my time between 65% - 75% of MaxHR and once or twice a week do a 2 x 20 interval session or something very similar. I also plan to do some weight training but that is more for all around fitness and not to improve my cycling abilities.)



Thanks for the reply. That pretty much sounds like my Spring/Summer routine, while the winter months are more of the slow stuff on the computrainer. One more question though. Is there an advantage to doing intervals at this time of year, maybe to keep the fitness gains of this past season? Or is it best to give it a break and start anew with the speed stuff after working the base again for a few months?

Thanks for the help.

Mike

mjh said:

Now that we're approaching the winter base building season again I've been wondering about the correct pace for aerobic effort (Friel zone 2) rides. In the past I've gone by 70-75% max HR effort (140-147 bpm) but have also read on another thread that Lance does his long/easy's at <130 and that early base phase rides should be at about 15mph. Are there adaptations realized from real easy and long rides, say 60-65%max HR that we don't get from the 70-75% rides? Come to think of it 70-75% isn't necessarily a conversational pace in the early season.

What level of effort, be it HR, speed or power should we ride at this time of year for better performance in the next?

In trained cyclists there's unlikely to be any useful adaptations below about 75% HRmax, and such a session may only be useful if you can ride for very high volumes. Additionally, the way that training data is presented about (e.g.) LA (and others) we simply don't always know what they mean by ~ 65 % HRmax. For e.g., is this the prescribed intensity (i.e., aim continually for that HR) or is this the mean average HR of the session. In the latter scenario i generally train for long endurance sessions at e.g., 75 - 80% HRmax, but my mean average is much lower than this as my HR decreases when e.g., descending or cycling through 'built up' areas. Thus my mean average does not always reflect the intensity of the session.

additionally, we know that LA (and many others) don't actually prescribe training by HR, but by power output. Trying to convert one to the other may cause issues.

Also, it's imperative to note, that when training hard that HR decreases (even though power output remains constant) due to certain physiological changes, which are immediately reversed upon rest. For e.g., in this case if you train long every day, your HR becomes very depressed even though there's been no change in fitness.

As most people don't train for e.g., 5/6 hrs per day, it's a waste of time for (most) trained cyclists to train at such low levels (assuming we're not including a depressed HR scenario etc). In general most cyclists have limited time to train, which decreases during the winter months (due to changes in lighting/riding in the dark) and as such we need to maintain a much higher level of intensity. There's no reason to not do certain intervals virtually all year round. in fact many elite cyclists will compete virtually all year round (e.g., track/cross over the winter period).

It's a mistake to ease up over the winter and neglect harder efforts. Your fitness decreases at a very rapid rate and you lose your summer gains quickly. It's best to keep working at most intensities all year round.

Please feel free to contact me at [email hidden] for further advice

ric

ric_stern/RST said:

In trained cyclists there's unlikely to be any useful adaptations below about 75% HRmax, and such a session may only be useful if you can ride for very high volumes. Additionally, the way that training data is presented about (e.g.) LA (and others) we simply don't always know what they mean by ~ 65 % HRmax. For e.g., is this the prescribed intensity (i.e., aim continually for that HR) or is this the mean average HR of the session. In the latter scenario i generally train for long endurance sessions at e.g., 75 - 80% HRmax, but my mean average is much lower than this as my HR decreases when e.g., descending or cycling through 'built up' areas. Thus my mean average does not always reflect the intensity of the session.

additionally, we know that LA (and many others) don't actually prescribe training by HR, but by power output. Trying to convert one to the other may cause issues.

Also, it's imperative to note, that when training hard that HR decreases (even though power output remains constant) due to certain physiological changes, which are immediately reversed upon rest. For e.g., in this case if you train long every day, your HR becomes very depressed even though there's been no change in fitness.

As most people don't train for e.g., 5/6 hrs per day, it's a waste of time for (most) trained cyclists to train at such low levels (assuming we're not including a depressed HR scenario etc). In general most cyclists have limited time to train, which decreases during the winter months (due to changes in lighting/riding in the dark) and as such we need to maintain a much higher level of intensity. There's no reason to not do certain intervals virtually all year round. in fact many elite cyclists will compete virtually all year round (e.g., track/cross over the winter period).

It's a mistake to ease up over the winter and neglect harder efforts. Your fitness decreases at a very rapid rate and you lose your summer gains quickly. It's best to keep working at most intensities all year round.

Please feel free to contact me at [email hidden] for further advice

ric

Thanks Ric. My indoor winter training session seldom exceed 1 -1:30hrs, obviously not long enough for adaptations at a low rate of work. I'll take the advice offered on the thread and keep it around 70-75% w/ some intensity sessions throughout the winter. It does make sense that it would be beneficial when getting back outside next spring to have had some time at T-hold. I know we can't hold peak fitness year round, but I hate the thought of going backwards (any more than I have to)even if only for a few months.

Mike

Great info Ric - always a pleasure to have an expert chime in to help.

Thanks. Glad the info was useful.

Just to add to it:

MJH, I'm not sure if i'm reading your reply correctly: however, if all yo can manage is 60 - 90 mins a day, then (depending on your fitness) i may suggest not going as low as 75% HRmax, but to ride at a higher intensity.

With the correct training, there's no need to let your fitness drop (or drop more than a few %) over the winter months. You can do some work at e.g., TT, MAP, and AWC levels over the winter to maintain (or in some cases increase) your fitness, and still be able to race well next year (you don't have to do really steady base work the whole winter).

ric

ric_stern/RST said:

Thanks. Glad the info was useful.

Just to add to it:

MJH, I'm not sure if i'm reading your reply correctly: however, if all yo can manage is 60 - 90 mins a day, then (depending on your fitness) i may suggest not going as low as 75% HRmax, but to ride at a higher intensity.

With the correct training, there's no need to let your fitness drop (or drop more than a few %) over the winter months. You can do some work at e.g., TT, MAP, and AWC levels over the winter to maintain (or in some cases increase) your fitness, and still be able to race well next year (you don't have to do really steady base work the whole winter).

ric

Very intersesting Ric, however confusing. I'm mainly a triathlete so my time on the bike is reduced a bit due to time spent swimming and running. But I'm thinking about an article by Mark Allen. He talks about spending months in the off season running at low HR (180 minus your age plus 5) 142 bpm for me, to teach his body to burn fat efficiently, eventually being able to run 5 minute miles aerobically whereas before this aerobic phase he might have been running at an 8 minute pace for the same effort. Building the engine so to speak. After the aerobic phase he would top it off with intervals which is the icing on the cake just prior to race season.

My thinking is that this same strategy would apply to biking. What do you think?

Mike

mjh said:

. . . talks about spending months in the off season running at low HR (180 minus your age plus 5) 142 bpm for me, to teach his body to burn fat efficiently, eventually being able to run 5 minute miles aerobically whereas before this aerobic phase he might have been running at an 8 minute pace for the same effort. Building the engine so to speak. After the aerobic phase he would top it off with intervals which is the icing on the cake just prior to race season.

My thinking is that this same strategy would apply to biking. What do you think?

Mike

Using Mark Allens' formula (180 minus your age plus 5) that puts me at 141 BPM, which is 73.9% of my known MaxHR. That's quite a difference to the 60% - 65% MaxHR training that you referenced in your first post.

Doctor Morbius said:

Using Mark Allens' formula (180 minus your age plus 5) that puts me at 141 BPM, which is 73.9% of my known MaxHR. That's quite a difference to the 60% - 65% MaxHR training that you referenced in your first post.

If I recall correctly, this is the Mark Allen who had the cover and feature article on Outside Magazine about 5 years ago..."The World's Fittest Man".

Formula gets me 132 bpm, which is 72% of my max. Seems about right for "long distance endurance" pace training..for me at least. Around here, the hills provide plenty of opportunity for intervals above this pace, whether you want them or not.

Believe the key question is whether any high-intensity training is good over the winter months. Several programs I've seen cut the monthly mileage way back for 2-3 months, avoid racing or high-intensity efforts, and recommend cross-training. Idea is to give the biking muscles and joints time off to fully recover, but still maintain overall aerobic fitness.

May be some loss of cycling fitness this way which would be unacceptable to an elite racer, but it makes sense to me for those of us planning to ride injury-free for the rest of our lives.

mjh said:

Very intersesting Ric, however confusing. I'm mainly a triathlete so my time on the bike is reduced a bit due to time spent swimming and running. But I'm thinking about an article by Mark Allen. He talks about spending months in the off season running at low HR (180 minus your age plus 5) 142 bpm for me, to teach his body to burn fat efficiently, eventually being able to run 5 minute miles aerobically whereas before this aerobic phase he might have been running at an 8 minute pace for the same effort. Building the engine so to speak. After the aerobic phase he would top it off with intervals which is the icing on the cake just prior to race season.

My thinking is that this same strategy would apply to biking. What do you think?

Mike

Hi Mike,
as DM points out using this formula gets me a HR of ~ 75%HRmax, which is different to what you originally suggested. Such ideas on HR prescription are generally useless, as two people of the same age and fitness can have vastly different HRs.

There's no evidence to support Allen's contention, and in fact they run counter to good scientific evidence. Whilst, at lower intensity a greater proportion of fat is oxidised than at higher intensities, the actual energy expenditure per unit time is less at lower rather than higher intensities.

additionally, it's well understood that fat oxidation increases at a given workrate with fitter rather than less fit people. Thus, increasing the amount of fat that is oxidised is achieved with moderate to higher intensity exercise that increases e.g., TT power and MAP/VO2max. Thus the suggestions of running easy do not build the engine unless you're starting from a very low level of fitness (e.g., sedentary).

I think if you want to train easy (low intensity) you need to do huge volume to get a benefit from it, or you're using it as a recovery type phase in your training.

That's not to say that doing long, low intensity work isn't important or just having some easy days also isn't important, as they are. however, concentrating a whole off-season (or maybe even a month) on such training just means that (if you'd previously trained harder than this) you're detraining yourself.

Ric

dhk said:

Believe the key question is whether any high-intensity training is good over the winter months. Several programs I've seen cut the monthly mileage way back for 2-3 months, avoid racing or high-intensity efforts, and recommend cross-training. Idea is to give the biking muscles and joints time off to fully recover, but still maintain overall aerobic fitness.

May be some loss of cycling fitness this way which would be unacceptable to an elite racer, but it makes sense to me for those of us planning to ride injury-free for the rest of our lives.

i don't see how riding all-year round (with a combination of hard and easy) will get you injured. Cycling is a very gentle sport (in terms of injuries; assuming you avoid crashing) - there's no reason to think that year round cycling will lead to injuries (or that you have to give muscles and joints "time off"😉. That's not to say you can't do some damage from cycling, but generally this would be because you did something wrong with your training and didn't heed any warning signs from your body.

ric

ric_stern/RST said:

i don't see how riding all-year round (with a combination of hard and easy) will get you injured. Cycling is a very gentle sport (in terms of injuries; assuming you avoid crashing) - there's no reason to think that year round cycling will lead to injuries (or that you have to give muscles and joints "time off"😉. That's not to say you can't do some damage from cycling, but generally this would be because you did something wrong with your training and didn't heed any warning signs from your body.

ric

Ric: Don't disagree here. But, seems the "conventional advice" I've always heard is for reduced training volume and intensity over the winter: cross-training instead.

Do you think this notion came about just to accommodate weather or to give athletics a mental break from monotony, rather than any physiological needs?

dhk said:

Ric: Don't disagree here. But, seems the "conventional advice" I've always heard is for reduced training volume and intensity over the winter: cross-training instead.

Do you think this notion came about just to accommodate weather or to give athletics a mental break from monotony, rather than any physiological needs?

neither i think it's an old wives tale, and probably came about because cycle racing (and/or hard training) is hard (i.e., fatiguing) and people assumed you'd need a break from it.

i've cycled pretty much year in and year out with only a few breaks for the last 20 years (damn, now i feel old!).

If you want to do well, whether it's racing, or something less competitive such as a Grand Fondo, or the Etape, then your best bet would be to cycle train all year round, with maybe a short break (e.g., at the end of this season i was ill for a fortnight, and then went on holiday for a week - that break felt about two weeks too long).

ric

ric_stern/RST said:

i don't see how riding all-year round (with a combination of hard and easy) will get you injured. Cycling is a very gentle sport (in terms of injuries; assuming you avoid crashing) - there's no reason to think that year round cycling will lead to injuries (or that you have to give muscles and joints "time off"😉. That's not to say you can't do some damage from cycling, but generally this would be because you did something wrong with your training and didn't heed any warning signs from your body.

ric

This makes a lot of sense to me, not because I've got a lot of experience, but due to experience in other sports. I've personally never been able to take a lot of "time off" from anything I was actively involved in and not feel like it was too long. It sort of becomes your lifestyle, and as with other things in life, you feel the need to do it.

I've also learned (at least I think) that your body adapts to whatever conditions you put it under. In other words, if you want to be able to ride hard and long, then ride hard and long. If you can hear your body talking to you, it will tell you when you need to back off some...so will your mind.

I only started riding about 3 months ago, and started reading this forum a couple of weeks after that. I was somewhat surprised at all the talk of riding slow and long, and even tried to do some of it...it just isn't me. Competiveness or whatever, I enjoy pushing myself. To that end, the hard rides I did early on are now very easy so... I ride faster.

Don't misunderstand, there are occasions in which I just enjoy pedaling around at a slow pace smelling the roses, but the percentage of time I spend doing that is much smaller than the time I spend pushing myself.

Incidentally Ric, I'm "thinking" about racing next year. I'd really love to figure out a way to get your opinion on what I'm doing from a training standpoint, althought at least at this time I don't think I'm interested in a long term coaching commitment. Based upon my own analysis, I'm progressing really well... but I'm far from an expert. Is there any way, with me providing the data, that you can work out a "one-time advice/opinion" deal in your offerings? I realize this is your profession and you need/should get paid for it so I'm not looking for something free.

Let me know,

John

Mansmind said:

Incidentally Ric, I'm "thinking" about racing next year. I'd really love to figure out a way to get your opinion on what I'm doing from a training standpoint, althought at least at this time I don't think I'm interested in a long term coaching commitment. Based upon my own analysis, I'm progressing really well... but I'm far from an expert. Is there any way, with me providing the data, that you can work out a "one-time advice/opinion" deal in your offerings? I realize this is your profession and you need/should get paid for it so I'm not looking for something free.

Let me know,

John

Hi John,

First off, i feel that coaching is important, as there's many 'short-cuts' that you can learn, and you can get on the right track and improve at a faster rate. the objective feedback from a coach, and a direct training programme will help you improve at a faster rate too. That being said, we understand that coaching may not be for everyone (for whatever reasons) so, yes, we do offer a training plan review (of the last 3 months) and advice sessions based on your goals and how to modify previous training sessions etc.

Please contact me via [email hidden] for further details.

cheers
ric

Doctor Morbius said:

Using Mark Allens' formula (180 minus your age plus 5) that puts me at 141 BPM, which is 73.9% of my known MaxHR. That's quite a difference to the 60% - 65% MaxHR training that you referenced in your first post.

Exactly why I'm confused. 142 bpm is about 72-73% for me. This is where I have done the bulk of my winter aerobic work, mixing in some 75% stuff but holding off the intervals until early spring. When I read that LA was riding at 130bpm I started to think that maybe 73% is to much early on.

As Ric noted, 60-65% may only be beneficial if the duration is extremely long.

Mike

mjh said:

Exactly why I'm confused. 142 bpm is about 72-73% for me. This is where I have done the bulk of my winter aerobic work, mixing in some 75% stuff but holding off the intervals until early spring. When I read that LA was riding at 130bpm I started to think that maybe 73% is to much early on.

As Ric noted, 60-65% may only be beneficial if the duration is extremely long.

Mike

i generally recommend doing intervals/harder work all-year round

ric