Riding Tempo

Orange Fish said:

Tempo riding - 70-75 rpm, 75-80 rpm, 85-??? rpm...powers, HR's, etc.....

I've seen a few different "definitions" of tempo riding and want to throw this topic out there to get some discussion on it. Tempo riding makes up a majority of longer road races (e.g.1 day classics and multi-day tours). You hear about teams riding "tempo" for well over 100k or riders setting a blistering "tempo" up a 15k/7% climb.

We have tempo riding in our own training, and I've seen it prescribed at various HR, power, gearing, and cadence ranges. I have my own definition of what tempo riding is, but would like to hear from some other coaches and athletes. Are the adaptations gained from "tempo" riding necessarily gained only in one specific cadence, power, HR, or gear range?
If so why? If not, why?

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It's one of those words that everyone has a slightly different meaning for, just like on club runs you hear 'strength', 'power' meaning various different things. Generally though, tempo is a controlled moderately high pace. It's above a normal endurance pace, but below the level of a flat-out effort. Eg. coming up to a big hill we might decide to ride it 'tempo', by which we mean that we'll go hard enough to give everyone a good workout and string the group out, but that noone is going to jump around and break the group up.

rob of the og said:

It's one of those words that everyone has a slightly different meaning for, just like on club runs you hear 'strength', 'power' meaning various different things. Generally though, tempo is a controlled moderately high pace. It's above a normal endurance pace, but below the level of a flat-out effort. Eg. coming up to a big hill we might decide to ride it 'tempo', by which we mean that we'll go hard enough to give everyone a good workout and string the group out, but that noone is going to jump around and break the group up.

Can you put that into more "scientific" terms? What I mean is, can you put that into a description that you might give someone for a workout. Or will "moderately high-pace" suffice and give the desired physiologic benefits?

What are the physiologic benefits we're trying to attain with this type of workout?

Orange Fish said:

Can you put that into more "scientific" terms? What I mean is, can you put that into a description that you might give someone for a workout. Or will "moderately high-pace" suffice and give the desired physiologic benefits?

What are the physiologic benefits we're trying to attain with this type of workout?

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See charts at the end...

I think it is whatever you want to be. Semantics: I ride a tempo, or I ride tempo. Celeste: Is it blue or green?

Or, take a look at Coggan's zone 3.

I've heard that it's whatever you can hold for 3 hrs. Seems good enough to me.

Orange, while watching the TdF I heard Bob Roll and the rest of the OLN gang throw around the word Tempo quite frequently. It seems to be one of those words that gets used a lot and has a different meaning depending on who is using it ... kind of like "lactate threshold HR" or "anaerobic threshold".

This is not scientific but I define a Tempo ride as "fun fast" steady state ride where you're above a general aerobic zone, yet below an LT zone. If one was to do Over/Under Intervals, it would be the Under. In my case it would be around the 80% MaxHR level give or take a few BPM depending on fitness levels and summer heat.

The adaptations on Coggan's chart shows that his definition of Tempo provides a great bang for the buck for adaptations. This is valuable to me because I have problems from a recovery standpoint with harder efforts.

Doctor Morbius said:

Orange, while watching the TdF I heard Bob Roll and the rest of the OLN gang throw around the word Tempo quite frequently. It seems to be one of those words that gets used a lot and has a different meaning depending on who is using it ... kind of like "lactate threshold HR" or "anaerobic threshold".

This is not scientific but I define a Tempo ride as "fun fast" steady state ride where you're above a general aerobic zone, yet below an LT zone. If one was to do Over/Under Intervals, it would be the Under. In my case it would be around the 80% MaxHR level give or take a few BPM depending on fitness levels and summer heat.

The adaptations on Coggan's chart shows that his definition of Tempo provides a great bang for the buck for adaptations. This is valuable to me because I have problems from a recovery standpoint with harder efforts.

See, that's a big part of what spurred my questions. You hear Bob and Phil throw that word around like it's going out of style, and I've heard top coaches say that Tempo riding is SO important (which I believe), but if it's so important, it seems as though the definition of it is a bit fuzzy. I understand AC's %'s for power ranges in L3, and they make sense, but how about cadence? I haven't seen him prescribing a specific cadence, but have seen his article on low cadence work.

I've seen it at CTS where it's 75-80 rpm, but what about 80-85, 85-90, 90-95, 95-100, 100-110, 110+? If you keep the power in the same range, will you have the same adaptations - I say no. Why 75-80 over 100-110? Does the amount of improved glycogen storage from L3 riding occur more effectively (or faster) at 75-80 rather than 100-110 rpm? Does it have to do with speed of contraction, force production, muscle recruitment (all of which will be different at different cadences with all other variables remaining the same - right?).

Thanks!
🙂

Orange Fish said:

See, that's a big part of what spurred my questions. You hear Bob and Phil throw that word around like it's going out of style, and I've heard top coaches say that Tempo riding is SO important (which I believe), but if it's so important, it seems as though the definition of it is a bit fuzzy. I understand AC's %'s for power ranges in L3, and they make sense, but how about cadence? I haven't seen him prescribing a specific cadence, but have seen his article on low cadence work.

I've seen it at CTS where it's 75-80 rpm, but what about 80-85, 85-90, 90-95, 95-100, 100-110, 110+? If you keep the power in the same range, will you have the same adaptations - I say no. Why 75-80 over 100-110? Does the amount of improved glycogen storage from L3 riding occur more effectively (or faster) at 75-80 rather than 100-110 rpm? Does it have to do with speed of contraction, force production, muscle recruitment (all of which will be different at different cadences with all other variables remaining the same - right?).

Thanks!
🙂

I think the idea is to mix things up in the tempo ride. a tempo workout (zone 3) may be, ride 10 rpm below your selected cadence for a half hour, then 10 above the next half hour. or ride an hour at tempo and do 10 sec sprints every 3 minutes in the hour. simulates changes of pace or in a race.
This is what i read in Andy C book, i like the sprint workout.

I think what BObke and Phil mean by "tempo" is just setting the pace, or riding at there own pace.

Orange Fish said:

See, that's a big part of what spurred my questions. You hear Bob and Phil throw that word around like it's going out of style, and I've heard top coaches say that Tempo riding is SO important (which I believe), but if it's so important, it seems as though the definition of it is a bit fuzzy.

When Bob & Phil are talking about Tempo I just assume they are using it to describe the pace of the race - kind of like how the tempo of classical music can increase or decrease - rather than a specific target or zone used for training/racing.

Quoted post said:

I understand AC's %'s for power ranges in L3, and they make sense, but how about cadence? I haven't seen him prescribing a specific cadence, but have seen his article on low cadence work.

I've seen it at CTS where it's 75-80 rpm, but what about 80-85, 85-90, 90-95, 95-100, 100-110, 110+? If you keep the power in the same range, will you have the same adaptations - I say no. Why 75-80 over 100-110? Does the amount of improved glycogen storage from L3 riding occur more effectively (or faster) at 75-80 rather than 100-110 rpm? Does it have to do with speed of contraction, force production, muscle recruitment (all of which will be different at different cadences with all other variables remaining the same - right?).

Therein lies the $64,000 question. I know from personal experience (again, not very scientific) that when I go out for a 2+ hour ride I will use a much different cadence than I will for VO2 intervals. For VO2 intervals I find it better to rely on an increased cadence as well as higher gearing. Would a good coach have me do this? I don't know. But it does seem natural to do so.

I've read where CTS prescribes 75ish RPM's for the cadence on such rides but I don't recall the specifics as to why this is important.

Ric Stern has often stated that "one should train at a cadence where the rider produces the most power, provided it is between 80 to 100 RPM's". This seems to make the most sense because it takes into account the "specificity" of training - i.e. train at a cadence where you will be racing.

Is a slower Tempo ride better served by a lower cadence than say, a 25K Time Trial or something similar? I think the real secret then is to find if there is a logrithmic power curve where slower rides are more efficient with a lower cadence and faster rides are better served with a higher cadence. Simply plot the data and chart it.

That's one for people with much more expertise than I have for sure. :o

Tempo for me is 3 hour TT pace. I don't ever look at rpms. Heart rate = 155bpm or so.

It's the 'fast', 'comfortable' pace.

I think this is actually a correct hypothesis. At low powers and high cadences, the work done on moving the legs would be quite large as compared to the work done pushing the bike forward. Bigger legs probably then have a lower preferable cadence for a given power output. As muscle fatique won't kick in at low power outputs you don't need to worry about using high cadence to keep the stress down.

This is incedentally how I tend to ride- at higher cadences at higher power outputs.

Doctor Morbius said:

When Bob & Phil are talking about Tempo I just assume they are using it to describe the pace of the race - kind of like how the tempo of classical music can increase or decrease - rather than a specific target or zone used for training/racing.

Therein lies the $64,000 question. I know from personal experience (again, not very scientific) that when I go out for a 2+ hour ride I will use a much different cadence than I will for VO2 intervals. For VO2 intervals I find it better to rely on an increased cadence as well as higher gearing. Would a good coach have me do this? I don't know. But it does seem natural to do so.

I've read where CTS prescribes 75ish RPM's for the cadence on such rides but I don't recall the specifics as to why this is important.

Ric Stern has often stated that "one should train at a cadence where the rider produces the most power, provided it is between 80 to 100 RPM's". This seems to make the most sense because it takes into account the "specificity" of training - i.e. train at a cadence where you will be racing.

Is a slower Tempo ride better served by a lower cadence than say, a 25K Time Trial or something similar? I think the real secret then is to find if there is a logrithmic power curve where slower rides are more efficient with a lower cadence and faster rides are better served with a higher cadence. Simply plot the data and chart it.

That's one for people with much more expertise than I have for sure. :o

I believe the term originated in the running world, where a tempo pace is simply lactate threshold pace - i.e. the pace at which your lactate transport system is just able to sustainably clear the waste products from your muscles, into the bloodstream and process them through the liver, maintaining a constant blood-lactate concentration level (around 4 millimoles per liter is a typical rule of thumb).

If you were to run any faster, uncleared lactic acid waste products begin accumulating in the bloodstream, and eventually in the muscle cells. It roughly equates to the pace a runner can maintain for around an hour, or a bit less. By training at a pace right at (or near) your threshold value, over time you increase the efficiency of the LTS, thus increasing the pace you can maintain in race conditions.