Where do I go from here ?

Redstorm:

If you want to hold 40 kmh, you need to go at least 40 kmh for short periods of time. If you never go 40 kmh for a few minutes, you will never go 40 kmh for an hour.

Wind up a bigger gear like a 53x15 or so and try to hit 40 kmh. Once there, hold the speed as long as possible, regardless of heart rate. Towards the end when you start to crack, you might feel sick inside your stomach. Don't worry about it though, it's part of getting faster. If you want to go fast, you have to push your body hard and be willing to suck up the pain of doing intervals.

Try to hold the speed for as long as possible, ideally, a few intervals of 3-5 minutes works well.

Even if you can only hold the speed for 30 seconds, keep the effort going at your limits for 3-5 minutes, and downshift to keep your cadence high/normal. Your speed will drop, but keep pushing at your limits even if you are only going 15-17 mph at the end.

In a few weeks or next month, you will be holding the speed longer, eventually going the whole 3-5 minutes. If you can already hold 40 kmh for 3-5 minutes, bump up the speed to 42+ kmh or whatever. You get the idea. Recover well, maybe one or two sessions a week. If you are too tired to do them, ride easy instead. It is extremely important to do intervals ONLY when you are fresh.

There are professional road riders with asthma. It is absolutely mandatory that you carry a fast-acting inhaler in your jersey pocket on all rides, especially when doing intervals.

Good luck!!!

J-Mat,

we've had this discussion here http://www.cyclingforums.com/t28345.html before. Trying to set goals by speed just isn't worthwhile, as it doesn't take into account topographical and environmental conditions, which can have a major impact on speed.

Also, trying to hold short duration high intensity efforts (e.g., 30-sec to 5-mins) will have differing effects (e.g., 30-secs will target anaerobic power, whereas 5-mins will target VO2 max). These type of efforts should be generally completed prior to and close to main traget events/goals, as they are very fatiguing and can bring you to a peak.

For increasing TT power the best training is tempo (~ zone 3) and just below TT power/effort (~ zone 4). Short efforts won't have much effect on TT performance.

Similarly, if redstorm can currently ride at TT effort at an average speed of 32.7 km/hr -- it's highly unlikely that redstorm will be able to go out and ride at ~ 40 km/hr -- that's going to be an approximate increase in power output of ~ 160 %.

Redstorm, with some good training, it's highly likely that you'll be able to bring up your average speed to ~ 40 km/hr, keep working at it and don't rush things. Shoot me off an email if you want some coaching advice.

Cheers
ric

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Originally posted by J-MAT
Redstorm:

If you want to hold 40 kmh, you need to go at least 40 kmh for short periods of time. If you never go 40 kmh for a few minutes, you will never go 40 kmh for an hour.

Wind up a bigger gear like a 53x15 or so and try to hit 40 kmh. Once there, hold the speed as long as possible, regardless of heart rate. Towards the end when you start to crack, you might feel sick inside your stomach. Don't worry about it though, it's part of getting faster. If you want to go fast, you have to push your body hard and be willing to suck up the pain of doing intervals.

Try to hold the speed for as long as possible, ideally, a few intervals of 3-5 minutes works well.

Even if you can only hold the speed for 30 seconds, keep the effort going at your limits for 3-5 minutes, and downshift to keep your cadence high/normal. Your speed will drop, but keep pushing at your limits even if you are only going 15-17 mph at the end.

In a few weeks or next month, you will be holding the speed longer, eventually going the whole 3-5 minutes. If you can already hold 40 kmh for 3-5 minutes, bump up the speed to 42+ kmh or whatever. You get the idea. Recover well, maybe one or two sessions a week. If you are too tired to do them, ride easy instead. It is extremely important to do intervals ONLY when you are fresh.

There are professional road riders with asthma. It is absolutely mandatory that you carry a fast-acting inhaler in your jersey pocket on all rides, especially when doing intervals.

Good luck!!!

Ric:

Yes we have had this discussion before, and I suspect it won't be the last either. It's important for everyone to understand that coaching advice varies widely especially when it comes to intervals. Intensity, duration, volume, pacing, etc. are only a few of the different variables that coaches disagree on.

Lower intensity zones are very useful and necessary, but I typically ride tempo enroute to an interval session for 20-60 minutes, 5-15 beats below LT, usually at 90-100 rpm. I'm nowhere close to being a professional rider, and only log about 8 or 9 hours a week on the bike, so if I can do 3-5 intervals on top of a 20-60 minute tempo block, others should be able to also, providing they have a decent fitness base to start with. The way I see it, if you went home after a 20-60 minute tempo block, you only did half your workout.

The intervals I described should actually be done with an all out 30-60 second effort to start, but I spared Redstorm the pain of an all out effort and said to just hit and hold 40 kmh for as long as possible. When going all out or very hard, watts, and heart rate are not important, effort is.

If Redstorm were using a watt meter, I would say to get up to 300 watts and hold it as long as possible instead of holding 40 kmh as long as possible, since watts are an absolute measurement of a riders output, but either will work quite well. Again, what is important is the effort not the data.

Yesterday, I was riding home with a light tailwind and was holding 26.5 mph in a 53x15 at about 84-85% of max hr. I could have gone at that pace for 60 minutes with ease. Obviously, if I were doing 3-5 minute efforts with that wind, I would have to bump the speed up to 28-29-30+ mph for the effort to be effective.

No matter who you are or what methods you use to train with, you can't fool yourself. You know when your effort is too easy.

When you are supposed to go hard, you need to go hard, and for intervals that usually means respirations of 60+/minute, or a hard breath every second. When you are breathing that fast, you are close to or at VO2 max.

The ability to recover from all out anaerobic efforts requires large amounts of aerobic power which is trained to the maximum by starting an interval all out/hard until you blow, then forcing yourself to carry the effort for 3-5 minutes. Doing intervals this way is so hard, it will take several sessions just to get to the point where you can think clearly enough to downshift and keep the effort going after the inital hard effort.

I currently start my intervals out in a 53x12 on the flats with a light crosswind, and from a 20 mph roll, I will accelerate seated as rapidly as possible to 95-100 rpm (33-35 mph)and hold it for 45-60 seconds. It's not uncommon for me to hit max heart rate (180 bpm)in 45-50 seconds. I immediately downshift into a 53x15 or 53x17 when my 53x12 cadence goes below 90 rpm, and hold 22-25 mph for a few minutes until I recover. At about 3 minutes or so, I can recover enough to hold 26-26.5+ mph for the final 2 minutes. Once you are used to training like this, holding speed at constant power output becomes much easier.

If you could only ride 24-28 mph for 30 seconds today, if you keep at it, you will start going 24-28 mph for 40 seconds, 60 seconds, 3 minutes, 10 minutes, 40 minutes, etc. The body is highly adaptable to the stresses it encounters. As long as you recover properly, you will not become chronically fatigued, overtrained, or plateu.

I'll be the first to admit these types of intervals are the hardest way to ride period, and are the most painful. But then again, we are riders, not bowlers or golfers. Who ever said cycling was supposed to be easy???

Road racing is the hardest sport on earth, and a huge part of that for all competetive/fast riders is the suffering factor. All riders will have to suffer at some point if they want to get to certain levels. There are no free rides in life or in cycling. Lots of people want something for nothing. To get fast, you have to work very hard and suffer. Don't forget to recover!!!

J-MAT wrote, i reply beginning with >>
Ric:

Yes we have had this discussion before, and I suspect it won't be the last either. It's important for everyone to understand that coaching advice varies widely especially when it comes to intervals. Intensity, duration, volume, pacing, etc. are only a few of the different variables that coaches disagree on.

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coaching advice does differ, i don't disagree on this. what i'm trying to do is explain that a) it's highly unlikely that if someone can average ~ 32 km/hr that riding at 40 km/hr is going to be too hard. b) also, the increase in power that's required to go from ~ 32 km/hr to 40 km/hr is massive and is beyond the person's current fitness level, and thus they'll only be able to sustain 40km/hr for a very short period of time.

Lower intensity zones are very useful and necessary, but I typically ride tempo enroute to an interval session for 20-60 minutes, 5-15 beats below LT, usually at 90-100 rpm. I'm nowhere close to being a professional rider, and only log about 8 or 9 hours a week on the bike, so if I can do 3-5 intervals on top of a 20-60 minute tempo block, others should be able to also, providing they have a decent fitness base to start with.

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that's fine for you, but, it doesn't mean it's fine for everyone

The intervals I described should actually be done with an all out 30-60 second effort to start, but I spared Redstorm the pain of an all out effort and said to just hit and hold 40 kmh for as long as possible.

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either you don't communicate well or don't know what you're talking about. The last time i saw people do all-out 60-sec efforts they rested immediately afterwards, and then went a collected their medals for the 1-km TT.

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if you go 'all-out' for 30/60 secs then fatigue sets in rapidly, such that after that initial time frame, you'll be a) very acidotic b) crawling along if you continue. Have you ever done a Wingate? A good proportion of people puke at the end, and certainly after 30-secs all out aren't fit to do much else. Having done an (unpaced) 90-sec Wingate, my power has dropped so much after ~ 30secs, that there's little training effect.

When going all out or very hard, watts, and heart rate are not important, effort is.

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Whilst i completely agree that you are correct with HR, this isn't the case with power output. Any work > ~ 60-secs in duration needs to be carefully paced.

If Redstorm were using a watt meter, I would say to get up to 300 watts and hold it as long as possible instead of holding 40 kmh as long as possible, since watts are an absolute measurement of a riders output, but either will work quite well.

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But, why? Redstorms avg 1-hr power is ~ 180 W. 300 W will be above redstorms VO2 max power. Redstorm will be working anaerobic capacity or power at this level, and would fatigue after 30-60 secs.

Again, what is important is the effort not the data.

Yesterday, I was riding home with a light tailwind and was holding 26.5 mph in a 53x15 at about 84-85% of max hr. I could have gone at that pace for 60 minutes with ease. Obviously, if I were doing 3-5 minute efforts with that wind, I would have to bump the speed up to 28-29-30+ mph for the effort to be effective.

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what happens if the wind changes or air density or temperature? How do you know whether you are training effectively?

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looking at your data, assuming some ballpark figures, for you to be working as hard as you've asked Redstorm, you're goingto need to train at ~ 34 mph

When you are supposed to go hard, you need to go hard, and for intervals that usually means respirations of 60+/minute, or a hard breath every second. When you are breathing that fast, you are close to or at VO2 max.

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1km TTers go hard, but they don't win many (road/endurance) TTs.

The ability to recover from all out anaerobic efforts requires large amounts of aerobic power which is trained to the maximum by starting an interval all out/hard until you blow, then forcing yourself to carry the effort for 3-5 minutes.

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the ability to recover is dependent upon aerobic fitness (i.e., VO2 max and LT). However, these are both best trained by paced, more moderate efforts (much less than 'all-out'😉. Once you blow you aren't training to increase your power output, which is the opposite of what you need.

I currently start my intervals out in a 53x12 on the flats with a light crosswind, and from a 20 mph roll, I will accelerate seated as rapidly as possible to 95-100 rpm (33-35 mph)and hold it for 45-60 seconds. It's not uncommon for me to hit max heart rate (180 bpm)in 45-50 seconds. I immediately downshift into a 53x15 or 53x17 when my 53x12 cadence goes below 90 rpm, and hold 22-25 mph for a few minutes until I recover.

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And? So what? Once you've shifted down due to the way too high effort, you're not really training to increase your power output.

If you could only ride 24-28 mph for 30 seconds today, if you keep at it, you will start going 24-28 mph for 40 seconds, 60 seconds, 3 minutes, 10 minutes, 40 minutes, etc. The body is highly adaptable to the stresses it encounters. As long as you recover properly, you will not become chronically fatigued, overtrained, or plateu.

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i don't disagree about the plasticity of the body. i'm suggesting instead you look at sensible attainable goals

I'll be the first to admit these types of intervals are the hardest way to ride period, and are the most painful. But then again, we are riders, not bowlers or golfers. Who ever said cycling was supposed to be easy???

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They are i don't disagree, but why? There's far better ways to get fit that are less painful (but painful in their own way) that will cause faster and better adaptations with less breakdown than what you suggest.

Road racing is the hardest sport on earth, and a huge part of that for all competetive/fast riders is the suffering factor.

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i don't doubt that RRing is hard, but why make it harder? There are of course sports that require far greater intensities. Road racing is of course a low intensity, moderate effort endurance sport.

Ric

Ric:

Cycling is a sport where chances have to be taken. If someone can only go 32 kph sustained, at what point will they magically wake up one day and start going 40 kph??? How long will that take??? Going 40 kph for a few seconds is not going to hurt you unless you are unhealthy.

Recover and do it again on another ride and you will hold the speed longer. I mean, were only talking about 25 mph. Unless you have some type of known health problem, just about anyone can go that fast for at least 5-30 seconds.

I'm quite familiar with Wingates, and yes a 60-second effort is paced. However, for a 5 minute interval, 60 second power is "all-out" when the entire effort is taken into consideration. Anything over 20 seconds is paced technically.

34+ mph is around as fast as I can currently go for 60 seconds (with 36 spoke rims), so when I tell Redstorm or anyone else to go that hard I'm not telling them to suffer any worse than I do. I always practice what I preach. Most riders also use trick wheels with light spoke counts if they have them making harder efforts a little easier also. I saw a guy noodling the other day on a set of Zipp 404's!!! What a waste!!! For maximum training effect, use 36 spoke rims, and heavy tires and tubes. Save the trick wheels for races.

We have talked about the track riders before. Most riders are either pure track or pure road. Some might do both, but one dicpline will be predominate. Track riders usually focus on the track. If they focused some of their time on longer TT's, kilo riders would make good road TT'ers. Even 200 meter sprinters could make the transition.

As long as your effort remains high, you will absolutely be working towards a power increase, even if you are fading.

Additional muscle fibers have to be called upon to sustain the effort, and after a short recovery, the fatigued fibers will come back into play as well. You would never come close to taxing the muscles this way with a lower intensity effort.

Since aerobic power is trained at relatively modest intensities, the greatest benefactor of 3-5 minute intervals is by far the leg muscles and nervous system.

I showed my workout example just to show how I do it. I can tell you for a fact, nothing I have ever done before has been as effective in increasing my sustainable power. These are true VO2 max intervals, you will be gasping for air the entire time far beyond anything in the 90-92% of max hr typically precribed for 3-5 minute intervals. They are very hard, and you have to be willing to push yourself to your limits.

So is this the only way to train??? Of course not. All riders should vary their training regularly. I do intervals many different ways. But, riders who only do steady state efforts almost alway have problems in crits/road races/hard group rides due to the attacks. When strong riders force the pace, steady-state riders get into boatloads of trouble.

So, I advocate training for racing at uncomfortable intensities and on difficult/technical terrain. When do strong riders wait to sprint hard and drop half the field??? When they get to a very steep hill of course!!! The only thing worse than suffering on a hill sprint in training is paying money to enter a race and getting dropped like a bad habit for the whole world to see!!!

No other sport is as hard as road racing. Go do a few 5 minute 500+ watt cobbled climbs every hour along with sustained efforts over 60 kph with crosswinds reeling in breaks. Repeat several times over 6-8 hours. That's basically what the Ronde or other Classics are. Sports with timeouts, quaters, half times, etc. don't even compare. If you feel like puking, have diarrhea running down your leg, or have a fever, you have to keep the pedals turning or you will be dropped. other athletes get to sit on the bench when they don't feel well. Eddy Merckx even told his son Axle to "just be a soccer player...It's a much easier life."

I'm just throwing some hard stuff out there as food for thought. Most riders don't/won't train this way, but I like it. I like speed. I like to go fast.

I'm the kind of guy that has the throttle pinned on a Yamaha R1 going 175 mph, not crusing on a Harley at 50 mph.

So, if you have a Harley Davidson mindset, don't do intervals the way I describe here. But, if you have an R1 mindset, go for it and see what happens!!!

Hey, Ric,

How do you calculate the HR zones you're suggesting, please? Are you using the Carmichael zones or Friel's?

Thanks!

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Originally posted by serottarider
Hey, Ric,

How do you calculate the HR zones you're suggesting, please? Are you using the Carmichael zones or Friel's?

Thanks!

I *think* (it's a while since i've read this thread) that i was talking about power output zones (not HR). These zones were designed by myself and can be read about here http://www.cyclingnews.com/fitness/?id=powerstern

If, i use HR zones, i use the zones that were developed by Peter Keen. How they're calculated is shown in the above article as a *vague* comparison to the power zones.

Ric

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Originally posted by serottarider
Hey, Ric,

How do you calculate the HR zones you're suggesting, please? Are you using the Carmichael zones or Friel's?

Thanks!

You can also use this tool http://www.abcc.freeserve.co.uk/hrcalc.html, its best to use a 'real' max heart rate rather than calculating it from age and sex. Most people in the UK use Peter Keen's HR Zones, either 4 levels or 6 zones. I am sure that you could get more information if you contact the coaching department at British Cycling.

Thanks, 2LAP.

I found them on the BCF's website, along with a bunch of other interesting information.