It's killing me but..........

Felt_Rider

A few post ago it was brought up about a motivating music beat, but this morning.....wow.....I had an awesome training session on the spin bike while having a rather vivid visualization of Ricccardo Ricco's amazing climb up the last mountain stage in the tour yesterday. I am a big believer in visualization as I wrote about it on my blog a while back. In short it is my opinion that if you cannot see yourself achieving something you probably will not achieve it.

Climbing is no doubt my biggest weakness and something I try to work on. I don't have a PM to prove anything, but I know that I seem to have more power tucked in a TT, then it is sitting up with the hands on the hoods and then lastly standing is my biggest weakness. Maybe I am geared more that direction with body type at 5'6" and a fairly lean 170 lbs and why I tend to suffer more while standing during a climb. On rolling terrain I can power up a smaller climb with my hands down on the drops while the majority of others in my group are standing.

This morning while working on my weakness I was doing my normal standing / seated intervals and with the ear buds and a climbing cadence beat I could vividly see Ricco's standing climbing cadence in my mind. My effort seemed to flow just as I reflected on his, no concern of the discomfort, but just a desire to keep adding tension and keeping the same driving cadence.

Bad thing is when the seated/standing intervals were over the next intervals were back to a tightly tucked TT position and my legs were able to go a faster cadence and handling more pain threshold with the same amount of tension. Oh well it I suppose that it what training is about as some say, "train your weakness, race your strength."

I just hope I can keep that image of Ricco's climbing ability in my mind as I continue to work on my weakness. If I were to magnify my ability by 10 I would have been on the back of the peloton with all the sprinters on that stage.

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kopride

You think? I don't know why you can't climb as well as Ricco. To me, Ricco looks just like a former competitive powerlifter @ 5'6" and 170. All the great climbers on the tour have been built like fireplugs, look at Rassmusen. If you want to improve your climbing ability, I would work on packing on another 20 or 30 pounds on your upper body.

I am a big fan of visualization as well. But you might want to visualize Robbie McEwan 5'6" @ 147, rather than Ricco. Despite all that power, even Robbie is a little big for the long climbs and seems to struggle on the longer ones. Instead of visualization, do what my buddy does who suffers from hypertrophy of the arms and legs (a very solid 5'8" 190). He is always altering the route to play to his strengths. "Let's go this way guys, (towards the flat industrial river sections) its so much more senic that the ride through rolling horse country and covered bridges (which involves long brutal climbs)." Then he punishes us all through those short rises that you can power through in the big ring. He also will start the "hill climb" about a mile before a long hill and try and work a gap that we need to close somewhere on the hill. Conversely, there is that unwritten code to wait near the top for the pack to regroup so I never really get my revenge. I have taken to hitting my timer when I get to the top just to remind him how much I beat him. This usually ensures that he will hang off my wheel for the long flat pull home and then crush me decidedly in a power sprint about 200 yards from the designater finish spot.

But it is an interesting question, do you work your weaknesses, or overcompensate your strengths? And I say this having already been accused by another poster of not being a dreamer and encouraging others to reach for the stars.

Felt_Rider

ROFL....that whole post cracked me up pretty good

I am much like your friend and was ultra pleased when I found at that Saturday's ride was going to be flatter than normal and I made some friends suffer for a change. But today I had to go back to training my weakness because I bet anything my friends will remember this when planning the route for next Saturday.

I had to work on standing intervals and thought it best to visualize Ricco rather than visualizing the suffering pain that Schumacher displayed at the back of the pack even though I am shaped like a brick and in reality will definately be back there suffering the climbs.

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Felt_Rider

I hope Dave, Alex or someone backs me up on the "train your weakness, race your strength".

Cause I like it!!!

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Sillyoldtwit

How do you train your Mars Bars?

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kopride

I am glad I didn't crush your dreams. My band of lackluster weekend warriors tortures each other pretty well. From the fireplugs who keep turning the course in the direction of the flatlands to the bird men who keep turning the course to the Appalachian foothills, it is all about playing to strengths. At our respective decreptitute as we move past 40, it is sometimes better to be the shrewdest than the fastest.

Train strength v. weakness, I think Tyson has the right idea with working FTP. I have been working on raising FTP with SST with the idea that a rising tide raises all ships. Tyson seems to be trying to pull those numbers up with work very close or above threshold. He seems to be getting better results, which I attribute to the Mars bars and the cultural differences between our respective wives, as opposed to the fact that he seems to be training much harder and consistently than me. IMHO, you want to hurt that sprinter long before the line and make that birdman pay a price on the flats long before the long hills. A higher FTP will do that. If they are thinking about mere survival, then they will behave on your weak spots. Nonetheless, my cagey fireplug friend always seems to have an equipment issue about a mile or two before the finish. He can drop a chain almost at will -- right as the pace becomes uncomfortable. I have been calling "pirates rules" (hang on or be left behind) a few miles before just to keep him honest. (yes, our collective mentality is about 3rd grade).

Time for a PM or CT , Felt. You know you want one. For torturing buddies, they can be diabolically effective. I know just where to keep the power levels to keep them honest. And, if you are riding with a few studs, a PM will let you know just when to drop your chain or check your tire because that gravel looked like glass (i.e. the pace is too hard). The studs will just look annoyed and disgusted, just don't tell them about pirate's rules.

acoggan

I'd say that it depends upon 1) your goals/desires, and 2) just how weak your weaknesses are versus how strong your strengths are.

Felt_Rider

Dangit.....you seem to know all the tricks - (Saturday Event).
My friends wonder why I carry plenty of air cartridges.

Nothing like a timely flat to help a guy
And you're right none of them are smiling about my flat.

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kopride

Me personally:

1) Improve FTP, measured regularly per a one hour TT, eventually local races once the last one is out of diapers.

2)I am across the board mediocre. No real glaring strength or weakness. I am a decent hill climber in comparision to my over 40 group, was a very good climber, 20 years ago, and 15 pounds lighter (160 v. 175).

Felt_Rider

Climbing for me is weak. On a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being strong it would be a 3 amongst my group on a >30 minute long climb.

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Felt_Rider

I realized later yesterday in the evening that my post about working on standing seated intervals and using Ricco as visualization may not have been clear as to my intention. I know most on this forum and this thread are primarily focused on improving FTP and I am as well. That may have been what readers may have understood about my post, but the reason that I am focusing on standing climbing is because I don't like them near as much as I like sitting in a TT position, where my strength seems to lie mentally.

I stated visualization because it is a means to changing ones perspective so it is a 100% mental aspect that may change physical performance. I found in my past observations competing in another sport that there is a greater likelihood one will excel in their favorite training aspect over the training aspects that are less enjoyable. So I believe it is very important to make an effort to change mental perception in order to try to excel at the weak areas.

Thanks to Dr. Coggan for noticing (outside our FTP goals) that there are other goals and right now mine is to change my mental perception of seeing an upcoming mountain climb with aprehension. The majority of my indoor training is spent with my elbows on the top bar since I don't have aerobars and a smaller segment of the training time is focused on standing intervals just to change my mental perspective.

Instead of thinking as we approach a mountian, "Oh crap here it comes" to a thought of a little more enthusiasm. The reality is my body type is not that of a climber, but I still have to face the mountains and I still have to climb them regardless of my bodytype so I might as well change my mental perspective from dread to something more positive because it plays out mentally in those long climbs just as I notice those falling off the back when I pulling the group on a flat terrain. Those guys seem to struggle more on the flat with wind than I do while I am tucked down on the drops.

I say all of this in case there was some confusion about my initial post and that I believed standing intervals would help my FTP. I don't know if I needed to add clarity, but I thought I would.

I believe this aspect pertains to my goal of, "It's killing me but......" by reshaping my perspective about climbing and not only climbing, but the dislike of off the saddle type of work as well.

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kopride

Your goal is better than my fireplug friend's. My hypertrophic buddy claims that his goal is to " boldly go where no hill dared to grow." This is a struggle in my neck of the woods.

So much of this stuff is mental. From forcing yourself to get out or sit on the trainer when you don't want to, to gutting out an interval. If you can overcome any mental aprehension about a hill, then you are going to ride better when you see them. But there is a different way of looking at hills that takes visualization to another level.

Not to plug the power meter again, but it does force you to look at a hill in terms of watts. A watt is a watt, whether you are generating them on the flats v. on a hill. When you look at a PM while climbing, you start to see the problem most of us non birdmen have with hills. We go out too hard early and then find ourselves midway through the long climb having already burned too many matches or pushing a few watts above what we can sustain for the time needed to complete the climb. Having ridden with a PM for over a year, I tend to back off if I know that I am pushing it too hard early and can keep the power steady for the whole climb. If there is juice left in the tank at the midway point, it is easier to burn the match there, knowing that there is soon a descent to recover from. A PM also keeps you from burning too many matches on a single climb, if you know you have a few more ahead of you. If I am pushing L6, this hill better finish up in less than 5 minutes at this pace, or I better drop down to threshold. If I am in L5, then I have a good 5 minutes and usually can duplicate a few of these over the course of a ride, but it is not limitless. Also, you see that most east coast hills have spots that level off in grade throughout the climb, survive the steep sections and then use the flatter spots to recover and close gaps on the guys that are less gravitationally challenged. That is the key to hills, to ride them in L4 the whole climb, and squeeze in a few short L5 and 6 bursts when needed. Typically, us bigger guys start off at the bottom in L5 and then we are pushing 6 and beyond when the hill gets steep. After we burn the matches, we are fighting to keep it at L2 during the upper part of the hill.

Felt, it is time for the PM. it is the ultimate visualization tool.

Felt_Rider

Believe me I want to step up to using a PM, but I have not been able to convince my wife and since we are a team on the finances I will wait a bit longer.

You, jsisrabella and many others have provided plenty of proof (despite Fday's doubt) that a PM is a very valuable tool in many ways.

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swampy1970

But you can be about 99% as accurate with predicting your effort with a $70 Polar HRM than you would be with a $1500 PM. There are some advantages to training with a power measuring device rather than a HRM but from my experience (Kingcycle and a Polar Sportstester) of training indoors with both then it's as near as damnit that it's not a deal breaker if you want to save a grand or so....

Now, if you want to have some numbers to share with the folks on here and that inspires you to higher goals then that in itself is a motivational point which may help you in your goal for increased performance.

Either way - happy pedalling.