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

RapDaddyo

I don't know who said it (in part because you would have gotten the same answer from almost any of the regular contributors on this forum), but you have it right. Cycling is all about overcoming one or more resistances. On the flat, the primary resistance is drag and the second resistance is rolling resistance. On the flat, the things that affect your drag affect speed enormously. The (main) things you have control of are your position on the bike and your wheels and tires. That's why wind affects your speed so much on the flat. As soon as the road tilts up more than a few percent, gravity quickly moves to the top of the resistance list. Obviously, some drag remains but it becomes secondary due to the lower speed. The main reason you need power is to lift the weight of you and your bike vertically. The most commonly used measure for climbing is watts per kilogram. To climb at the same speed, you need to generate the same w/kg as your riding buddy. Let's say that your buddy's weight is 60kg (132lbs) and that he can climb at 150w. So, his w/kg is 2.5 (150/60). Then, let's say your weight is 75kg(165lb). To match his speed, you would need to climb at 187.5w (75*2.5). There are lots of good reasons to lose weight, but this is one more. Lose a few pounds and your goal gets closer. I am in the process of slimming down for race season and my w/kg will go up by about 0.5w/kg as a result. That's huge in races with any major climbs. I put an 8x10 enlargement of the view from the bike of a major local hillclimb (Mt. Charleston) on my refrigerator (see below). I remember how I felt at that exact point in the race last September as I struggled to lift the weight of me and my bike up that mountain. That's all the incentive I need to pass on the extra calories. BTW, if need some help working out the #s to lose weight, try this free site http://www.fitday.com/.

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Sillyoldtwit

Palewin wrote:

Reading through again I realized it was not as complex as I thought.
However, I don't think I'm capable of following that pattern yet. I feel for a while I shoud stick to 2 x 20 and possibly a 3 X 20 on the day before the rest day as RD suggested. Mind you, the day before my rest day, in my case Friday after 3 days of intervals in the gym, I would probably be too tired to do 3X20.
When I cycled to find my FT (1 hour at 130) I was quite fresh, so
3 x 20 at 120 when tired might prove to be nigh on impossible yet. You say you do your intervals at 214 - 248; can't imagine that at the mo. Maybe I've got this wrong, but as I said before I try to do all my intervals at around a cadence of 90 per minute. (which someone told me a long time ago was the figure to aim for). Do you do your figures above at a high cadence or do you slow it down. I think if I slowed it down to 60 say, I could increase my watts considerably.

RD wrote:

Thanks RD for your very clear explanation. Sorry but it still seems too cut and dried to me. I feel weight and power is 90+% of it, but I can't help feeling other things come into play on the hills. For example ones physiological makeup - perhaps shorter legs, shape of ones hip bone and lower lumbar region, that is, one's skeletal structure facilitates good climbing ability.
And what about the size of your internal organs, in particular those that come into play in your cardiovascular system. I believe Indurain and Lance were born with larger heart and lungs. Though I suppose having a larger heart and lungs allows you to develop more power, so we come back to the formula of weight and power.

Just so I've got this clear. If hypothetically we have a short man weighing 60 Kilos and tall man weighing 75, and they both do exactly the same training and have developed equal power, (both have 15% body fat say) then on a climb the shorter light man will always outclimb the tall guy. Seems unfair.
To my way of thinking, for your height you shoud have an optimum weight, and if 2 guys (1 short and 1 tall) are both at the same fitness level and optimum weight for their size, they should climb at the same rate as each other. I know you are going to tell me gravity doesn't work that way. It does however, in reverse. A large stone and a tiny stone will fall at the same rate 32feet per sec per sec.

OK tear me to pieces!

RapDaddyo

Nope, it's all about power and weight. To your bike, you're just an engine with a smile. It doesn't care how you generate power or what you look like or what sex you are or how hold you are. It says, "Show me the power, babe, and don't weigh too much cause I've got to drag your fat body up that hill."

palewin

Hi SOT! Must admit that in an attempt to be clear, I sometimes use too many words! I quoted my wattage numbers only because "I'm the example I know best." For what its worth, RDO has a much higher FT than I do, so the same numbers that look high to you probably look very low to him. All I was suggesting is that you take a power level you want to work at, and for each week in a "block" increase the total minutes spent at that level. It doesn't have to be in 20 minute increments! If you do 2x20s on each of the 3 days in week 1, in week 2, just make one of the 20s a 25 (or whatever increase doesn't seem too off-putting) so that one day you do a 20min interval, recover, then a 25min interval. Next week make one interval 30 minutes long. What I'm trying to say is find your own way to increase the total minutes a little bit each week, and you will be accomplishing the training stress you're looking for, without thinking of suddenly doing a 3x20 which looks scary.
Your cadence question is trickier, because different coaches have different answers. But mine plays around with cadence, so I have done intervals at the same power level at 55rpm, 75rpm, and 90-100 rpm. His philosophy is that in races you sometimes can't find the optimal gearing, and may find you need to generate power in all these different ranges (for example, climbing where you may not have a gear you can turn at 90rpm). I have also been taught that at higher cadence you spare the legs but load up the cardiovascular system, and lower rpm you reverse that - so if you find yourself gasping for air, sometimes you can recover by pushing a bigger gear at lower cadence for a little while. If nothing else, doing intervals at different cadences breaks down the monotony. But in terms of actual riding and racing, as opposed to specific training intervals, I ride in the 90-100rpm range, just as you do.

Sillyoldtwit

Thanks for claryfying things PW. Funny enough in the gym today I found 2 x 20 quite easy and considered adding a few mins on to the last 20. (Didn't but will do in future as you suggest). I don't know if this is possible, but this is the 3rd week now since starting the serious intervals and my HR seems to have dropped considerably. Yesterday I went out on my old sit up and beg bike with no gears
which I only use for going shopping. It's even got a basket on the front and a child seat behind for my 7 year old daughter. Anyway, on the small slopes I could feel and generate so much more power than 3 weeks ago. Went up them like a rocket. It's probably wishful thinking and purely my imagination, because I don't want to believe this extra training load isn't have any effect.

PS. 2 weeks ago my FT was 130 but am considering doing 2 x 20 @ 130W from tomorrow. Too soon?

Watch this space, I'm fired up and determined to do 2x20 @200W by this summer. If it doesn't kill me that is! Bloody hell I will be 64 this summer - should be thinking about getting my bus pass not cycling up mountains. Now where's that number for Mrs. Nicklebottom's jam making class.

RapDaddyo

If it's too soon, you won't be able to complete the 2nd 20 at full power. If you don't have to drop your power in the last half of the 2nd 20, it wasn't too soon. What's the worst that can happen -- you short out the trainer by sweating all over the electricals and get kicked out of your health club? So, what's the problem?

I'm going on record -- I say you will do 2x20 at 200w by May 15th! What's the worst that can happen, since you've already been kicked out of your health club?

Sillyoldtwit

RD wrote:


I wasn't sure but now I'm positive, you are trying to kill me!

PS The sweat dried out and the display came back on - all is forgiven.

Sillyoldtwit

Have just read the 3 - 4 days thread below, and it seems to make sense to me, especially at my age.

This week I've trained hard (for me ) in the gym Tues/Wed/Thurs 2x20 each day. I think I would be better taking Fri & Sat off before heading for the mountains on Sunday. (approx 2hr 40 min) My legs if nothing else will be fresher
and psycologically I'm sure I'll feel better. After taking next Monday off, it's back to the gym with increased wattage and so on. What do my mentors think?
(RD and Palewin) or if anyone else thinks it's a good idea, I would welcome their opinion.

Tyson

RapDaddyo

Hey Tyson, glad to hear you're sticking with the 2x20s. They take a fair bit of concentration, so congrats on staying with them. As to the days off, there is no "right" answer in the choice between a day off and an "easy" day of riding at an easy pace. In your case, easy might be up to an hour at a conversational pace. Personally, I prefer to ride longer and harder on my hard days and then take a day off. Others prefer to do an easy ride on a recovery day. Both work. As to increasing your wattage on the 2x20s, I don't advocate doing that on a pre-planned schedule (e.g., 5w/wk). Rather, I advocate increasing power based on feel. When you finish the 2nd 20 and it just didn't feel as hard at the end as it used to, increase the wattage the next time. Some weeks you might not increase power at all. Other weeks you might increase it a couple of steps. But, it's always driven by RPE (rate of perceived exertion), or "feel." The same thing applies to doing a 3rd 20. One day you'll fininsh your 2nd 20 and you'll feel as though you just didn't get much of a workout. So, go for it -- do a 3rd 20.

jeff828

Rap, what is better, to increase the 2x20 wattage or do a 3rd 20min intervals? I am a active racer, sprinter build, bad at time trial power & my goal is to produce more power for a longer period of time, like for TT & break aways. I did those 3x10s twice a week for a month & HR was 179-181 (max is 210) & was hard on the legs, On the 5th week I it felt easy so I then took your advice & did 2x20 at the same wattage, my HR was 165-170,172 it felt awesome to double the time & with lower HR. I started to add a 3rd this week but at 10min mark HR was 180-181, legs were tired, & coordination was struggling.


Since my HR was lower at the same wattage & was able to hold it longer does that mean my 1 hour power went up? Was 220 and I was doing the intervals at 220-230

Thanks for your help

Sillyoldtwit

Jeff I don't want to speak for RD, but I remember him saying do an extra 20
(i.e. 3 x20) on the day before your day off if you think you can handle it. Probably doesn't answer your question fully, but I thought I'd mention it anyway.
Tyson

RapDaddyo

Hey Jeff, congrats on increasing your power. It's kind of cool to do an interval that used to be hard and now it's easy, isn't it? I think there is no question that a 3rd interval will result in more improvement in sustainable power than increasing power for the first two. The power increase won't be much and the lines are fuzzy anyway between levels. But, as Tyson said (he's getting to be quite the expert, isn't he?), you might want to take a day off after 3x20s. It's not that 3x20s are so many TSS points because the workout is only ~100 TSS points depending on what power you do the intervals at. It's that there's extra stress compared with what you've been doing. Again, congrats on increasing your power.

Oh, and yes your 1hr power has probably increased. Usually, when you raise your power at any duration beyond about 3 minutes you raise your entire MP/duration curve.

jeff828

Thanks Rap, I always take the next day off from intervals, keeps me rested & motivated for intervals the following day. Seems like I keep building on top of each workout with that rest day.

RapDaddyo

I do the same. Actually, your question comes at a good time as I am working on something in the form of a "workout optimizer." It's sort of a mathematical modeling approach to allocating a given amount of available workout time. When I'm done, it will answer questions such as you posed, but always within the constraint of a given workout schedule in terms of available time (e.g., I can allocate 1.5 hrs each on MWF & 3hrs each on Sat/Sun). I feel as though I need a second doctorate (in physiology), because the way the human body responds and adapts to exercise stress is so complex. But, I enjoy modeling things because it forces one to develop a very thorough understanding of the relationships and I enjoy optimization models, especially non-linear relationships. The cool thing about physiological adaptations is that they are not mutually exclusive and I think for some of them there are points of diminishing returns, both in power and duration (not negative returns, just decreasing marginal rates of return). Anyway, I'm light years away from having something working (because I'm light years away from understanding all the physiology I need to understand -- I need a brain dump from Andy).