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

SolarEnergy

And if I can add my 2cents, higher cadence doesn't really mean higher quality or higher power.

I rode with a friend of mine yesterday, 47yo. Fairly slow on flat (easily gets drop when the power reaches roughly 200w for too long). But yesterday, during a hill session, I realized that he could routinely stand roughly 290w for 7 minutes.

On the flat though, he spins like a fly (105-110rpm to my estimation). He, like many others, was influanced by that school of thoughts that promote very high cadence (>=100rpm) for everyone.

My conclusion was that on the flat, he might be overspining. That results into a lower power that he can sustain... maybe.

So in his case, higher cadence may mean less quality.

RapDaddyo

The volume question raises many issues such as the one you posed (quality) and the other usual suspects (e.g., overtraining). The problem with this entire set of issues is that they are largely anecdotal. I firmly believe that we are all very different in our tolerance of volume and that it is essential to have a metric we can use from week to week to manage total training stress. I again endorse TSS because I use it and have confidence in it. As you begin to increase volume, I strongly encourage you to compute your weekly TSS and make notes on any obvious symptoms such as any muscular soreness, general fatigue or inability to maintain power on an otherwise routine ride. Somewhere earlier in this thread, I gave you the formulas for computing TSS manually. You might want to dust those off.

zaskar

Hey Rap, im wondering with all the L4 time you do, how long can you maintain your "sweet spot" power, low end of L4? I'm working on trying to maintain mine for 2 1/2 hours. any idea how long it is possible to maintain a low level L4 in most fit trained riders? im working on this on a 25 mile mountain climb. im talking a steady ride, no stops, no drafting.

RapDaddyo

Hi zaskar,

A big chunk of my current L4 time is in 3x20 sets on my trainer (due to the heat) at 100%FT. I do this almost every day, as a base for my training. My L4 durations on my road rides vary all over the map from 91% and above, depending on duration. When I do long L4s (e.g., 40-90 mins), I do them at the very bottom end of the range. One of my target events is the Mt. Charleston Hill Climb in mid-September (17.5 miles at ~6.5% avg grade). This sounds somewhat like your 25 mile climb, where I'll need to ride 90-120 mins at ~90-95%FT. Once I get into the 2nd half of August, I'll start doing my 3x20s on the trainer as 2x30s and eventually 1x60 (now, that requires concentration). Plus, I'll start going out and climbing the actual ride as a non-stop training ride at least once a week. I will say this. Six plus hours a week at L4 sure makes FT pace begin to seem "normal."

And, my specific answer to your question is 120 minutes as the outside limit at 91%FT. At least for me.

Sillyoldtwit

A tricky one SE. Maybe I didn't explain it clearly enough.

At the moment when I do my sessions in the gym, I try to do all my 20/30 min intervals at 90 strokes per minute plus. Last week all my intervals were done at that cadence. Now let's assume one day I go to the gym and I find my legs are heavy from the previous day - turning the pedals becomes a grind, the HR shoots up well above what it normally is for that given Wattage, and the breathing becomes more laboured. To turn the pedals for any length of time I am forced to lower the cadence and because of the extra stress applied to the legs, I suffer mentally.
In other words I've lowered the quality by not performing as well as I could at that given wattage because the previous day's quantity has left me drained.

I agree with what you are saying if my intention was to do all the intervals at a cadence of 60 say, and that is what I did. Quality (I assume) would not be affected. I think in a nutshell, the difference is between intentionally training at a low cadence and being forced to train at a low cadence.

If you understand all that, then you're a better man than I am.

Tyson

RapDaddyo

Under this scenario, I think you're better off getting off the bike and going for a fruit smoothie. It's not that day's workout that you are compromising. It is the benefit (adaptation) from the previous day's ride that you are compromising. Or, if you continue the workout, just spin at a recovery pace. But, I would only do that if I felt I needed to build up my volume to increase my endurance.

SolarEnergy

No no. It's just that english isn't my native language. So sometimes I get lost

Thanks Tyson ! I'm a fan !

Sillyoldtwit

I think you're agreeing with me RD, it's just a question of which day's quality you are compromising. Whether it's the day before's workout (adaption) or today's workout which you could have ridden at a higher quality if you hadn't been tired from yesterday's workout, the end result is you are compromising quality for the sake of getting in the quantity. I think.

BTW, having thought more and more about powermeters and at a risk of upsetting trevcooley, I'm considering the purchase of an Ibike which unlike other powermeters on the market that seem to me to be a bit of a ripoff, is reasonably priced at 400 dollars.

Why a powermeter? I was thinking of one of the hills on my short Sunday ride. It's about 3km long and I'm sure I climb it somewhat below my FTP everytime. It would be nice to see just how much faster I could climb it. I know Trevcooley would say just blast it and see what happens. Could blow up doing it that way though. I think I told you before I climb intuitively, maybe erring on the side of caution.
Anyway, I hope that's made you a little happier.

Solarenergy wrote:


Sorry SE, would it help you if I wrote both in English and Japanese in future? TYSON

RapDaddyo

You might want to wait until the promised comparative performance study comes out, comparing the iBike with SRM, PT, Ergomo and Polar (or at least some of them). The iBike is not in the same class of device as the others. Rather, it imputes what power must be based on an interpretation of the resistances you are overcoming (gravity, rolling, air). There are other units that impute power (e.g., Ciclo HAC4), not well I might add. Chances are it's going to be right some of the time and wrong some of the time. The key question is, when it's wrong, what are the consequences for training and racing? And, it's likely to respond with a pretty significant lag (e.g., 15-30 seconds) and the same question applies: what are the consequences for training and racing? A used PT Pro is in the same price bracket and I would guess the PT SL will be bumped down a little when the SL2.4 becomes available (I'm guessing September, at Interbike). Anyway, since you do most of your training on a trainer, the main value to you is to manage your power on your Sunday rides. For others (most of us), we need it to train with power. Bottom line, I think you should wait until you have reached your goal of FT=300W. Then, you can go out on your Sunday ride and append a screenshot of your max 1 hr power and gloat.

Sillyoldtwit

I actually ran out of time and meant to add I was going to wait and see. At this point in time it sounds good. I wouldn't condemn it just yet.

RD, you've often said what a wonderful thing the body is, especially in the way it adapts to greater loads imposed upon it.

You could well have added, it is also at times totally unpredictable.

Last Sunday no surprises it poured with rain again, so after having had 2 days rest rest I thought I would go to the gym and massacre 220Watts. I did 1 x 30 mins @ 220W, took a 5 min rest and bang! I coudn't do a damn thing; felt totally drained and a little nauseous. Crawled off the bike thinking I'm plateauing at 200Watts!

Monday the gym is closed so decided to take the trusty steed to the mountains. I did my 57km course, doing as much L4 stuff as I could, and got in some quality L5 on the hills. Felt really good.

But that's not all, forced myself to the gym today thinking that after yesterday's ride and Sunday's debacle I wouldn't be able to do much.

Started of with a 1x20 @ 220Watts - very easy. So did another 1 x 20 @ 220W.with 1 minute rest between. The last 5 mins were hard but...

After 4 mins rest decided to do another 10min @ 220W. The first 4 min felt a little harder than the previous intervals and upon removing the towel from the display I found I had set the Watts @ 230W. So back to 220 for the last 6 mins. As per usual I belted the last minute at 120 cadence then discovered I had another minute to go, so rather than chicken out I kept going like a madman for another minute and that was me DONE!

So how does one explain that? Beats me.

Incidentally 300 watts now seems more distant than ever

Looking back over my figures, the best session I ever did was on the 7th May.
1x20 @ 250
1x10 @ 250
1x7 @ 240

Bearing those figures in mind, I shouldn't really have any trouble up to 250Watts and I wasn't doing VO2max/AWc training at that time. We shall see. Tyson

RapDaddyo

These days happen to all of us. Some days the power just isn't there, no matter how much you want it to be. Sometimes I drop my durations back (e.g., 10mins) and take longer rests in between each high-intensity effort (e.g., 10mins). But, sometimes I just bag it and stop.

This just says that your Sunday workout was an aberration. The good thing is that you're increasing your volume. I think you will see a faster rate of progress if you (eventually) work yourself up to 3x20s @ 100%FT. Bear in mind that 3x20 is a 50% increase in volume! That's huge.

Sillyoldtwit

Well, finished the week at a paltry 220Watts.

Yesterdays session went like this:

1x5mins @ 280W
2x5mins @ 270W (couldn't mange the 4th interval - don't know why)

3x90secs @ 300W

2x10mins @ 220W

1x1min @ 300W

Today (not a normal training day)
1x20min @ 220W

Haven't worked out the TSS for the week, but it's definitely up on last week.

I could be wrong, but one thing this week seems to indicate (looking at my VO2max/AWC figures) is that a 300Watt FT is a pipe dream. I reckon I'll plateau out at around 270 or 280W if I'm lucky.

Ah well, and I was so looking forward to joining the 300Watts club.

Onto 230Watts next week. Tyson

kmavm

How do you figure? VO2Max is significantly trainable, even for "trained" cyclists. The only way to find out where yours might top out is to keep pushing the edge of the envelope. And yes, a 300W FT might be impossible for you; the 300W club is more exclusive than most imagine. The only way to find out is to keep training, though.

WarrenG

I think you/he were referring to LT/FT, not VO2max? Or maybe power at VO2max, probably more trainable than "VO2max" itself.



True. True. I am midly surprised to learn from my coach that many Europros are not way over 300 watts. Many are in the 340-370 range. Lance was among the very best and near 420. Part of what they can do so well (and why they can be pros) is the 200-230 watts for hours and hours, and then do 350 for near an hour after that.

Get up at 8am. Eat, read, have a coffee. Go ride. Eat. Get a massage. Sleep. Eat. Sleep. Mow the lawn? Not likely...