low cadence, big gear training (was share your sprint)

[SolarEnergy]

Here is a post from the original thread. I have read this type of argument more than once...

What your coach and other coaches seem to fail to realize is that the forces being generated actually aren't all that high - in fact, they are no greater than what you encounter when climbing stairs. IOW, you (they) are arguing that the best way to prepare for "...in the saddle accelerations that are well above LTPower, long sprints, some climbs, etc." is to hike to the top of the Empire State building. Me, I think the best way to train to meet such demands is to actually ride a bike the way you will when racing.

With all due respect, and I really mean it, that "climbing stairs" thing, is a bit of a lousy comparaison.

You, as well as the other high profile coaches on this site, shouldn't have to use these doubtful comparaisons. You can convince, or I would rather say, you can inform us much more, with scientific, and even anectodal data.

 

[RapDaddyo]

With all due respect, that climbing stairs thing, is a lousy comparaison.

Really? I find it informative. I'm serious. Climbing stairs is an everyday activity and I can readily envision the muscular stress associated with climbing a set of stairs. I know that Andy has actually measured cycling pedal forces and if such training is equivalent to climbing stairs that allows me to quickly visualize the forces involved. If he put it in terms of the equivalent of some sort of strength training exercise, I would be able to relate less well because I don't do weight work.

 

[SolarEnergy]

Really? I find it informative. I'm serious. Climbing stairs is an everyday activity and I can readily envision the muscular stress associated with climbing a set of stairs. I know that Andy has actually measured cycling pedal forces and if such training is equivalent to climbing stairs that allows me to quickly visualize the forces involved. If he put it in terms of the equivalent of some sort of strength training exercise, I would be able to relate less well because I don't do weight work.

Now I feel better.

I came to wander if people were really sincere in using this argument.

Both activites are so different on the biomechanical view point.

That probably explains why my 86 yo aunt, can climb stairs.

Comparing those activities, solely based on the strength requirement variable, is missing the point IMO.

I don't want to sound provocative here. That is not my purpose.

 

[frenchyge]

Both activites are so different on the biomechanical view point.

Comparing those activities, solely from the strength requirement angle, is missing the point IMO.

How so? The knee angle and movement rate seem somewhat similar on the downstroke (at low cadences, such as was the context of the statement), although the force is typically less in pedalling. Why do you say they are so different biomechanically?

 

[SolarEnergy]

How so? The knee angle and movement rate seem somewhat similar on the downstroke (at low cadences, such as was the context of the statement), although the force is typically less in pedalling. Why do you say they are so different biomechanically?

That is hard for me to answer this. I am not a specialist. But to me, climbing stairs feels pretty different than climbing on the bike.

Climbing stairs involves a narrower amplitude, in an angle where glutes and quads mucles are natually strong I guess.

Again, I am not a specialist, but bikes aren't really optimized for climbing anyway. Having your foots and legs, right under your hips is probably a great benefit, on the side of climbing stairs.

Just as a guess, I would say that if you'd put a "more vertical" pedaling system on a bike, like the ones you find on a Stair Master, that might help some people that otherwize, cant climb certain hills with the circular pedaling system.

 

[Thorman]

This is only a sample size of 1, but last year I did "big gear" training and increased my 20 min power by 3% and this year I did "sweet spot", or mostly L3 training and increased my 20 min power by 6.5%.

http://tinyurl.com/7sk39

It's also enabled me to jump right into 2x20's (right now at ~340w which is 5w higher than my best ftp in 2005) without having to start with shorter intervals at lower power.

So for myself I found that both methods showed an increase it's just that one was much bigger than the other.

 

[SolarEnergy]

I believe the correct spelling is "sophomore", Greek for "wise fool." It's the name given to students in the second year of a four year educational program, either high school or college. A "high school sophomore" is typically 14-15 years old, which I believe whoawhoa is approximately. blkhotrod is trying to discredit whoawhoa by referring to his age.

For what it's worth, whoawhoa strikes me as a thoughtful, methodical contributor here, regardless of his age. Like the rest of the people on blkhotrod's list, he seems to favor a reasoned, evidence-based, science-over-folklore approach to his training. I don't care how old he is; I wish I was training as intelligently as he seems to be when I was his age .

Impressive. Nice to meet you guys.

 

[WarrenG]

Did you only do this type of training? Sometimes it is hard to tell precisely, what's the cause of an improvement. But I don't mean to say your "big gear" training didn't work. But maybe something else helped.

And why wouldn't you do both types of training in the same week? The low cadence stuff is good for maybe once or twice a week and you can still do the tempo stuff at least 3-4 times a week.

I do not understand this notion of working mainly on just one aspect of fitness at a time or with only one or two methods. Your body can handle, and probably prefers a variety of training stimulii in a given 7-10 day period. If you ignore one aspect of fitness for awhile it probably declines and then you have to do even more work just to get it back to where it already was.

It's tricky, but sometimes doing more of a certain type of training doesn't cause much improvement because your body would prefer a bit more recovery time in that area. So instead of providing more stress in an area that may already have received enough, or near enough, it can be more productive to work on a different aspect of fitness-one that is already recovered, rebuilt, and ready for more training. Or maybe you only need to train one particular aspect of your fitness...


-Warren

 

[WarrenG]

This is only a sample size of 1, but last year I did "big gear" training and increased my 20 min power by 3% and this year I did "sweet spot", or mostly L3 training and increased my 20 min power by 6.5%.
...So for myself I found that both methods showed an increase it's just that one was much bigger than the other.

A difference of ~10 watts comparing one year to another? Is that relevant for your objectives? What is your objective for the training? I don't think people would tell you that big gear training is intended soley for increasing your 20' power. Perhaps it's other benefits are useful for you?

 

[Iktome]

I don't want to sound too much like a certain coach from a small island nation near Austrailia, but isn't this discussion (and the one that preceded it) getting a bit far from what we are actually training to do?

Ok granted, if we only do time trials, maybe we can maintain a perfect, consistent cadence. I've seen Andy's "how to time trial" PowerTap file, and while it's impressive, it isn't even close to what my reality is.

I'm a successful expert class mountain biker who dabbles in road racing. I can comfortably spin to about 150 rpm, and I feel pretty good pushing 50 to 60 rpm when necessary. Any given mountain bike race might require both types of efforts, and I train to make sure that I can do both.

And in my road race dabbling, I did the Mike Horgan hill climb last summer while in Boulder for a wedding. I didn't plan on it, but borrowed my brother's 12-27 cogset and managed to grind up Magnolia Road's extended 15%+ sections at about the lowest cadence I could imagine pushing while staying upright. Either you had a big triple, or you could ride a very low cadence. If not, you turned around.

The point of this is that most of us will find ample opportunity to test our ability to push a big gear at a low cadence at some time in our racing careers. It may not be by choice, but races often require you to do things that aren't ideal. So given that, might there not be some place in our training for pushing a big gear? You'll never do a mountain bike race in which you can keep your cadence at 80+ rpm the entire race, no matter how hard you try. And most crits require a wide flexibility in your ability to turn the pedals. So why only train in a narrow cadence range?

 

[RapDaddyo]

I don't want to sound too much like a certain coach from a small island nation near Austrailia, but isn't this discussion (and the one that preceded it) getting a bit far from what we are actually training to do?

Ok granted, if we only do time trials, maybe we can maintain a perfect, consistent cadence. I've seen Andy's "how to time trial" PowerTap file, and while it's impressive, it isn't even close to what my reality is.

I'm a successful expert class mountain biker who dabbles in road racing. I can comfortably spin to about 150 rpm, and I feel pretty good pushing 50 to 60 rpm when necessary. Any given mountain bike race might require both types of efforts, and I train to make sure that I can do both.

And in my road race dabbling, I did the Mike Horgan hill climb last summer while in Boulder for a wedding. I didn't plan on it, but borrowed my brother's 12-27 cogset and managed to grind up Magnolia Road's extended 15%+ sections at about the lowest cadence I could imagine pushing while staying upright. Either you had a big triple, or you could ride a very low cadence. If not, you turned around.

The point of this is that most of us will find ample opportunity to test our ability to push a big gear at a low cadence at some time in our racing careers. It may not be by choice, but races often require you to do things that aren't ideal. So given that, might there not be some place in our training for pushing a big gear? You'll never do a mountain bike race in which you can keep your cadence at 80+ rpm the entire race, no matter how hard you try. And most crits require a wide flexibility in your ability to turn the pedals. So why only train in a narrow cadence range?

We can always find ourselves in a situation where we are forced to ride at low cadences, but why waste valuable training time on something that we use once in a blue moon?

 

[fergie]

My feelings are hurt. I want to be on this list.

The dude whose front end of the bike weighs twice as much as the back end?

Hamish Ferguson
Cycling Coach

 

[fergie]

At two minds over this one. All the gun riders do it here and they are some of the best track racers in the World. But then one of the exercise physiology consultants I work with suggested that we should only train strength up to 10% higher than we need. Seeing that we don't use a heck of a lot of strength while cycling it's unlikely (and yet to be proven in sport sci) that big weight training totals are of any use.

I see a lot of riders down the track doing efforts using very large gears but wonder if strength is the goal if they would get better results by using only a slightly higher gear. Ditto for overspeed. We know that elite sprinters can do 280-300 rpm but when they race are around the 160-180rpm mark. How much overspeed is useful. Again for leg speed would it be better to drop the gear slightly than to have no resistance or behind the motorbike.

On the wattage list there has been some interesting discussion about motorpacing which shows not a very high power output. This is a question I have asked a few times and the result does not surprise me. To me the best use for the bike is to get the rider up to speed so they can do speed work off the bike without using up their energy accelerating. The Aussie sprinters are taken to 72kph (10.0 sec 200m pace) and come off the bike to do 100-200m efforts.

I know one of the touted benefits of LF training using the BT erg is that you can use the sound the fan makes to really smooth out your pedalling. If pedalling is really choppy the fan noise varies considerably and is a lot more constant the more one pedals smoothly.

Perhaps the Aussies used LF training as a way to break up long periods of very large miles while mixing it with O2 training (20min efforts in low gears at 120-140rpm) to prevent boredom on those 160-300km training rides they did.

Hamish Ferguson
Cycling Coach

 

[RapDaddyo]

The dude whose front end of the bike weighs twice as much as the back end?

Hamish Ferguson
Cycling Coach

?? Over my head. You'll have to dumb this down to my level.

 

[Doctor Morbius]

?? Over my head. You'll have to dumb this down to my level.

I think he's trying to say "look at the big brain on Rap!" but I could be wrong. That would put more weight over your front wheel due to extra cranial capacity.

 

[RapDaddyo]

I think he's trying to say "look at the big brain on Rap!" but I could be wrong. That would put more weight over your front wheel due to extra cranial capacity.

Beats me. Anyway, I don't have time for this. I'm trying to finish up a program for the benefit of the CP users on the forum and the conversion logic (English and Metric) is giving me a headache. Why can't the world agree on one standard? Yeah, I know, we did that already. When was that, 1960? Really took hold, didn't it? Oh, well, back to this stupid conversion logic.

 

[fergie]

My visualisation of RDs bike...

http://biketechreview.com/archive/powermeter_files/image001.jpg

 

[acoggan]

Here is a post from the original thread. I have read this type of argument more than once...
With all due respect, that climbing stairs thing, is a lousy comparaison.

You, as well as the other high profile coaches on this site, shouldn't have to use these doubtful comparaisons. You can convince, or I would rather say, you can inform us much more, with scientific, and even anectodal data.

Sorry if I sound complainish. I put big confidence in your teachings, but those weak comparaison are outrageous, especially in the context of this hot topic.

First, I am not a coach, and I've never claimed to be one. Second, the climbing stairs analogy isn't a lousy comparison, it's an excellent one. Specifically, when pedaling at 300 W and 45 rpm the peak force on the pedal happens to be almost exactly equal to my body weight, which means that doing such a "strength endurance" interval is very much like trudging up a number of flights of stairs, taking them two at a time (as I always do). In fact, this evening I even timed myself as I walked up the six flights of stairs in the parking garage to get to my car, and found that it took me 1 min 15 s to climb those 108 steps, equivalent to a cadence of 43 rpm.

 

[SolarEnergy]

First, I am not a coach, and I've never claimed to be one. Second, the climbing stairs analogy isn't a lousy comparison, it's an excellent one. Specifically, when pedaling at 300 W and 45 rpm the peak force on the pedal happens to be almost exactly equal to my body weight, which means that doing such a "strength endurance" interval is very much like trudging up a number of flights of stairs, taking them two at a time (as I always do). In fact, this evening I even timed myself as I walked up the six flights of stairs in the parking garage to get to my car, and found that it took me 1 min 15 s to climb those 108 steps, equivalent to a cadence of 43 rpm.

Stated the way I saw it (at more than one occasion) by you and other high profile members on this site, of course it is lousy. Then, people may be tempted to think, well, I can climb sairs, climbing a hill on the bike requires less strength, therefore, I have nothing to worry about.

Now, two stairs at the time already sounds a bit better.

I agree with you anyway. Strength requirement is probably the same. If you calculated it. What I am just saying, is that comparing those two activities solely on the streigth requirement, can be misleading.

I think we can easily find some sedentaty folks, who would be able to climb stairs 2 at the time, but probably couldn't climb a hill developing 300w at 43rpm.

Interesting subject for a student, homework study.

 

[Billsworld]

First, I am not a coach, and I've never claimed to be one. Second, the climbing stairs analogy isn't a lousy comparison, it's an excellent one. Specifically, when pedaling at 300 W and 45 rpm the peak force on the pedal happens to be almost exactly equal to my body weight, which means that doing such a "strength endurance" interval is very much like trudging up a number of flights of stairs, taking them two at a time (as I always do). In fact, this evening I even timed myself as I walked up the six flights of stairs in the parking garage to get to my car, and found that it took me 1 min 15 s to climb those 108 steps, equivalent to a cadence of 43 rpm.

Andy.....you need a vaca.