Been riding for a little over 3 years after 9 years off the bike. weight is good and I have good endurance. I ride about 8 hrs a week-try to get in 10 when there is sufficent day light when I can. Not serious about racing, but like to do race training rides once during the week(when there is light) and on Saturdays. This past Saturday illustrates typical problem. I make it 1:15 hr into a ride. Roller hills, single pace line, i avoid pulling. we are suppose to be riding at a steady tempo effort around 20-22. But we start getting into longer hills and the effort (forget speed) picks up in a realy strong cross wind. We are all basically "guttered" in a single pace line. My 'effective" HR-what I can actually get it to on a bike in realistic riding conditions, not trying to max it out and then sprint up a steep hill,-is 171-172.
I was getting into the mid 160s and doing all right. On a longer hill the effort picked up higher, brutal cross wind and I weigh 137, I hit 169 and blew. :cryin: My thought is that I need to produce same power output, but at lower HR. I can't max out on the HR, or close to it, for but a short time without blowing up-doubt many of us can. So I need to produce the power but lower HR. I can recover from a sustiained 165 (minutes not hours), but not 170 for example. Last several weeks I've started doing LT intervals of 2X20 min on the trainer. Is the type of intervals i need to do. I'm not going to seriously race and i'm not going to ride 15 hrs a week like I use to. Just want to ride as well as i can on 8 hrs a week.

woudl it be more useful to do max VO2 intervals 2 or 3 min with equal to 1.5 recovery as needed? These are not long climbs. 1/4-1/2 miles would be long. Most will not take more than 2-3 mins to get over. I think the hill Sat was 1/4 to 1/2 mile long.

I live in flat FL, so no expert on hills, but if your efforts that are causing the problem are 3 minutes in duration, its not doing you much good to do the 20 minute intervals. Seems that training with the shorter, more intense, efforts will get you up and over the hills with the group so you can hang on longer. If you do get dropped, those 20 minute intervals will come in handy for the ride home.....I've been there too.

there is not a 1:1 relationship between the number of times your heart beats and the amount of power you can put out. At a high cadence your heart will beat faster, and at a lower cadence it will beat slower, but that does not mean that you'll make more power at low cadence.

gawd I just wrote this brilliant screed and a server somewhere sent it to hell.

HR has no correlation to anything other than as a measure of stress on your cardiovascular system, and your cardiovascular system does not turn the pedals. thinking about getting through those tough moments -- and uphill in a crosswind is tough, and the monkeys in the front know it's tough and they're trying to drop you, no doubt -- has nothing to do with your HR, and focusing on your HR is a rather dramatic example of horse/cart thinking when it comes to the numbers. Getting a number down will not get you up the hill.

Training is very, very specific. In order to get up the hill in a crosswind fast, you need to go up the hill in a crosswind fast. Deconstructing this and that metabolic process may be sort of interesting, but it often as not subverts understanding. It really doesn't matter, you know? You need to train the efforts you need to perform. It's really that simple.

+1 on specificity. You're light enough you should be a good climber so I guess it's the wind that gotcha... meaning more power is the answer (isn't it always). So... cadence. As you're getting dropped, can you possibly shift up one cog and hang on a few sec's longer? Are you spinning like a banshee and have no power/ability to turn a larger gear? Maybe you need some leg strength work.

Or is it like you described, jsut a question of how long you can hold that pace. In which case, go out the that hill or one like it and try to simulate that 2-3 min's of agony. Repeat.

Cheers, and I'll say hi to Hans and Helen next week - we're all going w/ Jerry A to the Republican brunch. Should be fun...

Creak.

I think the responses have reinforced that it isn't the 20 min LT stuff I need, its the 2-3 minutes of hell! This will mainly have to be on the trainer due to lack of light. I can't hold that level of effort long enough repeatedly. I may be good for hill #1 or 2, but not #5 or #6.

Creeky, I had dinner with Hans and Helen Friday.

I live in flat FL, so no expert on hills, but if your efforts that are causing the problem are 3 minutes in duration, its not doing you much good to do the 20 minute intervals.

Failure after ~3 minutes shows exhaustion of anaerobic work capacity (AWC). One way to improve performance is to raise AWC through short intervals. The other, however, is to raise functional threshold through long intervals (e.g., 20 minutes) so energy can be supplied aerobically instead of through anaerobic metabolism. Since AWC is always finite, while aerobic power can be generated for hours, it might make more sense to work on the aerobic system especially if there is reason to believe aerobic performance has not been maximized.

Another way to look at it is you're spending more each month than you're making. One solution is to keep borrowing money to cover the shortfall (anaerobic metabolism), the other is to increase your income so while spending remains the same, you have more than enough income to cover it (improved aerobic metabolism).

Training is very, very specific. In order to get up the hill in a crosswind fast, you need to go up the hill in a crosswind fast. Deconstructing this and that metabolic process may be sort of interesting, but it often as not subverts understanding. It really doesn't matter, you know? You need to train the efforts you need to perform. It's really that simple.

It really isn't that simple according to available data. If it were, we wouldn't be seeing 4000 m pursuit riders training 30,000 km/yr. Further, if deconstructing metabolic processes didn't work, the Monod critical power model wouldn't work to predict performance as well as it does.

It really isn't that simple according to available data. If it were, we wouldn't be seeing 4000 m pursuit riders training 30,000 km/yr. Further, if deconstructing metabolic processes didn't work, the Monod critical power model wouldn't work to predict performance as well as it does.
that I don't entirely know what you're talking about may prove my thesis as much as yours. yeah, maybe there may be some valid theories out there, but they are so widely misunderstood and misapplied that they're not terribly useful. Hence questions about lowering HR to improve power. cart/horse.
From the research that I just did online on Monod, I gather that the model you're talking about is that, the higher your sustainable power is, the less anaerobic power you need to develop. Okay. But this is a truism, isnt it? and, I'm not sure what it tells us about training. Sure, if your amplifier is loud enough at 10, it doesn't need to go to 11. Stronger is stronger. What I've never been convinced of, however, and I don't think Monod or anyone working from Monod has anything to say about it, is that taking the amplifier to 11 lessens the power at 10. Doesn't the rising tide of metabolism float all boats, to add and mix yet another metaphor? Isn't stronger stronger? the temptation is to think of the body as these discrete moving parts, so that, if you replace or improve this one component, then you get better, but if you replace or improve the wrong component or the right component in the wrong order, then you cause some other part to fail or something. I don't think that's the way that the body works. Your cells are integrated, your muscles are integrated, and the whole kitandkaboodle adapts from the stress placed on it, unlike any machine with discrete components.
For most of us, time is our main limiter. We don't have enough time to train so that working on anaerobic stuff really is going to take away from the time we need to maintain endurance fitness. It's all endurance, it's all fitness. My races are one to two hours. I have plenty of aerobic endurance for those races at the underlying, sort of completely aerobic level. What I need to develop is the ability to go hard for those one to two hours.

as for the 4000 meter pursuit guys, that's an insane discipline, requiring massive aerobic and anaerobic capacity. you can't train enough to do that easily. that, however, has little to nothing to do with my life and my racing.

For most of us, time is our main limiter. We don't have enough time to train so that working on anaerobic stuff really is going to take away from the time we need to maintain endurance fitness. It's all endurance, it's all fitness. My races are one to two hours. I have plenty of aerobic endurance for those races at the underlying, sort of completely aerobic level. What I need to develop is the ability to go hard for those one to two hours.

On a limited time budget, my focus is on working on the aerobic stuff. The aerobic engine takes years to tap out. Anaerobic stuff can then be trained rather quickly 6-8 weeks in (or in anticipation of) season. The anaerobic work afaik is not as trainable long term in comparison to the aerobic.

In other words, there is much more of a genetic ceiling anaerobically than aerobically (which is not to say that the genes our parents dealt us don't also greatly influence aerobic potential). So with a limited time budget, doesn't it make more sense to spend your time where you will reap the biggest (in terms of year over year improvement) gain?

(assuming of course the goal is to maximize performance on a time budget, not to "have fun riding your bike")

On a limited time budget, my focus is on working on the aerobic stuff. The aerobic engine takes years to tap out. Anaerobic stuff can then be trained rather quickly 6-8 weeks in (or in anticipation of) season. The anaerobic work afaik is not as trainable long term in comparison to the aerobic.

In other words, there is much more of a genetic ceiling anaerobically than aerobically (which is not to say that the genes our parents dealt us don't also greatly influence aerobic potential). So with a limited time budget, doesn't it make more sense to spend your time where you will reap the biggest (in terms of year over year improvement) gain?

(assuming of course the goal is to maximize performance on a time budget, not to "have fun riding your bike")
I think I agree with every word you say.

Bill, Shawndoggy are you agreeing with Asgelle that it would be more productive to kept doing the LT 20 intervals rather than the 2-3 min Max VO2 intervals?

I discribed the situation in terms of power output and HR because I was going "hard" enough to keep up (power) but not long enough because the amount of energy I was putting out for practical purposes maxed my HR, and either I couldn't or wouldn't (mind thing) continue. At the time I had no idea what the HR was. I found that out at home from the Garmin. I was recovering on climbs in the mid 160s and died at 169/170. The highest I've gotten to in the past 3 years has been 171 several times. So if I have to go so hard to produce the power to keep up that it results in max HR, I can only do so for a very short time-not minutes.

Bill, Shawndoggy are you agreeing with Asgelle that it would be more productive to kept doing the LT 20 intervals rather than the 2-3 min Max VO2 intervals?

I discribed the situation in terms of power output and HR because I was going "hard" enough to keep up (power) but not long enough because the amount of energy I was putting out for practical purposes maxed my HR, and either I couldn't or wouldn't (mind thing) continue. At the time I had no idea what the HR was. I found that out at home from the Garmin. I was recovering on climbs in the mid 160s and died at 169/170. The highest I've gotten to in the past 3 years has been 171 several times. So if I have to go so hard to produce the power to keep up that it results in max HR, I can only do so for a very short time-not minutes.
your confusion is entirely understandable, and it is emblematic of what I'm talking about.

If you want to be able to match those frisky boys on your ride, then you need to get stronger. Now, my point is that, to a great extent, stronger is stronger. There is not, however, only one way to get stronger (got that?). You can do the longer-duration intervals and likely dip into your anaerobic reserves less for the cruising, which may leave you more gas to go those 2-3 minutes hard. Or you can train those 2-3 minutes. I am not convinced that the end result for you is very different. At the end of the day you will do what you train yourself to do just a little bit easier than you could before. The aerobic advocates think that by training the 20 minute intervals, you do yourself more good in the long haul than by training the 2-3 minutes, which is very taxing and may leave you too gassed to do the other things you need to do, like ride sort of long, sort of hard, to train your aerobic system.
In my view, I think it is far more useful for the weekend warrior to think in terms of tasks. If you hit those two-three minute intervals, you won't get dropped. If you train the twenty minute intervals at an intensity greater than you're going on your ride for twenty minutes, you likely won't get dropped, either. In the end, do you want to be able to go faster than you need to for the twenty minutes? Or do you want to be able to do the 2-3 minutes? Either way, btw, you're going to get stronger, but probably most people would pick the first as developing a more universally useful skill.

Bill, Shawndoggy are you agreeing with Asgelle that it would be more productive to kept doing the LT 20 intervals rather than the 2-3 min Max VO2 intervals?



My opinions come with all sorts of baggage. I want to be in tip top form for races in June and July, and my training plan is periodized around that.

Were I looking to be "just fast enough" to hang on the Saturday hammerfest week in week out all year long, yeah, I might consider throwing in a round of 3-5 minute intervals (6x5 w/5 min rest inbetween) every other week.

Really, if you think about it, you're already getting those intervals once a week in the form of the group ride.

For long term improvement, focusing on the 20 minute intervals is a must. And mix the threshold work up. If you can do 2x20, try going just a hair easier and working up to 1x40 (or 2x30, or 3x20 or 1x60 or 1x90 or...). Those longer efforts make you tough as nails. And remember they don't need to be done at the bleeding puking edge to have a training effect. "Pretty hard" is plenty hard enough.

Thanks guys. I understand your responses. Shawndoggy I've been doing the longer LT intervals some for some time, but not highley structured. I actully have learned to like doing them. I think for the next 2 months I will do the short intervals once a week. I don't think I far off from staying with the weaker riders in the group which is my goal. I'll do the longer intervals again in 2 months. Or, do them in the middle of a long Saturday ride if I'm not with the group.

I gather that the model you're talking about is that, the higher your sustainable power is, the less anaerobic power you need to develop.

Others have written far better descriptions of the definition and application of the Monod model than I can, but basically it is a two parameter model that has one term for sustainable aerobic power, and another for the total work available through anaerobic metabolism. This simple model based only on two parameters describing two metabolic systems very grossly has been shown to predict performance over a wide range of conditions. This is in contradiction to your assertion that there is no point in studying individual metabolic systems.

I have plenty of aerobic endurance for those races at the underlying, sort of completely aerobic level. What I need to develop is the ability to go hard for those one to two hours.
What is endurance if not the ability to generate a certain level of power for a certain duration? If you have the ability to go "hard" however you define it for a few minutes, but not the two hours of your races, you are lacking endurance.

Bill, Shawndoggy are you agreeing with Asgelle that it would be more productive to kept doing the LT 20 intervals rather than the 2-3 min Max VO2 intervals?
I did not write that it would be more beneficial to develop aerobic power. I wrote that there are two possible limiters for your 2-3 minute efforts and aerobic power might be one of them (anaerobic power being the other possibility). If you're serious about improving, the first thing to do is determine which one of these is the limiters, then target training to improve in that area.

If you want to be able to match those frisky boys on your ride, then you need to get stronger.
It has been shown repeatedly that strength plays no role in road cycling performance (assuming someone in reasonably good health, e.g., able to walk up 3-4 steps). In fact professional cyclist have been show to have the same leg strength as the general untrained population matched for age and weight.

It has been shown repeatedly that strength plays no role in road cycling performance (assuming someone in reasonably good health, e.g., able to walk up 3-4 steps). In fact professional cyclist have been show to have the same leg strength as the general untrained population matched for age and weight.
I should stop.

but I can't.

To some extent, I agree. Depending on your definition of "strong." I don't think that even great cyclists are any better than the average gym rat at lifting weights with their legs (which is precisely why leg weight lifting for cyclists is such a questionable undertaking).

But if a better cyclist isn't "stronger" than a lesser cyclist in terms of being able to generate more wattage (essentially force over time, isn't it? if I remember my HS physics), then what would you call it?

now you're just quibbling.

Depending on your definition of "strong."
We don't get to redefine terms however and whenever we want. Stength has a precise definition as the maximum force or tension a muscle or muscle group can generate. Any other use of the term is simply incorrect; and in this case, gives the misleading impression that strength is somehow a factor in endurance performance.

But if a better cyclist isn't "stronger" than a lesser cyclist in terms of being able to generate more wattage (essentially force over time, isn't it? if I remember my HS physics), then what would you call it?
I think I'd say "able to generate more power." I like that better than "more powerful," but since there's no reason to believe the faster or more powerful rider has greater strength than the others, I would not use the term "stronger" to describe her.

Its not about being the strongest cyclist..... If it was we could stop racing outdoors, buy a computrainer and compare watt numbers.... highest number would win.

With that said inour sport of road cycling if you dont have a strong aerobic engine it really does you no good to have that bad ass anaerobic engine.... If you cant make it to the finish with the pack or worse make it there but have no gas left to drop that anaerobic gear down what good does it do you?



Another thought...

There was a posting last year of a rider talking about how he got 5th in a CAT 3 crit... threw out his wattage number to impress everybody and hey they were nice numbers.. Then the guy that got 1st posted his numbers.

They both are the same height, weight, and around the same age.

Turns out first place used less watts the whole race including in the final sprint... What does that tell you?

Others have written far better descriptions of the definition and application of the Monod model than I can, but basically it is a two parameter model that has one term for sustainable aerobic power, and another for the total work available through anaerobic metabolism. This simple model based only on two parameters describing two metabolic systems very grossly has been shown to predict performance over a wide range of conditions. This is in contradiction to your assertion that there is no point in studying individual metabolic systems.


What is endurance if not the ability to generate a certain level of power for a certain duration? If you have the ability to go "hard" however you define it for a few minutes, but not the two hours of your races, you are lacking endurance.
Okay. I never said that study was without a point for those who want to study stuff. Go have a ball. But, how, pray tell, is a prediction model graphing paramaters of whatever the hell you said useful to guiding the training of the guy with a HRM and 8-10 hrs/wk to train?

Re: endurance. Now I'm going to undercut my simplicity argument and get into different kinds of endurance. We've all seen the guys who can TT versus the guys who can sprint long versus the guys who can sustain an attack. Many times these guys end up at the finish line in very approximately the same amount of time, but they cover the distance using different abilities and different tactics. There is the kind of endurance that will allow you to pretty danged hard for a pretty long time. There is the kind of endurance that will allow you to go really fast for a shorter time but still longer than everyone else, and finally there are is the kind of endurance that will allow you to sustain the sprint longer than everyone else. These are all trained differently, they require different physiologies, and the compleat rider learns how to maximize what god gave him either by training or tactics. My point is that the weekend warrior is best to look at these abilities as different skills to train. Forget all the cellular microbiology. Not only is it poorly understood (it really is!), but it is confusing and, in my view, almost entirely unnecessary. Train five minute efforts. Train ten minute efforts. Train twenty minute efforts. Train 30 second efforts. They're all good for something. Figure out what you need to work on by where you are failing and work on it. There may be more than one way to get to some of these places, but, you know, so what? The rising tide pretty much DOES float all boats. If you're honest with yourself about where you suffer in relation to your peers, you'll get there.
Your explanation of endurance is to repeat a truism. Endurance is as endurance does. Yeah, but I don't know what I'm supposed to take from that.

Its not about being the strongest cyclist.....
That's true but not for the reason you give. See above.

We don't get to redefine terms however and whenever we want. Stength has a precise definition as the maximum force or tension a muscle or muscle group can generate. Any other use of the term is simply incorrect; and in this case, gives the misleading impression that strength is somehow a factor in endurance performance.


I think I'd say "able to generate more power." I like that better than "more powerful," but since there's no reason to believe the faster or more powerful rider has greater strength than the others, I would not use the term "stronger" to describe her.
do you race?

in my neck of the woods anyway, everyone who races says "strong." x was strong today. y was not so strong. so, I'm supposed to say, "Wait a minute, don't you mean 'able to generate more power'?"

geez.

his point is that raw POWER, even using your definition, asgelle, often doesn't win a race, other than with a long solo breakaway, which you don't see too much.
i guess you're scolding him for using the term "strong" wrong, too.
geez.

but his point, with which I agree, is germaine to this discussion, because raising your average sustainable power through 20 minute intervals isn't going to win the damned race if you don't have enough of the pieces of the whole package. performing in a race is usually about who conserves the most power, not who has the most to use in the first place.

Okay. I never said that study was without a point for those who want to study stuff. Go have a ball. But, how, pray tell, is a prediction model graphing paramaters of whatever the hell you said useful to guiding the training of the guy with a HRM and 8-10 hrs/wk to train?

The fact that the model with two parameters, critical power and anaerobic work capacity, is able to predict performance over a range of appilcations from hill climbs to flat time trials over durations from several minutes to over an hour means that as long as the parameters increase, performance will improve regardless of how those improvements came about. In other words if CP increases, performance in hill climbs will improve even if the training that caused CP to rise was done on flat roads. This is important for our guy with lmiited traiing time because it tells him he doesn't have to slice his training up to train for every possible specific riding condition that might arise, but can concentrate on the few areas that will result in significant changes in performance.

in my neck of the woods anyway, everyone who races says "strong." x was strong today. y was not so strong. so, I'm supposed to say, "Wait a minute, don't you mean 'able to generate more power'?"
But this is the coaching forum not a bunch of guy telling stories, and the thread deals with how to improve performance over repeated 2-3 minute efforts. In this context, introducing the concept of strong or strength is just wrong.

The fact that the model with two parameters, critical power and anaerobic work capacity, is able to predict performance over a range of appilcations from hill climbs to flat time trials over durations from several minutes to over an hour means that as long as the parameters increase, performance will improve regardless of how those improvements came about. In other words if CP increases, performance in hill climbs will improve even if the training that caused CP to rise was done on flat roads. This is important for our guy with lmiited traiing time because it tells him he doesn't have to slice his training up to train for every possible specific riding condition that might arise, but can concentrate on the few areas that will result in significant changes in performance.
riding condition, or length of effort?

because I certainly agree with the former -- specifically with regard to climbing, while I do think that there is a significant mental component to successful climbing, and some genuine technique that is a little different from flat riding, I think that it overwhelmingly is a matter of power to weight, which can be trained anywhere. But, with regard to the latter, there is a huge difference between a four minute hill and how you go up it and a twenty minute hill, and I promise you that first at the top of either there will be mostly different guys. Length of effort is much more specific.

But this is the coaching forum not a bunch of guy telling stories, and the thread deals with how to improve performance over repeated 2-3 minute efforts. In this context, introducing the concept of strong or strength is just wrong.
you want to get technical?
I think you meant torque, or force. I don't think "strong" has a specific meaning. strong is a general term.
I wouldn't say that strong is specifically the ability to apply force, regardless of time, any more than I would say that it is the ability to apply force divided by time.

I don't think "strong" has a specific meaning. strong is a general term.

No it isn't a general term. In the context of human performance or exercise physiology, it has a precise definition. The fact that you and others continue to use it incorrectly leads to this blurring of the meaning.

No it isn't a general term. In the context of human performance or exercise physiology, it has a precise definition. The fact that you and others continue to use it incorrectly leads to this blurring of the meaning.
well, what's it mean, coach? learn me.

well, what's it mean, coach? learn me.
Since you quoted the post with the definition, I just assumed you already knew.

Since you quoted the post with the definition, I just assumed you already knew.
you're right. there it was.

Power is key.. hell without it the bike wont go anywhere :) but you got to work on the total package not just 20 minute intervals at LT if you want to do well in races....

unless you just race 20 minute TTs then its ok.

I did 3x3 min intervals-at least a start.

"Can't we all get along"-Rodney King

Good on ya Schneiderguy.

re: Power vs Strength, I think it was Hitler who preferred the term "Power"

But I could be wrong...

Creak

I did 3x3 min intervals-at least a start.

"Can't we all get along"-Rodney King

Hey the other personal disclosure is that I HATE doing VO2max work on the trainer. Hate it hate it hate it. I can grind away at 94% of threshold for 90 minutes, but try to get me to do hard stuff and watch out. I much prefer finding a good five minute hill.

So that may also color my advice!

Hey the other personal disclosure is that I HATE doing VO2max work on the trainer. Hate it hate it hate it. I can grind away at 94% of threshold for 90 minutes, but try to get me to do hard stuff and watch out. I much prefer finding a good five minute hill.

So that may also color my advice!

Funny, I'm quite the opposite. Put me on a trainer and I will kill myself for 30min of intervals -- ATP, anaerobic, VO2max, anything. Tell me to do 1.5hrs at 1pm and you're lucky to get me on the trainer by 9pm.

Unfortunately, the only time I do VO2 or anaerobic-type short intervals is during the summer when it's nice outside. This means I suffer during the winter.

/hasn't ridden in 7 days due to self-induced illness because of the strong willpower to avoid the trainer.

all ironical and whatnot,
this a.m. I did 2 x 20.
I think that I need to expand my ability to ride steadily at or near threshold. My 2-5 min efforts always have been pretty good. I need to work on my real short-duration max efforts (sprints), but that probably can wait.

all ironical and whatnot,
this a.m. I did 2 x 20.
I think that I need to expand my ability to ride steadily at or near threshold. My 2-5 min efforts always have been pretty good. I need to work on my real short-duration max efforts (sprints), but that probably can wait.

long threshold(ish) stuff is the most neglected by the vast majority of racers, imho. Nearly impossible to do long steady state stuff outdoors without a long steady climb or unless you live somwhere that's dead flat with no signals. Otherwise there's just too much variability. And with a group... forget about it. Drafting just completely changes the dynamic.

Nearly impossible to do long steady state stuff outdoors without a long steady climb or unless you live somwhere that's dead flat with no signals. Otherwise there's just too much variability.

If you follow the derivation of normalized power, you'll see that variations over a period of less than ~30 seconds are not significant. This doesn't cover traffic lights and is borderline for stop signs, but it shows that you don't need to be too hung up on keeping things too steady.

gawd I just wrote this brilliant screed and a server somewhere sent it to hell.



I've had that happen- when you get a good reply made highlight it, and hit 'Ctrl C' in case something bad happens. If it does, when you get back to the board you can hit 'Ctrl V' and paste it back.

There is some interesting new research that shows one of the best ways to improve your aerobic capability is to do anerobic intervals.

If it's true then this can help improve the efficiency of training for everone

ref

http://www.pezcyclingnews.com/?pg=fullstory&id=5521&status=True