hubcyclist

didn't ride all weekend or yesterday. tried to do a 20min test today in a nice 60 degree basement, i never fail to disappoint, made it through 10mins at 280 and tailed off after that for another 5 choppy minutes (to be fair, I thought I was overextending and tried to do it after feeling good during the pretest clearing effort). going with 260 to establish my zones

tetonrider

you mentioned temperature but not ventilation.

airflow is far more important than temperature in those scenarios.

how many fans? does the basement have any windows that can be opened?

i often find airflow to be a big reason (sometimes THE reason) people cannot hit outdoor #s on the trainer. worth investigating if you have not already done so.

caloso

Tried to do a 2x20' at tempo, still not feeling it, reminding myself it's October so chill out.

rankin116

I literally just ordered two 15" turbo air circulator fans to replace two stand up fans that have such ****ty air flow they make it feel like two people are just heavily breathing on me. Hopefully that will help as I really struggle to hit numbers indoors.

hubcyclist

yeah, I have 2 fans, a lasko cyclone (not so great) and a recently acquired lasko pro blower fan (much better), plus an open basement window right next to me. my numbers are improving gradually, for sure, but my legs don't have 20mins at 280 in them. on the plus side, 280 was my 10min best for 2017 lol

I also haven't ridden outdoors since july (with the exception of cross races now) so I have no clue what I can do outdoors at the moment, I might get a chance to do some road riding this weekend, maybe I'll have a chance to test a bit.

furiousferret

Allergies hit me hard last night. I tape every night but my nose was so stuffed I had to take it it off. Felt awful and my commitment to commute to work until the DST almost ended on day 2. I'm better now, but the lingering effects of not getting a full nights sleep are there, and a day where I should be fresh I feel just the opposite.

Gramercy

Maybe affected due to air quality? Not sure what happened with the fires in the past 24 hours, but air quality is way worse today than yesterday in the south bay. The sky is yellow again here.

caloso

It's not the air quality (although I occasionally get a whiff of campfire smell). The wind here has mostly been N->S so it makes sense that all the smoke is going right down the bay towards SJ.

No, I've been on antibiotics since Wednesday and it's caused some low grade nausea. Apparently due to wiping out the gut bacteria. I've been eating a lot of yogurt, as my doc recommended, and that's helped a bit. But it comes and goes.

Ygduf

there is a fire south now, in the SC mountains

caloso

Holy crap. That's all we need.

TheKillerPenguin

Bloodwork today, so my excuse for failing any workout this week is I don't have enough RBCs to carry the oxygen I need or whatever.

Ttoc6

6x10 at sweetspot. I watched a terrible Seth Rogen movie while I was on the trainer. I'm going back to breaking bad tomorrow...

mattm

Hit up the gym for the first time since March or so.

Last year I didn't start until December.. this year I'm doing it right.

Speaking of doing it right, there was a guy there slamming some of the machines around and generally Doing It Wrong. At least he made me feel like I vaguely knew what I was doing.

Mostly trying to work on squat form. I'm using the "guided squat bar" thing, whatever it's called, hard to get the balance quite right. Whatever I was doing it made my legs pretty sore, immediately. I can push the leg press all night and not feel much, seems like the squats are way better! (I mean I know they're better, but still)

tommyrod74

I'd take the time to learn correct squat form with free weights, even though it will take a bit to get it down. It will pay big dividends long-term.

A good place to start is goblet squats - easier to balance and get into a deep squat position.

Leg press puts a lot of stress on the lower back and knees because of the linear (non-arcing) motion. Also, it requires no balance. Smith machine squats (what I assume you are doing) either stress the knees or the lower back, depending on foot placement relative to bar - pick your poison.

Proper form with lower weight (until you get the form down) will be of much greater benefit than heavy leg press or another assisted squat machine.

globecanvas

I've been doing single leg squats and yesterday I added in single leg deadlifts. Both exercises on one leg obviously, holding 15 lbs of hand weights. They are surprisingly difficult exercises. A 15 lb deadlift sounds like a joke, but do that on one leg for a while and you'll feel it everywhere.

tommyrod74

Yep, those are hard. Unilateral work translates well to sports and has the added benefit of less required weight and therefore lower injury risk.

furiousferret

I opened it up this morning to see what my legs can do and it was pretty disappointing. Probably about 30 watts less than I was expecting. Season start in 10 weeks, so I need to start working on intensity.

Of course that's after my epic ride into the desert this weekend, which may be folly. When your route goes through a 5 mile unpaved road in the middle of nowhere, and a region referred to as a wind corridor (which powers 200,000 homes) with no food or water stops for 40 miles its either going to epic or a Uber ride home.

tetonrider

i assumed 'single leg' was some obscure unit of measure of the weight you are lifting.... like 15 stone.

globecanvas

I usually lift about half a furlong, which is equivalent to 35 carats, or a double hogshead.

TMonk

3 hrs (55 mi w some climbing) at a good clip this morning, out before sunrise. Wasn't feeling it at first - stressed at work and feeling a little overwhelmed. By the end I was rompin' and a stompin' like I'm in my prime. Looking fwd to doing these dawn patrol rides at least once/week M-F while I get back in shape.

tommyrod74

What is that in parsecs? Asking for a friend (Chewbacca).

mattm

All good advice. Yeah I'm definitely moving away from the leg press - it's just easy to do, so I started with that last year, but I understand that real squats are better.

I'm sure free-standing squats are better than what I'm doing with the Smith machine squats. I do start with an empty bar and work on form, since you can still do it wrong with that machine. I just don't want to fall over or something if I'm doing a deep squat! (with actual weight on the bar)

I'll get there eventually.

rankin116

If my head were made of veal, how much would it be worth?

mattm

Just went down a smith machine rabbit-hole on YouTube; I learned people like to fight about them lol.

Then I found this, and it settles the discussion! (some NSFW language, depending where you work)


"I'm gonna ****ing squat on a smith machine if I ****ing want to!"

globecanvas

I'm just curious what language would merit an unqualified description as NSFW regardless of workplace.