ZHVelo

I tried to listen to my breathing today and look at pulse and increase wattage every 20 minutes. VT1 is definitely somewhere in Zone 2 for me. 63% of FTP which I guess is right in the middle I definitely still had a low pulse and could talk easily. No issue at all, easy. 66% pulse was higher of course but still comfortably in zone 2 for pulse, and I could still talk easily and breathing was not labored at all yet. I would say at about 70% FTP my pulse was starting to edge towards zone 3 for pulse and breathing was getting heavier though I could still talk without having to gasp in between words. 74% was most likely above it. Though of course I was increasing the wattage all the time, so by the time I got to 70% I had gone 80 minutes already and 2 hours for 74% and it was getting warmer and warmer.

Carbonfiberboy 

My upper limit is 70%, though I try to ride just below that when I do AeT rides. But I suppose everyone's different. I notice the change when I definitely feel that I need to breathe faster. A common test for being below AeT is to recite the alphabet at a normal speaking rate in one breath.

CyclingBK

Yes, and it makes sense they wouldn’t expend time and much energy on anything that wouldn’t yield results for their sport.

There was this cool documentary on Amazon Prime called Moon Rider that followed Rasmus Quaade. Showed the insane dedication and training these guys do. At one point the coach doesn’t even want the cyclists walking any more than absolutely necessary. Like even walking a few steps within the training camp!

I like these cardio workouts that incorporate moving laterally with speed and in all different “planes” since cycling is strictly moving linear and pretty much a completely repetitive motion.

wolfchild

Building muscle and strength has nothing to do with looking good on the beach, at least not for me,... There are many health benefits and practical benefits associated with strength training. As we get older we loose lean muscle tissue which can lead to sarcopenia, that's why it's extremely important to lift weights and do strength training especially as we get older.

I am not a pro cyclists and have no desire to be one or look like one. What's the point of only being fit on a bike and useless in everything else ??...Cross training is important not only for maintaining overall fitness but it's also fun and makes life more interesting and there are many functional benefits associated with cross training, it can even improve your cycling if programmed correctly. OP is doing the right thing....Not all cyclists are skinny and petite, have you seen some of the track sprinters and how muscular they are ??….I can tell you for sure it's not all dead weight, it's functional.

wolfchild

Way too restrictive for my liking , I can't imagine living a lifestyle that limits me to doing only one thing...and for what ??..just to pump out few extra watts ??

You're doing the right thing, keep doing what you're doing...My own training also involves doing all kinds of different things that allow me to train the whole body in many different ways.

CyclingBK

Thank you, I tried to make the distinction in the subject by saying, “for basics fitness” since relative to the training that more serious cyclists engage in, I’m clearly not in that arena.

Even doing and hour and fifteen minutes on the bike is far more cardio than I thought I would ever do. I was miserable going “gym cardio”. Step machine, treadmill, I’d get so bored in 30 minutes.

So, it’s a huge win to have a low impact but high intensity workout on the bike.

From what I gather, a big goal of getting to being a “legit” cyclist is getting to 20mph for over 20 miles. I think that requires a very strong commitment for most beginners. You need to do over 100 miles a week and ideally have some training plans and gear to measure power etc.

Maybe one day, but for now, I am happy to get over 60 miles a week and feel like I got a nice workout in.

But I’m also interested in, as you say, in the benefits of all around athleticism. How many wide grip pull-ups I can do. Doing Bulgarian Split Squats with a weighted vest. How fast can I move not just forward but side to side and do movements the require complete upper and lower body pivoting and coordination. And, yeah, Some muscle mass is a great thing to have and progressive resistance training is very satisfying. Amazing for your joint health as well.

This is a fantastic forum and I really welcome all the views and guidance and encouragement from the members.

rubiksoval

It's really not that relevant. Hardly any cyclists actually train like that, and trying to train like that, especially with limited time, means eschewing that time in between AeT and AnT that delivers the most bang-for-the-buck work possible (which actually pushes AeT up!)

In the words of one of the most prolific master's racers in the country (with multiple national championships and records), riding in between those two thresholds is "the **** that will kill them". He'd do it five days a week during the winter...

Elite marathoners (those of the sub 2:06 variety) focus on increasing AeT to as close as possible to AnT, specifically due to fuel consumption needs. This isn't done by running heinously slow, but by extending the duration of running very fast. Renato Canova has detailed this really well in various posts on letsrun.

Only riding at a snail's pace. 277 watts ~ 1 megajoule an hour. Burning 1750 calories in four hours is around a 139 watt average. That's like 13-15 mph for people 170 lbs+.

If you plan on fleeing for your life or something with little to no available food consumption, such training may be useful.

Otherwise, doing the opposite works pretty well. I worked up to 3 hours of 90% AnT by specifically targeting work in between AeT and AnT. Absolutely monster fitness after doing that. Could ride fast all day long, seemingly. But yes, I needed food. Riding fast (the point for many people doing structured training) requires calories.

rubiksoval

That's pretty much the opposite of what I said.

What you're doing is not sustainable training in any way.

CyclingBK

I’m the OP. I appreciate your insight and, while I have a long way to go to understand it all, I’d like to ask what you think of this type of workout (summary below) in the context of someone who has been: cycling for one year, has 1.25-1.5 hours to train every other day, is balancing cycling as a primary component of cardio work in an overall fitness plan that values both strength training and cardio.

Workout summary with a pic of the loop I ride below:

15 minutes of warmup to establish cadence and loosen up.

15 minutes of 60-80% effort to warm up even more.

15 minutes of: 3 minutes easy pedaling followed by: 1 minute maxed out to aerobic “failure”, 1 minute total easy pedaling, 5 minutes at 60-75% including the hill in the graphic below, 30 second easy pedaling, 1 minute maxed out to “failure”, 5 minutes moderate effort.

15 minutes repeat of the 15 minutes above

10 minutes of 70-80% effort

5 minutes easy pedaling.

If you could let me know if you think it’s good, or not bad but could use improvement, or if it should be majorly changed up. I’d appreciate it.

Here is the loop:

Hermes

I will let Rubik comment on your question to him. My observation is that you have way too much warmup.

Let me explain. Old school conventional wisdom coupled with dogma had sprinters warming up forever. They would go out an roll around and then slowly increase their effort maybe for an hour. The theory was the shorter the race effort, the longer the warmup. Endurance riders, warmed up long and went faster for more of the time.

When I started sprint training, my coach gave me a protocol that lasted 12 minutes on the rollers. I was to sit around for 20 minutes with my legs covered and then race.

I am in my 7th decade and my legs would not feel great at the end of the warmup and my brain wanted more. It was all mental. 12 minutes is plenty of time to get all the systems operational. The goal is to show up at the starting line with fresh legs versus fatigued legs from too much warmup. This was the protocol that the British track team used for their sprinters. They turned dogma and legacy upside down. The Brits had the hot pants that they sat around in prior to racing.

So with a limited amount of time, you are spending 30 minutes for warmup and 5 minutes for cool down.

I would limit the warmup to 15 minutes and embed in the routine a couple of 10 second accelerations and one max effort seated start. Now you have the aerobic, glycolytic and ATP PC systems warmed up and primed.

IMO, the 1’ efforts roll around and then another are not that effective for you current situation. I think VO2 work after the warmup done in sets with rest between efforts and rest between sets for the entire period would give you more bang for the time slot. Then on other days you can do an hour of power with sprints every 10 minutes with power set at 85 -90%

You can do 1’ efforts on a particular day but do like 8 of them and that is the workout.

You have framed this thread about fitness. So just riding your bike doing whatever fancies you will generate fitness. If you do it consistently, coupled with your gym work, you will be in great shape. However, as soon as the discussion gets more granular and how is this workout compared to another, then the long knives can come out and start to slice up different protocols and debate what is best.

CyclingBK

This is exactly what I was looking for, thank you. My thanks to the other knowledgeable members as well, but honestly, I couldn’t grasp the terminology and you laid it out in more layman’s language.

Alas..it sounds like I need to step it up and really get in gear (no pun intended ; )

Yes, warm up more seriously and do real interval sets as you describe. That actually sounds like a cool workout, thanks.

Ok, I’m going to kick it up a notch. I was probably getting in the mood to switch things up and feel like I’m ready.

I’ll still do that workout I described here and there because it’s enjoyable. But, as you say, time is limited so why not make the most of it.

Hermes

You are welcome. Here is a link to the bike forum racing forum workout recipe stickie. https://www.bikeforums.net/33-road-b...cipe-book.html. You may get some ideas for workouts from there.

rubiksoval

That still has absolutely nothing to do with my post which was about training in between AeT and AnT.

And say what you want now, but you can't go as hard as you can every day for very long.

rubiksoval

Everyone eventually figures out what works for them, but I prescribe to the simple but effective maxim.

My 45 minute ride today consisted of 7 mins of gradually increasing power, 36 minutes of sweet spot (about ~90% AnT/FTP power), 2 mins spin to the driveway. That was 709 kJ and 60 TSS, so decent enough bang for the buck for 45 minutes time, and something I can do multiple times a week. I've found it builds really good all-around fitness.

That's effective for me. I very rarely do random short duration hard/easy efforts like you describe. Especially without a powermeter, your 1 min efforts are likely starting out way too high and ending way too low, so I don't think they're a particularly efficient way to build fitness.

CyclingBK

Thanks for sharing this, looks very cool, Ill try it as best I can measure and can hold out at that effort level.

As far as my 1min efforts. It’s pretty easy to gauge the progression in effort by just starting in a lower cadence at the beginning of a sprint, working to peak cadence, and then sustaining it to the finish.

Id also contend that my resting heart rate dropping from 65+ to under 50 is a clear indication of improved fitness. Along with progressing steadily to bigger gears as I increase cadence in each gear.

This said, I’m here to learn, there’s clearly a wealth of knowledge to take advantage of and I appreciate the guidance.

rubiksoval

Won't work for you, either. You just don't understand that, yet.

Carbonfiberboy 

Every scientist's greatest wish is to prove themselves wrong. That's what we're supposed to do. Experimenting on oneself is good. There's lots to learn. Go at it.

ZHVelo

Not really what rubik is saying though, is it? He isn't questioning that you have successfully done it for three weeks, he is pointing out that at some point your body will break down and you will need rest.

Clyde1820

Not bad, no. A great example of how short-term gains can work.

As others have pointed out, though, at a given level of "harshness" of training, at some point the body tells us it's had enough and needs additional recovery time, additional sleep, whatever. As you'll likely find out, over time, this generally comes in waves. We stretch our limits, the limits get shown to us by our bodies via being forced to dial it back a bit for awhile, then we stretch the limits yet again (likely at a different/higher level) ... and so on. Keep doing that, and in time overall performance improves, strength and stamina improves, recovery times continue to shrink.

But, all but certainly, you'll find that those "waves" keep occurring whenever there's an imbalance that the body needs to correct, at a given level. The hard part is, it is different for each person, and it'll vary based on how hard for how long we've pushed somewhat beyond limits, along with how effective our sleep and nutrition has been. Push hard enough, for long enough, and your body will "talk" to you when it needs more: sleep, food, water, rest, some other activities, whatever. Might be in a week or two; might not be for months. Depends on how pushy you're being with those limits, wherever those limits are, and how much slack you've got before reaching those limits. You might well be in a slack zone, where you've still got plenty of gap between where you're at and what your body's easily capable of; hence, the apparent across-the-board improvements.

Just keep pushing, keep going, and at some point your body will tell you when it's had enough and needs a day or more of "additional" recovery you hadn't planned on. It's how it works.

rubiksoval

You don't know what you don't know.

rubiksoval

Oh, that explains it!

Then yes, you will continue improving indefinitely. 2024 Olympics?

burnthesheep

cube,

The best indicator of performance is performance itself. So far you haven't really listed anything to indicate any lift in cycling performance.

Even without anything sophisticated at all, even something as simple as a stopwatch or gps lap timer you could time yourself up a hill climb or something and track it.

The anecdotes make us feel good about ourselves, but to really know the training is effective..........you have to have something to know it is working. Objectively.

If I don't have a current specific thing to do.......my 45min to hour that the kids get their junky show to watch before bed....I'll go ride. I can't handle the slapstick. I warmup out of the neighborhood then pretty much hold it SS the rest of the time. SS isn't a completely "all you can eat buffet" zone, but it's a good zone to accumulate a lot of fitness while not really requiring the same amounts of recovery as other zones will.

But, my advice....figure out some meaningful way to track progress. A wind neutral Strava segment, power, something.

Sure, your lower resting HR might be nice......but it isn't performance itself. We had a guy on the A group ride that used to brag about a 45bpm resting HR online. Whoo hooo. Dude got dropped like a rock in a lake every time we went over the part of the ride with lots of surges.

CyclingBK

You should consider that if you go as hard as you can one day, then feel totally recovered the next day, and are able to go as hard as you can the next day and every day....

Then you aren’t going as hard as you really can. It may feel like it. But if you structured yourself ride differently, you would be at and even higher effort level that would require recovery.

That said, if you’re happy and making progress, I can see why you wouldn’t change anything.

CyclingBK

Im the OP and I mentioned rhr.

But I mentioned it in the context of a measure of fitness improvement over time as mine has steadily lowered from 65+ to under 50.

I never said that, stand alone, it is any measure of capability on the bike and especially not relative to measuring performance against other cyclists.

I also mentioned that I can simply measure improvement by, over time: increasing cadence in a gear, advancing to a bigger gear, and then increasing cadence in that gear.

But, after creating this thread and all of the constructive feedback, I’m ready to structure my training and how I measure and improve it with some more current tools ; )

ZHVelo

Mine is 41 and a friend wouldn't believe me so grabbed my wrist and checked for himself. Quite literally transferred my e-peen to the real world.