Technique training

fidbod

Hello all,

I am starting to plan my winter training and would appreciate the collective advice of the forum.

I completed my first sportive on sunday (80 miles in 5:36) and it inspired me to set some targets for next year. These are, complete my first triathlon, do either a sportive or triathlon each month between March and September building to the London triathlon in august and to close the season doing the same sportive in under 4:30.

Most of my winter bike training will be on a turbo due to time and location constraints. Starting my research last night I saw mention of technique sessions such as one leg cycling.

I have done ladder and hurdle drills to improve my sprinting for rugby and have definitely seen the benefit. So I am looking to get everyones suggestions on analogous drills to improve my cycling technique.

Thanks in advance

Ric_Stern/RST

fidbod wrote:

Hello all,

I am starting to plan my winter training and would appreciate the collective advice of the forum.

I completed my first sportive on sunday (80 miles in 5:36) and it inspired me to set some targets for next year. These are, complete my first triathlon, do either a sportive or triathlon each month between March and September building to the London triathlon in august and to close the season doing the same sportive in under 4:30.

Most of my winter bike training will be on a turbo due to time and location constraints. Starting my research last night I saw mention of technique sessions such as one leg cycling.

I have done ladder and hurdle drills to improve my sprinting for rugby and have definitely seen the benefit. So I am looking to get everyones suggestions on analogous drills to improve my cycling technique.

Thanks in advance

One legged cycling drills are a "myth". they're a complete waste of time, unless you only have one leg, or take part in one-legged cycle races.

There are techniques you need to learn, e.g., cornering, positioning, pacing etc, but these often need to be done outside...

what you need to do is make sure you ride at a normal cadence (which will generally be between 80 and 100 revs/min) and improve your fitness (power output).

ric

Mike Willcox1

Ric_Stern/RST wrote:

fidbod wrote:

Hello all,

I am starting to plan my winter training and would appreciate the collective advice of the forum.

I completed my first sportive on sunday (80 miles in 5:36) and it inspired me to set some targets for next year. These are, complete my first triathlon, do either a sportive or triathlon each month between March and September building to the London triathlon in august and to close the season doing the same sportive in under 4:30.

Most of my winter bike training will be on a turbo due to time and location constraints. Starting my research last night I saw mention of technique sessions such as one leg cycling.

I have done ladder and hurdle drills to improve my sprinting for rugby and have definitely seen the benefit. So I am looking to get everyones suggestions on analogous drills to improve my cycling technique.

Thanks in advance

One legged cycling drills are a "myth". they're a complete waste of time, unless you only have one leg, or take part in one-legged cycle races.

There are techniques you need to learn, e.g., cornering, positioning, pacing etc, but these often need to be done outside...

what you need to do is make sure you ride at a normal cadence (which will generally be between 80 and 100 revs/min) and improve your fitness (power output).

ric

Spot on.

mackdaddy

Mike

No a lover of one legged cycling myself but I believe the point is so that you can focus on the pure 360 degree technique for each leg. Both Joe Beer and Joe Friel recommend it as I recall and they know a lot more about it than me.

Personally I used the Joe Beer website for my winter training last year as it has a lot of free downloads of turbo plans.

This year I've gone the whole hog and set up a training plan based on the Cyclist Training Bible by Friel. Can't comment on whether it's any good yet or not but it seems to make sense.

The latter is a bit more structured and has better information than the free stuff on Joe Beer.

Ric_Stern/RST

mackdaddy wrote:

Mike

No a lover of one legged cycling myself but I believe the point is so that you can focus on the pure 360 degree technique for each leg. Both Joe Beer and Joe Friel recommend it as I recall and they know a lot more about it than me.

They're both wrong, see http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entre ... d_RVDocSum

Ric

fidbod

Thanks for your thoughts all.

When my I spent the time with my personal trainer doing fast feet and ladder drills the focus was on improving the biomechanical efficiency of my running.

Are there not similar gains to be had when training for cycling?

Ric - your point about improving road skills is well taken and as a newbie to road cycling something I think improves with every long stint on the road. I also had a look at the link you posted - I am more than happy to accept that adaptation to predominantly slow twitch muscle fibres will improve endurance. Is your opinion that the best way to achieve this is "miles in the saddle" and gains to be had from developing pedalling technique are minimal?

mackdaddy

I'm no expert Ric, but having read the abstract, that is showing that downstroke power is higher between the two different classes of cyclists monitored. It neither proves nor disproves Beer and Friel recommendations that technique throughout the stroke should be improved.
There's nothing I saw in the abstract that backs up your statement that they are both wrong.
Neither Friel nor Beer are suggesting you shouldn't have more power on the downstroke, in fact Friel suggests weight training for exactly that purpose.

Johnpsanderson

One legged cycling drills are a "myth". they're a complete waste of time, unless you only have one leg, or take part in one-legged cycle races.

I saw a guy at a race this year with a bike where each crank arm operated independently - with some sort of mechanical arrangement in the bottom bracket to allow this to happen - precisely for the purpose of training each leg separately.

Hope he doesn't read this thread.

Ric_Stern/RST

Johnpsanderson wrote:

One legged cycling drills are a "myth". they're a complete waste of time, unless you only have one leg, or take part in one-legged cycle races.

I saw a guy at a race this year with a bike where each crank arm operated independently - with some sort of mechanical arrangement in the bottom bracket to allow this to happen - precisely for the purpose of training each leg separately.

Hope he doesn't read this thread.

They're called Power Cranks, and for the vast majority they're a complete waste of time. The inventor of the product likes to make the most ridiculous of claims, none of which have ever been validated in any way.

ric

Johnpsanderson

They're called Power Cranks, and for the vast majority they're a complete waste of time. The inventor of the product likes to make the most ridiculous of claims, none of which have ever been validated in any way.

I'll accept that as I have no desire to spend any money finding out whether you are right or not. However the claim of "In summary, PowerCranks:... ...Force yourself to eliminate the dead spot in your pedal stroke " seems to be make sense - despite the poor grammar?

In spite of this I wouldn't be boasting much about the 'pro support' which is detailed on the Power Cranks website: http://www.powercranks.com/v4pages/sp-cycling-pros.htm

ncr

Mike Willcox1 wrote:

Ric_Stern/RST wrote:

fidbod wrote:

Hello all,



One legged cycling drills are a "myth". they're a complete waste of time, unless you only have one leg, or take part in one-legged cycle races.

Ric, why do you continue to preach this heretical interpretation of Coyle's research results. I will have to set about convincing you that you are wrong in all your ideas about pedaling and that I am correct in claiming there are three different seated techniques, one for relaxed riding, one for max acceleration purposes and one for sustained high power output in time trials. Now that I have retired from the day job, the time has come for that demonstration of linear pedalling, the technique that enables you to apply max power through the dead spot.

Ric_Stern/RST

ncr wrote:

Ric, why do you continue to preach this heretical interpretation of Coyle's research results. I will have to set about convincing you that you are wrong in all your ideas about pedaling and that I am correct in claiming there are three different seated techniques, one for relaxed riding, one for max acceleration purposes and one for sustained high power output in time trials. Now that I have retired from the day job, the time has come for that demonstration of linear pedalling, the technique that enables you to apply max power through the dead spot.

Noel, you've been offered the chance on numerous occasions with people offering to pay your lab and flight time.

cheers
ric