Greg Lemonds view on Training

popette

Hiya,

Did anyone read the Q&A with Greg Lemond in pro cycling this month? I never usually buy it but was intrigued by the front cover and I personally found it really interesting. I'm paraphrasing but he basically said something along the lines of: don't bother doing long (7hr) steady rides in winter, do speed work all year round or else you're effectively deconditioning yourself. It seems to be in line with some of the stuff I've been reading on this forum but flies in the face of every other training book I've ever read where winter= long steady miles and intervals don't start until spring.

Has anyone heard of a book or reference which backs up his theory?

If it works, it would be great for me. I have only one day to do a long ride, which I enjoy so wouldn't cut it out anyway. The rest of the week I can only spare an hour here or there. BTW, I can't do power meters - no money to buy one. If you were trying to build up to a 2x20min interval, would you start with shorter intervals first?

Thanks muchly 8)

Ric_Stern/RST

popette wrote:

Hiya,

Did anyone read the Q&A with Greg Lemond in pro cycling this month? I never usually buy it but was intrigued by the front cover and I personally found it really interesting. I'm paraphrasing but he basically said something along the lines of: don't bother doing long (7hr) steady rides in winter, do speed work all year round or else you're effectively deconditioning yourself. It seems to be in line with some of the stuff I've been reading on this forum but flies in the face of every other training book I've ever read where winter= long steady miles and intervals don't start until spring.

Has anyone heard of a book or reference which backs up his theory?

essentially, any exercise physiology text that looks at trained athletes and increasing performance.

If it works, it would be great for me. I have only one day to do a long ride, which I enjoy so wouldn't cut it out anyway. The rest of the week I can only spare an hour here or there.

i have an article coming up soon (i think) in CW about reverse periodisation. essentially, it's about training hard with limited time. the less time you have - the harder you have to train.

BTW, I can't do power meters - no money to buy one. If you were trying to build up to a 2x20min interval, would you start with shorter intervals first?

Thanks muchly 8)

no, i'd start with either the 20-min efforts, or perhaps slightly longer efforts (up to 90-mins) at a hard, but not all-out effort (e.g. 85 - 90% or so of what you could do flat out for an hour). i'd often save the short, more intense 5-min (VO2max) efforts until closer to racing (however, it also depends on the person i'm coaching).

ric

popette

Hi Ric,
Thanks for your reply. Is there a cycling book with the approach easily explained - telling me what I should be doing and when? (I don't really want to start delving into physiology text books) Will you cover that in your article at all? If so, I will be reading with great interest.
Thanks again

Ric_Stern/RST

popette wrote:

Hi Ric,
Thanks for your reply. Is there a cycling book with the approach easily explained - telling me what I should be doing and when? (I don't really want to start delving into physiology text books) Will you cover that in your article at all? If so, I will be reading with great interest.
Thanks again

Not that i'm aware of

I think i give some ideas on training in the article, but essentially it's as i've written previously here.

ric

dcj

I can vouch for not doing 7 hour training rides.

I did those all winter in 2004/05 and struggled in the mountains on the 2005 etape, suffered like a dog and came in the 4,000s at the finish. I hated it.

Next winter I bought a VR trainer with DVDs of mountains and did short hard rides indoors three or four times a week in winter and came in the top 1,000 on the 2006 etape. I adapted my body to produce the power needed.

that wasn't the only difference, but basically less than eight hours conditioning to ride in the mountains every week was all it took (winter time indoor-only rides less than 5 hours total training a week).

best of all, I didn't have to struggle in the wet and cold English winter.

I still use the VR trainer - tonight I just finished riding the Mont Ventoux DVD which is a sod even on the machine.

chrisw12

Dcb if ou think about it, you've used a 'classical training plan' but you've done it over two years rather than one.

The first year you spent doing long rides, the second you refined and started doing the more intense intervals.

If you hadn't built the base over the first year, could you have done the intervals so succesfully and performed so successfully in the second year?

I whole hertily agree that if you are training for short(ish) events then reverse periodisation makes a lot more sense than doing long miles when it's cold and wet. The trouble is if you are doing long events imo somwhere along the line you have to get the miles in.

iainf72

chrisw12 wrote:

The trouble is if you are doing long events imo somwhere along the line you have to get the miles in.

Lemonds take was interesting on that - Something along the lines of "if you're riding a 7 hour Tour stage most riders are only working for 4 hours" And you train for the work.

He does say you need to do a few long rides but just not make it the basis of all training.

When I first started cycling I used Lemonds book from 87 as my guide. When i returned to cycling after 10 years off the bike I kind of reverted to those programs.

ut_och_cykla

popette wrote:

Hiya,
SNIP
If you were trying to build up to a 2x20min interval, would you start with shorter intervals first?

Thanks muchly 8)

I started with shorter intervals myself, but the same total time (40 mins) and only short, active rest in between. This gave me the chance for mind and body to used to the idea and still stay within the 60 -70 minutes or so I had available. e.g 8 x 5:1, 5 x8 :2. 3 x 14:5, 2 x 20:8 or something like that increasing on a weekly or fortnightly basis.

Long rides can be lovely and are perhaps necessary as a base, but good/better results can be gained by working harder for shorter periods.

good luck!

kant314

I would recommed that you get a good indoor trainer.
Preferably one that tells you how much power you are producing so that you can see any performance gains that you are making.

dcj

chrisw12 wrote:

Dcb if ou think about it, you've used a 'classical training plan' but you've done it over two years rather than one.

The first year you spent doing long rides, the second you refined and started doing the more intense intervals.

If you hadn't built the base over the first year, could you have done the intervals so succesfully and performed so successfully in the second year?

I whole hertily agree that if you are training for short(ish) events then reverse periodisation makes a lot more sense than doing long miles when it's cold and wet. The trouble is if you are doing long events imo somwhere along the line you have to get the miles in.

Hi chrisw12
I don't know is the answer - I am not sure how long the training effect from one year can last. In the third year (2007) I carried on with the same regime and rode local sportives, including a 120 mile event where I held back until giving it full gas with 10 miles to go. There was plenty left in the tank to my surprise.

Doing the Etape again I would plan almost all of my endurance training from riding 4 or 5 UK sportives from April onwards - I completely agree about getting the miles in, but you only seem to do it a handful of times to get the endurance aspect sorted - if the power is there.

The lesson for me was this - focus on developing power in the winter because once you have this, the endurance merely needs fine tuning - most people place the emphasis the other way round.

However if people are convinced they need to spend the bulk of their winter riding long miles they should keep doing it. The important thing is to believe in what you are doing.

However, the benefit of doing it 'smart' is that better results on a third of the hours is highly appealing.

Only needing to spend a handful of hours per week training means more rest time and a strong probability that people can keep competitive for years and successfully juggle full time jobs and families.

I should add that this regime was only viable using the VR DVD indoor trainer I mentioned.
I think a normal indoor trainer is just too boring to spend the majority of training time on.

popette

ut_och_cykla wrote:

popette wrote:

Hiya,
SNIP
If you were trying to build up to a 2x20min interval, would you start with shorter intervals first?

Thanks muchly 8)

I started with shorter intervals myself, but the same total time (40 mins) and only short, active rest in between. This gave me the chance for mind and body to used to the idea and still stay within the 60 -70 minutes or so I had available. e.g 8 x 5:1, 5 x8 :2. 3 x 14:5, 2 x 20:8 or something like that increasing on a weekly or fortnightly basis.

Long rides can be lovely and are perhaps necessary as a base, but good/better results can be gained by working harder for shorter periods.

good luck!

I think I will do the same. When I started running, I used to have to run a bit, walk a bit, until I could extend the period of running and shorten the period of walking. I just don't think I'll manage 20 minutes of 85-90% MHR at the moment. I'm going to start with 5 minutes and work up from there.

Cheers for all the replies.

Ric_Stern/RST

popette wrote:

ut_och_cykla wrote:

popette wrote:

Hiya,
SNIP
If you were trying to build up to a 2x20min interval, would you start with shorter intervals first?

Thanks muchly 8)

I started with shorter intervals myself, but the same total time (40 mins) and only short, active rest in between. This gave me the chance for mind and body to used to the idea and still stay within the 60 -70 minutes or so I had available. e.g 8 x 5:1, 5 x8 :2. 3 x 14:5, 2 x 20:8 or something like that increasing on a weekly or fortnightly basis.

Long rides can be lovely and are perhaps necessary as a base, but good/better results can be gained by working harder for shorter periods.

good luck!

I think I will do the same. When I started running, I used to have to run a bit, walk a bit, until I could extend the period of running and shorten the period of walking. I just don't think I'll manage 20 minutes of 85-90% MHR at the moment. I'm going to start with 5 minutes and work up from there.

Cheers for all the replies.

the problem with using HR (versus power meter -- no, this isn't an advert for them per se, but merely explaining), is that not everyone can exercise at the same relative HR intensity. Without a power meter it may be best to just go as hard as you can for the 20-minutes (whatever the % of HRmax it is) and go via RPE rather than HR.

Of course, one of the other sessions i *do* suggest to people is to do something like 8 x 5-mins at TTpower/FTP with short recovery periods (i use about 30 to 45 secs). However, this is primarily because riding the turbo for many people can be as interesting as watching paint dry and they need to 'break' up a session.the recovery periods are so short here that essentially your body is 'fooled' into thinking it's pretty much one continuous effort. But there's nothing like doing a full on 2 x 20-mins (it's quite good knowing that psychologically you can do this).

ric

Jeff Jones

Ric_Stern/RST wrote:

The problem with using HR (versus power meter -- no, this isn't an advert for them per se, but merely explaining), is that not everyone can exercise at the same relative HR intensity. Without a power meter it may be best to just go as hard as you can for the 20-minutes (whatever the % of HRmax it is) and go via RPE rather than HR.

I was wondering about this too. Say you have a power meter but do all your riding outside. When it's cold, my experience is that you're not going to get close to the power output you can sustain when it's warm for the same level of effort/HR. So how do you do interval training in winter when you know it's going to be inferior? Do you just knock 10-15% off your target power and assume that will come back when it gets warmer?

bahzob

er at the risk of opening up a can of worms isnt this pretty much what all the "healthy" debate in the "Training areas to avoid" http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=12551844
thread was all about.

I think also raised what I think is pretty much the same topic regarding using so called "Sweetspot" focussed training:
http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=12551515&highlight=

Me, I am convinced that long rides do me no physiological training good whatever and are just for touring fun or checking out bike/long ride eating+drinking. I can say that because as an e.g. in a recent event, which I did no training for I was able to ride the whole 3 hours comfortably at an average of 85%+ max HR.

So when I go out for long rides, which I do becase I enjoy them, I make sure they include specific extra training targets like climbs that I push hard, sections where I try to pedal over 100 rpm and 30-60 minute sections in my "sweetspot" zone.

FWIW I think part of the confusion is because advice depends very much on who it is targetted at. Above is what I do now, 2 years ago when I was starting and 50 miles seemed a long way on a bike, long steady rides were exactly what I needed.

Ric_Stern/RST

Jeff Jones wrote:

Ric_Stern/RST wrote:

The problem with using HR (versus power meter -- no, this isn't an advert for them per se, but merely explaining), is that not everyone can exercise at the same relative HR intensity. Without a power meter it may be best to just go as hard as you can for the 20-minutes (whatever the % of HRmax it is) and go via RPE rather than HR.

I was wondering about this too. Say you have a power meter but do all your riding outside. When it's cold, my experience is that you're not going to get close to the power output you can sustain when it's warm for the same level of effort/HR. So how do you do interval training in winter when you know it's going to be inferior? Do you just knock 10-15% off your target power and assume that will come back when it gets warmer?

your power that you would aim for would be based on what you can do at that point in time. in other words it wouldn't be a fixed effort you were maintaining.

Jeff Jones

Ric_Stern/RST wrote:

your power that you would aim for would be based on what you can do at that point in time. in other words it wouldn't be a fixed effort you were maintaining.

That makes sense, although to me that implies that your power output is temperature dependent, a bit like heart rate.

I just noticed how hard it was coming back from Australia to the UK recently. And also how much faster I am up hills when it's 10 degrees compared to when it's zero, at the same level of fitness.

Ric_Stern/RST

Jeff Jones wrote:

Ric_Stern/RST wrote:

your power that you would aim for would be based on what you can do at that point in time. in other words it wouldn't be a fixed effort you were maintaining.

That makes sense, although to me that implies that your power output is temperature dependent, a bit like heart rate.

I just noticed how hard it was coming back from Australia to the UK recently. And also how much faster I am up hills when it's 10 degrees compared to when it's zero, at the same level of fitness.

power output *is* temperature (and e.g. altitude) dependent. For e.g., in hot weather (which is dependent on various factors for each person) power output is reduced (however, barometric pressure decreases and you're usually faster with lower power). In hot weather (elite) athletes usually do some sort of pre-cooling to bring power back up.

Jeff Jones

Ric_Stern/RST wrote:

Jeff Jones wrote:

That makes sense, although to me that implies that your power output is temperature dependent, a bit like heart rate.

I just noticed how hard it was coming back from Australia to the UK recently. And also how much faster I am up hills when it's 10 degrees compared to when it's zero, at the same level of fitness.

power output *is* temperature (and e.g. altitude) dependent. For e.g., in hot weather (which is dependent on various factors for each person) power output is reduced (however, barometric pressure decreases and you're usually faster with lower power). In hot weather (elite) athletes usually do some sort of pre-cooling to bring power back up.

Right, and that makes intuitive sense as well.

So in terms of physiological training effect, are you still getting the same benefit by (using completely arbitrary values here) training for 20min at 300W in zero degrees outdoors, or doing the same length workout at 330W on a turbo indoors?

popette

Well, I just went for it on the turbo - I've got an imagic so it does have a power reading but not sure how accurate it is. I warmed up, then when I was going for an interval, I put the bike on the highest gear and went for it. I managed to keep the power up around 300w during intervals but could only manage about 2 and a half minutes of that and then I had to recover for a couple of mins. Did five of those efforts. I'm sure that the heart rate monitor is dodgy on the imagic because I'm around 130, then it spikes to about 218 and then back down to 130 again. I need to do a comparison with my Polar watch to check that out.
Assuming that the imagic power reading is not too far off the mark, if I was going for 2x20mins, what power would I need to aim for? (given that I've been cycling for about 10 months so hardly a trained athlete).
thanks in advance

dennisn

Sounds like you want to race. As for race training, here's a sample of the things that we do in the states. On a local and regional level most of the races are what we call criteriums. These are races around short courses(better for spectators) of about
a mile per lap, give or take a bit. They usually have 4 or 5 corners. Race length can
be anywhere from 15 to 25 miles(beginners) to 40 to 50(semi pro and pro) with
various other classes in between. Individual group races start early AM(beginners) and mid-afternoon(Pros).
Most of the riders in our racing club don't do a lot of long distance riding(maybe a long one once a week). They train pretty much short,high intensity, most of the time.
Endurance in these shorter events is not nearly as important as being able to ride at a high rate of speed, corner with confidence, be comfortable in a group,and accelerate with authority. Acceleration being the key word here because there is usually one at
almost every corner in every race. At least it seems that way and if you can't power up
quickly you will be off the back in an instant and catching up to the lead goup very
rarely happens. You have been "popped" and it only took a few seconds.
Most of the advice here about short intense workouts is right on if you want to race.
Good luck. Oh, I forgot, rest harder than you train.

Dennis Noward

Alex_Simmons/RST

Does the imagic enable you to download the power data?

In any case the answer is - do a test of some kind, such as a 20 minutes all out effort, or a MAP Test, and from either (or both) you can set some sensible levels to use with the imagic. A 2-min effort is not a great indicator for determining longer aerobic only efforts.

If you do a 20 min test, then ride your 2x20min at about 90% of your flat out test power result. Test again after 6-8 weeks. Or use RPE to know when to add a few watts next time (i.e. it's getting fairly easy to complete - add 5-10W). 90% is hard but not so hard you can't back up for training the next day.

Johnpwr

popette wrote:

ut_och_cykla wrote:

popette wrote:

I think I will do the same. When I started running, I used to have to run a bit, walk a bit, until I could extend the period of running and shorten the period of walking. I just don't think I'll manage 20 minutes of 85-90% MHR at the moment. I'm going to start with 5 minutes and work up from there.

Cheers for all the replies.

It appears that I asked myself the same sort of questions, when I was considering how to approach 20 minutes going hard, as you seem to be, but came to a different conclusion The problem with the 2x20 thing is that it's going to hurt and so the psychological approach to it is one that you need to get your head around.

The first point is that everybody can do 2x20 ! It's a bit like when you consider how it feels for a Pro to ride up Alp d'Huez, if feels exactly the same as it does for you and me, only they do it a lot faster, sometimes there's just no way around the discomfort !

The second point is that you are looking for specific adaptations to occur and for that you have to spend the correct amount of time at the appropriate level to get them.

I have come to the conclusion that I will probably get the level wrong for the first couple of goes, simply because I will start at a level that isn't too hard and will therefore most likely be too easy, but repeated efforts will give me a base to work from so that it becomes possible to zero in on the correct level of effort. From what I've read, the time and the effort level combined is the important thing and so shorter efforts should be done at a higher effort level !

Cycling is rather different to running, because you don't need to condition your joints to the pounding that they receive. Admittedly you may well go off too hard and in trying to keep the level constant, die horribly, in which case you just started the effort at too high a level simply because your HR will lag behind your effort level. In the absence of a power meter, I suggest that you pick an appropriate speed and stick to that, after 5 minutes your HR will have caught up and you will have a better idea as to whether you are in the right place or not.

Best of luck

Toks

dcj wrote:

I can vouch for not doing 7 hour training rides.

I did those all winter in 2004/05 and struggled in the mountains on the 2005 etape, suffered like a dog and came in the 4,000s at the finish. I hated it.

Next winter I bought a VR trainer with DVDs of mountains and did short hard rides indoors three or four times a week in winter and came in the top 1,000 on the 2006 etape. I adapted my body to produce the power needed.

that wasn't the only difference, but basically less than eight hours conditioning to ride in the mountains every week was all it took (winter time indoor-only rides less than 5 hours total training a week).

best of all, I didn't have to struggle in the wet and cold English winter.

I still use the VR trainer - tonight I just finished riding the Mont Ventoux DVD which is a sod even on the machine.

Great post mate! especially in light of the rather dissapointing Dave Lloyd article on December 20th's (07) cycling weekly. Essentially he was Poo pooing the Mr Average cyclist who wanted to do sportivs but couldn't find more than 7 hours per week training time.

Toks

Just in case people get the wrong idea lets just put things in simple terms. There's is nothing wrong with doing long rides per se. If you can maintain an intensity which will accrue physiological adaptions then as americans would say its all good. Guys like Ric, Alex and Andy Coggan have all outined at what percentage of aerobic max or functional threshold that needs to be. So what's the problem with long rides?

Its all too quite easy to just press the 'social riding' button and plod a long for 3 - 5 hours. Now for the 'Newbie' or 'getting back to fitness guy' overtime this will elicit pretty good gains. However for your established competitive or semi competitive rider unless you can really stay focused in the 75-85% (of max HRT) you're chance to make further gains maybe compromised.

Now some guys gan still keep banging away after three hours on a non competitive ride (cyclosportiv). At this time of year I personally I lose interest after 3 hours which is good cause my time is limited anyway. One mistake I used to make was still riding 1 hour and two hour winters rides at all day pace. Not long enough to elicit fitness gains because of the low intensity of the ride.

So back to 2 x 20's - in my opinion they're brilliant. Poppette just bite the bullet and go for it. Start at a moderate pace and build up. Don't faff around with 2 mins hard one min easy till much later on. In my opinion most people seem to wanna do those short intervals for a few weeks and thats it. Where else moderately paced intervals for longer chunks of time will serve you so much better.

dcj

Toks wrote:

dcj wrote:

I can vouch for not doing 7 hour training rides.

I did those all winter in 2004/05 and struggled in the mountains on the 2005 etape, suffered like a dog and came in the 4,000s at the finish. I hated it.

Next winter I bought a VR trainer with DVDs of mountains and did short hard rides indoors three or four times a week in winter and came in the top 1,000 on the 2006 etape. I adapted my body to produce the power needed.

that wasn't the only difference, but basically less than eight hours conditioning to ride in the mountains every week was all it took (winter time indoor-only rides less than 5 hours total training a week).

best of all, I didn't have to struggle in the wet and cold English winter.

I still use the VR trainer - tonight I just finished riding the Mont Ventoux DVD which is a sod even on the machine.

Great post mate! especially in light of the rather dissapointing Dave Lloyd article on December 20th's (07) cycling weekly. Essentially he was Poo pooing the Mr Average cyclist who wanted to do sportivs but couldn't find more than 7 hours per week training time.

Hi Toks

Thanks - actually seeing your reply brings back memories...

When I was doing my seven hour rides in the winter of 2004/5 I used to see your posts about focusing on power etc and thought at the time.... "no, that advice can't be right - I've got to focus on doing the miles otherwise I won't last the etape distance" ...it took the first monster mountain of the 2005 etape to realise if only I'd appreciated then how spot-on and relevant to my situation your posts were

Toks

dcj wrote:

Hi Toks

Thanks - actually seeing your reply brings back memories...

When I was doing my seven hour rides in the winter of 2004/5 I used to see your posts about focusing on power etc and thought at the time.... "no, that advice can't be right - I've got to focus on doing the miles otherwise I won't last the etape distance" ...it took the first monster mountain of the 2005 etape to realise if only I'd appreciated then how spot-on and relevant to my situation your posts were

Cool, as i said at the time cruising around for hours on end at 150-180watts (16/17mph) in fairly flatish Lon-Brighton and back rides for 6-7 hours may feel like a big deal. Unfortunately if you don't spend some significant time at 230watts+for sustained periods you're gonna get a wake up call at the EtapE. Most of those climbs will ask big questions about your threshold power. If you can't answer them you're in for a miserable time desperatley trying to stay one step ahead of the broom wagon.

ut_och_cykla

popette wrote:

Well, I just went for it on the turbo - I've got an imagic so it does have a power reading but not sure how accurate it is. I warmed up, then when I was going for an interval, I put the bike on the highest gear and went for it. I managed to keep the power up around 300w during intervals but could only manage about 2 and a half minutes of that and then I had to recover for a couple of mins. Did five of those efforts. I'm sure that the heart rate monitor is dodgy on the imagic because I'm around 130, then it spikes to about 218 and then back down to 130 again. I need to do a comparison with my Polar watch to check that out.
Assuming that the imagic power reading is not too far off the mark, if I was going for 2x20mins, what power would I need to aim for? (given that I've been cycling for about 10 months so hardly a trained athlete).
thanks in advance

As long as the bike/tyre set up remains the same you can use the Watts and forget the HRM.

A bit of trial and error will help you find the W you want for 20 mins.

eg you could try a session where you start at 300 w and reduce W by 10 or 20 and see how long you can keep going on each one. Perhaps you'll find 250 allows you 10 minutes. next time do 4 x 10 minutes and try for 260 each time. If that seems just doable then the next session you could seeif you could 3 x 13mins at 260 or perhaps 250 etc.
After 3-5 weeks you should have a very good idea of your sustainable output for different times, which by using gearing/HRM you could transfer to the road (in broad terms, depending on weather & terrain etc)

Flogging yourself for 2-3 minutes is perhaps a bit OTT just now but might be good to include later on.

popette

This is great - I'm actually training for the Etape.
Currently, I'm doing one long ride of about 4 to 5 hours, a couple of sessions on the turbo (45mins to an hour each) and one shorter ride on the roads (about 1.5 hours). Should both my turbo sessions be 2x20min intervals or should I be mixing it up a bit?
How would my weekly schedule change over the next few months in the run up to the Etape?
Thanks again

Ste_S

Ric_Stern/RST wrote:

popette wrote:

ut_och_cykla wrote:

popette wrote:

Hiya,
SNIP
If you were trying to build up to a 2x20min interval, would you start with shorter intervals first?

Thanks muchly 8)

I started with shorter intervals myself, but the same total time (40 mins) and only short, active rest in between. This gave me the chance for mind and body to used to the idea and still stay within the 60 -70 minutes or so I had available. e.g 8 x 5:1, 5 x8 :2. 3 x 14:5, 2 x 20:8 or something like that increasing on a weekly or fortnightly basis.

Long rides can be lovely and are perhaps necessary as a base, but good/better results can be gained by working harder for shorter periods.

good luck!

I think I will do the same. When I started running, I used to have to run a bit, walk a bit, until I could extend the period of running and shorten the period of walking. I just don't think I'll manage 20 minutes of 85-90% MHR at the moment. I'm going to start with 5 minutes and work up from there.

Cheers for all the replies.

the problem with using HR (versus power meter -- no, this isn't an advert for them per se, but merely explaining), is that not everyone can exercise at the same relative HR intensity. Without a power meter it may be best to just go as hard as you can for the 20-minutes (whatever the % of HRmax it is) and go via RPE rather than HR.

Of course, one of the other sessions i *do* suggest to people is to do something like 8 x 5-mins at TTpower/FTP with short recovery periods (i use about 30 to 45 secs). However, this is primarily because riding the turbo for many people can be as interesting as watching paint dry and they need to 'break' up a session.the recovery periods are so short here that essentially your body is 'fooled' into thinking it's pretty much one continuous effort. But there's nothing like doing a full on 2 x 20-mins (it's quite good knowing that psychologically you can do this).

ric

I use mine as a starting guide more than anything else. I started 2x20 on rollers last week at 100rpm and 85-90% MHR, which I found mentally tough but physically not too bad. As the weeks go one I'll aim to up it until I'm at a higher level I can sustain

Popette wrote:

I'm sure that the heart rate monitor is dodgy on the imagic because I'm around 130, then it spikes to about 218 and then back down to 130 again. I need to do a comparison with my Polar watch to check that out.

My Polar spikes over 200bpm when there isn't proper contact between the chest strap and myself. A bit of water on the two sensor bits when starting off normally sorts it out.

Toks

popette wrote:

This is great - I'm actually training for the Etape.
Currently, I'm doing one long ride of about 4 to 5 hours, a couple of sessions on the turbo (45mins to an hour each) and one shorter ride on the roads (about 1.5 hours). Should both my turbo sessions be 2x20min intervals or should I be mixing it up a bit?
How would my weekly schedule change over the next few months in the run up to the Etape?
Thanks again

IMHO 2 x 20's have a drip drip effect. You really need to give them at least six weeks for you to see real change. I'm probably a bit 'autistic' in my training approach so I can happily bang out 2 x 20's twice a week for months on end. I appreciate not everyone is like that. Popette try and see your training levels as a continum - 2 x 20's moderately hard, 60-90 min rides a good lick but not quite as intense as 2 x 20's etc etc. Sorry for the ramble to answer your question - I would hit the 2 x 20's frequently till at least late March before changing things around a bit. Good Luck

SteveR_100Milers

Toks (and anyone else) what effort do you put in for a 2x20? Flat out 10TT pace or anyhitng above a min heart rate?

I ask, because I really cannot come to terms with any sustained intensive riding on a turbo...I'd rather cut my legs off to be honest; therefore my "2x20" training is done by climbing long hill such as those used in the dragon ride which take a similar time. There is only one way tom climb them and thats at my LT - I find it so much easier to sit at 90%MHR or thereabouts on the road up a hill that I do at 80% on a turbo.

I cant imagine that doing 2x20's at less than 85% MHR is any use, or rather has any really significant training effect (unless you do 4x20's..?) My weekday 1 hour rides are all done at an average (from door to door including warm up) 80-85% MHR. If I look at my training log, I average around 6 hours a week, of which only 1 to 1.5 is zone 2 60-70%, about 2 hours 80-90% and about 15-30 mins >90% (which is where the track is useful). Even if I try to back off on the road, I struggle to keep below 75%