A cadence question

phreak

I'm planning on doing a couple of European sportives next year and experience tells me that the climbs will be approx 1hr of climbing at a lower cadence than normal.

So to help prepare I've started changing my usual 1hr tempo sessions on the turbo to reflect lower cadences, switching from around 90 to around 70, with the power the same for both sets.

The lower cadence sessions are a fair bit harder than the higher ones. Is this down to different muscle usage or that the higher cadence is more efficient?

rick_chasey

Depends what your muscles are used to.

Lower candence puts more emphasis on the fast twich muscles compared to the higher cadence.

Ultimately though, you want to be pedalling your ideal cadence on the hills. You're better off sorting your gearing out, rather than mashing!

phreak

Obviously gearing is an option but my target ride will feature both the Gavia and the Mortirolo so it's probably inevitable that there will be some grinding involved.

Was also reading this http://www.cptips.com/climb.htm

Try to keep your cadence above 70 -- any slower puts excess stress on your knees. The optimum spin rates for efficient pedaling are somewhere between 70 and 80.

so I'm above 70 all the time, yet it still feels tougher than spinning at 90.

rick_chasey

phreak wrote:

Obviously gearing is an option but my target ride will feature both the Gavia and the Mortirolo so it's probably inevitable that there will be some grinding involved.

Haha, ignore my comments then.

Sounds like a good plan.

Grinding is pretty tough. Best advice I can give for climbing ( I arrived in the Pyrenees massively overgeared so I have some experience in grinding up long climbs), is that it's all in your head. Your training will probably be as much training your brain to handle the pain of grinding up like that as much as it is training your body.

jibberjim

phreak wrote:

I'm planning on doing a couple of European sportives next year and experience tells me that the climbs will be approx 1hr of climbing at a lower cadence than normal.

So to help prepare I've started changing my usual 1hr tempo sessions on the turbo to reflect lower cadences, switching from around 90 to around 70, with the power the same for both sets.

The cadence may be the same, but the muscle activation is not, so whilst your workout may appear more specific superficially it's not necessarily.

I'd ignore the cadence, and just sort out the right gears for the event.

phreak

This is the route



I'm thinking it's gonna need a blooming small gear to spin at 90 up those climbs.

ut_och_cykla

Get the right gears obviously - but equally get your head and heart used to steady paced efforts of an hour or more. Unless you're quite good there will be some 'grinding' but 70 isnt so bad once you're used to it - but go gently on any training you might do to give your knee ligaments a chance to adapt - they are VERY slow to do so.
Fat and now 50 + I've climbed Alp Dhuez, Ventoux and many other Hors Cat climbs slowly but non- stop.I found 2 x 20 sessions were good for preparation. I also did some sesions at much lower cadences (50) for shorter periods (10 mins max) focussing on good smooth technique. But no doubt someoen from RST will be along soon to tell me they didnt help at all....
And personally I'd be concentrating on cycling in all weathers and extending endurance now and wait with the turbo torture stuff until the depths of winter - 3 -4 months before the event....

phreak

So, to answer my original question, is pedaling at 70 rather than 90 naturally harder?

ut_och_cykla

If you're used to 90 - 70 will feel harder - but effiency wise I'm not sure 90 is better than 70. But perhaps I'm confusing effiency with effectiveness....
- there is no 'right' cadence - within the span of probably 60-100. Faster cadences tend to get your heart going , whereas slower cadences tend not to. Find smething that feels ok adn is doable for an hour or more....

DaSy

The fact that you are putting out the same power at 70rpm as you were at 90rpm means that each pedal stroke at 70rpm requires you to push harder per rev than at 90rpm.

When I trained for the Cingles du Ventoux ride I did a lot of lower cadence training, which I found more tiring on the legs than the same power at my usual 90rpm, but stood me in good stead for 4.5 hours of 70rpm grinding.

joeyhalloran

Remember to put your front wheel on something to simulate the gradients you will be climbing (it will make a big difference). I think (I have heard this from someone else) big gears also require you to use more muscle fibres at once to over come to force involved in pushing the gear round, I believe its your brain trying to 'protect you' (in a evolution survival way) from leaving you without any glycogen/muscle reserves...something along those lines...anyway, I have been doing big gear work this year and it has made a MASSIVE difference to my riding.

Alex_Simmons/RST

ut_och_cykla wrote:

I found 2 x 20 sessions were good for preparation. I also did some sesions at much lower cadences (50) for shorter periods (10 mins max) focussing on good smooth technique. But no doubt someoen from RST will be along soon to tell me they didnt help at all....

Why would someone from RST suggest that doing work to lift power at threshold and efforts that mimic the conditions of your event demands not help?

Sounds perfectly sensible to me. Although I'd probably try to get gearing that would enable a higher pedal rate than 50rpm.

The improvement comes from doing the hard work.

Alex_Simmons/RST

DaSy wrote:

When I trained for the Cingles du Ventoux ride I did a lot of lower cadence training, which I found more tiring on the legs than the same power at my usual 90rpm, but stood me in good stead for 4.5 hours of 70rpm grinding.

Intentionally or otherwise, you probably ended up riding at higher power(s) for longer with this method and attained the benefits accordingly.

DaSy

Alex_Simmons/RST wrote:

DaSy wrote:

When I trained for the Cingles du Ventoux ride I did a lot of lower cadence training, which I found more tiring on the legs than the same power at my usual 90rpm, but stood me in good stead for 4.5 hours of 70rpm grinding.

Intentionally or otherwise, you probably ended up riding at higher power(s) for longer with this method and attained the benefits accordingly.

I was using power measurement for my training, and my plan had been to attempt to sit at around 200watts for each climb (which didn't work out in reality!), so trained at producing 200-220 watts at 65-70 rpm. I found this really quite taxing on my legs after a couple of hours, whereas at my usual 90-100rpm I could do this all day without really noticing any fatigue.

DaSy

Alex- is it not the case that to produce the same power at the wheel for say 90rpm and 60rpm cadence, you would have to apply more force at the pedal at 60rpm per rev than at 90rpm?

This is certainly what I appeared to notice in training, but my lay persons knowledge of physics means I am by no means confident in that assumption.

Alex_Simmons/RST

DaSy wrote:

Alex- is it not the case that to produce the same power at the wheel for say 90rpm and 60rpm cadence, you would have to apply more force at the pedal at 60rpm per rev than at 90rpm?

This is certainly what I appeared to notice in training, but my lay persons knowledge of physics means I am by no means confident in that assumption.

Yes, more force lower revs for same power.
Slightly different muscle fibre recruitment but not a lot - I mean FT fibres fatigue quickly, so if it were really tapping those to any great extent, you would fatigue in a matter of minutes.

In any case, the metabolic demands (i.e. power) are the primary determinant of what adaptations occur.

Anonymous

I find raising the front wheel of the bike on the turbo helps too, as I find climbing engages my muscles slightly differently. YMMV.

phreak

Yeah I've been doing that as well and trying to whack out 1hour tempo sessions of a similar power output to previously but around 75 revs vs 90. Haven't managed to finish one yet :oops:

ut_och_cykla

Phreak - can really recommend 5-10 minute intervals at even lower cadences to get your legs used to pushing round - perhaps try a period of these before trying your 1 hour sessions - it is a different feeling but as long as your knees are ok its worth trying - focus on smoothness and try and relax the rest of your body - dont hang on to the bars like grim death! Dont worry so much about power output - get the 'feel' of it first...You'll feel it afterwards - but it does get easier...

phreak

I've done slightly shorter intervals as part of the CTS hill climbing dvd. Relying on my memory but fairly sure there is a 10 minute interval in there. I can do 30minutes of it ok but need to work up to a full hour. Suppose I could let the power drop down a bit of course to complete the set.

joeyhalloran

I would suggest letting the power drop, for one your legs are still getting used to it.
2, it may be better for injury prevention to allow your knees time to build up to the power (they will have much more force than they are used to through them at the same power). And 3 it is more an exercise in where the power is developed then what power you hit. When climbing up the hills you are going to be doing 1 hour+ at this cadence so rather than building up the time, I would suggest building up the power.

DaSy

Alex_Simmons/RST wrote:

In any case, the metabolic demands (i.e. power) are the primary determinant of what adaptations occur.

It wasn't so much the adaptations, or the potential improvement I was worried about when doing this training, as I was confident in my ability to ride at the required power level for the required time. What I did want to do was to be able to produce that power at a cadence that I was likely to encounter on the climbs.

So I am sure, as you say, I was not benefiting from any great improvements with this training, but I was aware that the way that power was generated (ie, the cadence at which it was generated) certainly did seem to have a different effect on my legs, and how they felt.

As it turned out, insane 50mph headwinds meant that 200watts wouldn't have actually had me moving forwards!