The appliance of science....

meanredspider

Wheelspinner wrote:

@Briantrumpet.

Think of it this way. YOU are a "performance improvement and measurement device" for your trumpet-learning students.

Now ask the question: if your students had sufficient skill to get a noise from a trumpet to start with, and then went and practiced on their own, unguided by you, would they improve to the same level as they might (in the same time) as they would WITH your guidance?

I hope for your sake the answer is "no".

What an insightful observation 8)

briantrumpet

Wheelspinner wrote:

@Briantrumpet.

Think of it this way. YOU are a "performance improvement and measurement device" for your trumpet-learning students.

Now ask the question: if your students had sufficient skill to get a noise from a trumpet to start with, and then went and practiced on their own, unguided by you, would they improve to the same level as they might (in the same time) as they would WITH your guidance?

I hope for your sake the answer is "no".

True, I think I probably do help my students. And clearly gizmos and modern techniques do help people improve their cycling, as attested by NapD and Pokerface, amongst others.

However, as I make explicit with my students, my job with them is to put myself out of a job. There is no great mystery about what I do. I have two aims: to give them the appetite to learn, and the knowledge of how to learn. If and when they have those two things, they'll go off and learn - and though I might do something for them from then on, the better ones would certainly be able to become pretty proficient under their own steam. Over the years it's been those who have needed the least encouragement and bar-by-bar guidance who have turned out to be the most accomplished musicians. I really don't know how much credit I can take for their achievement.

Anonymous

Brian,

You are selling yourself short, it's not just the teaching but the confidence and affirmation that you provide the students that will help too.

I know reasonably accurately what sweetspot and threshold feel like in my legs without the power meter.
The power meter affirms what I'm feeling but also acts as a carrot/stick if I start wandering. It is also a great way of finding if you are coming down with something, as power is inexplicably down.

If your aim is to get generally faster over certain routes then I feel that there would be little benefit in something like a power meter. One way of interval training on your rides is to hammer it up every hill, recover on descents and ride steady on the flats. A heart rate monitor ( you can get a good one for 20 quid) may be useful to you as it's so cheap and offers at least a window into what your body is doing.
I don't look at power on my 'endurance' type rides but occasionally look at my HR to ensure I'm not working too hard.

Sorry for rambling.

The bottom line for me is I get benefit from 'gizmos' because I have specific targets and need to train as efficiently as possible. My favourite rides are those where my coach says to go out and ride on feel. The route doesnt matter, it can be flat, hilly, MTB, whatever. I just have the map showing a route I've plotted, yes everything is being recorded but it's quite liberating just concentrating on the scenery etc.

The most important thing to keep in mind is that cycling should be fun and enjoyable. I find racing fun and enjoyable but have to be at a certain level to compete hence the turbo/interval sessions- they pay off in the long run. I just wish I could get away with going out doing those 'ride on feel' rides every day!

briantrumpet

NapoleonD wrote:

The bottom line for me is I get benefit from 'gizmos' because I have specific targets and need to train as efficiently as possible. [...] I find racing fun and enjoyable but have to be at a certain level to compete hence the turbo/interval sessions- they pay off in the long run. I just wish I could get away with going out doing those 'ride on feel' rides every day!

That's probably the nub of it - I suspect that if I did race against others, I'd end up using other aids to training, for just the reasons you give. Though I still find it an interesting question (one that probably can't be answered) as to how much of people's perfomance is down to all/any of the modern training aids, and how much to dogged determination and grit.

NapoleonD wrote:

One way of interval training on your rides is to hammer it up every hill, recover on descents and ride steady on the flats.

That's roughly my routine for rides, though on shorter rides (25-ish-milers) I allow much less time off the effort.

keef66

That's more or less what I do; it's best described as gently undulating round here so on any rides of an hour or so I use the hills as interval training and hammer up them with the aim of getting to the top but only just.

briantrumpet

keef66 wrote:

..it's best described as gently undulating round here..

One benefit of living in Devon is that all routes seem to vary between 500ft & 1000ft per 10 miles of riding. You can't avoid hills round yer. I suppose it means that interval training is the only option.

Garz

Stop blowing your own trumpet!

* baddum tsssh *

Oh I'l get my coat...

Pokerface

What a sensible debate. For a nice change!

briantrumpet

Pokerface wrote:

What a sensible debate. For a nice change!

Darn, I obviously need to step up the "I'm right and you're all idiots" quotient.

Seriously, though, like the best forums, I've learnt so much from BR - it's like having loads of expert advisers for free - some cranky ones, obviously (like any school), but you learn to filter out the mad, bad or dangerous.

Funnily enough, I bumped into an ex-student today, and he was telling me how great his HR monitor is for the training for his first marathon. Great. I'm still going to enjoy seeing if I can reach my targets in my old-fashoined way. (In case you're wondering ... I think one of next year's targets is going to be 100 solo Devonian miles at 20mph - OK, it's not going to win me the Tour of Britain, but it's a nice round figure, and I think it's achievable.)

Garz

Absolutely, that's a sensible goal to aim for Brian!

Good luck and keep us updated on your progress.

briantrumpet

Garz wrote:

Good luck and keep us updated on your progress.

Hmm, hard work at the moment - 100 miles at 20mph feels, er, ambitious. Managing longish solo ones (70-80) at 19 - yesterday's 70-miler with a 10mph wind in the face most of the way home was seriously hard work. Maybe Devon is a silly place for a 47-year-old to be setting ambitious targets.

Easy ways of improving times/speeds: move somewhere flatter; pick really still weather; cheat. Harder ways (for me): train methodically using a properly structured plan; join a club; use technical gizmos etc. But I still like the 'get the quality miles in the legs' approach as a first principle.

I might yet get a HRM, but I'll see how far I can push it this Summer before trying 21st-Century methods, I think. I'm hoping that the onset of Spring will inspire my body to respond.

robrauy

From your initial post you seem to be swimming as much if not more than cycling. Isn't this a little bit like expecting your trumpet students to improve by practising the guitar ?

briantrumpet

robrauy wrote:

From your initial post you seem to be swimming as much if not more than cycling. Isn't this a little bit like expecting your trumpet students to improve by practising the guitar ?

This week: one mile swum, 300 miles cycled, though the normal ratio would be something like 2:200 in the Summer.

Having said that your analogy is not inappropriate, though a better example might be piano rather than guitar, as often a trumpeter will improve by learning the piano too - for instance, if someone is learning to improvise jazz, their understanding of harmony can be vastly improved by learning the shapes of the chords on the piano, which in turn helps their improvisation on the trumpet.

So it depends what part of the training you're addressing. In my own case on the cycling front, the two limiting factors that I feel when I'm out riding are leg strength and stamina, and heart/lung function - it depends where I am on the ride as to which is limiting. My swimming (5 x 16-minute hard swims most weeks) is aimed at the heart/lung part of my fitness. Though I mainly do it because I like it.

robrauy

Sorry, I know this is going slightly off topic. It's not so much the relative distances.

You say that you swim 5 times a week. My point is that some of your time may be better spent on your bike if you really want to improve.

briantrumpet

robrauy wrote:

You say that you swim 5 times a week. My point is that some of your time may be better spent on your bike if you really want to improve.

That's a grabbed 20 minutes during the working day, so isn't time available for cycling. I'd be interested in the relative cardio-vascular benefits of cycling and swimming anyway - but reducing the swimming wouldn't increase the time for cycling, and if I swam less, I wouldn't be as fit.

robrauy

Ah, Fair enough. I always try to expend as little energy when I'm off my bike in order that I can go as hard as possible when I'm training. I'm in my 40's and don't seem to have endless energy these days, so prefer my training to be as specific as possible.

briantrumpet

If anything the quick swim invogorates me, and never leaves me feeling tired - I don't imagine that 20 minutes of swimming actually uses enormous amounts of energy, but I'm sure it helps me keep limber, and improves heart/lung function, without knackering me. Actually, I started the regular swimming to help with my trumpet playing, as efficient breathing is central to that. It works.

mattshrops

id have to say you seem to be doing pretty damn well whatever way youre doing it(70 miles at 19mph-phew) 8)
for me part of the pleasure is the planning and the analysis after- might be an ocd/geek type problem ive got going on :?
anyway if i get anywhere near 100miles at 20 mph i will frame that days data.
good luck with it

briantrumpet

Hmm, dredging up my old thread, some interesting rides recently - a couple of shorter 20mph'ers (44 miles and 49) non-stop, but yesterday's was my longest solo - 99 miles, but back at 18.1mph (and with three brief refuelling stops). So the 100 miles at 20mph looks some way off. But I think it might be achievable in the right conditions on the right route.

One thing I'm going to have to look at is nutrition on the longer rides, as I was definitely losing oomph on the home leg (though a strongish home headwind and about 7000ft of previous climbing might have had something to do with that.)

So I think that the next long ride will involve more flapjack, fewer hills and less wind. In the meantime, plenty of varied riding - I still haven't succumbed to the HR monitor, though if the target remains elusive, I might give in to that bit of science.

Anyway, it's still nice to have a target as a motivator. Even if I never achieve it!

kettrinboy

99 miles? i would have gone round the block a couple of times and make it a 100, it could have been your first solo century ride. i still regret not doing an extra 7 miles to make my longest ride(93) my first 100 back in 2007 , i could have done it easily,20 mph ave is good going for a 50 miler though.

andrewjoseph

my tuppence worth.

when I first started riding my mtb, I thought I was working hard. Then I got a hrm and realised how hard I CAN work. Once I'd found my max hr, I realised that when I thought I was working hard, I was only working at 75-80%.

Now when I'm at 85% and starting to feel it, I know I've got another 15% to give and the effort doesn't seem so hard.

The specific 'gadget' I'm finding invaluable at the moment is my garmin 705. I'm restricted to the turbo at the moment, and having the 'virtual rider' to chase gives some purpose to otherwise boring turbo sessions.

Anonymous

Brian,

Sounds like you are making excellent progress. Far faster than I'll ever do for 50 miles!

overgeared

hopefully it´s not too late to comment on the question that opened this thread, about how good one can get based on casual riding, and how much better one can get with a more targeted, scientific training approach.

if we talk in terms of rough power outputs to give some very generalised comparitives, at the world class end of the spectrum it might be possible to challenge the athletes hour record with 400 watts for an hour.

there will be people who can get on a bike for the very first time in their life and ride over 250 watts for an hour, they would pretty soon show their potential. there will be lesser gifted people who can only manage 150 watts in this very raw state. and in the middle there will be a majority who´d perhaps average, on average, 200 watts for an hour.

now any of these riders can just go out and ride for fun, many times over, keep pushing themselves and they will undoubtedly get better. just from this freestyle approach most raw beginners might get to a state of fitness where they improve by 50 watts an hour. some are then within striking distance of elite performances, but many are not.

now the returns are diminishing. the fitter a rider gets, the harder he has to work for incremental gains. building fitness is like packing a suitcase, the fuller it gets toward it´s physical capacity, the harder it is to squeeze more in. this is where the scientific methods can take a rider beyond the plateau he has achieved with freestyle training. perhaps everybody has another 50 watts to gain through this more precise approach. for many this means interval training, and it hurts.

now are those extra 50 watts that came with the scientific rigour worth it? that depends on whether you´re zeroing in on elite performances, or just enjoy the process of being the best you can be. imagine you´re just 10 watts away from a world class performance - what wouldnt you do to find that power? on the other hand imagine you´re highly trained, but never won a race - maybe you decide not to justify the pain and suffering that goes with more scientific preparation.

briantrumpet

Hmm, a tantalising run today: a solo 107 miles @ 19.3mph travelling time. (Four brief stops to get water and eat lunch.) But I suspect that that last 0.7mph to hit the target is still quite a big bridge to cross. But it doesn't feel completely unattainable now.

I still don't think I've got the hydration/nutrition right. I'm going to try High5 in the bottles next time - I think the sugary drink I've had is giving me highs & lows. At least the home-made flapjack seemed to do a decent job.

Ho hum, more hurting to come.

Anonymous

Bloody hell! I could only dream of riding at that speed for that long!! :shock: good effort!!

Bronzie

Very impressive Brian.........your goal must be within reach within the next few months with just a little more progress.

Just out of interest, was your ride flattish or around the lumpier bits of Devon?

briantrumpet

Bronzie wrote:

Just out of interest, was your ride flattish or around the lumpier bits of Devon?

Lumpy - up to Exmoor, then back over the Brendon Hills and some of the Blackdown Hills - something over 7000ft of climbing. There wasn't much left in my legs by the time I got home.

Anonymous

:shock: that's awesome!

You should enter sone races, you'll paste everyone

rick_chasey

The application of science, surely?

ut_och_cykla

Rick Chasey wrote:

The application of science, surely?

Appliance of science has a nice poetic ring to it tho'!