New to Turbos - building strength+endurance+headwinds!

Anonymous

Hi,
I've been cycling for a year now but want to start proper training. No real reason yet, but I am considering taking up racing in a year (or less). I'm light (70kg) reasonably fit (happy on 100 mile rides with a cheeky cake stop midway - but keen to improve) and particularly love going up hills.

I've recently scraped the cobwebs of my dad's old Turbo - Tacx Sirius which seems to do the job and downloaded Sufferfest - Revolver (16 1m intervals with 1m rests between them) as it's specifically for speed. I kind of want to build overall power as I want to improve my sprinting and recovery (in general). I'm getting downward spiral as well (which I hear is hellish!). I've done it twice now and its fairly miserable. Oddly I am finding after 20 mins (incl 4 min warm up) I am totally shagged. Dead to the world. So I hope off for a lie down for 2 mins, then get back on and finish the rest of the session with no issues. Hopefully that will get better! I have noticed I take a while to get going when out with mates, but then fine after 30mins or so.

My main weakness, however, is headwinds. Being so light (I think) means that I just cannot keep punching them for long, so I tend to stick behind my ride buddy. He is a much more powerful rider, but hes crap and going uphill!

Has anyone got any links to some easy to follow (I am seriously bad at procrastinating, so a 1hr vid is hard to chin off half way through!) which would help build such endurance?

My heartrate is also very high (around 100 resting) and when training to Revolver, it sits between 165 - 190 (resting - intervals). I hope this will come down!

Any help, tips and advice recommended. I have a Garmin 500 with cadence+hrm.

Herbsman

Just stick it in a bigger gear than usual and up the resistance on the turbo, ride steady with a lower cadence than usual, try 3 x 8 ,mins at first. Obviously don't overdo it or you'll ruin your knees but have just enough resistance to put you out of your comfort zone. Just like a headwind.

Anonymous

What's 3x 8m? I presume ride for 8 minutes 3 times, but what in between? 1 minute wait at low resistance?

Tom Dean

At what sort of effort level do you want to improve? Work at around that level, interval lengths will depend on the level. Use whatever cadence you are comfortable with.

Anonymous

Thanks Tom,
I don't know much about this, but I would have thought that resistance would have affected the effort level, and then cadence would be around 90 for flat, 75-80 for climbing out the saddle?
The longer the interval, the better, or do I have this all wrong?

alihisgreat

Just don't bother with headwinds... my knees are still complaining after the club run in the wind last saturday!

Herbsman

I normally have 4 minutes recovery between each 8 minute interval

coriordan wrote:

The longer the interval, the better, or do I have this all wrong?

No, interval length depends on what type of training you are doing, and what you are trying to achieve.

For example you wouldn't do a 5 minute intervals to improve your sprint power... or 20 minute intervals to improve your anaerobic capacity...

You should get a copy of Joe Friel's Training Bible or just have a read through his blog.

For example (and this is completely different to what I first suggested) he says:

Muscular force interval workouts increase the athlete’s ability to overcome resistance usually in the form of water, wind, and hills. These are typically short repetitions done using some sort of resistance such as a high gear (bike), steep hill, strong head wind, rubber tubing (swim), or drag devices (swim, run). Here is a workout I commonly have athletes do.

WI duration: 10-20 seconds.

WI intensity: Near maximal.

RI duration: 3 minutes.

RI intensity: zone 1

WIV: There is great variance in how much of this an athlete can manage. It should certainly end whenever power or speed drops by more than 5%. This is also a high-risk workout that can easily result in injury so it’s best to be conservative with WIV, especially early in the season.

Periodization: Commonly done in the Base period and seldom if at all in Build.

Measuring progress: The athlete should be noticeably able to generate more power or speed in the same conditions.

If all else fails, just do weights

Herbsman

BTW if you want to start racing join a cycling club, go out on club runs, get bunch riding experience. No reason you can't start racing in March next year.

Anonymous

Well hopefully! Would like to be quite strong before I started. Thanks for all the tips. Greatly appreciated

indjke

Woot? You aren't light!
I'm exactly 10% lighter and I think that is REALLY light

Anonymous

How do you train for headwinds then!!

Tom Dean

Do you want to e.g. sprint for 10 seconds into a headwind, or ride for 3 hours?

Anonymous

Ride for an hour or so at a moderately high intensity

Tom Dean

Ok, so your most important training should be at or around that intensity. 2x20 mins is a commonly used short turbo session.
Work at other levels can help too and it all depends on how your overall schedule is composed, but training at a level specific to your goals is the key.

Anonymous

Ok cool. Thanks. What does 2x20 mean though! I presume 2x20 mins and moderate-high effort, moderate intensity, but what about in between them?

I like the look of the hour of power but god knows how to work that out using my equipment!

Herbsman

coriordan wrote:

Ok cool. Thanks. What does 2x20 mean though! I presume 2x20 mins and moderate-high effort, moderate intensity, but what about in between them?

I like the look of the hour of power but god knows how to work that out using my equipment!

start off with 10min inbetween. As you get fitter , try 5min

okgo

My advice would be to just start racing now. Go and do a winter series somewhere, then you will know what to work on, at this stage its probably quite hard to know where you are not strong enough, it will become apparent after a few races though.

Why wouldn't you join a club btw? You can get all of this out of doing a chain gang ride in the week (we do them as do Dulwich I'm sure others do too) and a longer faster training ride at the weekend..

SBezza

Headwinds are more a mental challenge than anything else, and there isn't really any specific training needed to ride them. You will go slower but that is it really. As mentioned above 70kgs isn't really that light and is not a weight that should cause any issues, I certainly don't feel my weight has any bearing on headwinds.

Get fitter and more powerful and you will ride into a headwind faster, and also with a tailwind you will ride faster, but the headwind WILL always be slower (unless going downhill ). If you want to be able to ride moderately hard for an hour, get out a ride moderately hard for an hour solo. Unless you are doing a hard chaingang where you are one of the weaker riders, group riding is not always the best use of training time (too much time spent possibly sheltered from the wind), though if you are going to be bunch racing you do need to be able to ride in a bunch safely.

Got to agree with the others above though, just get out and race, that is the only real way of knowing where you are in terms of fitness and ability.

Anonymous

Thanks for the advice. I think I might do some 2x20 style training and keep up doing the sufferfests - I have downward spiral as well now so can mix it up with that.
I just know that compared to the guys who I ride with, when it comes to punching headwinds, I am a LOT weaker, so I think I just need to build overall strength and stamina.
I'll look into some local clubs (there are plenty around) and look at racing too.

okgo

You might be in a similar to position to what I was last year, I was ok on a bike, could ride for 3/4 hours at a moderate pace, do 175 miles a week etc, but I wasn't 'fit'. However doing the chaingang worked me at a level I'd not worked before, and my fitness rocketed, very quickly.

At this stage I reckon you would do better riding with a club than doing turbo work, as you won't know what level to work at, and you won't push yourself hard enough. Speak to Wrath Rob, he's doing chaingangs, you might be a similar level? If you find you're above that, pm me and you can join mine with one or two others, they're hard work but will work, and you'll be able to notice the difference pretty quickly.

Headwinds - Not sure what you mean here, x amount of power is the same uphill, downhill, tailwind of headwind, you can't be bad at them. You're either just not aero at all, or I have no idea what you mean

SBezza

You don't really need to build stamina if you are happy doing 100 mile rides, but you do need to get used to riding into a headwind and not shelter behind bigger guys. It is likely the bigger guys are more powerful as well, but being heavy will slow them down on hills. It might be you hammer up the hills and are knackered for the flatter headwind sections, where they have gone up the hill more moderately and aren't that knackered on the flatter headwind sections. Also some people no matter what their weight might not climb hills fast, I know I don't go up them that fast, but don't get bothered with headwinds (and I am lighter than you).

As okgo has said if you can do say 250 watts going up a hill for an extended period, there is nothing stopping you doing that into a headwind, apart from the mental aspect. Doing a sufferfest is a good workout, but it is unlikely to be the best for building sustainable power for longer durations, the 2 x 20 mins will help here

Anonymous

Cheers okgo. Will do. I'm not working at the moment so will have some time on my hands to train (come Thursday) and might start doing the commute ride with a lap or two of RP in the mornings and evenings.

Re: headwinds - I ride with tetm a lot, and while he is damn strong on the flat (as you may know if you've seen him on the commute), I simply CANNOT hold that pace riding side by side. However, going uphill, I can usually shake him off fairly easily even up a shallow incline (Sawyer's, for example).

I guess I'd like to have a higher top speed when not in a slipstream and be able to hold it for longer. I can sprint up to low 30s, but tend not to be able to hold it for long.
My position on the bike is ok - I think I am quite aero (perhaps my stem is a bit long) but the geo of the bike is certainly not what I would call 'sportive'.

I'll drop Rob a message later in the week and get some club/chaingang work sorted.

Appreciate the advice

Anonymous

Thanks SBezza. I certainly don't 'hammer' up the hills, I'm just fairly quick. Admittedly if I hammer the final push to the top it takes a while to recover, so perhaps a diet of Sufferfest+2x20 will start to cure that.

Re: the 20x2 (I am a bit new to training), is there an easy way to break that down?
Say 20mins at 9/10 effort 100rpm - 5mins 5/10 90rpm, 20 9/10 100rpm, 5m 5/10 90 etc?

okgo

Everything you have mentioned will improve when you improve your threshold power, which will happen if you find the right level of people to ride with I think, it did with me, so no reason why it shouldn't with anyone else (obviously some will plateau faster than others, but still).

I never really do it, but yes, two hard laps of the park with a 5 mins or so between will mimic a 2x20 and be more interesting, and also you'll be able to track progress easier with times for laps (hard to track progress on a turbo without power, suppose you could do it on speed).

From what I've read of 2x20 min type workouts, the best 'value' is to go at them at just below your top end, this way you get most of the benefits of training at your absolute limit, but can do it more often as you recover quicker. I always just pedal easy for the 5 min rest, not sure that makes much difference.

Tom Dean

Give it a go. It might take a bit of trial and error to gauge your effort levels.

Anonymous

okgo wrote:

I never really do it, but yes, two hard laps of the park with a 5 mins or so between will mimic a 2x20

Good shout.
Cheers all.

Tom Dean

What with the wind, the hills and the traffic, I find it very hard to do and evenly paced lap of the park. With a short session like 2x20mins it's important to maximise your time at the right intensity, and that's easier to achieve on the turbo IMO. There's plenty you can do in the park, but in my experience ~20 min intervals are the hardest thing to get right there.

Anonymous

True true, but its not THAT cold yet, and it if it isn't raining its a nice change!

okgo

Tom Dean wrote:

What with the wind, the hills and the traffic, I find it very hard to do and evenly paced lap of the park. With a short session like 2x20mins it's important to maximise your time at the right intensity, and that's easier to achieve on the turbo IMO. There's plenty you can do in the park, but in my experience ~20 min intervals are the hardest thing to get right there.

Yes, but if you go early enough in the morning they're ok, i.e. before work.

I also found it tough, I found this was not a bad way to do it to keep it steady with minimal interference - http://app.strava.com/activities/6860221