Wiggins on ...

bahzob

Bradley Wiggins's book is now out and it has a number of interesting things to hear about from a training POV.

Ofc there will be some who think the guy clearly doesn't know a thing about how to ride a bike/train and/or he is just saying what he says to confuse the opposition and/or he is being paid to say what he says and doesn't believe any of it

Whatever, he expresses some view on topics that have recently been aired here, so I'll note them for those that have a more open mind.

First is on the training year, especially winter training. "Cycling is very traditional and set in its ways about how you train. .. Oct/Nov off: we start training 1 December and that would be runs to cafe stops - the social side of cycling. On 1 January we would up the miles and intensity a little...In February and March you enter your first races, you know it will be hard to blow out th cobwebs. It's always been the same. That is the tradition of cycling. Tim (Kerrison) came along and asked why we didn't train at a high level for twelve months of the year. Swimmers do it and rowers do it. People in cycling say you shouldn't be doing interval training in December, you'll be blown out by July. Why? It's just tradition."

bahzob

Wiggins on how he improved his time trialling.

"With Tony Martin after the 2011 World's .. we looked in detail at how he managed to take 1min20secs out of me.. We worked out his average power and realised that for me to go 1min20secs faster, the power I would have to produce would have been impossible...So there must have been something else, aerodynamics maybe; there was certainly something in his cadence. I tended to spin a lower gear..He as turning the pedals a good 15 or 20rpm lower than me..
This was typical of how we built to 2012: not accepting how I was, but trying to change it a little bit. So we worked on torque all through the winter of 2011-12, simply putting more power into my pedalling but at lower revs. This meant riding at the same sort of power output would have in any TT but doing it at 50rpm rather than usual 90. We started with 5 minute blocks and progressed through winger 7 min blocks, 15 min blocks until before the tour I was doing 40 minute climbs at threshold at 50 rpm. So by the TT at the Olympics I was 40secs ahead of Tony for a little bit more power but I had bought my cadence down by 7 rpm (for 2011 I averaged 103rpm for the Games 96rpm, .. I didn't have bigger ratios on but was using higher gears than in the past 11-12 sprocket where in the past I would have been on the 13-tooth. The thing to remember is that we knew it was going to take me a long time to build up to that kind of time and torque. That was why we had to start in November. "

So Britain's best ever cyclist thinks it's worth taking the time and trouble to take a look at how he is pedalling
(despite his old style being good enough to win him Olympic golds and plenty more to boot) to see if he can improve it.

On the other hand some folks here think they are pedalling in the most perfect way possible and/or that pedalling is an unalterable innate talent (or lack of in most cases). Go figure.

(Noob alert: ofc all the above does NOT mean the best way to pedal is 50rpm at threshold. Wiggins was applying normal training process to exaggerate something to be able to focus on it and effect a change. He already had a pedalling style that would put everyone posting here to shame as his "slower" cadence of 96rpm pretty clearly shows)

bahzob

"I didn't just spend winter on the bike. I made sure to be in the gym three days a week from 6 a.m. working on a strength conditioning program developed for me by Mark Simpson.. One of the things that had been flagged up at the Vuelta, specifically the climb of the Angliru was that because I had broken my collarbone my left arm was very weak. That meant I couldn't work hard enough when climbing out of the saddle. All round I didn't have the upper body strength to deal with the steepest climbs. It's always been known that steep climbs aren't for me, I struggle on them.

Tim and Shane's view was that at some point I was going to have to perform on those climbs if I wanted to win the biggest race. My answer was that I've never been great at it: my core strength has never been that fantastic: my upper body strength has been poor at times and I've never worked on it. I had always been known for my good pedalling speed on the track but to be able to perform on some of these steep climbs you have to work on your power and your torque, producing the power at lower cadence.... and that was why I had to get to the gym. It was not only to get power back in my left arm but also to increase my general physical fitness and strength. I had to do that without bulking up,...becoming stronger without putting any muscle on. I felt a huge difference straight away."

I guess despite this there will be some who say Brad is just wrong. I think he deals with these people next paragraph

"The gym work was a classic case of the three of us working out where I had a weakness and refusing to be reconciled to it. A lot of athletes will simply accept that they aren't so good in certain areas rather than trying to do anything about it" Nuff said.

NJK

I have think a few things that you have missed on all of your Wiggins threads has been:

1) He had to do rehab for shoulder using strength training techniques.
2) He won't have done much strength training, have a look at him! Yes, he will have done core work etc but not what i would call an extensive strength plan.
3) The biggest bit you missed out was he was putting out more POWER over many durations compared to 2011.
4) He wasn't getting pissed as often!
5) He took his training seriously in 2011 and 2012!

okgo

Got to agree with him, burning out as a cat 2/3/4 rider? LOL

I cycled with very high intensity for almost 12 months straight, my best results in races came in the 11th month.