Mountain training
posted on March 27th, 2011 in Cycling, Cycling Tips, Ride Reports, Strength Training by Stephen
So after I got the results from my VO2 Max test, Tony & I went over what the prescription to increase those numbers would be. I’m not a fan of Time-Trialing. But I am a fan of being a Strong cyclist. So, to get the training started I went to the North Georgia mountains and did a ride known as the gaps – well, a variation of the gaps. Climbing the mountains will allow me to get my Heart Rate in my zone for the prescribed period of time and allow my legs to increase strength by climbing these mountains!
I drove up and parked at the Turner’s Corner store and headed up Neels Gap – aka Blood Mt. I haven’t ridden my bike in the gaps for at least a year now & it showed on the first ‘warm-up’ climb. I seemed to be in my largest cog almost as soon as the climb started. There is no cheating the Mountain, The mountain can make a bad day worse.
I was hoping that after the warm-up/re-introduction to climbing that my legs would loosen up and feel good for the 1st actual climb – Nope… wrong again. I basically played mental games against my body, for about half of the climb up the mountain – brain saying we have to keep doing, keep pedaling, at least get to the top…. the body was on defense. Stop, hold it right here, I need a break.
I was suffering and I was hurting, and honestly your reading this blog and this test was part of what kept me going to the top. Each subtle relief in the terrain is a test – do I take a relief from the pain, or do I keep my heart rate at the prescribed intensity?!
I wanted a 12×25 cassette to make the climb more bearable – I usually always start my training season on that cassette then switch to a 11×23 later in the season as my legs no longer needing the 25. And my brain was angry for not finding it this morning, and the body was paying the penalty.
Out of the saddle through the hairpins, flop back down in the saddle on the straights. I keep my Heart Rate between 165 & 170 for the duration. The body is again in conflict, it is burning fuel & creating lactic acid & now must flush it out as fast or faster, as it is creating it. This is the prescribed workout.
Slowly I dragged myself upwards until I could see the sign for the AT (Appalachian trail) – only a 1/4 mile to go. I get to the top and soft pedal as I catch my breathe and check out the view.
I hydrate, and ingest some fuel as I debate going home or pushing on to climb another gap, taking me further from the car. I finally decide to attempt the next gap, Wolf-Pen. This is a climb that is always tough for me. For me it is a little deceiving. At first the switch backs seem to allow for some acceleration, but the next section feels a little steeper each time. The uphill sections keep my heart rate maxed out. Slowly I make my way to the top.
There is a section on this climb that always ‘seems’ like it should be easier than it is – but today, although it is tough, I am taking it steadily. Slowly crawling my way up. There isn’t much speed involved, but that is ok, I’m going purely off of Heart Rate today. 1 switch-back at a time.
If you watch old stages of the Tour De Georgia, about the only reason you know this is a climb is they are out of the saddle…. not me. I’m in anguish in these hills, however there is the other side of the coin today, the downhills will be my REWARD!
After reaching the top, and take a brief break, I turn around and descend what I just finished climbing.
Thanks to my buddy ‘HillBilly’ for the video:
Now, I still have 1 more climb to make it back to the car, back up Blood Mountain. On this climb, I am feeling better, the body is working more with me, but I also feel fatigued. I do what I can, and stay in my target HR range and make my way to the top.
Although I can feel the fatigued setting in, I am trying to keep up with the gel & hydration. The legs are responding fairly well, and this climb actually seemed easier than I had thought it would be. This is only the 2nd or 3rd time I had climbed it in this direction. It seems to kick hardest early on, then mainly level off more than the other climbs. With a little speed to keep the HR up, I can now kick little with each incline – then settle back into a decent pace.
View 3 Gap! 2011-03-23 1 in a larger map
After the final descent I do a little exploring on some roads that were fairly early in the ride. I always seem to be curious what is around the next bend.
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VO2Max test reading results
posted on March 22nd, 2011 in Cycling, Cycling Tips, Reviews, Ride Reports, Strength Training by Stephen
Read what it was like for me to go through the TEST
Before I even get off the bike Tony is going over some of the results.
He (again) stated something that I was surprised about – you have a fantastic base – you would be a type of person that would waste their time doing base work. Because of the graph, he could see that I was able to stay very aerobic throughout a lot of the test.
SO, then he says – I bet you hate time trialing, don’t you? Yes. Tony says ‘well guess what you most need to do to see improvements…. tempo work just above your threshold’.
Tony explains to me that the results show that the strength and the aerobic base is there, but my blood system can not keep up with delivering the oxygen and flushing the lactic acid as fast as my muscles are creating it. So, on the trend plot you can see that my Heart Rate stayed above my VO2 for nearly the whole test…. not ideal. My body needs to get used to flushing the lactic acid more efficiently & for that to happen, the body has to be creating it also….. so that means, I have to ride at a high Heart Rate for a duration of time, ala Time-Trialing, or what I like better extended climbs.
Now, we are talking about how/why of genetics, strengths and weakness that I have, how that reflects what the graph shows & and how that will effect the events that I can do well in and the one’s that I will have more trouble with and may just get discouraged with trying to attempt. Which is funny, a good friend once said to me, I’m not built for climbing – once I stopped trying to race all the little climbers and focused on the races that suited my body, I became a much happier bike racer. She ended up placing in US National Crit championships that year.
Train your weakness, race your strength!
Results and REVIEW of MY VO2 Max test is:
So, you can see from the graph that my anaerobic threshold is 166.
My VO2 maxed out at 55. Not bad, not great – and room for Improvement with the proper workouts!
PRO: Very Good aerobic base – again, I’m shocked. But the numbers don’t lie.
Good power at Lactate threshold – over 400 watts.
Needs Improvement: Pulmonary system can not keep up with the effort that the muscles are doing.
Needs Improvement: RECOVERY. look at the 2nd chart, the drop off of Heart Rate is too slow. For competitive cycling, you want your recovery rate to be much quicker so that you can attack, recover and attack – repeatedly. My HR took a little too long nearly 2 minutes to get back down from 180 to 120. Although this will easily change with intown group rides and interval training.
The GOAL: More efforts at Threshold. Or I can do more long Hill Repeats, mountain climbs.
It almost like cheating, but not really. I can do the same workout if I go to the North GA mountains where I can do long climbs of 10-20 minutes at my target heart rate.
Knowing where your baseline numbers are is a Huge benefit for cycling. A VO2Max test will show you where your strengths and weakness are, and from that you can find out the workouts that will best benefit your riding and racing! This is the way to train more effectively and more efficiently in less time.
Up Next: My workouts to change my VO2 Max!
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Exercise Risk versus Reward
posted on March 8th, 2011 in Cycling, Cycling Tips, Reviews, Strength Training by Stephen
I know of a exercise regime that has people doing many things that are challenging exercises, however, one of the main things is that the routine doesn’t pay any attention to the Risk vs. Reward factor of exercise. And as such I found out that many people were getting injured doing the workouts.
And as an athlete “The Number 1 way to Improve, is to NOT get Injured”
Let me explain what I mean. The simple fact is there are more basic exercises that you can get as much benefit (if not more) and a fraction of the risk involved in performing them.
Some examples of low risk, high reward plyometric exercises are:
1) jumping rope.
2) squat jumps.
3) side to side hops over cones.
Some examples of High Risk with little reward are:
1) Anything involving standing on a stability ball. I’ve done it, but each time I let out a sigh after being finished – b/c I didn’t get injured. Sure, it’s a cool looking exercise, and people may stop to watch you, but the risk involved during, and finishing the exercise is way too high for any benefit that you would get from doing it.
I heard that Juan Carlos Santana tore an ACL getting off a ball at a seminar – that was enough to make me realize that it was a little risky too do.
2) Increased box size while doing box-jumps. Just because you use a taller box, does not mean that the proportion of benefit from jumping is increased, infact there is an inverse relationship. The taller the box, the less increase in benefit, and the greater increase chance of injury.
For example, if you are doing box-jumps onto a 24″ box, going to a 36″ box is going to barely increase the body’s ability to create more power, however, there is a much greater risk involved.
3) Using ‘the smith machine’ to do squats. I understand the reason people use the smith machine to do squats, but what I don’t think that people realize the hidden risks of using the smith machine. The risks are that:
A) you are loading lots of weight onto the back of your neck, and then attempting to squat that weight, during the course of doing this, you are likely to cheat in any way possible to raise that weight – pushing your neck further into the smith machine.
B) If you have bad mechanics while squatting & then add much weight to the squat (again, on the back of the neck), then the bad mechanics are going to be magnified – and at some point cause an injury.
Want a better exercise that will still challenge most athletes – Single Leg Squats! You don’t have to double the load on your neck, to double the load on each leg, just use 1 leg and your bodyweight.
Another difference is unlike basketball or volleyball, where the power creation may have to come from different muscle length during the course of an event, for cycling, the legs power creation goes through the same cycle (no pun intended, but hopefully appreciated) either seated or standing. So, because the pedal is attached to a crank-arm, your foot is going to do the same circle for every revolution of that crank.
Therefore, we use Plyometrics so that the Power Creation uses a similar muscle length tension relationship of squatting low and jumping, then landing back in a similar squat, then immediately jumping again.
Now before you race to the gym or the basement to hammer out a plyometric workout, please read this first and keep in mind that a risky exercise does not mean it has the most reward!
The biggest reward is to stay injury free.
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StrongerCyclist.com is the site of Stephen Carhart, personal trainer, author, and cyclist.