Posts Tagged ‘cycling training’

Even the pros do it…

Tuesday, March 8th, 2011

We’ve all heard it before: Never make equipment changes before a big race, but sometimes even the most experienced riders seem to forget.

Recently, while riding down to a race, a team mate and I were discussing new shoes and adjusting cleat position.  He’d just had a very minor ( a few mm) adjustment done and now was experiencing some knee problems.  Luckily, he had another pair of shoes with the cleats in the old position and was able to wear them and race without an issue.  On another occasion a team mate had just gotten a new pair of shoes and was excited to wear them, but the first opportunity to do so was in a race.  He, unfortunately, was not as lucky: the new shoes and cleats were not completely dialed in, and he wound up missing some time to heal a bit of tendinitis in his knee.

The point of these two anecdotes?? one is that they illustrate once again why the conventional wisdom that you don’t make changes to equipment before a race is, well, wise.  The other is that even minor changes, moving a cleat a few millimeters especially with a non- or limited float system like Speedplay zero or the gray or black Look cleats, can have a major impact.

I was reminded of this issue while surfing cyclingnews.com:

Moncoutié forced out with knee injury

While David Moncoutié (Cofidis) was not among the fallers on Monday, the Frenchman was forced to abandon the race on stage two with a knee injury. He had already lost over eight minutes on stage one due to the ailment. According to La Dernière Heure, Moncoutié’s knee problem stems from his decision to change his cleats on the Thursday before the race, which led to a slight alteration in his position.

The Frenchman abandoned 60km into stage two and it remains to be seen if he will be fit for the next race on his programme, the Tour of Catalonia (21-27 March). http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/ls-haedo-abandons-paris-nice-after-police-motorbike-collision

Apparently, even the pros ignore conventional wisdom just as much as Joe Mastersracer and suffer for it as well…

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Coke as an exercise drink?

Tuesday, February 1st, 2011

Ever wonder why you see pro cyclists swigging Coke during races?  Turns out that Coke or another soda might be a great exercise drink after all.

Dr. Gabe Mirkin has a recent post in his excellent e-zine about the way in which a drink that combines glucose with fructose results in greater amounts of sugar being transported to the working muscles. Adding caffeine to the mix further increases the amount of sugar available.  I haven’t had a chance to go back and look at the studies Dr. Mirkin cites, but I have been trying to have some caffeine with my recovery drink for some time, ever since I came across this study suggesting that a carbohydrate/ caffeine mix was more effective at promoting glycogen replacement after exercise. Of course, I don’t consume nearly as much caffeine (8mg/kg of body weight, which for me would be about three cups) in one sitting as the study suggests is necessary for it to be effective, so I’m probably not doing much more than fueling my already raging caffeine addiction.  But caffeine does have an ergogenic effect, and not necessarily in venti-sized doses. A recent statement from the International Society of Sports Nutrition suggests that even moderate doses can aid performance. ?It looks like I can continue to suck down my double espressos before races to good effect, and despite having sworn off sugary sodas years ago, I might even try a Coke in between races when racing more than once in a day.

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Bike Wheels on a Gravel Road

Thursday, January 27th, 2011

It’s cold here in Central Virginia.  Now I know those of you living up north may scoff at our idea of cold, but it was 20 degrees last Saturday morning when we headed out for our ride.  Yes, you read that right, I actually got myself out for a ride well below my usual cutoff of 32 degrees and dry.  And yes, I did come back with all my digits and other body parts neither frozen nor frostbitten (though it was touch and go for a bit there with the toes and nose). In all seriousness,though, I was quite comfortable, especially by the end of the ride when it warmed to a balmy 25, mainly because the ride was mostly on gravel roads. (more…)

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Hormonal Response to Training

Wednesday, January 19th, 2011

We all know that training in certain levels stimulates different physiological responses — training around thre shold is a great way to induce mitochondrial biogenesis while training in the anaerobic zone will help improve the amount of work you can perform using anaerobic energy systems.  But one adaptation that doesn’t always get discussed is hormonal responses to training, and I was surprised to find that performing certain workouts are more effective at stimulating the body to produce hormones such as testosterone and growth hormone, so if you want to boost your body’s production of these hormones without recourse to any special “preparations” (i.e. doping), read on.

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Review of Racing Weight

Friday, December 17th, 2010

Probably the best sports nutrition book I’ve read!


I suspect nearly all riders struggle with their weight at one time or another, especially now with holiday parties and decreased training time equaling a perfect recipe for gaining a few pounds.  Of course, how much (and how often) one struggles is often a function of genetics, but if you’re like me and come from a family of people who tend towards the heavier side, weight loss is a constant concern.  So it is not surprising that I tend to read lots of stuff pertaining to body weight and endurance sports, and I have to say the best book I’ve read to date is Matt Fitzgerald’s Racing Weight (VeloPress 2009).  There are several reasons I like this book so much. First, the suggestions it gives seem to be both commonsensical and practical — for example, consuming no more than 20-25% of your daily calories at any one meal.  Second, the academic in me loves that Fitzgerald supplies evidence (i.e. citations from journals) for his ideas.  Even the ideas which are fairly common in the literature, (e.g. consuming more carbs after workouts than at other times of the day) are explained in a way so that the reader can understand the physiological mechanism underlying the dietary advice.

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A Three Minute Threshold Test?

Wednesday, December 1st, 2010

I stumbled upon the work of some exercise physiologists in the UK who did some work on a 3′ test to determine Critical Power, which correlates closely with functional threshold power, the number upon which we base training levels.  Normally, we determine this number through some sort of time trial (e.g. the ubiquitous 20′ tt taking the average power for that duration and multiplying it by some percentage, usually 95%). Vanhatalo? et al? have argued that the average power during the last 30″ of a 3′ all out effort closely approximates that number.

So, does this mean that the days of doing a monthly time trial are over?  I’m not so sure, but it is an interesting avenue to explore. (more…)

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Torque it up

Wednesday, September 29th, 2010

How much weight do you need to be lifting?  Try checking the torque.

This is the time of the year when most riders are (or should be) gradually transitioning into some off the bike training, and although there still some (well, more than some) debate about it, one of the cross-training classics is weight lifting.  But how much weight should one lift?  Some argue that high weight/low reps is the way to go; others that low weight/high reps better mimics the demands of cycling.  Most coaches, however, recommend a progressive combination of these approaches (for example, the plans laid out in Joel Friel’s Training Bible books).

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Racing with your coach

Friday, August 20th, 2010

I‘ve written before about the value of a coach having a coach him or herself (here), but I want to expand on that a bit today by thinking about the advantages (and potential disadvantages) about being able to race with your coach.

Last Tuesday, my coach (Gary Hoffman) and I drove down to the weekly Bryan Park training crit in Richmond, VA.  Since I moved up to the “A” category (Pro, 1,2,3), this has always been a tough race for me.  In fact, for a long time I considered just finishing with the bunch as a strong result.  Because this is a training race, I often race it “stupid” and jump after early breaks, try to bridge up to breaks made, and generally burn my entire matchbook by midway through the race.  This week the goal was simple – don’t get dropped and if at all possible mix it up in the sprint.

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The importance of specificity (re)illustrated

Saturday, November 15th, 2008

I finally did a “real” race this past weekend.  The first in nearly two months, which given my general schedule of racing nearly every weekend while living in Chicago was quite a break.  Being November, it was a ‘cross race, a discipline I both love and loathe.  When I did my first cross race, may be four years ago, I loved it with all the passion a neophyte has.  The sheer novelty of it made me excited to be racing in a way I hadn’t been in years.  Of course, all that enthusiasm didn’t translate into results, and I counted it a victory that season if I didn’t get lapped after the first few laps.  Fast forward four years, and well, things haven’t changed all that much.  In Sunday’s race the top 9 guys lapped me, ninth place catching me in the finishing straight.
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Including Cross in your season

Tuesday, September 30th, 2008

At this time of year, most riders are wrapping up their seasons and looking back, hopefully with fond memories of success.  All athletes need to do some sort of post-season review — more on that later, but what riding they do now depends on their goals for October, November, and December, that is, whether or not they are racing cross, and if so, how seriously.

If a rider is not racing cross all that seriously, I generally recommend one cross workout midweek, with a warm-up of 20′ or so, focusing  on skills, then 20′-40′ (depending on the length of the races he or she does) of race simulation on a shortened course.  One of my favorite workouts is to set up a course that takes approximately 4 minutes to ride, with at least 1 dismount, 1 run-up,and if at all possible, a short section of single track to work on handling, and then alternate hard and easy laps for the recommended time.  Following this scheme gives the rider specificity both on the “on” and the “off” section of an interval.  This midweek workout, combined with a weekend race, is generally enough for riders to maintain enough race fitness to last through the cross season.  The other days of the week, I recommend all other rides be endurance rides, with the occasional sweet-spot ride through in every 10 days or so.

For most of the riders I work with, and in most years, for myself, this stripped down approach is the one I recommend.  This season, however, my move at the end of July put paid to the last 3 months of my road season, so I determined to focus more fully on cross.  I will only be doing a few cross races, but in the past, I’ve always been happy to finish in the top half of the field because I was just out there for the heck of it.  This year, I hope to move up a bit by focusing my training more specifically on cross.

What this means in practice…

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