Cycling Fitness / Training Advice

Ramp test on Monday after my second four week build block.

I can’t remember if CCC always used the EH/13 (the Fulbourn one) or it was previously on the F2y/H (the other one). I never made it out there to compete in the end – pity, as I’d beaten the current champion at the time on other climbs. Yesteryear…

Ha. I was in Royston so I'd go that way.

Back handed compliment hopefully .....?

xx

Ugh, one of TrainerRoad's 120% sessions resulted in my first ever saddle sore! Now I'm scared of getting back on the turbo FFS!

Get some chamois cream. @danb recommended the Muc-Off stuff and I've been impressed with it so far in the ten days I've been using it. Has prevented chafing that I was getting previously.

Will give that a go, thanks. It probably hasn't helped that the bibs I had been using were demoted over time from 'Summer miles bibs', to commuting kit and then turbo kit and so the chamois are probably sick of the sight of my gooch by now.

I used to use old/crap bibs on the turbo but not any more. 1hr on the turbo is much more pressure concentrated in one area with little rest-bite.

Going to do Ramp test on Sunday, going to give the 4 week Zwift FTP booster workout a go.
Ramp test at the end, see what percentage improvement I get.

Interesting blog from Sean Kelly;

https://www.seankellycycling.com/blog/its-not-all-about-the-numbers

I'm still using my 2006 era Assos shorts on the turbo. It really depends on the shorts.

Sudocrem FTW

Hippy's 14 year old turbo bibs @ 55 sec

https://youtu.be/Koxkg7C216c

Pretty much. But unless they die, they ride.

Actually I have even older ones from when I was racing back in Melb. Aboc made by Rowlast or some rowing company. They certainly lasted.

anyone with BC memebrship want to give me the training peaks discount code?

Edit: anyone with gold, they've changed it now

Try

40BCGold2020

yup thats it, thanks!

I don't follow this thread all the time. Has there been any discussion of Whoop? I'm daydreaming about ( far ) future mtb races, and thinking about how I might train better

I like the idea of something telling me when I'm recovered, rather than going by feel, as anxiety tends to mess up my 'feel o meter' by telling me I feel dreadful, when in fact I could be perfectly capable ( physically ) of going out and doing some intervals

If anxiety messes your senses, itll do a number on HRV. While there are studies that say HRV is good, I've found the data to be absolutely usless shit.

I've tried using HRV and the only thing it was good at telling me was that I definitely went to bed at 4am with a bottle of wine, a dozen beers and and four espresso martinis in my blood stream.

The fact my HR was doing 100bpm while "asleep" and I wake up sweating alcohol were kind of giveaways rendering HRV measurement a bit pointless.

So I should skip the whole monitoring business and just go to bed earlier :-)

Sober

I had a brief look at Whoop last week as I was feeling quite overtired - I'd basically been doing quite a lot of Zwift for about 5 weeks without a break (with other strength work thrown in on the other days). Basically felt totally knackered, but could ride fine when I got on the trainer.
I did dig out my Garmin watch to keep an eye on resting heart rate but just took it easy for a week and then I felt ok again.

Whoop looks interesting but is so fucking expensive in the long term. I have enough monthly subs thanks very much.

I'm a fortnight into trialling a whoop band. Don't think there's much I can say yet as I am waiting for at least a 4 week block of riding/training before making any definite changes. So far the traffic light system tallies completely with how I feel, and I'm training based on that for the moment.

I'm more interested long term in improving sleep, so being able to use the metrics from this aspect tallied with the data it collects from cycling, stress from travelling etc in one place is the plan.

There's a fair amount of negative online reviews saying things like "whoop says I produced X strain/TSD but all I was doing was having a shower" but I went for it anyway, the actual absolute numbers don't matter, it's more about having some recovery metrics to promote better behaviour/feel fine about smashing lots of pints on occasion

How are people measuring HRV? I tried it for a while using my Garmin 935 where the protocol was to stand still wearing the HR strap for about a minute just after getting up. I tried it for a couple of months and got basically no signal in the data... I can’t remember the actual values but I never got out of the “most rested” category even after a heavy week or the morning after a HIM tri. So I gave up.

However I’ve been considering a whoop and I thought one of the advantages is that it measures HRV 24/7 rather than a single daily measure. My garmin does also record HRV continuously using the optical sensor however I always thought the optical sensor (in my watch at least) was a blunt tool for measuring HRV and that the whoop uses a higher frequency optical sensor specially designed for HRV. Using the continuous garmin HRV, anecdotally I do see some correlation with my perceived stress... for example I can easily see a spike in stress during the point where I had an argument with my fiancé a few days ago. One of the key features of whoop is that it is supposed to give a score that would tell you when to train and when to rest, but looking back over the past few weeks of garmin data I don’t get anything like that... as with the once daily measure, my overall stress score barely ever even get into the low stress category. Maybe I’m just super chill, or having a desk job provides ample opportunity to rest but overall I get so little information from HRV that I don’t find it useful at all. But I was wondering about trying whoop to see if I get better results with a dedicated device.