Cycling Fitness / Training Advice

Related to the polarised vs sweetspot debate, I found this podcast an interesting counterpoint to the kind of thing you hear on TR’s.

https://overcast.fm/+HMmKNV1R4

Isn't he basically the modern poster boy for polarized training?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MALsI0mJ09I

I didn’t know he also played Harrison Ford.

TR are not, as many expected, responding to last weeks viral video.. instead they are dropping a whole new product update called adaptive training.

https://www.trainerroad.com/forum/t/introducing-adaptive-training/54025

1,000+ joining the podcast for some beef...it feels very dylan who right now..

Probably a stupid question but - I’m moderately fit but won’t be the fast guy in a club run, nor am I an amazing climber (190cm/80kg), but whenever climbing a fair amount (say over 1000/1500m total elevation for a ride no more than 100km) on a ride I will without exception cramp.

I’m sure the easy answer is “train more/get stronger” but I’m wondering, would off the bike strength work help, for instance squats/lunges and the like? Climbing always mean pushing heavier and grinding more than usual so wondering how direct a benefit that might bring?

electrolytes in my bottles clears my cramp right up. even just a pinch of salt + a pinch of sugar works ime

Cramp seems to be a pretty personal thing. Hydration, fuel, temperature all factor in as well exertion.

The thing I’d say is if you are grinding and you seem to link this to your cramp why not get some lower gearing?

my wind tunnel numbers leaked
https://mobile.twitter.com/EveryDayCows/status/1365943544758734851

This one's clearly been working on their aero tuck

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Scientists discover something most racing cyclists already know:

https://twitter.com/newscientist/status/1393221037354008587?s=21

Apr 1st has been and gone but LOLs

Ah this explains why I can talk out my arse so easily

whats a good free app to create workouts that will work with a smart trainer?

A mate of mine is just getting into doing some zwifting purely for general health and fitness reasons. He’s never done much in the way of regular exercise and I’m trying to give him some gentle pointers such as “maybe try not to mash around at <60 cadence all the time” and “maybe chill out a bit… it’s not surprising you feel fucked after 5mins if you treat every ride like a race”. We do a meet-up a couple of times a week and started out with him aiming for 2-3 30 min rides a week at easy conversational pace and he’s now up to 45-60 min rides. However his heart rate is suuuper high by my reckoning… around 165 for easy conversational effort (~100w) and a max of 197 today after a minute at 150w.

I know rules of thumb like 220-age are BS (he’s late 30s), but is there any good literature on inter-rider heart rate variability, what’s normal and what’s not, and the impact of training on HR values (I thought max hr was pretty inelastic to training?)?

Edit: I believe both hr and power numbers are at least reasonably accurate… power is from a decent quality smart trainer and hr from a wahoo chest strap and he says his hr has always been high.

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I’m using zwift at the moment but have successfully used golden cheetah to build workouts and control my trainer. It’s not very user friendly though.

Get him to do a ramp test so he know where both his power and HR zones are. There’s no point in comparing HR to anyone else.

And once he’s done the ramp test he’ll never want to speak to you again! Problem solved!

Also the Zwift 4 week FTP Builder is quite a nice intro programme and a few cadence specific sessions in there as well

We were supposed to do ramp tests today… I suggested he put his off and just ride easy today because he’s had a couple of difficult weeks. He spent the ride heckling me over zoom) as I suffered, so he at least knows what a ramp test looks like 🤣

hmm I want something free. I have a wahoo elemnt, maybe they have something?

Kill yourself on the wahoo, is free.

yeah but they only have like 5 workouts on there

GoldenCheetah works and is free. Otherwise TrainingPeaks free edition, but as I recall you just can't schedule the workouts all that far out on the free version.

Thanks! Pretty easy to create workouts. Will connect to trainer and see how it works.

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Just had a 20w (~8%) jump in ftp (zwift ramp test) from what has been a very stable base for the past few years. Still about 20w down on my lifetime best but very happy with that.

If anyone wants to know my secret to success it seems to be having a 6mo baby, sleepless nights and less training 🤷‍♂️