bcagle25's Endurance Ninja's - Closed (Ninja school is in session) (Page 10)

Great job on swimming 1500 straight, it builds a lot of confidence to hit new milestones!

Great job Justin, that is a very impressive performance as well. I was planning on doing mine this weekend, hopefully Sunday. As for pros and olympians, I know most olympic swimmers have coaches that give them the courtesy of keeping time splits on the deck, pros that are coached might have a coach on deck as well. My coach's coach is remote so he has to travel to his training camp and then haves him at his fingertips. masters always has a deck coach if you want to check that option out.

This is a great question, one that I wonder about myself.  95-100 is at the high end, I think the averages or suggested "good cadence" is anywhere btw 80-100.  My IronFit plan has one day week of Z1 spin at 100 rmp and I can't hardly keep my HR down in Z1 even in my easiest gear due to high rpm, my avg rpm is ~86.  The higher rpm could mean you have an efficient pedal stroke which may come with years of experience cycling.  With that said, I think cadence is very personal and what you feel comfortable with.  I would do a few more tests and compare HR, speed and cadence on the same course and see what it tells you is your most efficient cadence and what feels good. 

Yes, I have noticed the same thing with this and found there are different schools of thought. Ironically in one of my exercise physiology classes last semester my professor talked about a study he did comparing cycling cadences with different types of cyclists. He divided cyclists into 3 different categories: recreational (us), professional, and lance armstrong (yes lance got his own category. What he found is that, recreational (us), perform best at a lower cadence of 75-85, while the pros and lance perform best at much higher cadences. The conclusion he drew for this was that our bodies are not coordinated enough and we are not getting enough practice as professionals do to maintain an efficient power stroke through a full revolution. He found that, we, bounce around on the saddle too much, upper bodies move, and various other movements that affect our power output. This, however, is just one study, but something I found very thought provoking.

One the concept of becoming out of breath with the higher cadence, well it simply seems that you are reaching your ventilatory threshold, as you are working at a more anaerobic rate. With lower gear workouts such as the one you performed, your are doing a workout that is more strength oriented, and thus, not as taxing on your ventilatory system. You are at a more aerobic level, but the trade off is that you are, muscularly, working at a much different effort. Because you are in a more aerobic state you are nowhere close your ventilatory threshold and thus your hr will be much lower. 

You are not doing anything wrong, but I cannot answer your question on power output as I do not ride with power. With which cadence to ride with in races, well that is completely up to you and experimental. Some say you should hold the same cadence in both bike and run, while others say ride at a lower cadence on the bike and just before you run match your cadence to "spin out" you legs. I have found that it is all preference to me for racing, but in training I ride at several cadences as they all target and focus on something different.

This is a great workout to do and one that I become very fond of last summer. Once you can get outside again, try a big gear workout on some hills and see how you feel. 

seems to be for most. Something I would suggest as I forgot to mention is try doing some testing as follows:

Pick a certain time limit that won't kill you but long enough to have varying data

Ride at 70 rpm's, then 80, then 90, and try 100. Do these all as separate tests and see which cadence provides the best power output and relate it to your hr as well. This to me seems like the most practical way to find out, but like I said, I don't ride with power so maybe there is more to this then meets the eye.

Well done Jason! This are the runs that you need to store in the memory bank and draw on in your biggest races when times are tough. Reminding yourself of runs such as these are a great help well some mental motivation is needed inside your head. 

x2 on the swims everyone! I am really happy and proud to see everyone going for it, and pushing themselves in a new way. I planned to do it today, life got in the way. I start my coaching formally with Blake tomorrow, so I am going to have him fit it into the schedule sometime soon. 

We were talking about this all last night. Aero benefits can only be so great until you start to minimize other parts of your fit. Some people think that they need to be as low as possible and tight as possible as well. However, doing this to an extreme, or just even over doing it will close your lungs dramatically. THis causes you to get in less oxygen into your lungs and constrict your breathing, tighten your hr, and in turn, your muscles with fatigue much quicker without a fresh oxygen supply. With your fit open up your lungs by spreading out your aero bars some, also sitting a bit higher can also open your lungs too. Some people are so cramped with their position it boggles my mind how they can breath at all.  Am I answering the question here? Just repeating Jason? Or am I way off from what you are asking?