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Steps to improving bike fitness (Page 2)
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 2012-08-07 3:01 PM in reply to: #4351058 |
Elite  5145    Cleveland |  Subject: RE: Steps to improving bike fitnessdprocket - 2012-08-07 11:47 AM I did my second Olympic this past weekend and I fatigued too much at mile 18 on the bike.. This negatively affected my already slow run.. I've not been training enough for bike fitness. What are my best next steps to improve right away? I just bought a fluid trainer on craigslist and used it for the first time today.. This will allow me to get more saddle time which I know I need. I'm ready to purchase a cadence /power meter. What steps do I need to take? I have another tri in 30 days and want to improve. I was in a similar boat after my first Olympic. Didn't have anywhere near the bike fitness I should have had going into it. What I decided was simple... to prep for a 24 mile race leg, I decided to make all of my training rides a minimum of 30 miles in length and to ride them all at race pace or harder. I chose the fastest gear that I felt I could comfortably maintain a cadence of 90-95 with, then I went one gear harder. Do at least two rides like that a week, and try to run off of at least one of them. One of my goals was to improve to the point where the 16-cog would be superfluous. I crashed and was put out of commission before I could test that training philosophy, but I can tell you that it felt great and I REALLY felt like I was making great strides in a short period of time. Within three weeks, my confidence in my ability to race the bike leg of an Olympic was significantly improved. |
| 2012-08-07 3:03 PM in reply to: #4351426 |
Veteran 1127 Shawnee | Subject: RE: Steps to improving bike fitness what's your current rate of improvement? (have you been stagnant or have you show rapid growth in endurance or speed?) How are you tracking improvement? Are your training logs up todate (even if not public)...you need to track everythign you do at this stage Do you have any injuries? How did you decide your pacing for the oly you just did? Are you following a structured plan? If so does the structured plan have a built in peaking and tapering phase and if so, where are you in the plan ? teh bottom line is that you need to engage in progressive overload in order to improve, occasionally back off and enjoy the plateau while you 'solidify' fitness gains, and then re-engage in progressive overload whether its accomplished by frequency of riding, intensity structure of your rides or duration of rides...or a combination thereof. Most importantly though for race day...learn how to pace at any level of fitness. - I started training from being "on the couch" on April 1. At that point I could not run 2 miles straight without stopping. - Most of my training to date has been getting to the point of "can I do it?" which at this point the answer has been "yes". But I want to go farther than that and improve. -I track everything with Trainingpeaks and try to keep the logs here updates. -I am not currently injured, however I have struggled with lots of injuries the past few months because my fitness level was low. I am currently uninjured and I attribute that to improved fitness. - pacing...what's that? (ha ha, honestly I just went as hard as I could the whole way, which was not very fast). -I have a plan through the team in training that I am on. I am working to at least exceed the totals on the weekly plan as I feel I am a bit advanced for this plan. thanks for the feedback it's a huge help. |
| 2012-08-07 3:15 PM in reply to: #4351664 |
| Master 10208 Northern IL | Subject: RE: Steps to improving bike fitness dprocket - 2012-08-07 2:52 PM marcag - 2012-08-07 11:58 AM TriAya - 2012-08-07 11:36 AM Ride lots. Sometimes easy, sometimes hard. I agree with this statement but many people have different definitions of 'easy' and 'lots'. If 'easy is Z1, I disagree and believe in Bryan's expression "where fitness goes to die". I think some people associate "lots of time in the saddle" with spending many hours just casually pedalling.If Easy is a ride with a mix of Z2 and Z3, I agree A cheap way to know is to get a HRM, upload your files and look at how much time you spend per zone.If Z3 and Z4 are not properly represented, improvement will not be ideal. One thing for sure, do Jorge's plan and you won't spend much time in Z1 :-) This is helpful. The reason that I was thinking of getting the meter is because I think I am too prone to being lazy and just pedalling easy. I think a sensor would let me keep better track of my RPMs to help me keep working hard. Sounds like I need to get some of those video's too. What type of meter? Asking because I saw RPM. That's for cadence. You can get that too, but what you want for effort measurement/tracking is Heart Rate and/or Power. |
| 2012-08-07 3:26 PM in reply to: #4351733 |
Veteran 1127 Shawnee | Subject: RE: Steps to improving bike fitness What type of meter? Asking because I saw RPM. That's for cadence. You can get that too, but what you want for effort measurement/tracking is Heart Rate and/or Power.
I already own a Timex Global Trainer with HRM so I was thinking of adding the Ant bike sensor to give me cadence. It's only about $35 so I thought it could help me get a better handle on my RPM's. I did a group ride a few weeks ago and a guy I was riding with noticed that I was in too difficult a gear alot of times and my cadence was very uneven...I'd go from pedaling very hard to not very hard and he recommended that I keep an even cadence all the time (or as much as possible). |
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