Jeff Y's Group - CLOSED (Page 58)

I think this depends on the individual's recovery rate.  I'm not sure I'd be capable of a max performance two days after that workout, but possibly.  I wouldn't do it if my goal was to absolutely maximize that test.  But I'm old and probably require more recovery than you.  No way would I do a workout the day before, at least nothing more than a short one with some intensity, but not anything very taxing.

I am going to have a flurry of questions about cycling coming soon.

But, I'll start with this one for now.  If my CP heart rate is 157 and a workout calls for work at 87% HR, is the number I am looking for 136?  That seems right from a mathematics perspective but from an RPE perspective I think I could ride for days at that HR.

2nd, Today I had a 50 minute ride that looked llike this

Week Goal: Improve Maximal Aerobic Capacity

Bike: WU:
10' @ 68-73% + 5' alternating 30" @ 95-100%
30" @ 68-73% + 5' @ 80%

MS:
5x1' (1' Rest@ 68-73% FT) as 1-4 set @ 106> % and last one got as bit harder if you can + 15' @ 83-87%

CD:
5-10' @ 65%

But I added this because I had a few extra minutes that I wasn't planning on.  (I got the call with 20 minutes left in the ride or I would've added a couple more reps to the main set.  Question: Did I do any good for myself to add the set below at the end?  I know I didn't hurt myself any but was it worth the effort?

5' alternating 30" @ 95-100%
30" 

Dirk, you got the numbers right if that is your CP heart rate.  The 15 minutes at 87% isn't the hard part of that main set - it's the 5 intervals at 106.  The problem with intervals that short using HR (and the 30 seconds ones through out) is that HR doesn't reflect itself fast enough.  I tried using HR last year, but I've gone to a power approach even though I don't have a power meter.  I'm using speed and translating to power per the mfg. numbers.  I know the actual wattage numbers may not be right, but they should be right enough relative to each other.

I don't think there is any problem adding some stuff to the workout, but I'd say stick to it as written if possible since it's progressive and designed to be built upon itself.   If I add to the workout, I tend to push some of the intervals harder than the prescribed numbers so you might want to try that as well.  That way you keep the "spirit" of the workout in terms of intervals/timing.  I guess I totally buy into the keep the running easy, but the biking hard side of training.

Do tuesday's workout as specified.  Do the TT on Thursday and do your second 20 minute power test the following week.  You will be just fine and recovery will be a snap.  This is cycling we are talking about, not running!

Ugh, you're killin' me.  BUT I WILL DO IT DAMMIT!

What are the acronyms here?  FT is Functional Threshold?  (same as FTP).

What is CP?

If I saw a workout written as 87% HR, I would assume that meant max HR.  So for me, that's around 180.  I would then read that as saying 87% of 180 or 156bpm.  Which is hard, but below my threshold by a little bit.

80% of threshold (or FT) wouldn't be so hard at first, but it's the kind of pace you'd hold for an hour or more during your aerobic endurance training phase.

You will thank me later!

Bottom bracket question:

My fiance currently has a Truvativ Elita crank with a GXP bottom bracket.  It's a triple.  I am ordering parts to change it to a double for her.  My question is...can I thread any english bottom bracket into her frame?  I know I can put a GXP in there, but can I thread a hollowtech II if I buy a 106 crank?

These are from Jorge's bike plan.  The CP HR (I think Jorge uses CP as critical power for 60 minutes) is heart rate from testing the week before.  You basically do some all out tests and plug in the numbers and come up with new numbers to drive the rest of your training.  87% of the HR from the tests is definitely not an overly hard effort, but it's not lollygagging.

Reading this I realize I know NOTHING about bikes!  (At least I think this is a question about bikes).

Yeah, bottom brackets are confusing.  this is a good link.

If you scroll down to the bottom of this page, you will see the table with all the different types of bottom brackets.  I think GXP, Hollowtech II and mega exo all are ISO/british so the threads will be the same.  But that's what I'm not positive about.

I know you always have to match your crank and spindle on the crank to your bottom bracket, but more than one bottom bracket will thread or "press" into your frame.

I have a question about working in bike workouts.  Since I'm basically doing the 3:2:1 plan, I have three shorter runs, 2 medium, and one longer run, with one day off running ever week.  If I want to get in three bike workouts (Jorge's plan), which days should I ride? 

I'm debating whether to ride on the short run days, thereby giving my legs no real days off, or ride on the medium run days and thereby work my legs hard on two days and still get a few really easy days.

The answer is yes.  You will have to buy 105...because I don't think 106 exists!  I'll bet that was a trick question to weed out people that don't know their stuff!

The simple answer is that a shimano BB + shimano crank works.

The more complex answer: do some more research and you might find that the GXP bottom bracket is compatible with shimano cranks.  I think that somewhere I remember hearing that one of the manufacturers has directly compatible spindles with Shimano...

You are free to find out which way works best for you.  In the 3:2:1 plan, the '1' days aren't necessarily to give you a rest from the systemic rigors of easy running...but to give your legs a rest from the impact.

But I personally have found it nice to pair short run days with cycling.  Even a hard ride is therapeutic to my legs in the sense that my joints/tendons feel better afterward.

And that's only 2 of your '1' days, because you can obviously do one of your weekly rides on your non-running day.

CP is Critical Power and is described in the plan on this link as "CP is the power you should be able to sustain over an all out 60 min effort. "

The 87% was a random number that I came up with as a demonstration.  It just seemed weird to me that many of my cycling workouts would be in this zone because with a HR of 136 I could ride for a very long time, 2-3 hours would be my estimation.  for instance:  On July 4th of this year I rode 49 miles in 2:18:09 with an average HR of 141.  Now this ride was pretty hard and it was in a group but there were several places I was sprinting and a few small hills to climb too.

There is a calculator that looks like this:

This is a chart that comes from my CP test I completed last week.  To be honest, I really have very little idea what all this means in relation to cycling.  

I need a better understanding of what all of this is and, truth be told, I need to spend some time reading through the Jorge's cycling thread to catch up.  But I will take all the help I can get.

EDIT:

I just noticed there is a tab that I may be able to pick up on some info that Warren and Jonathon added about the power meter program using HR method of determining "power meter" levels.

Here is my chart:           What does all this greek mean?

Dirk,

Are you trying to understand what each of the zones actually means and how they are used in training or what?  You wondering about the power aspect?  Help me help you!

Yes to all of it.

Probably how to train in all of it, is the big question?  How does it work?

Oh boy.  I'm going to do my best here and others can jump in if I'm all over the place.

Active recovery:  The obvious.  Used for recovery from very hard efforts.

Endurance:  This is your pace you can stick to for a long time.  Much of long distance training for IM is done in Endurance (zone 2).

Tempo:  More like your group ride you were talking about.  A solid effort where you know you are working hard and your legs are really "feelin' it".  I think of this as when I can no longer just blab and blab the whole time or I would run out of breath.

Lactate Threshold:  This is your Time Trial effort.  You can't keep this up for a long time.  I think the bike program often uses this zone for repeats of like 10-15 minutes.

Aerobic Power:  This zone is used to increase VO2 max.  I still don't quite understand this.

Anaerobic Capacity:  This is what the 5 minute test simulates.  Used to increase your ability to perform in an anaerobic state. 

The power chart that you have actually looks like it would be pretty accurate for you.  There really isn't much benefit to knowing how much power you are putting out, except that it's a quantity that you can use to compare progress. 

If you are training in power zones, each time you start an interval, you can maintain that zone very easily compared to maintaining a certain heart rate.  For heart rate training, you almost need to know ahead of time what your average heart rate would be for a given interval.  Especially those short 1 minute intervals.  For example, when we do the 5 x 1 minute intervals at 115%, the first of those 5 intervals, I may be around 130 bpm for HR, but the last one, I am around 160.  All at the same power.  Perceived effort goes up, but power output remains the same.  You are effectively doing the same amount of work, even though it "feels" harder on your cardio system.

Thanks!  I obviously need to do some of my own homework on this too. 

Sure I can run fast and train hard but understanding it all is a completely different matter altogether.

You all can continue to teach me about all of this stuff because I have a long way to go.

And just a quick moment on power.  I think the reason power is so popular and has become such a staple of bike training is that is a true measure of effort, independent of anything.  Hills, wind, bike conditions, whatever, 225 watts is 225 watts, regardless of speed.

On the trainer this doesn't really matter since conditions are always the same, so speed=power, in a relative way.  That is assuming tire pressure and trainer setup remain the same (not a slam dunk, btw).  But as the biking gets outside, the power really becomes a true measure of effort since we all know speed outside is not a good indicator.

I like using power (speed for me) on the trainer to be sure that I'm working hard enough ALL THE TIME.  Last year when I used heart rate I think I would give myself micro breaks and that wouldn't affect my HR, but the power graph shows it. 

In the end, I would say effort can be used just like power if you are super connected to your body.  But the key remains pushing hard on the bike in ways we just can't do running.

I think Jonathan got it all on target. Like everything else in tri training, there's a lot of disagreement about bike training and power and how to optimize the training time. 

One interesting tid bit to think about is that we aren't cyclists.  Sounds silly to say, but the skills required for real road racing and tri riding are actually somewhat different.  One of the most important things for a cyclist is to the be able to hammer out huge watts after a sustained effort to win the sprint at the end of a long session.  And that long session likely included some short harder efforts (pulling in a line) followed by longer "rest" periods while drafting.

While those road racing skills are not unrelated to a time trial effort, they are certainly a little different.  Our training should be around how to improve our ability to hold a certain wattage for a longer period, or a higher wattage for the same period (not to mention run afterward).

I'm a little with Dirk that I'm not positive what's the best way to do that, and I don't even know if it would differ greatly from the ideal road racer training plan.  I guess the old adage, bike lots, mostly hard, sometime easy, is probably good advice!

Warren, I think you hit the nail on the head regarding triathlete training vs. bike racing training.

In a non-draft triathlon we don't ever need to go above our LT (and perhaps never should...but I wonder if hills might make it advisable?).  Going above LT gives you the ability to go above LT and recover more quickly (good and necessary for mtn biking and bike racing).  Going hard above LT can perhaps slightly push up VO2 max.

But the truth is that for triathlon, all you need are very long sustained efforts below LT, but close.  Basically, you pedal a steady cadence, seated, as hard as you can tolerate for 1-2 hours.  And that is the best training for triathlon.

The more structured workouts that include intervals are great for breaking up the monotony, perhaps for some of us keeping things fresh (mentally), training for road racing, or for mtn biking.  So there is no way I'd say it's not smart training for a triathlete.  But perhaps not optimal....especially if the intensity displaces some volume.

Do not take that as advice to stop Jorge's program.

Dirk, could your confusion stem from mixing your metaphors?  Since CP is a wattage measurement and you are trying to do a linear conversion to heart rate, I think you have a problem.  HR isn't linear with power output.

If your CP is 250 watts and that just happens to be an average HR of 155, then 87% of CP is 217 watts...

if 250 watts gets you 155bpm, it's very realistic to guess that 217 watts could get you 145 bpm for instance.

Also, speed on your trainer won't be linear either.  Resistance increases exponentially (or at least more than linearly) with speed.  That's probably not the case with rollers, but it will be with a trainer.

So if 25mph on your trainer just happened to be 250 watts, don't expect 21.7mph to be 217 watts.

Without a real power measurement, you will have to rely on perceived exertion.  Any idea what pace you can sustain on your trainer for 1 hr? (CP).  Remember how that feels?  Then SWAG 87% of that perceived exertion.

Some trainers publish watts as a function of speed.  I don't know how accurate they are, but they are definitely not linear as Jeff says.  I'm going on the assumption that my trainers published numbers are at least accurate relative to each other, but I doubt they are accurate in an absolute sense.  My trainer watts is higher than I would expect.  If they are accurate, I would be a LOT faster in the real world.

Jonathan has both so he can probably comment on the actual accuracy of the trainer numbers.

I do believe there is huge benefit in using RPE though.  It's important to know what it feels like to push a percentage of your threshold.