Official Sprocket Rockets Training Thread

[climberevan]

Just eat carbs. Seriously, it doesn't have to be complicated.

If you want to be a cheapskate, like I was when I was 22, got can just mow down some Pop Tarts and Star Crunches on 130 mile rides. Flat Coke to wash it down. You really just need sugar. Worry about nutrients later, in your real meals.

Obviously this can be taken as far as one wants to go, but if you're not getting enough fuel, any form of it is going to be an improvement.

[XtrPickels]

Man,
I step away for a moment and you all go deep.
I'll start picking through this today.

My hope is to both answer questions with quotes and also post in the first 2 Reference responses.

[radam]

Maybe this has already been asked, but how does weight lifting fit into a polarized, cycling-focused training plan? Also, most of my workout windows are short, an hour or less.

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[bean]

Maybe this has already been asked, but how does weight lifting fit into a polarized, cycling-focused training plan? Also, most of my workout windows are short, an hour or less.

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It has. 1-2x a week, heavy weight low-moderate reps.

[Falcon3]

Official Sprocket Rockets Training Thread

I'm going to disagree a bit with the carbs statements above.

Doing too much Z3 and carb-fueled training may lead your body to abandon its aerobic metabolism mechanisms in favor of glycolytic fueling. You potentially limit your power output to whatever your body can digest in carbs and it won't be pulling from fat stores (which are essentially unlimited in your body- 100k+ calories even in very lean athletes).

Obviously this isn't how everyone will experience things, but looking at the carb/fat metabolism graphs at certain heartrates and threshholds for carb vs fat athletes is pretty telling.

Here's a great story about Adrian Ballinger and his path from carb-fueled workouts and climbing trips to fat-fueled.

https://www.uphillathlete.com/adrian-ballinger-and-everest-everestnofilter/

[XtrPickels]

Is there anything to know about cramping that wasn't covered in Dylan Johnson's cramping video? I've made a DIY version of Hotshot that is fairly effective but I still have issues sometimes. I know that the data seems to show that the most effective treatment is to get in better shape, but I still have problems even when I'm well-trained. I never had issues with cramping most of my life, but about 10 years ago it became a chronic problem.

I'll check Dylan's video, but will offer a few thoughts ahead of time (hopefully not contradictory).

Cramps are not well understood and the etiology (origin) is wide ranging.

In general if cramping is in specific muscles, especially working muscles, then it is likely a fatigue response. It's hard to know why this is, and the specifics of this aren't overly important but if you want to sound smart just mumble something about "Calcium uptake in the sarcoplasmic reticulum". That's also good for when you're running out of social energy at a party and want people to leave you alone.

To help this situation, you can either increase fitness prior to an event, decrease fatigue immediately for the event, or follow a more conservative pacing strategy.

If cramping is more generalized; e.g. multiple muscles at once or muscle not associated work, then they're likely due to electrolyte imbalance. In my opinion this is less common than people think, but some are more susceptible than others. Ask 10 people what is the best electrolyte to take and you'll get 10 answers shouted at you, which is funny because it's basically only Sodium, Calcium, Potassium, Chloride, and Magnesium that have major functions.

Which of these is your panacea is hard to say, but the longer you ride the more important they become.
If you do not drink, you have no reason to replace electrolytes. Your electrolyte concentration will increase because the concentrate in your sweat is less than your blood. Therefore, you sweat more water than electrolytes which increases the concentration in your blood.

We run into issues when we start drinking (in more ways than one...).

• Depending on your sweat rate, drinking 16oz / hour of plain water overly dilutes your electrolyte concentration after somewhere between 2 and 5 hours.

• Drinking 16oz / hour of something middle of the road like Skratch pushes this out a few hours.

• If you need to drink more because you're going very long, or if you tend to cramp due to due to low electrolytes and you either need to drink something very salty like First Endurance EFS Pro or take supplemental capsules.

Regarding "Hot shot" and the like. Because it seems that cramps have something to do with the reflex arc from your muscle to your spinal cord and back to your muscle, then disrupting that reflex arc can potentially help. Hot Short works by stimulating the vagus nerve which runs behind your throat (the spicy drink irritates the throat and in turn the vagus nerve). This can act like a reset to the system to hopefully override the nervous system contribution to the cramp. However, as a word of personal advice, these things can be hard on your stomach and cause you to have to "take out the trash" in the bushes 120 miles into the Belgian Waffle Ride...

This topic is a big one and i'll try to incorporate it into a more formal presentation and include resources up top.

[XtrPickels]

I'm stoked to see where this goes. Right now I'm in the midst of a big volume push to finish base season. After some consideration of a sweet spot focused plan for this year, I decided to stick with a polarized model, as that's worked well for me in the past. I also just like to spend 25 hours a week on the bike sometimes, so it suits me.

Lately I've been eating more and more often and even using a diy carb mix in one bottle on harder rides. I still mostly eat my homemade rice cakes, but now I'm eating half every 30 mins instead of going nearly an hour between feedings. It's been great for keeping the energy high in hour 7.

For volumes that high you are right to be working in a Polarized model. I also tend to work in a "Block Periodization" where I work on a 3 week rotation.
Week 1: Intensity. 4 of 6 workouts are high intensity
Week 2: Volume. 1 of 6 workouts are high intensity, 5 are base. Main focus is number of hours
Week 3: Recovery. 5 rides all base.

Also, for those volumes it is very difficult on your body to run a large caloric deficit. It also becomes borderline impossible to replace enough calories when you're off the bike, so on-bike calories become important. I like to drink on the 0:30 and 1:00 and eat at 0:45 and :15's.

If performance is your goal, it's best to avoid falling behind, as you've recognized.
Sounds like things are going well for you, I hope there's a few things you can find useful.

[XtrPickels]

Fueling strategy question? I'm going to tackle the Full PRL ride on Saturday morning.
174 kms (108 miles) 2627 meters (8605 feet). Pacing at 2.0w/kg it should take me 6 hours.
I'm hydrating all day today to ensure I wake up Saturday hydrated. I'll eat a normal preride breakfast of Latte (with 12oz of milk) some Oatmeal with nuts and fruit and a yogurt.
Durning my ride I plan to drink a 16oz bottle per hour. I set a stop watch to beep every 10 minutes where I take a sip from my bottle of 2-3oz. I alternate between water and electrolytes every 10 minutes. So thats 6-7 bottles over the ride. Should I include caffeine in some of my electrolyte mixes? I use a a weak Gatorade mix or use nuun tablets and have caffeine options with the Nuun.
I just don't know what I should eat or how ofter? I know I have the luxury of eating real food because I'm in the house, but I also have plenty of "sport food" that I know my body likes. I have Stinger Waffles, Stinger Chews, Fig Newton Bars, and a Protien 20g bar. But I plan of having a rice protein meal for dinner tonight, and can have left overs during my ride on Saturday.

How often should I eat, and what should I eat to keep fueled thought this ride?

Hey, super sorry I missed this before your ride, but congrats on getting it done. It sounds like it went well for you.

Riding at home is different from riding outside in that you have access to anything you need and you do not need to make compromises based on your ability to carry food / water.

In this instance, in all honesty, just shove down as much food as you can and what you feel like eating.

The days prior: Eating a high-carb diet for ~2-3 days prior can ensure your liver and muscles are full of glycogen (stored sugar). This starts you on your best foot.

Calories in- How much do you weigh / what is 2.0w/kg in absolutely terms? If you're 165lbs, and average metabolic ability, you're likely burning ~450 carbohydrate calories an hour. This is ~3,150kcals for the 7 hour ride. You likely have about 1,500kcals stored. This means you need to consume (3,150-1,500) 1,650 kcals over 7 hours. This is about 235 kcals/ hour. Relatively easy to consumer in the whole scheme of things.

Gels vs. real food: Gels can be useful later in the ride when you need energy quickly. It's also helpful to swish the gel or drink in your mouth before swallowing. This triggers digestion (releases enzymes to break down the sugars in your mouth) but more importantly signals that carbs are coming which often causes your metabolic system to ramp up a little sooner. Interestingly, if you're bonking but unable to stomach food, you can swish drinks / gels in your mouth and spit them out and still see a performance improvement.

However, I prefer real food as they tend to have a lower glycemic index, which means that they release energy over a longer period of time. This is better for the majority of a long steady ride. However, might not provide enough energy quickly enough for a hard climb later in the ride, which is when a gel could be useful.

Protein: Can be useful during longer rides, especially if under fueled, as it can help prevent muscle damage. However, I tend to find it upsets my stomach which leads me to the next point:

Foods work differently for different people. I, personally, need variety. After multiple hour I do not know what I'm going to want to eat. At low intensities I can eat most anything. At long, moderate intensities I tend to fuel mostly through high caloric drinks (Maurten, Skratch Super Fuel). and supplement with other things.

Hydration: Any chance you know how much weight you lost over the course of the ride? For a ride that long you should be looking at 3-4% weight loss for optimal performance. Any less and I'd fear you were drinking too much, any more and performance is likely suffering.

[XtrPickels]

Here's one for you: as someone who rides their bike quite a lot already, what kind of training or riding should I add to see the biggest gains? I don't lift weights at all, but I ride about 60-100 miles a week (all MTB) and do yoga a few times a week on average. My "normal" ride is usually around 15 miles with 3k+ feet of climbing, and it goes up to 30 miles w/ 5k feet in the summer and fall. I live in the Boulder area and typically ride FR stuff, but I travel a ton for work and ride all over the country.

Should I add weights or resistance training? Should I add more interval work? Should I do a longer ride each week to build stamina? I'm not looking to compete with some of the climbing freaks out here in Colorado, I guess I just want to bump my fitness up to the next level and feel like I can push it harder when I need/want to. I really hope you don't say to lift weights, because I absolutely hate it.

1. If you have the time, weight lifting is always a good thing for general fitness (Testosterone levels, bone health, injury prevention, etc.) Done well it can be helpful for endurance performance as well. However, I would not replace riding time with weight lifting if you expect to improve riding fitness. Hard to be specific with lifting recommendations, but the 10-20rep range and movements that use multiple joints (e.g. squats over leg extensions). I can get deeper into this in the future.

2. FR mountain biking can be a bitch for training. The biggest thing I can say is that if fitness is your goal, then be sure that most days are designated easy and some days are designated hard. The FR is difficult because most of the climbs are too hard to be easy, which means you're gassed when it's time to go hard. This also means that I spend too much time riding dirt roads and the Lobo.

If you're trying to do it all on the trail, then I'd be sure that you have easier gearing (28/51) and that you're taking it casual on the climbs. If you can do that most days of the week, then go hog wild on the climbs your other days. I think that instead of intervals including rides where you intentionally ride the climbs hard (much harder than usual) would be a more fun way of going about it. If these are longer climbs,(longer than 20 minutes) then break them down so that you aren't pushing "kinda hard" for an hour. Back off on the easier sections so that you can go that much harder on the hard sections (E.g. Belcher, LHOHV up to DLR).

[XtrPickels]

I knew a pro triathlete that could only do his long rides and runs baked. To each their own.

[XtrPickels]

smmokan's post pretty much captures exactly what I would want to know, and how much and what I ride is pretty damn similar to what he describes... just maybe slightly less volume. This thought above from climberevan kinda turned on a light bulb for me... dots are connecting on why I don't maybe see any appreciable progress in fitness year over year. Interested to hear what XtrPickels advises in this regard.

I see way too many people riding just a little harder than they ought to. It's completely counter intuitive because the harder you work, the fitter you should get, right? It's also fun to go fast, so just go fast all the time.

I've hard more than one person ask how I can be so fit early in the season. Honestly, sometimes it's my best fitness of the year. This is probably solely because of my time on the trainer. Unless I'm Zwift racing or doing a workout, I am locked into base wattage with a custom workout. No matter what route I'm doing on Zwift, my watts are controlled.

As Climberevan said above, easy days should be easy. This is a 2-3 on a 1-10 scale. It's being able to speak a sentence or two without gasping. Frankly, it's kinda boring.

Hard days should be hard. Devastatingly hard. Most people don't really like to push deep. It's an acquired skill (and taste).

[XtrPickels]

6-7" cuff is the right sock height.

I'm really liking having power and accurate hr when I'm riding the smart trainer and am trying to track down a power meter for the road bike now (stages for cannondale cranks). Although I probably don't really need one.

I have a tendency to just ride a lot, and that has done me alright but I've always known that I should be smarter about my training. Basically, make easy days easier and hard days harder instead of all that "in the middle stuff" that leaves you a little too fatigued to do a good hard workout.

I recently signed up for intervals.icu and it's pretty cool (and free). It tracks all your rides/workouts, estimates your ftp, freshness, etc. The thing I really like about it is how it breaks down your time in zones each week. It was kind of a surprise to see myself doing a pretty big week (like 14 hours in the winter), thinking I did some hard rides and races, and then, oops, I only spent a total of like 12 minutes above z5. You do need power and hr to take advantage of it though.

HR monitors, power meters, etc. are tools and some people need them and some people don't.

At a minimum, I think anyone that wants to train should use a Heart Rate monitor. If someone only uses one device, I prefer this because it also incorporates the bodies response. HR zones are more similar across altitudes and fitness levels than power zones, etc. The downside is that it takes a touch of time, once you've started an effort, for the HR to raise into the appropriate zone.

If someone is interested in tracking their training, then a power meter can become more powerful. This is because the second by second recording give a much more accurate picture of the work that they have done. Power meters are also useful for predicting performance, energy expenditure etc.

I'm not familiar with Intervals.icu, but I'll check it out.

A good z5 session would have 20 to 60 minutes depending on your fitness. (2x20, 3x15 are pretty common).
z6 and you're looking at maybe 10 to 40 minutes depending on fitness ( 4x8 minutes, 3 to 5x5 minutes are pretty common).

If someone wants to track their training

[XtrPickels]

I’d argue against the “junk miles” hypothesis. If anything, I think a lot of people do too much in the hard interval category, leading to anaerobic adaptation, overtraining, and stagnation.

Read up on aerobic threshold training (NOT lactate threshold) and the benefit of doing 90% of your training beneath that with the other 10% being targeted hard training and keeping that split until just weeks before an event (when you would shift to more specific training).

The book Training for the Uphill Athlete is geared towards skimo and ultra running but the basic physiology it talks about (which is backed up with tons of world-class experience and science)is the same whether running or biking.

Those guys offer great advice. Fun fact: At one point, Steve asked me to write a chapter for an edition of Uphill Athlete, but I had some auto-immune related health issues that got in the way.

I fully agree on the periodized training model. Depending on who you like there are slight variations in what exactly the split should be (e.g. Seiler recommends 80/20) and a bit of disagreement about what exactly the upper limit of the lower level should be. (e.g. lactate at 1.5 vs. 2.0 mmol/L, etc). However, we're talking shades of gray.

You reminded me of something though: often time over-training is related to "Training Monotony". The worse thing that you can do, is to do the same thing every day.

[XtrPickels]

Block periodization maybe? You might have to cut back the intensity on most of your riding though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PYvAK4Ljb4

The best gainz per amount of time committed for you is probably going to be from picking up something heavy and making it go up and down a few times.

Big fan of block periodization. I use it for most of the year for raise general fitness and then pop into a more traditional periodization to tailor to specific events. I'll try to watch the video to see if we implement it differently.

[XtrPickels]

It seems pretty clear to me that we need weight lifting and yoga as well as cardio if we want to have a shot at skiing/biking/hiking into our 70s and beyond. So why don't I do any lifting?

I have also traditionally been in the "go ride your bike" school of training, but now that I'm older and bike commuting has gone away, definitely need a more focused approach. Should I basically be thinking about hard rides that include intervals and recover periods and base building rides in Zone 3, and get rid of the half-assed rides where I just go kind of hard for the whole ride?

Without knowing exactly what zone system you're referring to, I'm going to assume that Zone 3 is actually a bit too hard. Given most systems you ought to be training in Zone 2 the most, then a mix of 4/5/6. If you follow Seiler's zone system, then it's Zone 1 mostly, and Zone 3 second (3 zone system).