Posts Tagged ‘Triathlon Training - Bike’

Every road triathlete should own a mountain bike. But why? Adding mountain biking to your road training regime could make you a better cyclist by improving your pedal stroke, handling skills, braking technique, seat position and cadence while helping ward off training monotony and staleness.

Mountain biking is fun and challenging and there are always new obstacles to overcome, whether it’s technical riding or just jumping a ditch. You may also find it easier to jump on your mountain bike during the winter months that saddle up for another road ride.

Riding your mountain bike on the road can help develop a smoother spin and a more efficient pedal stroke. Mountain bikes have higher volume tyres than our regular road bikes, so in order to stop the bike from bouncing about on the tarmac you’ll need to employ a smoother pedal stroke. Aim to pedal in perfect circles, as this will keep you steady on those larger tyres. As everyone knows, mountain bikes were designed for off road riding. According to studies mountain bikers have the smoothest spin of all cyclists. When riding bumpy, technical or soft terrain on a mountain bike, you can’t rely on leg power for speed as you can do on a road bike. Instead you have to regulate pressure on the pedals when riding over uneven terrain to keep your tyres from spinning on rocks and loose dirt. On these types of surfaces try to concentrate on feeling the traction of your tyres while you aim to pedal in complete full circles.

There’s nothing better for practising your braking technique than on a mountain bike, as the fatter wheels below you allow more feel and control of the motion. Since a bike receives 70% of its braking force from the front wheel, when braking lift your backside off the seat and extend your arms out with bent elbows and this will transfer more weight to the rear of the bike. This next statement may sound simple, but squeezing the brake levers smoothly will allow you to remain on the bike instead of flying over the bars. This is where the weight shift to the rear also helps. Think of going down hill and slowing yourself down by applying pressure on the front brake levers. You wouldn’t want to have the majority of your body weight over the front of the bike, would you?

When you ride up an incline/hill on your mountain bike and encounter obstacles such as tree roots, don’t necessarily think you have to change your path, just change your cadence. Again shifting your body weight across the bike and lifting the bike wheels will assist in clearing any low level obstacles.

Chances are as we hit the end of British summer time you’ll not be so keen to venture out on your shiny road bike and also may be a little sick of riding the same road routes. With a mountain bike you can prevent any winter training staleness by exploring new terrain while still covering a good amount of ground at the same time. Break up your ride on your mountain bike by taking in different terrain. Warm up on the road then take in some technical element and of course some hills.

When riding off-road be sure to take with you adequate supplies, such as tolls and spare tubes. If you’re venturing off further a field into unknown territory, remember to take a map (and know how to use it) some warmer clothes and some all important food with you.

By adding a weekly or bi-weekly mountain bike ride into your routine you could be a stronger more proficient road rider come 2010. Most of all, it’s great fun. So what’s stopping you?

Happy training!!

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Once you’ve managed to work out which gear shifter control makes pedalling easier you should know how to change gear, right? Perhaps, but avoiding being the mis-shifter who’s grinding bike can’t find the right gear takes practice. Knowing what you’re doing when it comes to gear changing will ultimately make you ride faster and help eliminate the gear change clunk!

Cross Chaining
According to the cycling fraternity the usual method that is ‘cross-chaining’ is bad. That is riding in a combination of the big chain-ring and the big cog, or the small chain ring and the small cog. The reality is that it can lead to clumsy shifts. If you’re on the inner chain-ring at the front and the small cog at the back, beware of the chain falling off if you shift to the big chain ring. Conversley, shifting from the big/big is often slow.

Look Ahead
The key to correct gear shifting is thinking and looking at the terrain ahead. Anticipate what gear you need and anticipate when you need to accelerate. Changing gear after the terrain changes slows you down and spends those vital energy stores. The same applies too when approaching traffic on the road. Look ahead and be in the right gear before you arrive.

Think Smart
When you’re ready to over-take another rider during a race, don’t necessarily announce your attack with a noisy gear change. Just drift out of their draft area so they can’t hear your gear change. Done correctly this decreases your wattage for a slight moment so you can quietly shift into your attacking gear and then pounce.

Care For Your Chain
If you chain is worn out you gear changes will suffer. Change the chain more frequently and you won’t have to change your cogs and rings as often. Riding in constant wet-dry weather can also weaken your chain. If you feel that your chain is in good condition and a cable adjustment hasn’t resolved the issue, inspect you chain rings and cassette for any rough edges or nicks.

If you love your bike, and what multi-sport athlete doesn’t, it will love you in return, especially if you learn how to change gears more efficiently making the shifts lightly and carefully.

Happy Training!!

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Every hill climb regardless of how long, short, steep or steady it is has one fundamental and that is ‘effort’. This ‘effort’ has other elements associated with it too that could make or break a successful trip to the top!

Next time you’re out training, or racing for that matter, try to think about these next few topics and see how much easier it will be to reach the top.

Set A Pace
If you go above threshold too soon, you’ll blow up and slow down before you reach the top. Keep your breathing deep and comfortable and your heart rate below threshold at the start of the climb. As you get your rhythm, gradually increase your effort until you’re climbing at threshold. The final 200m of any climb is the best place to go for it and attack the hill. If you start off smart, you’ll have enough energy to finish strong.

Take Deep Breathes
Many triathletes just use the top part of their lungs, taking shallow, jagged breaths as they climb which limits how quickly and efficiently you can move fresh oxygen to moving muscles. Practise deep breathing into your belly, entirely filling your lungs. Also deep breathing will help to keep the nerves calm during the stress of the climb.

Stay Seated
Your backside should be firmly on the saddle for most of the climb. About 5% more energy is utilised when you stand on the pedals during a climb. Shift your weight back slightly for maximum leverage on the pedals. Stand only when you body needs a break from seated position or if you need to accelerate. When you stand make sure you keep your bottom back so that the saddle’s nose brushes the back of your thighs and your weight is over the crank. Standing with your weight too far forward will only loose traction on the back wheel.

Keep Loose
Your upper body should be relaxed so you don’t waste energy. A good indication that your upper body’s relaxed is slightly flared elbows. They should be outside of your knuckles. If your elbows are tucked in, your lats are stretched which can restrict breathing.

Use The Right Gear
Don’t be afraid to use easy gears. Don’t feel like you need to grind a big gear. The key is to gear down and keep the cadence high in a comfortable range. Most will say between 70 – 90 rpm is optimum spinning.

Develop Your Power To Weight Ratio
The amount of watts you generate per kilo of body weight is the key success of climbing. The top climbers will produce 6 – 7 watts per kilo, the best in the world may even be around 5. High intensity training can raise your wattage by around 5% over a season. Try this session once a week during a steady ride in order to develop your power-to-weight ratio. Climb for 10 to 30 minutes at or near lactate threshold heart rate (about an 8 out of 10 on the rate of perceived scale of exertion, RPE).
One of the easiest ways to increase you power-to-weight ratio is to lower the ‘weight’ element. By loosing those few extra pounds you’ll see much quicker results.

Happy Training!!

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How fast or slow do you spin those pedals when racing? We see the top tour riders spin at high and low cadence all the time, however have they conditioned themselves to ride like this or is it genetics?

Broadly speaking, higher cadences are fuelled by the aerobic system, where glycogen and fat are burned to power the slow and intermediate twitch muscle fibres. As power output increases the proportion of fats burned decreases in relation to glycogen, although some fat is still used. Glycogen requires more oxygen to burn than the equivalent amount of fats, so as power output increases so does oxygen demand.

High output power using a low cadence recruits a greater percentage of fast twitch muscle fibres than high power with high cadence pedalling. Fast twitch muscle fibres are fuelled entirely by glycogen (glucose), but this metabolic pathway also produces lactic acid as a by-product. High power at low cadences will therefore deplete glycogen quicker while producing lactic acid, which is partly why low cadence, high power pedalling is so tiring.

Changing to high cadence pedalling won’t suit everyone. Fast twitch muscle fibres are bulkier than slow and intermediate ones, which is the reason why sprinters are generally bigger than climbers, as they have a large proportion of fast twitch fibres.

So if a sprinter tries to climb in a low gear with a high cadence they will be pedalling with a lower total number of fibres than a climber, as only their slow twitch fibres will engage.

If you look at the long tour races the big sprinters tend to take mountain stages in a group, keeping a steady pace and just trying to get through the stage. However these guys still use the same gears as the riders who are way ahead up the mountain, they just spin at a much slower rate.

The most appropriate pedalling cadence is an individual preference; however remember that the genetics of your bodies muscle fibre types go a long way in determining which style suits best. Give both high and low cadence pedalling a go as you may be surprised with the outcome!

Happy training!!

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The club run was never intended to be a pure training ride, it’s a social event really and that’s exactly how it should be treated. All ride at the same pace and the strong help the weaker and everyone has a good time. So when do we actually train then? On the turbo during the week of course, as this is where you’ll ‘keep strong’ by doing short interval based strength and power sessions.

Bike strength and power training might seem to be one of the same but they are not. Strength is muscle strength, using the legs, or mainly the muscle groups below the waist for endurance cyclists. Power means aerobic power using the respiratory muscles groups, the diaphragm, lungs and heart. We need to look for a good balance of muscle strength and aerobic power and what no better place to train it than on the turbo.

Either of these can be performed on open roads during the warmer/lighter months.

How do we train strength and power?
Quite easily, just a couple of fairly short sessions a week is all you need to do through the winter. A note of warning though before you begin. If you have current knee or back problems don’t attempt to do these sessions as they will definitely aggravate the injury.

Strength training is done in very short explosive flat out efforts lasting between 5-10 seconds maximum in a massive gear/resistance with long recovery periods of 2-3 minutes in between. The resistance and gearing must be far bigger than anything you would ever use during normal training on the road and you must ‘explode’ into each interval. Maybe do 3 such efforts the first time you try it and add one each week until you are eventually doing 7-10. Too much to soon will be counter productive so stick to 3 initially. Also never hurry the rest period, 2-3 minutes may feel to long, however your muscles will need the recovery in order for you to go again at full tilt. The 5-10 second effort should be ‘anaerobic’ here and isn’t long enough to drive your heart rate too high

The power intervals are done in a big gear but only a couple of sprockets bigger than you feel comfortable with and NOT massively over-geared as with the strength element. Intervals here last between 2-4 minutes with equal rest, i.e. 2 mins effort 2 mins rest. You should feel like you’re working quite hard in these intervals. Your heart rate may be 10-15 beats above your anaerobic threshold meaning you should feel a fair degree of breathlessness but nothing like racing. As with the strength intervals, start off with maybe 3-4 of these intervals and gradually build the number of reps as weeks pass.

Short and sharp is the key to the success of these sessions. All done within an hour including a warm up and cool down. Warm up well and spend plenty of time cooling down in a small gear otherwise you’ll have stiff legs the following day. Remember to train like this in full race position as this brings the race specific muscle groups into use.

Finally remember to consider your own level of fitness and current injury state before testing yourself with either of these strength or power sessions.

Happy training!!

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The two components of pedalling are technique and cadence. Despite the expression ‘it’s like riding a bike’, correct pedalling technique and cadence often do not come naturally and require long practice to cultivate. The three characteristics of good pedalling technique are immobility above the hips (except when out of the saddle), no lateral movement of the legs or feet and a relatively even application of force throughout the pedal stroke. The three most common errors in pedalling technique are body rocking, wide knees and pedal stomping.

Rocking in the saddle is a waste of energy. It’s most common causes are having the saddle positioned too high or riding in too high a gear. However, other causes could be lack of sufficient flexibility in the hamstrings and hip flexors, s well as weak gluteal muscles. If you find that you tend to rock in the saddle, first of all check your seat height and your pedalling cadence.

Failure to maintain a pedalling cadence of at least 70 rpm on all terrain, except steep climbs and descents, is an indication that your gear selection is poor. However, if you can eliminate these causes you should concentrate on correcting muscular imbalances in your lower body with some functional strength training and thorough stretching. You can also complement these measures by paying attention to your form when you ride and consciously not rocking in the saddle.

The problem of wide knees is typically also caused by the above muscular imbalances and is often exacerbated by setting the saddle height too low, which many cyclists do because of their tight hamstrings. To correct wide knees check the set-up of your bike, if it seems right or you cannot comfortably pedal in the correct position then begin work improving the flexibility of your hamstrings. As your flexibility improves you should find that you can adjust your bike set-up. Like before, also pay attention to your form and force those knees in when you catch them creeping wide.

Pedal stomping (also called mashing) is a descriptive term for failing to apply force evenly throughout the pedal stroke. In particular it entails concentrating force on the downward gravity assisted portion of the pedal stroke and allowing momentum to carry the pedal back around to the top. Beyond the gravity factor, the reason this problem is so common is that the muscles that serve as the prime movers for the upward portion of the pedal stroke (gluteals and hamstrings) are relatively weak and under-developed in the average person because of all the sitting we do. Continuing to ‘stomp’ will only make the muscular imbalance more pronounced because of the repeated ‘stomping’ taking place.

In order to overcome pedal stomping it may be worth while working on your ‘pedal stroke cycle’, which means analysing which muscles of your lower body should be invoked at certain points throughout the full 360 degrees of the pedal turn. To describe this with only words would make for a hard read, so next time I blog about bike training I’ll get together a drawing to assist with the explanation. As well as this pedal pattern there are also a few good indoor cycling drills that can help develop this feel. Again we’ll discuss these next time.

In the mean time whilst out cycling try to be more aware of your cadence and cycling form. At this stage of training (base) try to keep your rpm relatively high (approx 90rpm), keep the knees tucked in and if you do ‘pedal stomp’, just try to be more aware of the full pedal stroke through out the full pedal turn.

Happy training!!

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