Do I need more bike VOLUME?

John Withrow

 Yes, I read the whole "Volume Elephant in the room" thread.   Yes, I'm fully drinking the EN koolaid.  Yes, I know that I can put as much or more work into my legs in a hard 3 hr interval ride than I can in a 5 hr Long-Slow Ride.  Yes I train with Power, and Yes, I use WKO+.

Now that that is all out of the way...  I'm currently doing an intermediate HIM plan and will transition into an intermediate IM plan later in the yr (for about 7-8 weeks which will include taper) and I will be doing my first IM ever this yr, IMLou.  Here's why I ask the question about more bike volume.  It's not for my legs.  It's a question about the back of my neck, my lower back, and the soft area that I'm sitting on.  I've been doing the HIM plan for 4-5 weeks now and it's certainly less bad than it was when I started.  I also know there will be some longer rides once I'm in the IM plan, but today I accidentally got lost and was on my bike for a hard 3.5 hrs instead of 2.5hrs. By the end of the ride, the back of my neck was killing me and let's just say my taint was pretty sore. 

Somebody please tell me that doing a 3hr ride every Saturday a 2hr ride every Sunday will prepare my body, not my legs but my neck, back and taint for what will likely be 6.5 continuous hours in aero on the bike and still be able to stand up afterwards, let alone run a marathon...   

[Deleted User]

Hey John - had the same thoughts today on a 3.5 hour ride! Not really wiped out, but achy! Lower back, etc. I was on my road bike but in a couple of weeks will be on tri bike only (dong Lake Placid this year). I was thinking (hoping) that really dialing in my tri bike fit and the race rehearsals/Lake Placid EN rally weekend will help. Perhaps the veterans will reassure us...
PS - did the full November OS and picked up the intermediate I'M plan at week 5 last week. This weekend was the week 6 rides.

tuckerm

You will be fine. It gets easier on the body. Don't get all crazy on us now.

Al Truscott

Instead of spending hours more a week on the bike to accommodate your body to long riding in the aero position, are you incorporating minutes every day with specific stretching activities for your hamstrings, glutes, hips, back/neck and arms?

I agree with Tucker; stay aero on your tri bike for the training schedule, and your parts will learn. But if your neck and lower back are an issue, fit improvement and flexibility are more likely to have a better ROI.

mgraffeo

You will do 2x race rehearsals for each race, plus the HIM, giving you plenty of chances to figure out if there's a fit problem, or just some "getting used to it" required. If it's the latter, the plan will take care of it. If it's the former, no amount of volume will solve it.

Paul Hough

@ Mike - I think you hit the nail on the head! I'm using a different TT bike this year because it's easier to break apart and pack, plus has a compact crank. So my plan is to race it up to IM Regensburg. I've done 2 sprints this year including 1 just yesterday. Today I took it out on an 'easy' 115 mile ride, not to test my back or fit, but to see if the SEAT was going to work for me. I hadn't been on the bike more than 40 miles at one whack before and wasn't sure about the seat. Even though I've had a Retul on both TT bikes, this one feels different. Anyway, the seat was fine so I'll be able to start my 12 wk plan next month without that concern.

@ John - Mike is spot on, and I would follow Al's advice. My neck and butt killed me for a year when I first started. After that, I think I just "hardened" up and although sometimes it gets uncomfortable, I always know that I can do it. When I race, I try to maintain a mental image of my forearms superglued to the arm pads and my skin being ripped off if I come out of them for anything other than braking or grabbing water/nutrition. My sprint yesterday only had a 10 mile bike leg, but I only came off the aero bars on two tight turns, and at the end when I was taking my feet out of the shoes to get ready for the dismount line.

Coach Rich

My notes:

• 56 or 112 is a loonngg time to ride a bike, any bike. Pedaling, squashing your junk on a little seat, craning your neck to look up the road...these all become uncomfortable after a while. My point is that ain't nobody hopping off the bike in an Ironman without neck, shoulder, back fatigue.
• The best way to approach this is to look at it as another compartment of physical training: adapting your body so sit in the aero position for a long, long time. Three items to address:

Bike Fit

Cockpit length, that is, the distance between the nose of your saddle and the rear edge of your elbow pads. What we want is a position that provides bone support for your upper body: the weight of your upper body is supported by the column created by your upper arms. If you are too stretched out you'll engage your back to help you support your upper body. You'll feel yourself want to choke back on the aero bars to get this bone support. If your cockpit is too short, you'll find yourself straining your shoulders and deltoids to hold yourself up.

Saddle height: if your hamstrings, glutes and lower back fatique quickly or get sore, consider dropping your saddle height just bit and...

Stretch and Core Work

Stuff to hit are glutes, hamstrings, lower back, and hip flexors. I suck and getting this done, it's on my list of stuff to finally fix this season. I'll then live on a swiss ball, doing much core work, especially lower back.

On the Bike

Seek out stuff to stress the crap out of your neck and shoulders. I'll race in frameless sunglasses but will train in shades with a thickframe, forcing to crane my head up even more to see over the frame. I'll climb in the aerobars (looking wayyyy up the road) and if I ride my road bike I'll be in the drops as much as possible, especially when descending = looking far up the road.

At IMCDA'08 I dropped the ball on some of these items and had a lot of back pain and fatigue in the last 20-30 miles that did impact my run. Don't be a dick

charris

This has been alluded to above but not outright stated so I will: I'm not sure what kind of saddle you're using, but changing from a traditional saddle to a newfangled fancy one can make a huge difference. Not for everyone, but for me (and many others). Once my long rides got up above 3 hours, I knew my current saddle was a problem. I switched to an Adamo (others swear by Cobb) and whatever ridiculous price I paid for it ($200?) was probably the best money I ever spent. The Adamo is pretty painful the first 2 or 3 rides (sit bones need to get used to it ) but after that it was all good.

 

Also, x2 on switching to rimless sunglasses - made a huge difference from a neck stiffness perspective (and safer too).

arzaske

X2 on the Adamo... a little tough the first couple but lots better right after that. One year later I can honestly say... wait for it... that my saddle is downright comfortable. Saddle issues aren't even on my radar screen anymore... and I was having some serious issues early part of last year...

Paul Takac

I love my Adamo too but have to say that it took a while to get the geometry right: seat height, fore/aft position, and nose angle (level vs. slight angle up or down) all took some time. It's just a different animal from a regular seat but my friends "down under" agree it was worth the investment and effort. I also had to adjust elbow pads to achieve what Rich said about bone column support. It wasn't a magic bullet though and seems to be a work in progress with occasional minor adjustments, probably due to variations in flexibility.

Great answers all although it seems to make sense that beyond a certain point of conditioning (and proper expectations), no amount of plain old suffering will fix things. If the fit is wrong, it's wrong. If you haven't seen references already, TTBike Fit is (I believe) the official haus fitter and many here swear by them. Good luck John.

John Withrow

Thank you all for your very thoughtful responses. I actually have a Cobb v-flow max saddle that works pretty well for me. It's less my junk going numb and more a bit of rubbing on the inside of my legs. I have tried the Adamo and it was worse because of it's width up front but I'm sure I didn't give it a long enough try. I'll post pics of my fit to the new thread shortly, but it feels okay, a bit aggressive for my size, but okay none the less. Any picture I've ever seen of a good aero triathlete has their back relatively flat and the person looking forward. This naturally means the head is tilted back. It's almost as if you turned the picture 90 degrees you would be sitting with your back roughly perpendicular to the floor but looking up towards the ceiling for 3+ hours, this would obviously strain the neck a bit. Not to mention I have sat at a desk all day for 10 yrs with my head and neck tilted forward resting on my hand staring at 4 computer screens all day. This is the opposite of the ideal head position for just normal posture, but especially for a tri bike. I'll get a pair of frameless glasses for races as I did notice myself peering over top of the frames some of the time, so I didn't have to lift my head as high. I will also try to look up even higher while training to over stress my neck to hopefully speed the adaptation process.

I guess the summary is that I intend to suck it up, make it hurt worse for a while now while training and see how it goes in a couple months time.