My Crucible review and OS.
Coach P just posted feedback at the Power and Pace thread on my bike performance at Beach to Battleship 2 weeks ago. Thanks coach for your input I couldn't get that information / feedback through another coach . This place is awesome. Enough with the blow-in-smoke , my real issue is.....
Coach said I need to overwhelmingly get my FTP up as well as my cadence. My FTP is 199 and he said I'm on my way to a 250 this season. Since I will not limit myself , I'm game bring it on. I'm in the JOS coming up. My power will come through training, as I started last year at a 168 and finished with a 199.
My question is how to increase my cadence ? I know it is just pedal faster but in doing so I drop my watts.
Coach also said it will help in my running off the bike , I don't get that concept either ? Seems to me if you pedal faster you wear yourself out and more so on the run ? I'm I missing something here ?
My Vdot is 38 so my IM pace should be a 10:35 min mile. My IM race was more like an 11 min plus MPH until mile 13 then I walked and ran until mile 18 , earned a 2nd breath and ran in the last 10k .
The results were 6th in age group , with a better run / consistent anyway, I'd been at top 3. So moving on to my 2nd out season I have much work to do but this cadence thing isn't clicking in my head.
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a) holding 200 watts at 70 rpm
b) holding 200 watts at 90 rpm
since power = force x rpm, scenario a) requires your muscles to put out more force per pedal stroke, while scenario b) allows your muscles to push less hard, and make up for it with higher frequency. It takes some getting used to, but there are two advantages to it.
1- leg muscles are less fatigued at the end of the ride, as you've been asking them to push less hard
2- brain-leg connection is already tuned to 90 rpm, where running also gets a lot more efficient
make sense?
David, my own n=1 experience specifically addressing the "how to increase cadence" question . I was lucky to have a really good cyclist friend when I started riding road in the late 90's. On his advice, my first year or so was spent focusing on HR zones, time, and Cadence, to the exclusion of worrying about speed and distance. The goal was to ride between 90-100 rpms at whatever HR / time targets I had for a particular ride. The Speed and Distance results of a workout were only by products of the assigned HR, Cadence and Time. That "taught" my body to naturally feel comfortable in that zone. It just took a mental shift to get away from the ego pleasing metrics of speed or distance. In short, if you decided to buy into the "increase your cadence" recommendation, I'd focus workouts on assigned Power Zones, times, and desired Cadence ranges, everything else will be an outcome of those variables.
Fast forward to now, even after over a year focused on running with zero saddle time, I hopped back on the bike in late September to start the NOS and feel comfortable in the 90-100 rpm range. It just takes getting your body used to it.
When I am on my trainer during the Zone 3 stuff (in OS and the season), I do 5 mins @ 100, then 5 mins @ 95, then 5 mins @ 90, then rinse and repeat. This teaches me to be comfortable at any cadence between 90 and 100, and also gives me something to concentrate on during the Zone 3 stuff which makes the time go quicker. That said, when I am pushing around and above my FTP, my cadence wants to be in the mid 80s.
FWIW
Cheers
Peter
So, moving forward my plan is to continue to bike 3x week from now to my JOS with the intent on getting my legs use to the higher cadence, now without concentrating on watts, and as Matt posted above it may be the combination of fitness to support the change. I don't know but this gives me something to shoot for before my OS and more importantly during it with the goal of being the best Monster I can be next season, good stuff guys thx.
@ Matt , you said what I was thinking. My having the fitness to support this increase in cadence. That is why I thought I'd would wear myself out pedaling so much and here it is just the opposite... go figure.
@Matt The way I understand it is you do use more of a cardio vs muscular component but in a long distance event, you have a lot of excess cardio capacity but not much excess muscular cability. That is, you're going ez enough to be way below your FTP/VO2, (<75% FTP) during an Ironman, but your legs are going to be at (or beyond) their muscular limits by the end of the day. Better to use a few more heart beats during the day and save those fast twitch fibers.</p>
Plus, I also understood VO2 intervals were best done at cadence >90 to really push the heart/lungs to their limits and stilmulate adaptation. So, keep on downshifting as needed!
my pleasure, hope it helps!
The slightly longer answer, as I understand it, is that cadence related to cardio capacity is a trainable phenomenon. So, when you first start spinning away, you'll see a higher HR for the same power output, but that effect goes away after some amount of training (a few weeks/months), and then the HR vs. power relationship is more or less independent of cadence.
So, it's less a function of your VO2max or otherwise after training up to a higher cadence. If you're throwing down a high cadence without training there, then yes, you'll use up some of your HR capacity. However, even in that case, as Jeff said, you've got a lot more excess cardio capacity at IM intensity (your heart could probably keep going at that effort all day long), whereas muscle failure is directly related to how much work you've asked them to do, and pedaling at a cadence of 70 for 6 hours is a lot more work to the muscles.
This is why most coaches recommend a cadence of 90. It's actually been shown that the most efficient cadence in a typicaly population is below 70. However, we're not just looking at efficiency (ie. power output vs. heart rate), since we've got to run a marathon afterwards. Same goes true for cyclists who ride multi-day events, as it's easier to recover and ride hard again the next day if you haven't trashed your quads.
Great stuff Mike! Great explanation. I love having WSM's around. Like getting dozen's of coaches for under $100/month! Go Haus.
x2...great input...many thanks!
Reading this thread and actually wonder on the timing to learn to bike on higher cadences in the OS.
(I am a noob and did only SC distances, have only a roadbike and not very expierenced in biking, but I trained myself to feel ok having my cadence on 95-100 during training and races. )
I see the benefits of higher cadence but I also zipped on the EN KoolAid-"Work is in the Muscel" and the relation between cadence and recuriting fasttwiching muscle fibers during OS is.
What about to train first with higher forces (lower cadence let's say 70-80, avoid knee issues) to recurite more fasttwiching fibers and than later up the cadence ( let's say to 92+ or what feels comfortable) to adopt all muscels fibers to the triathlon specific benefits on "higher" cadence cycling. (wild guessing here, I agree).
Would that make senses or does someone have expierence on this?
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If yes better to do this over the course of OS or rather within the work-out sessions?
I have read to other threads here on biking cadance, but I did not find a good answer (and Jens answer is known: " WTF Attack!"
(edit to make the reading better)