My strategies for Competition 30.0 - Muscular Endurance PLUS today and why Spinervals is special (one more time!) 1/12/13
(All friends who appear in this blog are from Facebook Spinervals Member Team and the community makes my training experience with Spinervals complete with their wisdom and support. Thank you, friends, and Coach Troy and Nancy Hill to provide such a wonderful community.)
As northern hemisphere is in winter, off-season, articles related to bicycle receive greater attention to indoor cycling. However general attitude has sentiments I described in “Why Spinervals? : Training smart 1/5/13”. It is boring, so keep it short. Watch racing video to keep you motivated and you congratulate yourself because nobody else wants to do it. When I bumped into online forum that talks about other indoor cycling programs, some were even putting down Spinervals saying it is just a video bunch of people riding. But if you pay careful attention to the comments on benefits of non-Spinervals workouts, their comments usually are limited how motivating and not boring the workout is. However if you read what my friends from Spinervals team, they talk about results. When they race, they describe the improvements in various accomplishments by numbers, race results, ranks and special mentions. In my blog post mentioned above, I described that the success of Spinervals programs involves several layers. First, there are varieties of programs that have different focus, not just to give you “good workout that tired me out in an hour”. Second, Coach Troy offers training plans: starting with an article, LESSON ON HOW TO USE THE SPINERVALS DVD SERIES, PART I to various training plans with often race goals in mind and even free plans, such as Super 6 a lot of us are following in various degrees. I would say, if you want to feel good about yourself because you are commended for doing what others do not do because they are boring, go ahead and do non-Spinervals workouts. But if you want to get results, even for somebody who does not race and working on fitness level, I would recommend Spinervals workouts.
According to Coach, this year’s Super 6, Phase III is very similar to last year’s Super 6 aero phase. 6-week gives Coach to plan out six long workouts to schedule. For both years, he employed the same three workout cycles, twice each time. Today’s workout, Competition 30.0 - Muscular Endurance PLUS, Competition 13.0 - Tough Love and Competition 26.0 - The Hardcore 100. For a long time, I suspected that the last two were Coach’s favorites. But until today, I didn’t place the importance of 30.0. (I would have to try the brand new Competition 43.0 - Aerobic Engine Builder! to see it might replace in the near future.) First of all, notice the participants. As a part of warm-up, I met all athletes in the past and as Coach describes, most of them are on the spin bike and I assume some of them are general fitness enthusiasts as well as spinning class fans. Then there are Lifetime Cycle Club members and elite triathletes who brought their own bikes in front row. I hate to say bad things about group rides and my tone of whining, but group rides have a tendency of becoming hammering session with no focus. Even you ride regularly, close to two and half hours of Spinervals can be an eye-opener, let alone general fitness enthusiasts. (Therefore big Kudos to Jenny Haberer Bachmeyer!) Then I notice that rest period between sets/reps are rather generous for Coach. And constant reminder to keep heart rate in zone 3, tempo. All this makes a great introduction to a long day on the saddle and is a great springboard to Tough Love. Although they are both technically Aerobic Endurance, I think Tough Love is less heart rate zone training than “if you can survive that much standing, you are all good”. Then of course, those two are a lead up the ultimate HC 100!
When I did 30.0 on 11/17, I thought I finally took the revenge of the previous attempts understanding what Coach meant by Aerobic Endurance. But for today, I added a dimension based on comments I received on my recent Competition 27.0 - Threshold Test & Suffer Fest. On December 4th last year, I did 27.0 first thing in the morning and I suffered chest pain towards the end of the 20-minute rep. I was watching the cadence, but my heart rate slowly went down and basically fizzled out. And this is not just me and on the trainer. My friend, Bob Lockwood, who does real time trials told me that he learned to watch his effort. After starting with power meter, I noticed my long-time tendency of worrying about bringing heart rate into specified zone in a hurry (and especially when I didn’t know Coach’s zone 3 was my upper end of zone 2). Even so, I still had a good spike at the beginning of the rep on January 10th. The first person to point out this tendency was Doron Preker, when he first he reviewed my power data on Training Peak, a while ago. Then, my friend, Alan MacDougall asked if this spike helps me settle down to the pace and told me his side of story. His heart rate crawls up and unless it is decently an intense workout, it does not climb very high to the point that made him worry. For today, I like to reserve the judgement to keep observation in two different directions. Alan is one of the “animals of the pack”, I call, and he is an excellent triathlete. In the same thread, he admitted he does low intensity base building a lot. In fact, this gradual rise is what Coach talks during the workout as cardiac drift. I see this tendency in data elite athlete friends share. If this is the case, maybe a few more seasons of training may bring something different for me. Another line of thought is that Alan and I are just genetically different. This reminds me of Robin Markowski, who is on her way to recovery from surgery and her level of fitness, and has been puzzled with her high heart rate. I probably do not totally think our problems are identical because her aerobic threshold seems to be naturally high. When I have chest pain like I experienced in December, the pain occurs when heart rate is not super high. And when it is gone, the same heart rate does not cause chest pain. However level of hydration seems to be a concern for Robin and it is definitely mine. The main cause of chest pain and remedy from it lies in good hydration for me. I also seem to overdo with body temperature control. To remedy this chest pain, my solutions are to hydrate, rest if I can and control the temperature by putting the towel dipped in iced water (inside) or going in shade (outside). I cannot imagine myself wearing conventional riding jersey and a hat inside. I am not aware anybody who keeps iced water and apply it with towel as necessary. (Today I even had a pitcher of ice as overpreparation paranoia level of 8.5.)
My friends kept commenting on experimenting on eliminating the spike at the beginning. Karen Haldane described her better time trial experience came when she eased into the pace at the beginning. A super friend, who always has wisdom from his race experiences, David Smith, suggested next time, I should deliberately take it extra easy at the first two minutes for the 20-minute set. Initially I just I wished I would remember for the next time. But these comments made my thinking differently about today’s workout. I told myself, the very first 15 minute set, I would deliberately go easy. Of course, by then, I had watched Coach’s notes and warmed up enough and I could tell that Coach was still trying to warm us up after universal Big 15 warm up. I decided that my priority was to follow the cadence Coach specifies (then gear is about two easier on big chain) and watch power zone. Instead of keeping an eye on cadence and heart rate, I kept it on cadence and power zone and didn’t go crazy on trying to bring up the heart rate too soon. I decided as long as I have my power zone in tempo, eventually heart rate will go up. Unlike Alan, I have no worries there. Then funny thing is the heart rate went up just the same as usual when Coach cues in. Well, in a way, I may have gotten away too easy, but with this way, I kept most of the workout in tempo heart rate as well. UNTIL, the very last set, Coach said we could hit Threshold heart rate. I don’t know what was different about today from November, but heart rate was going up nicely during earlier reps in the set. I remember for the very last rep, I knew I had to stand up entire time to bring up the heart rate to threshold. But this time, I never had to stand until Coach told us to do so. My heart rate was already well over threshold, in fact, what I think is the improved AT. (However I don’t plan to adjust the zones until the official test at the gym.) Another observation was I was not breathing as hard as I would normally expect. I was even thinking of danger of relying on training on perceived effort. I felt like I was breathing the same at the universal warm up, in which heart rate zone maxes out in 2. This last statement could come with multiple causes, not just this change of spike managing strategies: I felt very strong at the end of the workout while meeting the objectives of the workout with better power number as the whole workout. But I can take this strategy as something that is worth keeping to experiment. It is all because of Troy’s excellent coaching and friends’ wisdom of my friends. THANK YOU!
As northern hemisphere is in winter, off-season, articles related to bicycle receive greater attention to indoor cycling. However general attitude has sentiments I described in “Why Spinervals? : Training smart 1/5/13”. It is boring, so keep it short. Watch racing video to keep you motivated and you congratulate yourself because nobody else wants to do it. When I bumped into online forum that talks about other indoor cycling programs, some were even putting down Spinervals saying it is just a video bunch of people riding. But if you pay careful attention to the comments on benefits of non-Spinervals workouts, their comments usually are limited how motivating and not boring the workout is. However if you read what my friends from Spinervals team, they talk about results. When they race, they describe the improvements in various accomplishments by numbers, race results, ranks and special mentions. In my blog post mentioned above, I described that the success of Spinervals programs involves several layers. First, there are varieties of programs that have different focus, not just to give you “good workout that tired me out in an hour”. Second, Coach Troy offers training plans: starting with an article, LESSON ON HOW TO USE THE SPINERVALS DVD SERIES, PART I to various training plans with often race goals in mind and even free plans, such as Super 6 a lot of us are following in various degrees. I would say, if you want to feel good about yourself because you are commended for doing what others do not do because they are boring, go ahead and do non-Spinervals workouts. But if you want to get results, even for somebody who does not race and working on fitness level, I would recommend Spinervals workouts.
According to Coach, this year’s Super 6, Phase III is very similar to last year’s Super 6 aero phase. 6-week gives Coach to plan out six long workouts to schedule. For both years, he employed the same three workout cycles, twice each time. Today’s workout, Competition 30.0 - Muscular Endurance PLUS, Competition 13.0 - Tough Love and Competition 26.0 - The Hardcore 100. For a long time, I suspected that the last two were Coach’s favorites. But until today, I didn’t place the importance of 30.0. (I would have to try the brand new Competition 43.0 - Aerobic Engine Builder! to see it might replace in the near future.) First of all, notice the participants. As a part of warm-up, I met all athletes in the past and as Coach describes, most of them are on the spin bike and I assume some of them are general fitness enthusiasts as well as spinning class fans. Then there are Lifetime Cycle Club members and elite triathletes who brought their own bikes in front row. I hate to say bad things about group rides and my tone of whining, but group rides have a tendency of becoming hammering session with no focus. Even you ride regularly, close to two and half hours of Spinervals can be an eye-opener, let alone general fitness enthusiasts. (Therefore big Kudos to Jenny Haberer Bachmeyer!) Then I notice that rest period between sets/reps are rather generous for Coach. And constant reminder to keep heart rate in zone 3, tempo. All this makes a great introduction to a long day on the saddle and is a great springboard to Tough Love. Although they are both technically Aerobic Endurance, I think Tough Love is less heart rate zone training than “if you can survive that much standing, you are all good”. Then of course, those two are a lead up the ultimate HC 100!
When I did 30.0 on 11/17, I thought I finally took the revenge of the previous attempts understanding what Coach meant by Aerobic Endurance. But for today, I added a dimension based on comments I received on my recent Competition 27.0 - Threshold Test & Suffer Fest. On December 4th last year, I did 27.0 first thing in the morning and I suffered chest pain towards the end of the 20-minute rep. I was watching the cadence, but my heart rate slowly went down and basically fizzled out. And this is not just me and on the trainer. My friend, Bob Lockwood, who does real time trials told me that he learned to watch his effort. After starting with power meter, I noticed my long-time tendency of worrying about bringing heart rate into specified zone in a hurry (and especially when I didn’t know Coach’s zone 3 was my upper end of zone 2). Even so, I still had a good spike at the beginning of the rep on January 10th. The first person to point out this tendency was Doron Preker, when he first he reviewed my power data on Training Peak, a while ago. Then, my friend, Alan MacDougall asked if this spike helps me settle down to the pace and told me his side of story. His heart rate crawls up and unless it is decently an intense workout, it does not climb very high to the point that made him worry. For today, I like to reserve the judgement to keep observation in two different directions. Alan is one of the “animals of the pack”, I call, and he is an excellent triathlete. In the same thread, he admitted he does low intensity base building a lot. In fact, this gradual rise is what Coach talks during the workout as cardiac drift. I see this tendency in data elite athlete friends share. If this is the case, maybe a few more seasons of training may bring something different for me. Another line of thought is that Alan and I are just genetically different. This reminds me of Robin Markowski, who is on her way to recovery from surgery and her level of fitness, and has been puzzled with her high heart rate. I probably do not totally think our problems are identical because her aerobic threshold seems to be naturally high. When I have chest pain like I experienced in December, the pain occurs when heart rate is not super high. And when it is gone, the same heart rate does not cause chest pain. However level of hydration seems to be a concern for Robin and it is definitely mine. The main cause of chest pain and remedy from it lies in good hydration for me. I also seem to overdo with body temperature control. To remedy this chest pain, my solutions are to hydrate, rest if I can and control the temperature by putting the towel dipped in iced water (inside) or going in shade (outside). I cannot imagine myself wearing conventional riding jersey and a hat inside. I am not aware anybody who keeps iced water and apply it with towel as necessary. (Today I even had a pitcher of ice as overpreparation paranoia level of 8.5.)
My friends kept commenting on experimenting on eliminating the spike at the beginning. Karen Haldane described her better time trial experience came when she eased into the pace at the beginning. A super friend, who always has wisdom from his race experiences, David Smith, suggested next time, I should deliberately take it extra easy at the first two minutes for the 20-minute set. Initially I just I wished I would remember for the next time. But these comments made my thinking differently about today’s workout. I told myself, the very first 15 minute set, I would deliberately go easy. Of course, by then, I had watched Coach’s notes and warmed up enough and I could tell that Coach was still trying to warm us up after universal Big 15 warm up. I decided that my priority was to follow the cadence Coach specifies (then gear is about two easier on big chain) and watch power zone. Instead of keeping an eye on cadence and heart rate, I kept it on cadence and power zone and didn’t go crazy on trying to bring up the heart rate too soon. I decided as long as I have my power zone in tempo, eventually heart rate will go up. Unlike Alan, I have no worries there. Then funny thing is the heart rate went up just the same as usual when Coach cues in. Well, in a way, I may have gotten away too easy, but with this way, I kept most of the workout in tempo heart rate as well. UNTIL, the very last set, Coach said we could hit Threshold heart rate. I don’t know what was different about today from November, but heart rate was going up nicely during earlier reps in the set. I remember for the very last rep, I knew I had to stand up entire time to bring up the heart rate to threshold. But this time, I never had to stand until Coach told us to do so. My heart rate was already well over threshold, in fact, what I think is the improved AT. (However I don’t plan to adjust the zones until the official test at the gym.) Another observation was I was not breathing as hard as I would normally expect. I was even thinking of danger of relying on training on perceived effort. I felt like I was breathing the same at the universal warm up, in which heart rate zone maxes out in 2. This last statement could come with multiple causes, not just this change of spike managing strategies: I felt very strong at the end of the workout while meeting the objectives of the workout with better power number as the whole workout. But I can take this strategy as something that is worth keeping to experiment. It is all because of Troy’s excellent coaching and friends’ wisdom of my friends. THANK YOU!