Welcome to 2021. And what better way to kick off the new year than to answer some questions from our devoted listeners.
Today we start with a series of questions that deal with a dilemma many athletes face: deciding which rides or workouts to sacrifice when you’re short on time.
From Sylvia G. in Auckland, New Zealand:
“Given work life and responsibilities as a mom of two, I always feel like I’m falling behind in training due to a simple lack of time to fit it all in. I only have six to eight hours a week to train. I would like to commit to the polarized training model, but each time it comes to sacrificing a ride type when time is tight, it’s the easy rides I feel best about scrapping. So, it begs the question, am I sacrificing the right rides? Do I still need recovery/easy rides? How many? If I should be getting them, what are ways you can suggest I squeeze them in?”
We tackle a question about zone 1 rides and whether you get them on the mountain bike. Steve H. writes:
“As an off-road focused athlete, I really feel the need to incorporate MTB into my base training. It’s less boring, not as cold in the winter, and I get some skills work at the same time. But the fundamental principle of aerobic base rides is having a steady effort which is very difficult to manage on singletrack; between the turns and keeping momentum over terrain, MTB is inherently stochastic in its power demands. While I can easily keep a very low heart rate on the road, for a similar feeling ride, my heart rate will be easily 10-15 bpm higher on the MTB. Is the LSD impossible on the MTB trail? Is the higher heartrate relative to road a problem or simply a result of the greater contribution of the upper body in MTB?”
We also discuss how to change the type of rider you are, and if it can be done, based on a question from Nathan R. in Helena, Montana who wants to become a punchy rider:
“I’ve been getting back into competitive cycling the last few years after taking some time off and having a young family. I usually consider myself more of a rouleur type rider due to my size (I’m 6’4” 186lbs) but have found in the higher race categories, my lack of anaerobic power became both a weakness and a limiter. On climbs under five minutes I found myself spit out the back and would have to burn a ton of energy to claw myself back to the group. I’m excited to use a more polarized training model considering I love nothing more than long four-hour rides and threshold intervals. I am curious about your thoughts on also using the base and build period to focus on my anaerobic energy systems as well. Maybe a Zwift race once a week? I would love to become more of a punchy racer, but have had a tough time finding gains in this short power duration energy system. Any hope or am I destined for the solo breakaways and gravel events?”
Finally, we field a question about the differences between structured and unstructured intervals:
“If I understand Dr. Seiler’s research correctly, the most important predictor for adaptation for intensity workouts is the time of ‘work’ near or above LT2 (the ‘red zone’). Most coaches seem to have a strong preference for structured intervals. However, I find it much more fun and motivating to chase Strava segments on my mountain bike, or ride in Zwift races. Assuming one is mindful of progressive load, stress, and recovery, is there any down side to using unstructured intensity if the time spent near LT2 is similar?”
Our guest coach today is Hannah Finchamp. You may know her as a member of the Orange Seal Off-Road Team, but she is also a board-certified athletic trainer and a certified USA Cycling coach. She has degrees in both athletic training, focused on injury prevention, and in exercise science.
Let’s dive into the discussion. Let’s make you fast!
Episode Transcript
Chris Case 00:00
Hey everyone! Welcome to Fast Talk your source for the science of cycling performance. I’m your host, Chris Case, and welcome to 2021.
Chris Case 00:21
What better way to kick off the new year than to answer some questions from our devoted listeners which we’ll do today. First, we’ll take on a series of questions that deal with a dilemma many athletes face deciding which rides or workouts to sacrifice when you’re short on time. We’ll also tackle a question about zone one rides and whether you can get them on a mountain bike. We’ll discuss how to change the type of rider you are and if it can be done based on a question from a listener who wants to become a “punchy” rider. Finally, we feel a question about the differences between structured and unstructured intervals: Are there any downsides to getting your intensity in so called “unstructured” ways?
Chris Case 01:02
Our guest coach today is Hannah Finchamp. You may know her as a member of the Orange Seal Off-Road team, but she’s also a board-certified athletic trainer and a certified USA cycling coach. She has degrees in both athletic training, focused on injury prevention, and in exercise science.
Chris Case 01:22
Now, let’s dive into the discussion. Let’s make you fast.
Chris Case 01:29
We’ve had a lot of changes here at Fast Talk over the past year or so. During one change, we left behind two popular episodes that we’re bringing back. Next week your podcast feed will show three new episodes. One will be a brand new episode while two our favorites from the past: Episode 31: How to Avoid Illness or Just Cope With It, which seems appropriate to ring back now given the times, and Episode 37: Sugar, Wheat, Paleo and Performance Nutrition, a popular topic after the holidays. We’re bringing them back simply to make sure the catalogue of episodes on fasttalklabs.com is complete. So enjoy three episodes next week. And feel free to check out their transcripts on our website fasttalklabs.com.
What type of rides can you sacrifice when you are short on time?
Chris Case 02:18
All right. Our first question comes from Sylvia G. in Auckland, New Zealand. She writes:
Chris Case 02:27
“Given work life and responsibilities as a mom of two, I always feel like I’m falling behind in training due to a simple lack of time to fit it all in. I only have six to eight hours a week to train. I would like to commit to the polarized training model, but each time it comes to sacrificing a ride type when time is tight, it’s the easy rides I feel best about scrapping. So, it begs the question, am I sacrificing the right rides? Do I still need recovery/easy rides? How many? If I should be getting them, what are ways you can suggest I squeeze them in?”
Chris Case 03:03
Hannah, I’ll turn it over to you first.
Hannah Finchamp 03:06
This is a really great question because whether people are asking it directly or not, it’s probably something people should be asking. I think that a six to eight hour range a week is what a lot of amateurs, or lifestyle athletes, or just anyone with a full time job is really looking at. While that’s a lot of time to commit to a hobby, it can be difficult for cycling. When you’re looking at intervals versus easy rides versus long rides, it starts to get really overwhelming to think what to put in when and where. So this is a really great question. I like it a lot. I think about a lot with the athletes that I coach.
Hannah Finchamp 03:48
I think the most important aspect of this question is defining what an easy ride is and what a recovery ride is. We shouldn’t be scrapping all aerobic rides – aerobic meaning with oxygen, meaning that you’re able to breathe fairly easily throughout your entire ride. You could talk, hold a conversation, that type of thing. Those rides are critical. We cannot scrap those rides.
Hannah Finchamp 04:25
The reason for that is aerobic rides offer a different type of physiological adaptation then interval rides do. So those aerobic rides, and those specific aerobic adaptations, cannot be overlooked because that will supply the foundation for those interval rides.
Hannah Finchamp 04:45
Now, recovery rides you might be able to get away with scrapping a little bit more. Those easy, one hour spins in which you’re really below even 50% of your FTP or you’re literally just spinning out the legs, those recovery rides can usually be done in any fashion. So any sort of active recovering: stretching, going on a walk, maybe you and your kids want to do something on that day that gets your body moving, but doesn’t count towards that six to eight hours a week that you really have to dedicate to you’re alone with the bike time. So that’s a way that you can incorporate that recovery, and be able to scrap those kind of active recovery rides from your training, but I would still highly encourage you to do aerobic rides, or rides without intervals, in that training time. And that’s where you might get into more of a periodized training model, in which you’re gonna weight your season with a lot more of those aerobic rides at the start, and then work in to some of those intervals later in the season.
Chris Case 05:57
Excellent, Trevor, I bet you agree wholeheartedly with that.
Trevor Connor 06:01
I do. And I think the only thing I have to add to what Hannah just said, and that was great, is just to flip it around and address this belief that harder is better and more is always better. That’s not really the case with interval work. We’ve cited this research many times, two to three interval sessions per week, so hard sessions per week – I shouldn’t even just say intervals, so if you’re going and doing races on Zwift, whatever you’re doing to do your intensity – two to three is as much as you want to get in a week. More than that you’re not going to see any further adaptation, but it’s actually going to fatigue you. It could actually take you the other way, you’re going to go over that bell shaped curve and see less benefits.
Chris Case 06:51
And Ryan, you have a family yourself, you’ve got a couple kids, you’ve got a new crazy dog running around the house, how do you manage to fit it all in? Can you speak from personal experience here?
Ryan Kohler 07:02
Yeah, this one rings true for me. One thing that I really like is how, Hannah, you really differentiated and said we need to define what is the ride. Essentially, what is the goal of the ride? And in the question, we have that recovery/easy ride sort of combined. But I think it’s a big factor there to say, ‘Well, what is the purpose of the ride?’ That’s something that I’ve always kept in the back of my mind and learned early on in coaching is if you don’t have a purpose for the ride, then just don’t do it. It might not be appropriate, it might tire you out. If you don’t have a purpose, then maybe there’s other things you need to be doing at the time. So I think defining those ride types is truly important. Say a recovery ride: do you need it because you just did interval sessions? If so, that’s great. Or is it more of an aerobic ride where we still have some serious benefits that we can generate from that type of ride? And in that case, yeah, we wouldn’t scrap that.
Ryan Kohler 08:07
It’s been the same experience for me with two kids and trying to figure that stuff out. One of the key points that sticks out is just figuring out what is the purpose of the ride. If it’s a recovery ride and I have all this other stuff going on, maybe just scrap it, and go play a game with the kids, go on a walk, take the dog out, that’s fine, that’s recovery. But if it is more of an aerobic ride, and it has a certain purpose, where it’s going to help build those aerobic adaptations, then that’s something I want to make time for.
Trevor Connor 08:42
These are also great rides to get into neuromuscular training, we’ve talked about that and the benefits of neuromuscular work. So if you just hate the idea of getting on the bike when time is so limited, you only have an hour, if you hate the idea of just sitting there at a really low heart rate of wattage, work in some cadence work, get that neuromuscular work, don’t do the the big heavy sprint’s or big gear work, but more the the cadence type neuromuscular work.
Hannah Finchamp 09:11
Yeah, and I think that is an important point, as well as I think the word “interval” can have so many different meanings for so many different people. I agree with everyone is saying here; those high intensity workouts, there really is a cap to how many you can do in a week, you’re not going to get the benefit after a certain point.
Hannah Finchamp 09:32
But throwing in some tempo intervals – interval just meaning a period of time in which you’re sitting at that intensity, and tempo still relatively lower intensity – it’s still aerobic, you still should be able to breathe fairly easily. You can throw in those little efforts just to get your body moving and to feel good and, if you’re like me as an athlete, you always have to feel like you’re doing something I think that that can help the mental aspect as well.
Does weight training and interval work coincide? Is it just too much high intensity work?
Chris Case 10:05
Let’s turn to another question that really pertains to this time crunched athlete as well. This one has a little bit more to do with how weight training and intervals can coincide. So let’s take this question from Craig Laplant. Again, due to a change in job and family life, he’s run short on time. So he writes:
Chris Case 10:28
“In order to fit it all in. I started Chris Carmichael’s Time Crunch Training Plan a few weeks ago. As I’m sure you’re familiar, it is basically all high intensity intervals on alternating days, about six to eight hours per week. The sessions have me pretty cooked and feeling fatigued the next day, but I’ve made noticeable progress already. Subsequently, I’ve reduced lower body weight training to once per week, reduce the volume, and essentially shifted to maintenance mode in order to optimize recovering. My question is, I often wonder how much the weight training is affecting or hampering my development as a cyclist. Monday and Wednesday, maybe ‘rest days’ from the bike, but I’m still doing high intensity work, albeit on a different part of the body. How much crossover is there? Is the body recognizing stress as stress period, despite the idea that it’s getting distributed to different body parts, and probably also different physiological systems? My concerns are with potential burnout and if it is possible to optimize to some degree, both pursuits.”
Chris Case 11:30
Hannah, I guess I’ll start here with you again, what would you have to say to Craig who’s trying to balance a lot of what sounds like high intensity stuff just on different areas of the body?
Hannah Finchamp 11:42
This is another great question. I get this question all the time and I was even forced with this question a lot myself in college when I was trying to balance so many things. Weight training and intervals and aerobic rides, all of these things have been shown to be helpful to your cycling, to your athletic pursuits. So the question is, to what degree do we need to try and shove it all in when you have, he references, only six to eight hours a week?
Hannah Finchamp 12:21
So when I get this question from my athletes, the first thing that I like to discuss is, if we’re training for cycling, that makes cycling our priority because there is a level of sport specificity that we need to honor. We need to stay on the bike, we need to work those energy systems, we need to work those ranges of motion, we need to be comfortable in that position, we need to be comfortable producing power in that position.
Hannah Finchamp 12:51
Not to mention the fact that cycling is largely a cardiovascular sport. While there is certainly strength involved, we need to work the cardiovascular system. That’s what we talk about a lot when we talk about aerobic versus anaerobic versus when we specify what percentage of our FTP or VO2 we’re at, we’re all talking about the cardiovascular system.
Hannah Finchamp 13:18
Now when we can put strength into that, it certainly benefits us. But in my opinion, I don’t think that strength training should take precedent over cycling. So if you only have an hour to train each day, I think it’s better to dedicate that time to the bike, something that is sports specific to your goals. It’s when you start having the extra time and when you want to take it to that next level that you can start adding in that weight training.
Hannah Finchamp 13:54
Now, I do think that there is an important point to make for the fact that weight training is great for injury prevention, because cycling is a nonweight bearing sport and so we can suffer from bone density issues. It’s also allows for a lot of chronic injuries because we do put long hours in on the bike, we’re in one position, we’re only moving in the sagittal plane, so strength training and those type of things can benefit the injury prevention aspect. And that’s where I might encourage you is if you really are a time crunch athlete, where you have to decide between weight training and cycling, I personally would pick the cycling and then I’d create you know, maybe a 15 to 20 minute core workout that you can throw in at any point during the day, whether it’s waking up 15 minutes early, or the second you finish your ride, where you can just do a couple weight bearing exercises and a couple maybe lateral movements to help with those muscles that we aren’t often using on the bike.
Chris Case 15:06
What about the person that says, you know what, you know, I’m not I like weight training enough that I’m willing to do that and ride the bike and I don’t want to sacrifice either. But I do want to get better, so to speak, at cycling, not so much at weight training, how do I make those two work together if I know that I still need to get into the gym just because I like lifting weights?
Hannah Finchamp 15:32
It’s important to honor those desires, as well. I do have athletes who say that and who love going to the gym, and I think that’s great. For those athletes I would recommend, actually, once again, there is science that goes both ways on this but, I like to do – he says that his workouts are alternating – so if you have a high intensity workout, I would actually do your strength training after that cycling workout. This is so you put in your full effort in the cycling workout so that you’re not tired from the gym in that cycling workout. Then go to the gym after that hard workout so that to the next day when you have an easy day, it’s truly an easy day and you’re truly letting your body offload from the hard workouts that you put in.
Trevor Connor 16:22
It is really important to realize that weight training is not a recovery day. I have heard a lot of athletes say this where they’ll go, ‘Well, today’s my day off the bike, so I’m gonna hit the weight room.’ Weight training is more damaging on your body than riding the bike and even doing a hard workout on the bike. So it is the exact opposite of a recovery day.
Trevor Connor 16:46
I completely agree with Hannah, I personally, and I have all my athletes, do their weight training on the same day that they do their intensity work on the bike. Make it a really big day and then get a proper recovery day to adapt.
Chris Case 17:02
We’ve had these conversations with Dr. Seiler and he’s brought up, I think, the Ingebrigtsen brothers who will often go to events and race then go “Eh, it’s already been a hard day, let’s just make it that much harder.” Let’s stack the hard stuff on the same day so that that’s the hard day and the easy days are truly easy. So after their event, they’ve just raced their butts off, they’ll go out and do more of a workout after the race, just completely deplete themselves that one day, but give them the chance in the subsequent days to recover from that. It’s somewhat analogous, I would say.
Trevor Connor 17:41
It took me a while to understand this, but I was told very early in my cycling career, make your big days big and make your easy days really easy. And this is part of it. If you’re going to do something that’s damaging and hard, do the intervals and the weights on the same day, make that big day really big.
Ryan Kohler 18:02
Yeah, I really like this topic. I think you get a lot of different thoughts on how to approach this. I think with thinking about the time crunch training plan, it’s very particular to the intensity.
Ryan Kohler 18:19
I’m a big fan of strength training because it does work. Putting it into context of something like this time crunched plan and understanding how those days are laid out, I think it’s interesting. Looking at what Craig’s approach was here, where he actually reduced the volume and essentially shifted to that maintenance mode to optimize recovery, to allow himself to do some of the bodyweight training, some of the strength training. So I think that’s an interesting thing to consider too. Where in the year is this? How does this fit in? And what is the training around it?
Ryan Kohler 18:56
So to put together a time crunch training program with strength training, no way, I would never do that. But thinking about this and saying, alright, well, this time crunch planning can be good for when you are focusing on the bike then, yeah, great, you’ll get your intervals in. But at the appropriate time of the year, winter, offseason, right around where we are now, then I’m a big fan of actually reprioritizing the cycling and the strength and saying, ‘Hey, if you don’t have anything to get ready for right away, let’s actually prioritize the strength.’ So with my athletes, I’ll do two to three days of strength workout if we can, and still balance it with cycling, but I actually have them put cycling on the back burner for a little while, could be four to six weeks roughly, and just get a good session of strength in. Really say ‘Hey, just take that time.’ Let the bike sort of sit a little bit more and just put it aside. But let’s work on that strength, get you to move appropriately, move differently. I think the exciting part is feeling those strength developments, like when you come away from a block of strength, and you have that sensation of ‘Wow, this feels good.’ Then we reintroduce that into the bike. That’s one thing that I like doing.
Ryan Kohler 20:17
I think you mentioned stacks too; figuring out how to stack those workouts together. I’ve also seen as we transition closer to more in-season training, to doing some work, where we might have a strength session on day one, and then the second day followed up with a tempo or some kind of sub threshold session and that’s a two day block that I’ve used successfully in the past that I think works well. But once we get past that point of needing to focus on the bike, then the strength training definitely takes a backseat. I love the topic, because there’s so many ways to approach it and so many ways to sort of skin the cat, if you will.
Trevor Connor 20:59
I think Ryan raised a really important point of looking at the time of the year. If you’re time crunched, there is a time of the year where you should be spending every minute on the bike, but there’s a time of the year where both to help overall adaptations and also just to maintain overall health, maybe sacrificing some time on the bike for weights is really key.
Trevor Connor 21:21
One last thing I want to throw in that that might help with this there was a really interesting study about 12 years ago, where they had one group of athletes do a single set of a workout for six weeks. And then they had another group of athletes do four sets of the same workout for six weeks. So one group was doing a heck of a lot more training than the other. And what they found at the end of this study was the group that did about one set saw about 80 to 85% of the same gains as the group that did four sets. So basically, they showed there is a real depreciation in gains from each successive set – whatever workout you’re doing. So if your time crunched, and you’re saying, ‘Well, I’m at the time of the year where I’d like to do some intervals or some high intensity, I’d also like to do some weights,’ you might find gains from saying instead of trying to do three sets on the bike, I’m going to do two – or just one. Get a shorter workout and then go and get time in the weight room because you’re going to get a lot more benefit from that time in the weight room, then that second or third set on the bike.
Ryan Kohler 22:30
Yeah, and that extra time in the weight room too – if you’re doing four sets, think about the extra recovery, the added muscle damage you can throw in there, and how that affects the cycling afterwards.
Trevor Connor 22:42
And sorry, I said there were two studies. The second study explored exactly that and show that cyclists – this is a study on cyclists – would get more gains out of that mix of backing down a little bit on the cycling and adding the weights than trying to maximize time on the bike.
Is a low, slow distance ride possible on a mountain bike trail?
Chris Case 23:01
Alright, let’s turn now to a question from Steve Herman. He is an off-road focused athlete and he writes:
Chris Case 23:09
“As an off-road focused athlete, I really feel the need to incorporate MTB into my base training. It’s less boring, not as cold in the winter, and I get some skills work at the same time. But the fundamental principle of aerobic base rides is having a steady effort which is very difficult to manage on singletrack; between the turns and keeping momentum over terrain, MTB is inherently stochastic in its power demands. While I can easily keep a very low heart rate on the road, for a similar feeling ride, my heart rate will be easily 10-15 bpm higher on the MTB. Is the LSD impossible on the MTB trail? Is the higher heartrate relative to road a problem or simply a result of the greater contribution of the upper body in MTB?”
Chris Case 23:56
Hannah, I’ll start with you since you have such experience on the mountain bike and probably have fielded this question before.
Hannah Finchamp 24:03
For me, I love to do most of my aerobic rides on the mountain bike. So I think that Steve, is off to a really good start here because I think that’s a place that some off road athletes can almost go astray is forgetting the fact that off road is different than the road. It has different demands. Off road isn’t just a power profile, that certainly is a big part of it, but our ability to read the trail and to execute the turns and skills and all of that plays a huge part in our results and our abilities. So spending that long period of time on the mountain bike is really critical.
Hannah Finchamp 24:50
And I think that when you are focused on big training goals, it’s actually really difficult to do your intervals on the mountain bike because when you have 5, 10, 15, especially those longer intervals, it can be really difficult to maintain those extremely specific wattages and high end wattages on a mountain bike. You might not be able to pedal through a turn or there are a lot of downhills, especially on the mountain bike, that you can’t pedal through. Whereas on the road, a lot of the time, you might be able to just dump it into a really hard gear and still maintain that effort.
Hannah Finchamp 25:29
But yes, I think it can be harder to maintain that easier heart rate on the mountain bike. And that is where, I think, we have to allow for a little bit of freedom, but also really examine what that means. So if you’re 10 to 15 beats higher heart rate on the mountain bike, are you still staying aerobic? The bottom line is if you’re doing long, slow distance, that’s still going back to these aerobic type of rides. So you want to have your breathing under control, you want to be able to – if you need to check that it’s maintaining a conversation, essentially. And it’s really critical to do this, we already answered a question similar to aerobic rides, but I think it’s important to really dive into what these aerobic rides are doing. I think that when people go and do aerobic rides, it can feel, like he says on the road, a little bit boring. But if we understand what our bodies are doing, I think we’re a lot more willing to put that time in. So during aerobic rides, over time, these are the adaptations that are happening: you’re increasing your heart stroke volume. So that’s the amount of blood that your heart can produce per heartbeat. So if you think about it, that means that if you’re producing more blood per heartbeat, that means that you would need less beats in order to circulate the same amount of blood. So over time, we’re lowering the heart rate at the same intensity. So we’re going faster with less effort. You’re also increasing the number of capillaries you have, it’s been shown that you can decrease your breathing rate by as much as 20 to 30% with focusing on these aerobic rides, you can increase your myoglobin, which is what helps carry oxygen in the body, you can increase that by, some studies have shown, 75 to 80%. Then you’re also increasing your mitochondria, the number of mitochondria and the size of mitochondria, which we all probably remember from our high school science classes that the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell. So these are all really critical adaptations to make.
Hannah Finchamp 27:59
So to get back to the question, as long as you’re staying aerobic, for the majority of the ride, you’re still achieving the goal of the run. Now, personally, I think that if there’s these little kickers and stuff like there are on the mountain bike, and your heart rate spikes for 10-15 seconds to get over that little kicker, it’s okay, that’s not gonna to minimize all the other aerobic gains that you’ve made on the ride. That’s just the nature of it, it’s fine, you shift down into an easier gear, you recover your heart rate as quickly as possible and then you remember what the goal is of the ride and you go back into that aerobic state. So in that case, it’s okay, if you have these little spikes, it’s just a matter of keeping the heart rate in that zone for most of the ride. And if you’re not able to do that, then you might just need to find a different trail or something of that sort because it certainly is possible to do those, he says long, slow distance rides on the mountain bike, you just might need to be a little bit specific about the trails you’re picking. Or maybe also you need to look at the gearing on your bike for the terrain that you’re riding, because I know that that can be an issue for a lot of mountain bikers as well. “Well gosh, these climbs are so long and so hard and I’m already in my easiest gear.” Well, if you get a larger cassette or something like that, then all of a sudden you have this ability to spin and keep the rides a little bit more aerobic and to hit those goals.
Chris Case 29:41
Ryan as a mountain biker, do you agree with all of that? What else would you share?
Ryan Kohler 29:47
Yeah, I think the terrain selection that you mentioned Hannah and the gearing are two big pieces. For me, this is where I have to kind of shout out to the single speed because I love riding my single speed, especially this time of year. For those long rides, it’s nice because it forces me to select the right terrain and I can still find dirt to go play around on. The nice thing about that is when you do go up hills, you know you’re out of the saddle, and you’re pedaling very slowly so heart rate really stays very nicely under control, as long as you choose your terrain wisely. So I think everybody should be riding a single speed number one.
Chris Case 30:31
Who are you sponsored by Ryan?
Ryan Kohler 30:34
Not biased at all. But yeah, I think something like that is really good. And then you get those those technique benefits in addition too. You can also throw in some neuromuscular work, you can throw in some different options there. But yeah, I think just to follow up with what Hannah said, I think those are two big considerations: finding the best terrain and if it’s a loop that you’re doing, maybe the other way is a little bit easier to help you maintain that better, and then the gearing. Try and figure out: can I just adjust this gearing to make it more accommodating to what I need? The other piece is looking at how you approach hills, or whether they’re long hills or short, punchy climbs or those kind of moderate ones where you’re not sure just how hard to go, but I find talking through sometimes the terrain that you’re riding can be helpful. “Oh, well, sometimes it’s just hard to slow yourself down.” So there is that mental piece of can I just take an easier gear and go all the way up into my 52 chain ring, or cog, and just sit there and spin lightly. I think, mentally, that’s a really hard thing for people to do this time of year or just in general. So sometimes, mentally forcing yourself to do that is going to be new and challenging.
Chris Case 31:58
Having some discipline, holding back a little bit sometimes can be hard. Yeah. Trevor?
Trevor Connor 32:03
I don’t have too much to add here. I really liked what Hannah was saying about getting out the whole perceived effort. I think another important thing to remember is mountain biking is often a full body exercise, you’re using your arms a lot more than you would on a road bike. When you start bringing more limbs into the equation, that’s gonna raise your heart rate for the same actual perceived effort. So I like that she said, as long as it’s still feeling aerobic that that’s important. You have to adjust that heart rate a little bit for when you’re on the trail.
Trevor Connor 32:38
When I’m actually doing my easy rides, even if I was a mountain biker, I would still probably prefer to do my high intensity work on the road where I can be steady. But when I’m doing my easy rides, I actually love to get out in the mountain bike because it keeps it fun, it keeps it interesting. I agree with what Hannah said, if it’s just a little 5-10 second effort, that’s fine. I don’t have the ego where if I get to a really big, hard steep climb and go well, this is going to take several minutes of really high intensity. If I’m out for an easy ride, I’ll just get off the mountain bike and walk up and keep going.
Using the base and build period of training for anaerobic energy systems
Chris Case 33:18
Alright, this next question comes from Nathan Radetzky in Helena, Montana, he writes:
Chris Case 33:25
“I’ve been getting back into competitive cycling the last few years after taking some time off and having a young family. I usually consider myself more of a rouleur type rider due to my size (I’m 6’4″ 186lbs) but have found in the higher race categories, my lack of anaerobic power became both a weakness and a limiter. On climbs under five minutes I found myself spit out the back and would have to burn a ton of energy to claw myself back to the group. I’m excited to use a more polarized training model considering I love nothing more than long four-hour rides and threshold intervals. I am curious about your thoughts on also using the base and build period to focus on my anaerobic energy systems as well. Maybe a Zwift race once a week? I would love to become more of a punchy racer, but have had a tough time finding gains in this short power duration energy system. Any hope or am I destined for the solo breakaways and gravel events?”
Chris Case 34:24
And for reference, Nathan is saying he can do about 422 to 425 watts for five minutes. Trevor, I know you’ve conversed a little bit with Nathan, do you want to start with this one?
Trevor Connor 34:40
I gave a lengthy answer. I’ll give the least the start of the answer and then I’m really interested in hearing what Hannah and Ryan have to say about this. But the short of my answer is getting back to that whole idea of power scaling with weight, which is generally true, but above a certain weight you start hitting just straight up physiological limits regardless of what your weight is, and power will not continue to scale evenly with with weight.
Chris Case 35:08
Hey, Trevor, before you go any further, don’t you want to tell us the cool term and the story about bones here?
Trevor Connor 35:15
I was going to avoid it. But if you really want me to, it’s called allometric scaling.
Chris Case 35:20
Very good. All right, you can get back to your answer now.
Trevor Connor 35:24
So yeah, well, so the bone thing is if they, I’m sure everybody’s heard of that 1950s movie, the 100 foot woman?
Chris Case 35:34
I don’t know.
Trevor Connor 35:38
It’s an old movie where they use special effects to make this woman 100 feet tall and then she went rampaging around the city. The truth of the matter is, she would take one step and break every bone in her legs,because not everything scales proportionally. And she would have a real tough time.
Chris Case 35:56
That’s the very, very brief answer on allometric scaling and why this sci fi movie wouldn’t work.
Trevor Connor 36:02
So this athlete is bumping up a little bit against that.
Chris Case 36:08
Are you calling Nathan 100 foot tall woman?
Trevor Connor 36:11
No, I’m not.
Chris Case 36:14
Okay, go ahead. Sorry.
Trevor Connor 36:15
The issue is, you look at what pros can do on those shorter climbs, so we’re talking to four or five minute climb, and he said he’s in the higher categories. They’re going to be six to seven watts per kilogram. And for him, that’s means he’s got to be able to put out well over 500 watts for five minutes. And that’s tough. That’s really tough for anybody to do. There aren’t many pros that can put out that big of power. So sure, he can improve that wattage, but to be able to put out the sort of wattage at his weight to simply power over that climb with the people who are better at those those four or five minute climbs, I think that’s going to be a struggle.
Trevor Connor 37:02
So my answer to him was really to focus on other ways to improve his ability to get over those climbs. But before I give any of that, I’m really interested, Hannah and Ryan, what’s your feeling on this? Am I full of it? Do you agree with that? And what’s your advice?
Hannah Finchamp 37:18
Yeah, I do agree with what you’re saying. For Nathan, specifically, is maybe a little bit of the hard truth. I’d love to answer this question, just from the question if we didn’t have his metrics in there and just just thinking of the question as it is. This question hits home a little bit for me because my journey in sport, I was a triathlete for 10 years before I became a mountain biker. So that whole time trial type of effort was absolutely my bread and butter. So I came to the mountain bike world with a great threshold. And unsure really, of what this feeling was when all of a sudden, I was cross eyed, and couldn’t feel my hand and all of these things, because you’re breathing so hard. I think for some people, that anaerobic effort can be a little bit of a limiter, and so frustrating too when you feel like someone’s gapping you on these little short punches, and then for the next hour, you’re just riding the same speed as them, but 20 seconds behind. It’s like, “Okay, well, I’m strong, so what the heck?”
Hannah Finchamp 38:43
This is a difficult topic, because it can be traine, but this is also one of those things that can be slightly genetic. We’re getting into those type one and type two muscle fibers so what you’re born with, what you’ve trained, they both play in. So some people are going to naturally have those slow twitch muscle fibers in which they can go for a long period of time. And as Nathan says, “are destined for the solo breakaways and gravel events.” And then other people are going to have some more of those fast twitch muscle fibers in which they’re just going to be really excellent sprinters and be able to put huge torque through the pedals. And then there’s some abilities – some of those fibers are going to be like that forever and then there’s some of those muscle fibers that you can transition. You can change, alter, some of those slow twitch fibers into fast twitch fibers. And this is just talking on on a very basic level.
Hannah Finchamp 39:50
This is something that I personally have experienced because very quickly when I decided I wanted to be a mountain biker, this was the immediate focus for me for several years at the beginning of my career to be able to handle those really fast starts and things like that.
Hannah Finchamp 40:08
Getting down to his question, I think that if you’re following a periodized approach, I wouldn’t recommend throwing a Zwift race into your base building period. That aerobic period is so critical to make those aerobic adaptations because they will be the foundation for that anaerobic work later.
Hannah Finchamp 40:34
Now, as someone who struggles, or needs the extra work in the anaerobic system, you are going to have to work on it more than others. So that means maybe periodizing your year out so that you have more time to work on those anaerobic efforts or those fast twitch muscle fibers before your A races. Making sure that you have plenty of time and plenty of time with plenty of recovery because remember those workouts are going to require more recovery than other workouts, to work on the systems before your main races.
Hannah Finchamp 41:11
And also to kind of tie in another question that we’ve already had is, this could be a place as well, that weight training can really kind of be a catalyst for these type of changes. Because that’s a way that you can kind of alter these muscle fibers maybe in a more expedited fashion by working on things like plateaus, and explosive type of movements that also are gonna focus on that neuromuscular adaptation and your ability to recruit those fibers that maybe you’re not even able to tap into what you already have.
Hannah Finchamp 41:51
So short answer is, I would still do your base training as base training, I might periodize the year in which you have a little extra time on your anaerobic energy systems, and I think that this is a person who would be a great candidate to get in the gym and work on some of those explosive type of exercises.
Ryan Kohler 42:13
I really liked the use of hard truth Hannah. I think that’s a really good way to put it. Because we see these limiters in ourselves, and we see where we want to make improvements, but there are times where we need to, not necessarily accept it, but realize that yeah, this is a hard truth, that this is absolutely a limiter, and it’s something that I may not be able to change all that much. So I think taking the approach if looking at different options of how can I make steps toward improving this is crucial. And I think you also alluded to this as well, but this is not something that’s going to happen over a season. If you do go and try to improve this, where you’re making these climbs are becoming a little bit easier, and you’re in a better position at the top, this may be a multiple year endeavor, where you’re going to make potentially small gains along the way, or you may not see much. It’s going to come down to more of how do you approach this when you’re in the races and how are you approaching the time up until that climb, so there’s more this these tactics that come into play as well. But yeah… I agree with a lot of what you’re saying, so I don’t have a whole lot else to add just that I think that wording was really, really helpful to start with, and then just thinking of this as potentially a longer term approach.
Hannah Finchamp 43:47
Yeah, and I might even add too; I love the phrase “Race your strengths and train your weaknesses.” So, this last sentence he says here “Am I destined for solo breakaways?” You’re racing your strength. So, if that’s your strength, maybe you are looking at solo breakaways, but you’re training your weaknesses. So maybe your goal is less of to be the best person at these five minute climbs, but rather, you’re just training this weakness, you’re training these fast twitch muscle fibers, to get to the point that you’re not getting spit out the back on the five minute climbs, but you’re hanging on enough that you then can execute your strength and be able to make that solo breakaway.
Trevor Connor 44:44
I agree with that completely. I can tell you from experience, I’m somebody where my biggest weakness is that kind of one to three minute climb. I never looked forward to them. I learned how to always get over them with the field, some of that was strength. A lot of that was technique, which can go a long way. But when I raced, when we got to rollers where it was a bunch of 1 – 3 minute climbs I never went ‘Woohoo, great! I’m excited now.” It was kind of ‘Ugh, got I get through this.’ I still knew that if I had wanted to have a chance of winning this race, I had to breakaway. I had to race to my strengths, not try to win on what I knew was my weakness. It was really just make sure my weakness wasn’t something was going to cost me the race.
Chris Case 45:33
Excellent. I do want to throw out one correction to that section. It’s not the 100 foot woman, Trevor. It’s Attack of the 50 foot woman for anybody that wants to Google that, see the artwork for that, and maybe even watch the movie?
Trevor Connor 45:53
Okay, well, then the 100 foot woman would have pulverized her bones that 50 foot woman just broken them in 100 plates.
Chris Case 46:02
There you go.
Ryan Kohler 46:03
That’s why I was getting funny Google results.
Chris Case 46:07
You were Googling 100 foot woman during our conversation Ryan? Shame on you.
Trevor Connor 46:13
We are having this great conversation. The two of you are googling 1950s movies. Is that what was going on here? Sorry.
Structured verse unstructured intensity workouts
Chris Case 46:21
So this next question comes to us from Robert Hall, I believe is his name. It’s about structured versus unstructured intensity. He writes:
Chris Case 46:31
“If I understand Dr. Seiler’s research correctly, the most important predictor for adaptation for intensity workouts is the time of ‘work’ near or above LT2 (the ‘red zone’). Most coaches seem to have a strong preference for structured intervals. However, I find it much more fun and motivating to chase Strava segments on my mountain bike, or ride in Zwift races. Assuming one is mindful of progressive load, stress, and recovery, is there any down side to using unstructured intensity if the time spent near LT2 is similar?”
Chris Case 47:09
Who wants to start?
Trevor Connor 47:11
I’ll quickly address Dr. Seiler’s research. So this is splitting hairs, but I think it’s important to split this hair. In Dr. Seiler’s research, the best predictor of adaptation was performance. What I really enjoyed about his work is that he flipped it around. What he did is he looked for the top athletes in the world and tried to then figure out how they trained. So he started with saying here are people that have obviously trained right and adapted very well. so they had great adaptation. Now let’s figure out what they were doing to produce that great adaptation. So he wasn’t saying let’s do this and predict how it’s going to adapt, it was a well we know there was great adaptation, so let’s see what they did. So it’s actually the exact opposite. He traced it back.
Hannah Finchamp 48:12
I think that this question is interesting. I almost feel like all of us coaches are sitting here looking at it like, well, if everyone can just chase Strava segments, and we’re here trying to talk about our structured training plans then I don’t know about this question – Or maybe that’s just me.
Hannah Finchamp 48:33
But I think what this question is getting to is, it makes me think of a study that is in the Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science and Sport. This study in particular found that a protocol of 13 times 30 seconds, all out, with 15 seconds recovery completed three times, that workout increased VO2, power output at a set blood lactate level in a 40 minute time trial and five minute time trial power to a greater extent than a protocol of four times five minute intervals.
Hannah Finchamp 49:21
So maybe that sounded a little bit confusing so let me break that down a little bit. So if you think about it, 13 intervals at 30 seconds hard with 15 second recovery is totaling six and a half minutes of hard work. If you complete that set three times, then that’s 19 and a half minutes of hard work in comparison to four times five minutes, which is 20 minutes of hard work. So let’s say that 30 seconds difference is fairly negligible.
Hannah Finchamp 49:52
So in this study, they would be comparing the fact that during these 30 second efforts, you’re able to work harder, but at the same amount of time as these 4×5 minute intervals in which you’re not working as hard, and therefore, you’re able to increase your VO2, increase your power output with those shorter intervals to a greater extent than the five minute intervals.
Hannah Finchamp 50:24
So if you followed all that, I think that that is really the premise that they’re trying to allude to here in this question because they do reference the time, duration, all of that. So they’re saying, if we just link up a bunch of Strava segments and spend the same amount of time at the same intensities, is it really any different? And I think the answer is yes and no. They say here, assuming one is mindful of progressive loads, stress and recovery, is there any downside to using unstructured intensity? Well, I think that if you’re mindful of progressive load, stress and recovery, that it’s no longer really unstructured. You know, just because you’re doing your interval on a Strava segment, doesn’t make it unstructured. If you’re still looking at that progressive overload, stress, and recovery, then you’re going to be looking for, okay, you know, I want a five minute Strava segment, and then I want 10 minutes of easy spin to the next one, and I want to then…. and all of a sudden, it actually is a pretty structured workout that you’re completing just with Strava segments. Which, if that’s the case, I think that’s great and I think that’s fun and I think that that is kind of the point in Strava. In many ways it’s that we can all race while still doing our workouts. And I’d be lying if I’ve never matched up one of my intervals to a big keel run that I wanted.
Hannah Finchamp 52:03
But when we’re truly talking about unstructured intensity, I think that that is when it gets messy, because you’re no longer targeting your energy systems, you’re not following a polarized approach, you’re not following a periodized approach, you just can’t mix and match so many energy systems where you’re going for a 10 second segment, and you’re also going for an hour long segment, and expect to have the same outcome as someone who’s being very thoughtful in all their intervals and strategy for their workouts.
Trevor Connor 52:42
Absolutely, I love that answer. I wrote some notes for this one ahead of time and virtually wrote down the same answer. We are exactly on the same page here. I even put, ‘No and here’s my reasons why for no.’ And then ‘Yes. And here’s my reasons why for yes.’ I think you’re spot on.
Trevor Connor 52:59
So I’m going to say what I think all of us are avoiding saying a little bit, which is yes, Strava segments are fun, Zwift races are fun, interval work is not as fun so we’re all looking for a good reason to say, ‘Well, if I just go and do tons of Strava segments and Zwift races, I’m gonna be super fit.’ And I think what we just heard from Hannah, and I fully agree with is, yeah, you can get some fitness doing that, but you’re not gonna be the strongest you could be. Is that a pretty good summary, Hannah?
Hannah Finchamp 53:30
Yeah, I think so. I will say, I just want to put in a little caveat here is I actually did notice that they did reference a research in this, which I didn’t notice at the beginning, and what I referenced was separate from that. So if I made that sound like I was referencing exactly what they are, I’m not.
Trevor Connor 53:51
So I actually grabbed for this one, a 2011 study that quite literally used a year’s worth of Strava data to see if they could trace back ,similar to how Dr. Seiler does, what the strongest athletes on Strava were doing in their training. And one of the biggest discoveries they found was that the coefficient of variation, or steadiness, correlated inversely with performance; meaning that the top performers tended to be pretty steady in their work. If they went out for an easy ride, it was just easy. When they did intervals, it was structured. So this is another way of saying these people weren’t doing a ton of time chasing Strava segments and racing on Zwift.
Trevor Connor 54:41
That said, I would say to everybody, I can’t remember the number of the episodes right around FT60, we had Ned Overend on the show and he used Strava segments to train. He used in a very structured way. He had a five minute climb, he had a 20 minute climb, he had a one hour climb and he would just go and do repeats on whichever climb depending on which energy system you want to work. And you heard Hannah talk about that. If you want to get your best training, you need to target energy systems. You can do that with Strava segments if you’re being consistent, and then maybe doing repeat, so that’s great.
Chris Case 55:21
Well, Hannah, it’s been a pleasure to have you on the show. A wealth of knowledge here. We’d love to have you back in the future. Hope you enjoyed yourself. And thank you again.
Hannah Finchamp 55:32
Thank you. It’s my pleasure. Thanks for having me.
Trevor Connor 55:35
Hannah it was a joy having you on the show. Thank you very much.
Chris Case 55:40
That was another episode of Fast Talk. Subscribe to Fast Talk wherever you prefer to find your favorite podcasts. And be sure to leave us a rating and review.
Chris Case 55:49
Thoughts and opinions expressed on Fast Talk are those of the individual. As always, we’d love your feedback. Join the conversation at forums.fasttalklabs.com to discuss each and every one of our Fast Talk episodes. Become a member of Fast Talk Laboratories at fasttalklabs.com/join and become a part of our education and coaching community. For Hannah Fincham, Ryan Kohler, Trevor Connor and Chris Case. Thanks for listening
