so, when the weather is like it’s been the last few days in melbourne, or when i wanna watch tv and ride or whatever i jump on my rollers.
what a some good workouts?
i normally stuff like:
10 mins warm out at 90 rpm, gradually shifting through the gears
6 mins at 125 rpm, 1 minute taking it easy
5 mins at 125 rpm, 1 minute taking it easy
4 mins at…
10 mins warm down
or
10 mins warm up
1 minute balls out, 1 minute taking it easy
and repeat that until i’m bored, too stuffed then 10 mins warm down.
I used to like chucking on my computer and doing it in distance. E.g. Ride for 5km under 30km/h to warm up, sprint 500m, ride to 10km without dropping under 30km/h, sprint another 500m, ride to 15km without dropping under 30km/h, sprint again. And again, and again. Until your legs don’t work.
My exercises with the rollers now entail the exertion of shifting them from one cupboard to another.
whatever gets your heart rate up and doesn’t bore the shit Of you.
If you succeed at this You win at cycling.
Depends on what your goals are as to how you’d Structure your sessions.
Sounds like you already got the gist of interval training.
There’s something called fartlek training which is similar to interval but more random,
Where you have triggers that come from anything You choose.
A very simple way to do this would be to have a few words you’ll know will p
op up pretty regularly, and when you hear them you go bursurk for say a minute or until the scene changes or whatever you choose-the main aim in my eye is to train the brain to STFU and power without the mental preparation you’d get from interval training of seeing the clock count down.
This is a pretty rough memory but the gist is there.
EDIT: I also was wondering the other day, better to train fixed or roadie on rollers?
Sorry for the hijack mckenny but maybe this can be an all out rollers advice thread?
yeah I’m glad McKenny started this thread, it’s what I’ve had on my mind lately.
Tristan,
I immediately thought of just using my track bike, I hate riding anything but fixed on rollers, I was going to get a HRM and work off that… this could be the wrong thing to do, I’m unsure.
One of the advantages rollers have over the fixed rear wheel types of trainers is they force you to adopt a good riding technique to stay on and upright.
I think that this in turn leads to improving your core and therefore helps more with faster efforts? Does that make sense?
I also prefer using a fixed on the rollers, not too big a gear though, the idea is on good technique and effort, do would lean towards higher cadence.
Also using an hrm is always a good indicator, especially if over time your resting, ie first thing in the morning heart rate reduces.
Everyone goes on about max heart rate, which is fine but if your resting heart rate is high then you will get up to max much sooner with less effort- ie you’re less fit?
Again rollers are one of the best ways to lower resting rates, as an aerobic exercise.
ok, i’ll put my advice up here. but remember that i’m not a coach, have no qualifications whatsoever, and am only writing what i’ve gleaned from other coaches over the past four years.
yes rollers are best for aerobic fitness. i’m gonna assume that’s all everyone here is interested in - if you want to be a faster racer, get a wind / fluid / resistance trainer and a coach. my coach only costs me $60 a month - forgo two coffees a day and you’re sorted. BUT you should ride your road bike on the rollers, so you have the extra resistance gears can provide. it’s simply too easy to spin out on your track bike, which means that you’re not getting the full benefit.
the best thing you can use in conjunction with your rollers is a HR monitor. speed and cadence are totally arbitrary, and have no reflection on your fitness - though i occasionally do cadence based drills to get my leg speed up ahead of a big track carnival. find your resting HR by taking it first thing in the morning - strap on the monitor for two minutes as soon as you wake up, note the average. then find your max HR by doing a step test (google will help you with this), where you gradually raise the intensity until you can’t any more. do not simply take the highest max HR you’ve ever seen, as usually that involves a fair bit of adrenaline, which gives you an inaccurate gauge for training purposes. for example, my max HR is 189, but i regularly see HRs in the 190s while racing. once you have your max worked out, figure out the percentages.
don’t just jump in and smash yourself. you need first to build an endurance base - the stronger the foundations, the stronger you will be. start by doing two ten minute efforts at 60%, with ten minutes warm up / cool down, and ten minutes recovery in between. do that for a month or so - it takes about that long for your body to adapt to anything new. then next month build up to two 15 minute efforts at 70%. month after that, two 15 minute efforts at 90%. that should be fucking hard. sure, they aren’t the most exciting sessions, but this is how you build fitness. all that “sprint every time phil liggett says ‘suitcase of courage’” or some such bullshit is for shunters who value entertainment over improvement. put something good on TV while you do it.
after you’ve built your base, your efforts depend on what you want to work on. first i’d recommend a VO2 max booster, with 15 minutes warm up (in which you gradually build to about 90%), then 24 x 15 second absolute max efforts / 30 seconds recovery between each effort, the 15 minutes cooldown (cooldown is always recovery pace, ie less than 60%). do them for a month and all of a sudden those hills will be much easier, and your recovery after sprinting to catch that orange light will be much quicker.
once you’ve recovered, the cooldown is for your skills. practice riding no hands, reaching for things no hands, riding with one foot, closing your eyes, turning your head. all of these are good for your riding in general.
when you’ve done those four months of roller efforts, email me. i’ll give you some phone numbers, or some more programs.
Thanks heaps for the tips Brendan. Question on that step test for your max heart rate - the ones I’ve looked up are a basic three minute up-down on the steps, after which you take your average heart rate for the last minute, and depending on if your base fitnes is poor, average or excellent you add a certain number to get your max heart rate. Sounds kinda vague. Is there a more accurate way to check, like actually hitting your max heart rate rather than working out a little bit then simply adding a pre-determined number?
I’d previously been working off the max heart rate I hit in a crit, but as you say, this may not be the best to use for the targeted heart rate zone training.
yeah, that’s a weird way of doing it. the first time i did it was on the trainer, and after a ten minute warmup i just kept the cadence steady and dropped down a gear each minute. when i ran out of gears i just upped the cadence by 5rpm each minute. when your heart rate stops rising, that’s your max. you should be totally fucked at the end of it - the 2nd time i did one, in a proper lab, i nearly passed out. hurley threw up up in the mask, then actually passed out.
we got two trainers at our house atm. come around the same time as mckenny and we’ll all go at it.