Training & Nutrition - Aerobic conditioning question...

I now have about 3 month into my return to cycling after 20+ years. Needless to say I've spend a lot of time following the wheels of others, but I just continue to ride and am getting stronger. Recently purchased a Timex heart rate monitor so that I could monitor the intensity of my individual rides...have no problem with intensity of group rides. I'm looking for feedback for my individual training as it relates to aerobic conditioning.

Age is 43 and MHR about 177 (220 - age), that seems right as I was close to max the other day at 171 on a climb.

I believe I get it that I must spend some time each week building my aerobic base - cadence of say 85-95 while keeping my heart rate less that say 80% of MHR. For me that's below say 141 and that's seems quite confortable. On these rides I plan to add 5 to 6 sprints where I'm spinning up to say 110 for 30-45 seconds. This ride is mostly flat and I can go for up to 2 hours, twice a week.

My other ride is a much tougher ride where my heartrate is in the 85-90% range or 150-159. I have two routes, each about 36 km...one is rolling hills and the other is a bit tougher where I end up riding my easiest gear for at least 5 of the 36km. Including warmup and cooldown, I'll be on the bike for about 1.5 hours, twice a week. If we have a race or a group ride I'll forgoe this ride.

One day with the free weights and two days off.

I'm carrying a bit a extra weight(5'9" and 192lbs, but down from 202lbs and a tight fitting 36 waist to loose fitting 34 waist) and as I continue to lose a bit more weight, that will definitely help.

I don't have any problem staying with the group initially, but I get dropped when I get winded when we start to climb...there are a lot of rolling hills that I just can't power over without a significant increase in my heart rate.

It seems like my aerobic conditioning is the issue and I'm looking for comments on the necessity of 4 hours a week at 85-95 cadence and keeping my heart rate below 80%. Does that sound about right? Is the cadence and heart rate range appropriate for building an aerobic base. Or should I be spending more time on my tougher hillier route.

I'm not a competitive racer, just a recreational rider looking for better fitness...but I don't like getting dropped from the group and am determined become more fit.

Thanks for any help.

Cheers,

"It seems like my aerobic conditioning is the issue and I'm looking for comments on the necessity of 4 hours a week at 85-95 cadence and keeping my heart rate below 80%. Does that sound about right? Is the cadence and heart rate range appropriate for building an aerobic base. Or should I be spending more time on my tougher hillier route."

That ride won't do anything for your aerobic capacity, it will just work on your energy system and converting fat to ATP efficienty. Looks like you've been doing some good work, now you're ready for some serious training. The kinds of riding you've been doing is for building mileage-base and endurance , that's fine. What you need is to do next is more intense and longer rides (not at the same time). You need to do more sprints and intervals. Here's the hint on sprints and intervals, they MUST end with your heartrate at 100% and you're no longer able to hold any speed (close to collapsing).

1. SPRINTS: 15-miles maximum, go out 5-8miles for warm up, then do about 5 all-out 100% effort sprints. Pick an easy gear to start at 90rpm, rev it up to 120rpm and shift up, rev it up to 130rpm, shift up, hold the 100% effort for as long as you can; about 30-45 sec, it should burn like crazy. Then relax, let your HR recover to 50-60% of MHR and repeat. Then go home. Good to do sprints with others as they'll push you that last 3-5 seconds extra and drafting them then pulling out to pass at a higher-speed will make you exert yourself more.

2. INTERVALS: 25-35 miles. Intervals are like longer sprints. Goal is to do a workout at above your LT and steadily increase your HR until it's maxed out. So intervals are 1-minute to 5-minute efforts. You can do 98% effort for 1-minute until your HR maxes out. Or do 96% effort for 2-minutes, 94% for 3-minute, etc. Recover to 50-60% MHR after the interval and do another one. You can start out with a medium set of 2-2-2 minute intervals. Expand to 1-2-3-2-1 minute pyramid set. Then within a month, do a 1-2-3-5-3-2-1 pyramid. Remember the goal is steady pacing to learn about your body's capabilities and to max out the HR by the end of the interval.

That's really it. If you ONLY ride 2-days a week, do these two rides and it'll increase your average speed to well over 23-24mph within a couple months. The hill-intervals will also teach you how to pace yourself so that you'll blow up right at the very top; this is the fastest way up a hill and you won't get dropped by those guys on the group-ride. There's plenty of people who make it into the 1-2-Pro ranks on 12-15 hours of training a week. It's about the quality of training, not quantity. The idea is to do more intensity on your workouts than you'd ever encounter in the group-rides or a race.

You only need that 4-hour endurance ride once a week and really only if you want to be able to do 75-100 mile rides. A 3-hour ride may be better for you.

Some references:

Well, I guess I'm a masher (http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?t=135919)
Can't seem to get much above the 17 mph avg! (http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?t=135187) <-- be careful of being caught in no-man's-land...
The secret to going faster (http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?t=134536)
Sore legs (Advice needed) (http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?t=133576)
4 weeks to train for 67 miles...enough time? (http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?t=131044)
How to tarin to increase average speed? (http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?t=131883)
What's it like being the slowest guy on the team? (http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?t=129146)
Anybody else stuck in the middle like me? (http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?t=129677)

Nice post Danno!

What's the recovery ride HR danno?

Nice post Danno!

Ditto. :)

Ought to be a sticky....

1. SPRINTS:[/u] 15-miles maximum, go out 5-8miles for warm up, then do about 5 all-out 100% effort sprints. Pick an easy gear to start at 90rpm, rev it up to 120rpm and shift up, rev it up to 130rpm, shift up, hold the 100% effort for as long as you can; about 30-45 sec, it should burn like crazy. Then relax, let your HR recover to 50-60% of MHR and repeat. Then go home. Good to do sprints with others as they'll push you that last 3-5 seconds extra and drafting them then pulling out to pass at a higher-speed will make you exert yourself more.

2. INTERVALS:[/u] 25-35 miles. Intervals are like longer sprints. Goal is to do a workout at above your LT and steadily increase your HR until it's maxed out. So intervals are 1-minute to 5-minute efforts. You can do 98% effort for 1-minute until your HR maxes out. Or do 96% effort for 2-minutes, 94% for 3-minute, etc. Recover to 50-60% MHR after the interval and do another one. You can start out with a medium set of 2-2-2 minute intervals. Expand to 1-2-3-2-1 minute pyramid set. Then within a month, do a 1-2-3-5-3-2-1 pyramid. Remember the goal is steady pacing to learn about your body's capabilities and to max out the HR by the end of the interval.


Thanks for the post Danno....a couple of questions...what happens when your heart rate maxes out...at 171 beats I was feeling like I was near the max but how do I know when I am at the max. Sorry if this is a dumb question. Second, how do you get to 130rpm without bouncing all over the place. Should I be on the tip of my seat when I'm spinning that fast...or is it just practice that will settle my bouncing, or is there some other tip that might help? Third, how might I do intervals with a hilly terrain? When doing intervals, where do I settle my HR between intervals? And one final question, when you say "shift up" I presume you mean to a lighter gear and that is what allows you to spin from 120 to 130 ...now I'm really showing I'm a newbie?

One again, thank you Danno and others who continue to contribute their knowledge and experience. It's really apreciated.

Cheers,

what happens when your heart rate maxes out...at 171 beats I was feeling like I was near the max but how do I know when I am at the max. Sorry if this is a dumb question. Second, how do you get to 130rpm without bouncing all over the place. Should I be on the tip of my seat when I'm spinning that fast...or is it just practice that will settle my bouncing, or is there some other tip that might help? Third, how might I do intervals with a hilly terrain? When doing intervals, where do I settle my HR between intervals? And one final question, when you say "shift up" I presume you mean to a lighter gear and that is what allows you to spin from 120 to 130 ...now I'm really showing I'm a newbie?

One again, thank you Danno and others who continue to contribute their knowledge and experience. It's really apreciated.

Cheers,

I dunno about you, but when I absolutely max out my HR, I usually wind up limping home. ;) My opinion is that unless you're in d@mn good shape, don't worry about your MHR. Go with 171, or whatever your highest observed is. Your actual MHR is probably higher, but it's doubtful you could hit it with only 3 months of conditioning in your legs.

Getting to 130... build to it. Ride 1 gear lower than what feels comfortable. Do spinning drills (when your legs are nicely warmed up) with minimal resistance on flats or downhills. Try to keep your legs relaxed as you spin. Spin until you start to bounce. You'll get to 130 - 140 soon enough.

Finally, I agree with *your* self analysis... you can use base/aerobic development. Think of getting faster as a year-long goal, not a 2 month goal. It might be nice to whup up on the pack on a November ride, but it'll do you more good next spring and summer. So, yeah, focus on your aerobic system, and maybe strength for now. You'll be developing your aerobic system, muscles, tendons... developing a foundation for speed. It may seem like wasted time, but it's not. (And if you aren't convinced, skip the foundation work next year, and see for yourself.)

Some articles:
A Case For Base (http://www.cycle-smart.com/Articles/find.php?search=1)
The Importance of Base (http://www.ultrafit.com/newsletter/january02.html)

Thanks for the post Danno....a couple of questions...what happens when your heart rate maxes out...at 171 beats I was feeling like I was near the max but how do I know when I am at the max. Sorry if this is a dumb question. Second, how do you get to 130rpm without bouncing all over the place. Should I be on the tip of my seat when I'm spinning that fast...or is it just practice that will settle my bouncing, or is there some other tip that might help? Third, how might I do intervals with a hilly terrain? When doing intervals, where do I settle my HR between intervals? And one final question, when you say "shift up" I presume you mean to a lighter gear and that is what allows you to spin from 120 to 130 ...now I'm really showing I'm a newbie?

One again, thank you Danno and others who continue to contribute their knowledge and experience. It's really apreciated.Cheers,

Hey, you're most welcome! Sprints and to a lesser extent, intervals, reach a terminal state where you can no longer continue due to pain and lactic-acid build-up. It's actually possible to get to total muscle-shutdown due to lactic-acid at about 35-45 sec. before you even hit max-HR. The max-HR may actually hit 5 -10s after you stop a sprint. So the idea with sprints is you go as hard at 100% effort as you can for as long as you can (pick and shift gears to give optimum acceleration). Human physiology will limit this effort to 35-45 seconds. Unless there's some way to transplate myoglobin from some other forms of mammals, that's gonna be it for us.

Don't worry about spinning fast for now, just stay at a low enough RPM where you can sprint smoothly. It does help to scoot forward on the seat. In the begining, you're only gonna have enough strength for 1 shift. So stay in the gear that you're normally cruising at, get of the saddle for about 10-seconds to crank on the pedal as hard as possible. When you start spinning too fast to stay smooth, sit down, which will let you spin a little smoother and faster and continue revving it up. Then shift up into a higher/tougher gear to get your RPMs back down to a usable range and stay seated and spin that up as well. The gears you use may look like this: 52x18t to start, 90->120rpms ,shift up to 52x15t, 90rpms -> 120rpm. Your muscles will probably give out at about 30mph & 100-105rpms. Go as hard as you can for as long as you can. Give yourself at least a 1-mile stretch of road for sprints.

Intervals will definitely run you into max-HR. Start with a 1-minute interval and go at 95-98% of max-effort. This will tax your leg muscles less than a sprint, and will work on your cardiovascular system more. Go for as long as you can until you collapse, note the HR that you hit, it will most likely be your true max-HR. Some people can hit higher max-HR on the running treadmill than on the bike. Either way, true real-world max-HR is usually +/- 10bpm off from the calculated formulae. Once you've determined your real max-HR, you can then use that figure for all your workout calculations.

On hill-intervals, you go based upon distance, not time. So pace yourself at a steady speed such that you blow up at the very top at 100% max-HR. On a short-hill, you may be close to sprinting up the hill at a 95% effort. On longer hills of 5-10minutes, you'll be pacing yourself at a 85-90% of max-exertion effort. In both cases, your HR should start around 50-60% of max-HR at the bottom when you start, and it should increase steadily to 100% max-HR at the very top. If you blow up before the top, slow it down slightly the next time. If you've you've climbed 75% of the hill and find that you've got a lot left over and actually have to sprint the last 25% in order to hit 100% max-HR, then start that hill at a faster pace the next time.

By "pace", I mean speed, you want as even of a speed as possible that you can hold all the way up the hill. Assuming a hill with even grade, you may go 13mph all the way up, or 14mph or 15mph. This speed will be faster than what you can hold at a steady pace at your LT. The trick with this training is that you learn to feel your body and how hard it's working at various paces and distances above its LT. The fastest way up a hill is at the highest average-speed possible or at the highest average power-output (watts) possible. The trick is timing it so you blow up only once you've crested the hill to cover that distance as fast as possible. Then you can coast and draft and follow the other guys down to recover. Let your HR recover to 50-60% of max-HR before starting the next hill-interval. There's many hill where I'll do interals up and down each side for about an hour, then I go home... could be boring, but good training. :)

At this point of the season, most people are tapering off getting ready for the winter. If you're just starting out, that's fine, you're about 8-months behind or 4-months ahead of schedule. Plan on taking some time off in the winter for weight-training, this will help you tremendously on those rollers (your muscles will be operating at a lower-percentage of their max-strength effort). Then do 2-months of base-mileage in Jan-Feb (about 2000-3000miles). Then start the sprint & interval training.