Road Bike Racing - Increasing my 1-minute Power

What training level (as defined by The Book) should I be training at if I want to improve my 1-minute power? Any recommended workouts? Thanks!

According to Allen and Coggans:






Level 6 Anaerobic Capacity




Short (30 s to 3 min), high intensity intervals designed to increase anaerobic capacity.
Heart rate generally not useful as guide to intensity due to nonsteady-state nature of effort. Severe sensation of leg effort/fatigue, and conversation impossible. Consecutive days of extended level 6 training usually not attempted.

Gee, perhaps 1 minute intervals?

Other ideas:Power intervals: 1-3 minute intervals, maximal effort at 120 rpm. ( The high RPM really makes you redline.

Pyramids. Particularly if you want to increase your one minute power and your ability to recover and repeat. (15 sec on, 15 sec off, 30 sec on, 30 seconds off, 45 seconds on, 45 seconds off, 1 minute on, 1 minute off, 45on, 45 off, 30on 30 off, 15 on, puke.)

One-minute intervals will increase your power at LT and raise your LT.

Sprints (15 seconds, 100% explosive, crank-bending effort) will increase your strength and get your 1-minute effort up and running efficiently.

Do both, only once a week, and on different days. Full easy recovery between efforts.

When training for 400m on the track, my teammates bread and butter workouts were 100m (12-15s), 200m (25-30s) and 300m (39-45s) repeats. Since my conversion to cycling, I've found many of the efforts similar, and would assume that the intensities and durations for the shorter events would be transferable to cycling.

If you're still in winter mode weights will also help, as will adaptive training on the bike (big gear, low cadence) .

Although you'll get several replies that weights don't do anything.

^^^ I liked weights, but I'm not sure it was any better for my speed than riding. Sure is fun to be a skinny cyclist in the gym though, pushing 10x1200 lbs on the leg press and freeweight squats 10x405 lbs. The muscleheads are pretty clearly astonished :)

Get the realrides Race Day DVD. Just tried mine, and it's a hammerfest. Lots of quick, hard intervals.

If you don’t get much creatine in your diet (e.g. beef), it may help your 60s power.

Interesting couple of side notes on the weight work...one of my teammates turned himself into a heck of a sprinter working with weights and Lucien Van Impe (one of the best climbers ever who would be a lot better known had he not had Merckx to contend with) had a good interview in this months ProCycling about how he did a lot of weight training in the winter to improve his climbing.

^^^ I liked weights, but I'm not sure it was any better for my speed than riding. Sure is fun to be a skinny cyclist in the gym though, pushing 10x1200 lbs on the leg press and freeweight squats 10x405 lbs. The muscleheads are pretty clearly astonished :)


:love:

If you don’t get much creatine in your diet (e.g. beef), it may help your 60s power.


Yeah, I hear Mark Mcquire was right up there with Ekimov, when it came to taking a flyer with 1k to go.

:love:

:roflmao:

You should have seen our team's sprinter. He made me look like a junior in the weight room :) I watched him max squat 550. The bar has a funny bend at that weight -- like the gorilla on the gym's logo.

Yeah, I hear Mark Mcquire was right up there with Ekimov, when it came to taking a flyer with 1k to go.

Poor analogy; and you jumped to a bunch of conclusions.

I never suggested anyone start supplementing with large doses of creatine but to merely correct any potential nutritional deficiencies, ideally through diet manipulation. Vegetarians and the growing population of people who are paranoid about meat consumption really do stand to benefit the most.

The research is clear on these points:
- The body does not like to produce creatine endogenously (genes are not expressed unless very deficient) preferring to recycle amounts obtained through diet.

- High intensity-short duration exercise performance is increased with use. However, related (water) weight gains may offset improvements in intermediate length events.

I also never suggested it would make him a better road racer; I said it might increase his 1 min power. The difference between those statements is substantial, but may elude the feeble minded. But hey, there is a growing camp of stat-loving, exercise physiologist coached athletes around here that love to look at one “pudding ingredient” at a time.

Poor analogy; and you jumped to a bunch of conclusions.

I never suggested anyone start supplementing with large doses of creatine but to merely correct any potential nutritional deficiencies, ideally through diet manipulation. Vegetarians and the growing population of people who are paranoid about meat consumption really do stand to benefit the most.

The research is clear on these points:
- The body does not like to produce creatine endogenously (genes are not expressed unless very deficient) preferring to recycle amounts obtained through diet.

- High intensity-short duration exercise performance is increased with use. However, related (water) weight gains may offset improvements in intermediate length events.

I also never suggested it would make him a better road racer; I said it might increase his 1 min power. The difference between those statements is substantial, but may elude the feeble minded. But hey, there is a growing camp of stat-loving, exercise physiologist coached athletes around here that love to look at one “pudding ingredient” at a time.


I sincerely doubt that there is any non vegetarian American who's going to impove as a bike racer from adding more creatine to their diet.

In fact the literature I've seen indicates its counterproductive for endurance sports.

For example: Endurance exercise
As expected, the studies which looked at endurance exercise failed to show any benefit of creatine compared to placebo. In fact one study, which measured running performance over a 6 km course, found slower times in the creatine supplemented group (8). This effect is possibly related to the weight gain (mean 1 kg ) associated with creatine use. Since the creatine-ATP system is not used by endurance athletes, the weight gain is "dead weight" -- it adds nothing to moving the athlete forward. Instead, the extra weight makes the athlete less efficient.

http://www.rice.edu/~jenky/sports/creatine.html

See also: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/performance-enhancing-drugs/HQ01105


Eleven studies have investigated the effects of creatine on endurance tasks (see Table 4), involving prolonged aerobic exercise, such as distance running or cycling. None of the six laboratory-based trials found a statistically significant improvement in performance.[24,27,38-41] A statistically significant positive difference between the placebo and treatment groups was observed in two[58,62] of the five field trials.[36,38,42,58,62] These results suggest that creatine supplementation is unlikely to improve performance of endurance sports.

In summary, creatine supplementation does appear to increase creatine levels in muscle tissue.[11] Higher creatine levels in muscle tissue should correlate with improved performance of short-duration, high-intensity tasks that are likely to use the ATP-phosphocreatine system as a primary source of energy. Positive results, however, have been difficult to attain and consistently replicate, especially outside the laboratory setting.

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/406673_4

Presumably the OP wants to increas his one minute power to be a better bike racer. There's precious little reason to believe that adding more creatine to his diet (assuming he eats a half decent diet to start) is going to make him a better bike racer.

First baseball players now 6,0000m running, both those activities exactly match 1min cycling sprints. ;)

The weight gain is not as detrimental in cycling as it is in running, due to the weight bearing nature of running. I already agreed that creatines effect on endurance exercise is not as clear. Look at the graph I posted above for appropriate timescales to discuss.

The guy asked about 1min cycling performance, not road racing or endurance. I am not going to tell him what he wants. However, I agree with most of what you said.

Here are some cycling related links. At the very least the jury is still out on this one. Do I think that cyclists should be loading up on 20g/day? No, but 1-3g/day from food or supplement may be a valuable weapon in the athletes arsenal. Higher dosages may be helpful if worked into a periodization program (extra water weight out of competition won’t hurt).

Improves time to exhaustion at high intensities
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=9562365&query_hl=21&itool=pubmed_docsum

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?itool=abstractplus&db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=abstractplus&list_uids=10393351


Improves recovery in cyclists after high intensity efforts.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=11834115&query_hl=3&itool=pubmed_docsum

Reduced dose creatine helps endurance cyclists deal with midrace surges
http://www.pponline.co.uk/encyc/0438.htm

Those who read the original post would see that I asked two things:
1) What power level should I be training at to increase my 1-min power?
and
2) Can you recommend any workouts to increase my 1-min power?

I appreciate the attempt, but fail to see how creatine answers either of those questions.

Those who read the original post would see that I asked two things:
1) What power level should I be training at to increase my 1-min power?
and
2) Can you recommend any workouts to increase my 1-min power?

I appreciate the attempt, but fail to see how creatine answers either of those questions.

1 - maximal

2 - short explosive movements like the carmichael power starts and stomps; short-ish maximal intervals (IN the saddle) with = rest time like multiple sets of 6x1', 2', or 3'; 10x30"; 5x15"/30"/45"/60"/75"; pyramid intervals 1'/2'/3'/4'/4'/3'/2'/1'; seated hill sprints.

I dont know if these workouts correlate to measurable increase 1-min. power, but they will make you faster.

Those who read the original post would see that I asked two things:
1) What power level should I be training at to increase my 1-min power?
and
2) Can you recommend any workouts to increase my 1-min power?

I appreciate the attempt, but fail to see how creatine answers either of those questions.

Sorry, I wrongly assumed that the end goal was to maximize your 60s power.

You do realize that my short post on where your body obtains those high energy substrates directly relates to the energy systems you are trying to train. Workouts actually make you slower, its proper rest and nutrition that leads to supercompensation. The workouts only provide stimulus for the muscle to increase high energy stores, food actually increases the stores. Feel free to ignore optimal nutrition that is specific to the training adaptation you are trying to achieve.

This should not be such a radical idea as I’m pretty sure you already take carbs and protein after endurance workouts to maximize the benefit from those workouts. Any notion that one type of diet would be optimal for all adaptations is laughable.

One could also argue a type of training compounding similar to compound interest. If a special diet (or supplementation) leads to increased maximal power, and maximal power efforts signal adaptation, then each subsequent workout will be done at a higher level with or without maintenance of the initial diet regime.

“If you don’t have any, then you can’t get it. But if you have it already, you don’t need it.”

Sorry, I wrongly assumed that the end goal was to maximize your 60s power.

You do realize that my short post on where your body obtains those high energy substrates directly relates to the energy systems you are trying to train. Workouts actually make you slower, its proper rest and nutrition that leads to supercompensation. The workouts only provide stimulus for the muscle to increase high energy stores, food actually increases the stores. Feel free to ignore optimal nutrition that is specific to the training adaptation you are trying to achieve.

This should not be such a radical idea as I’m pretty sure you already take carbs and protein after endurance workouts to maximize the benefit from those workouts. Any notion that one type of diet would be optimal for all adaptations is laughable.

One could also argue a type of training compounding similar to compound interest. If a special diet (or supplementation) leads to increased maximal power, and maximal power efforts signal adaptation, then each subsequent workout will be done at a higher level with or without maintenance of the initial diet regime.

“If you don’t have any, then you can’t get it. But if you have it already, you don’t need it.”

I think both you and merlin are right. ;)

Creatine is a great substrate for a maximal, explosive effort. Weightlifters like it because it allows for a higher max, explosive effort, which in turn leads to increased muscle hypertrophy in response to the stress. As I recall from med school (we don't tend to think much about creatine in my specialty), skeletal muscle depletes its supply of creatine within about 10 seconds. So yeah, merlin's right in the sense that it doesn't help for endurance sports.

Will it increase 1min power? Maybe. Are there tradeoffs, i.e. the increased mass that merlin brought up? Maybe. I have a feeling that hitting the creatine might help post a new high CP0.2 value, but whether that would translate to an increase in 1-minute power I don't know, because the creatine is long gone by the end of a 1-minute effort IIRC.

The weight gain is not as detrimental in cycling as it is in running, due to the weight bearing nature of running.

Spoken like a true Floridian. ;)

Studies also show a significant degree of water retention within the muscles when using creatine, the weight of which in most folks (in some cases 3-5 pounds) would offset the advantages gained in the short burst efforts if you're doing much climbing. But you're right in that it would probably improve a 60 second effort.

Given that 60 second efforts are essentially sprint drills, I'd also work on form and efficiency. Play around with 60 second bursts at different cadences and positions (hoods, drops, flats, seated, standing) and see which one provides the best average and peak numbers. During our recent camp we did some lead out work and it was interesting how those numbers moved depending on the variables noted above.

Once you find the best position and cadence, try to do your 60 second work in that position.