Originally Posted by
LAshotgun
Right now I'm in the highest gear and I'm turning a cadence of 60-65 a minute. When I drop down gears and step up the cadence I feel like it becomes all hamstring. Also my bike has a 42 teeth front crank so it is not a difficult gear relatively speaking but hard for me in the highest gear. My legs aren't that strong. I've had some huge strength gains in the last 5 months and I feel like I have a ways to go before I can afford to have a moderate intensity day because I feel like I'm barely moving.
Your cadence is too low. It needs to be 90. Period. There is no discussion on this point. It can be more but get it to 90. You'll get faster.
Second, pushing for the max every ride is not going to make you faster optimally. You need to ride slower to get faster. Ride 70-80% of your ride in an intensity you can do and talk. So you would be able to chat with a buddy in this intensity.
15-20% at high intensity intervals. 2-4minute intervals and minute recovery in between. Push as hard as you can for four minutes.
5-10% at maximum intervals. These are going to hurt. You may puke and you may black out a little. This however is the shock therapy the body needs to develop the higher intensity strength. 1minute intervals with 1-2minute rests in between. You need to be ready to give up at 30second mark. But you won't as you still have 30 seconds to go.
It's funny training. It's pretty counterintuitive when you get down to it but as someone said it in a different topic it's about volume and intensity. You can't do high volume with high intensity so you need high volume low intensity with blasts of extreme intensity in between