Excerpt from Internet exercise advice column. Tongue in cheek comments in bold
Some instructors will ask students to load on the resistance so much so that cadence drops to 50, 40 or even 30 rpm. Let's take a look at whether this is beneficial for you as a cyclist, or even for the non-cyclists that make up a large part of the indoor cycling population.
Most indoor ‘cycling’ instructors bikes are hanging in their garages. When they do ride their bike, the only time they shift gears is when the misadjusted chains skips unto another cog. And they don’t even know what a cog is.
The term "specificity of exercise" is a tenet in exercise science that applies to all fitness and sport training. It means that as much as possible, your training should mimic the specific movement of your sport or goal activity. Specificity applies not only to the muscle groups used, but also to the speed of movement, the joint angle, the muscle fiber types recruited and even to the metabolic system employed to generate energy.
Face it, biking is watts. There are no watts on a spin bike. If you aren’t training watts you ain’t training for biking. You are wasting your time on a spin bike. ‘Specificity of exercise’ on a spin bike? It’s called a Bicycle. Ever seen a spin ‘bike’ with two wheels? I don’t think this guy even owns a bike.
In a periodized training program, training starts off fairly general to enhance basic fitness elements such as muscular endurance, aerobic endurance and leg speed (in the case of cycling), but the closer you get to your event the more specific your training needs to be.
A periodized bicycle program is watts, a lotta watts, and then crushingly painful watts. Leg speed is how long it takes to shave ‘em. Watts is all that matter.
More: How Cyclists Should Approach Indoor Classes
Climbing for Cyclists
Climbing is an essential part of cycling, especially for those who live in hilly areas. What cadences are generally desirable for climbing?
Climbing the best way to create watts. Lottsa watts. And pain. Cadence should maximize watts and pain.
When faced with a hill, your cadence is dependent on the grade of the hill, your available gears, your fitness level, your previous training, and whether you are racing up that hill or just sauntering up it, among other things. If you live in a hilly area like I do, in the Rocky Mountains where climbs are rarely shorter than 20 minutes and often exceed one hour, your gearing becomes very important. You think long and hard about whether to invest in compact gearing or even a triple chain ring, in order to save your knees and back (especially if you are on the north side of 40 years old!)
First off, ‘hills’ are NOT graded. They are called climbs and they are categorized. Has this guy ever ridden a bike? Hilly area? It’s called the Rocky MTNS… not Rocky hills. And don’t waste your time thinking about gearing or chain rings… get out there and produce watts.
If your cadence consistently falls below 60 rpm for longer than a few minutes when climbing, and you are already in your lowest gear, your logical next stop should be to go to your local bike shop to purchase new gears. Cadence that slow is less efficient, causes much greater muscular fatigue, depletes your glycogen stores much more quickly, and places a tremendous risk on the knees, hips and back.
Look pal, if 60 rpm is too slow… pedal faster. It’s a hellava lot cheaper than purchasing new ‘gears’. Gears? Cars have gears… bicycles have cogs and chain rings. I think this guy fell off his spin bike without a helmet.
Many riders in the pro peleton can be seen pedaling up the famous climbs of France, Italy and Spain at cadences in the high 80s and 90s. Alberto Contador and Juan Jose Cobo apparently used a gearing of 34x32 in their quests to win the 2011 Giro and Vuelta, respectively. This allowed them to keep their pedaling frequency from dropping too low on the monster climbs of those races. It would also save their legs for the subsequent stages.
A FEW riders can be seen with high mtn cadences. Those 120lb freaks of nature that are on the front. MOST of the peloton is suffering off the back wrenching their bikes back and forth at 32rpm, with their tongues hanging close to their chain ring… muttering to themselves that the guy who selected the course is an assassin in disguise.
So cyclists, take a tip from the pros: do whatever it takes to pedal faster on hills and to save your knees. Realistically, pedaling slower than 55 or 60ish rpm is not going to do you any favors.
Do what the pros do. First go on a starvation diet. Then shoot up. Or eat some tainted beef. You will pedal faster and won’t even feel the damage to your knees.
No comments:
Post a Comment