Training4cyclists

Cycling Training Tips

Heart Rate Monitor

10 Steps to Achieve Better Results with Interval Training

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Interval training is often mentioned as the key to successful cycling training. Interval training is a cornerstone in all my training programs and I believe it is the most time effective way to achieve great results. Here is a list with 10 tips that can rapidly improve your interval training:

1.High priority to your interval training

First of all you must decide that you really want to do interval training. It might sound obvious, but if you give high priority to your interval training, it’s also much more likely to become a success. Try to perform your intervals as the most important part of your ride. Prioritizing interval training means that it is more important for you to perform your intervals than e.g. getting your planned distance, joining a social group ride or even participating in a race.    

2.Schedule your intervals

When you have decided to perform you interval training, it is a good idea to make a crystal clear plan for your interval training. You (and your training partners) must know exactly what is going to happen when the interval training begins. Intensity, distance and recovery should be well defined in a way that everyone understands. There should be no need to ask questions during the interval session.

3.Have a goal

When you perform interval training, you will often try to pace yourself through high intensity efforts that require a high amounts of mental power. If you have a goal with you interval training like a specific race (e.g. a time trial) you are training towards, it is a lot easier for you to go through the difficult parts of the training.

4.Warm-up before interval training

Warming up before interval training should be a no-brainer. Metabolic processes are temperature-dependent, thus many enzymes perform better at higher temperatures. Oxygen transport from blood to tissue is more rapid. Warming up simply increases your performance and makes it possible for you to train at higher oxygen consumption.

5.Use a heart rate monitor or power meter for pacing

Pacing is a discipline in itself, but heart rate monitors and power meters have made it easier than ever before to pace yourself through an interval session. There is a steep learning curve and many positive experiences with both kind of monitoring.

6.Active recovery between intervals

It is tempting to stop pedaling after finishing a hard interval, but it makes good sense to keep pedaling at low intensity because it helps your recovery. The recovery periods can also be used to maintain your oxygen consumption at a relatively high level and thus make it easier for you to reach high aerobic levels in the next interval.

Bottom line is you will get more time at a higher percentage of your VO2 max and that will give more stimuli for both peripheral and central adaptations.

7.Cool down after interval training

When you have finished your interval session it is recommended to perform a short cool down. If you are serious about your cycling training, this is the time where you should start your post-training recovery process. Eat proteins and carbohydrates, drink water and ride easy to boost the recovery process.

8.Experiment

Train alone, train with other riders, try different routes, try different bikes and naturally try a broad range of intervals sessions. The best way to get experience is to experiment with different strategies and that is also a great way to keep your motivation high.

9.Evaluate

When you have performed your interval session you must always remember to evaluate how it worked out for you. Are there any things you would like to adjust before your next interval session?

10.Share your best interval training tip!

Just to remember you about that fact that I don’t have all the answers to perfect interval training. If you have some good suggestions, please don’t hesitate to share these tips with the readers here on Training4cyclists.com. Your comments are highly appreciated!

Why You Should Care About Resting Heart Rate

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Resting heart rate is a simple tool that can be really helpful in several situations. I recommend all athletes to measure their resting heart rates once in while get a picture of their normal resting heart rates. It can help you to follow your body’s reaction to training, stress and environment.

When you have a good feeling of your normal beats per minute, it’s easier for you to discover illness, dehydration or lack of recovery.

The most common way to measure resting heart rate is to put on your heart rate monitor when you wake up in the morning. Stay in bed for a few minutes and then watch your heart rate.

Should you measure resting heart rate when you sleep?

Some people actually sleep with their strap around the chest to investigate their rhytms during the night and maybe catch an even lower resting heart rate when they sleep.

Even though sleeping with the transmitter sounds more correct, measuring the whole night does not tell you much more than measuring a few minutes in the morning. For practical implications the morning routine while be just fine. Your heart rate might have been three beats lower earlier in the morning but that doesn’t matter.

Don’t make things too complicated. Measure your resting heart rate in the morning and don’t worry about your absolute lowest heart rate during the night. The morning resting heart rate works very well for practical implications. It’s not rocket science, it’s just a hint about things you probably already have a clue about.

Why is your resting heart rate higher than normal?

Illness – If you have fever, you’re heart rate accelerates with 10-15 beats for every degree your temperature goes up. When you have fever: Don’t train.

Lack of recovery ”“ If you’ve performed a hard training session the days before, it’s very likely that your resting heart rate is 4-to 8 beats higher than normal. This is a part of the response to intensive training. It does not mean that you’ve trained too hard, but it gives you an important hint that your body need some extra recovery time before new hard training session.

Dehydration ”“ If you’re dehydrated your total blood volume goes down and forces your heart to beat faster. Read more about central adaptations to endurance training. If you go to a hotter climate,  your body will have to acclimatize to higher temperatures and humidity. 

Why is your resting heart rate lower than normal?

Overtraining – This is not so common, but it can happen when you’ve been overtrained for a longer period.

Progress ”“ This is probably a trend you will discover over months rather than over night. You will probably already have noticed that your resting heart is lower when you are in good shape. This is because of a larger stroke volume or more correctly a bigger parasympathic drive on the sinus node.

If you want to read more about the physiology behind resting heart rate, I suggest you read my post Central Adaptations to Cycling Training.

7 Secure Ways to Improve Your Indoor Cycling

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7 Secure Ways to Improve Your Indoor Cycling
Indoor cycling is an extremely effective way to train but nevertheless most cyclists don’t use this opportunity to achieve great results. Here are 7 quick tips that will make you a happier and better cyclist with indoor cycling training:

1.No indoor recovery rides

Indoor cycling is a psychological challenge. There is not much fun happening when you sit on your ergo meter bike or home trainer.

The best way to beat this challenge is simply to reduce indoor training time as much as possible.

Skip the recovery rides and take a day off instead. You don’t have to train every single day and it’s much better for you to take a day off than doing one more recovery ride on an indoor bike you don’t really like. Forget about recovery rides and look forward to more energy for your next visit in the fitness room.

2.Spend less time on indoor cycling

When you reduce training time, you increase your attention to the workout you perform.

Doing shorter workouts makes it easier to complete the training program as you have planned it. That’s very satisfying. This principle can be used outdoors as well.

3.Interval training

As a consequence of reduced training time (and thus increased attention/motivation), it makes sense to increase the overall intensity of your indoor cycling. Thus, you will get great results in less time.

Interval training is often a lot easier to do indoor. When you don’t have to pay attention to traffic etc., then you can concentrate 100% on maintaining the correct power output, cadence or heart rate during the intervals. That’s difficult outdoors, especially if you are not familiar with interval training.

4.Drink more water

Indoor cycling makes you sweat a lot more than you are used to. Don’t get fooled to believe that you sweat more because you work so much harder than you do on the roads. You might find a spinning instructor who believes that people sweat due to the high intensity of his training program, but that’s not the reason.

There are several reasons why cyclists sweat so much more indoor, but I just want to to be a little more concerned about your hydration.

5.Use an ergo meter bike

I’m a big fan of power meter training and it was actually during indoor cycling I discovered the benefits from this training regime.

In most fitness centres they have ergometer bikes that can be used for power meter training. I cannot guarentee that these ergometer bikes deliver 100% precise power outputs, but that ain’t that important. It gives you a chance to get introduced to what power meter training can do for you.

Many ergometer bikes are of high quality and so reliable that you can use them for physical tests to track your progress throughout the winter season.

6.Use a cycling training program

It’s easier and very motivating to use e.g. the 12-Week Winter Training Program. If you have never tried a training program before then this is one of the best places to begin.

7.Turn up the music and have fun!

Indoor cycling gives you the chance to train with people who are normally out of your league for regular road cycling training. That’s a great chance to socialize with other people.

Don’t underestimate the value of having a small talk with people who are a lot stronger or weaker than you. Turn up the music and have fun with your indoor cycling!

Polar s810 Protects You From Overtraining

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Polar s-810 heart rate monitor

Polar s810 can measure your heartbeat intervals. The differences in these periods reflect your autonomic nervous system when it regulates your heartbeat. This measurement is most useful at rest or at low intensities, because we are talking about very small differences (msecs.) Your relaxation rate indicates the state of your physical recovery. If you are overtrained, it might very well be reflected on the Polar s810 monitor. 

Polar s810 agrees with clinical ECG

In a clinical perspective you will normally use an electrocardiogram (ECG) to measure the differences in length between each heart beat. This is called the R-R interval, referring to the time between two R waves in the ECG. You don’t have to understand what these waves mean, but if you have a special interest in this topic, there is an explanation here: electrocardiogram.

Heart rate monitors can protect you from overtraining

Polar s810 provides a valid measurement of the R-R intervals and calculation of the heart rate variability compared to ECG. This variability can be used as a sign of health and recovery level. I think it is interesting that a heart rate monitor can provide so precise info because it gives you the possibility to notice when you need more rest before the next training schedule. Thus, it can protect you from overtraining. In theory there should be a correlation between the state of physical recovery and your heart rate variability, and it is also concluded to be true in a couple of scientific studies.

If we take a look back at the last decades there has not been much progress in heart rate monitors: They showed the heart rate and stored some data in files (and not much compared to other digital things these days). Introducing precise details like Polar s810 is interesting and hopefully Polar watches will get competition from other products, so there will come more useful info that will make our bike training more scientific.     

How to Train for VO2 Max without SRM Crank System

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I have received a couple of emails concerning my VO2 max booster program. These questions are from people who really would like to test the training program, but don’t have a SRM crank on their bikes.

Now I will show you how to dramatically improve your VO2 Max without using an expensive SRM monitor.

Before we go on, please notice that I always try to provide the best information about what I’ve learned about training principles and show you how to implement them in your daily training routine.

In my eyes training with a power meter is the best and most secure way to track your intensity during intervals.

I know that power meters are expensive, but there are also cheaper options (e.g. Polar) that should be affordable for many cyclists. I’m sorry that the majority of the readers here on Training4cyclists.com are not able to monitor their wattage.

I understand if you don’t just run out and buy a power meter to test some of these training programs so I’ve tried to outline some principles that can be used if you want to maximize your VO2 Max without a power meter

1.Know your maximal heart rate and use it retrospective

There is a close relationsship between heart rate and oxygen consumption. When your heart rate is close to maximum your oxygen consumption is also close to maximum.
Here is a post on how to measure maximal heart rate.

Don’t rely on calculations like the common 220 minus age since there is a huge standard deviation. That means that I will only use this formula if I had to do a physical test on someone where I didn’t have an idea of their real maximal heart rate. Still that would be an assumption, thus it limits usability of the above formula.

For a beginning I recommend you use the heart rate retrospective. Try to ride the intervals as hard as possible and compare your heart rate file with your subjective feeling afterwards. It’s extremely difficult to adjust workload during short 30/30seconds intervals based on your current heart rate.

If you end up with a maximal heart rate that is less than 10 beats from your max heart rate for a few minutes then you’ve probably had a great workout.

2.Ergometer bike

If you don’t have a SRM or PowerTap mounted on your bike then look for alternatives to track your power output. I really like ergometer bikes and if you’ve never tried a professional ergometer bike, I will highly recommend you to try one. One of the most reliable ergometer bikes in the world is Monark
that is known for top performance and valid power monitoring.

3.Home trainer with power monitor

There are several affordable home trainers that provide information about your workload. These systems are rarely the most precise monitors, but if you use the same home trainer every day it’s probably good enough for you.

Remember it’s only 14 days training with intervals and so far people are reporting about great improvements on their VO2 max.

Take home message: You can train for VO2 max without using SRM crank system. If you have a heart rate monitor you can look at your heart rate retrospective to see whether you’ve trained hard enough. Using a professional ergometer at your local gym or simply just a home trainer can be a cheap and reliable solution.