Crosssports's Weblog

Howdy folks,

I hope you enjoyed your easy day yesterday, and you’re feeling refreshed and ready to ride hard… because it’s Tuesday, and you know what that means, right?

It’s…

Two By Twenty Tuesday!

Today we’re doing  ’em Get-Up Style…

Here’s how this goes…

– Warm up.

– Go as hard as you can for 20 minutes.

– Recover for 2 minutes.

– Go again for another 20 minutes.

That’s the basic version. This is the get-up version, though, so…

Start the first interval out of the saddle, and stand for the first 30 seconds.

After those 30 seconds are up, sit down. Keep the effort going, and consistent. Don’t surge, don’t go harder when you get out of the saddle.

Stay seated for the next 1:30, then stand for 30 seconds.

Repeat to the end of the interval, and follow this format for the successive interval.

The idea here is to go as hard as you can for the duration of both intervals without being forced to go easier at the end of the second interval.  If you run out of gas before you finish the second interval, you went too hard. If your vision isn’t blurry at the end of the second interval, you went too easy.

If you’re doing this with a powermeter, you want your wattage output to be as close to constant as possible. We’re talking 10 watt variance at the most. Keep it steady.

These take practice to do well, and the better you get, the harder they get. This is another workout that works great on the trainer, and that’s how I do ‘em, which is a good thing… because I always wind up flat on my back on the floor trying not to puke after the 2nd interval.

I’m really not kidding about the seeing spots thing. If you can learn to push through your limits when you do these, you will get better and well… you will get better.

Tips:

– I do these on the trainer, with a stopwatch on the bars and an Ipod blaring in my ears. Start the stopwatch at the beginning of the interval, and the format is really easy to follow; you stand up for :30 at the 2:oo, 4:00, 6:00, etc. mark(s). Get it? It’s easy!

– A power meter will help you to keep the level of intensity constant. You want the power output to be as steady as possible with these. If you don’t have a PM, do these on the trainer,  choose a gear ratio and a cadence, and stick to that for the duration of the exercise – instant home made ergometer.

– Have fun!

M

Posted in The Workout Of The Day

Howdy folks,

It’s Monday!

Phew…

Tired?

I know I am, darnit.

You know what that means, right?

Today you’re going for a nice, relaxing…

Recovery Spin – 

– Get on your bike. Roll out into the street, and just spin around for an hour.

Really small gear, no hard efforts – heck, no medium effort.

Spin.

You’re looking to move your legs around in circles, almost like there is no chain on the bike.

The idea is to get your body moving, flush the systems out, and speed your recovery.

When you do your recovery ride – if you have the time – just get out and spin aimlessly.

At a certain point, your legs suddenly feel better.

As soon as that happens, turn around, go home, eat, stretch, and put your legs up.

Or, go to work.

Or School.

Or whatever.

Whatever, whichever, try to take it easy today, ok?

Have fun!
M

Posted in The Workout Of The Day

Howdy folks,

I hope you’re enjoying your weekend!

We’re looking to get hit with some precipitation in my neck of the woods, and that means that it’s probably going to be a good day to do something a little bit shorter and more intense today… and you know what? It’s about time we start bringing some short intervals into our program as the season starts to sneak up on us.

So, hey… something pretty short and intense today. Get used to these, we’re going to be doing them once a week for a while…

Without further ado, today’s workout is…

Start Me Up…

Warm up well.

Find a clear, clean stretch of traffic-free open road that will allow you to ride full-gas for 10-12 seconds…

This is important.

You’re going to be going really darn hard, and you don’t want to/can’t be dealing with cars, potholes, etc.

Shift into a gear appropriate for a race-style start (you can/should experiment a bit with this until you get it figured out. This is good stuff to have figured out for ‘cross season, nice side benefit of this workout!)

From a dead stop (or as close to it as practicable…) get out of the saddle and punch it.

Hard.

Full gas, no messing around.

Shift up as necessary to continue acceleration until you get up to max speed.

Full-gas sprint continues for a duration of 10-12 seconds.

Recover for 30 seconds and then go again.

Repeat 3-5 times.

That’s a set.

Five minutes recovery and then repeat.

You’re looking to do 3-5 sets, or (if you’re using a power meter…) as many sets as you can without seeing a noticeable drop in peak power output.

Spin out your legs, and head back home and enjoy the rest of your weekend.

Have fun!

M

Posted in The Workout Of The Day

Howdy folks,

Thank god it’s Friday…

My apologies in advance if this post winds up being a little bit fuzzy… as I alluded to yesterday, I got my cage rattled pretty good. I’m not exactly on top of my game today!

…anyways, on with the posting…

It’s been a long week, and we’re going to ride pretty hard this weekend, so today?

Take it Slow and Easy –

Go for a 1-2 Hour Moderate Ride –

This isn’t a recovery ride. We want you to relax a bit today, but it’s important that you don’t get your body thinking it’s time to shut things down.

You’re going to go just a bit harder than that.

Put a little bit of muscle into the pedals, but not so much that you ever feel like you’re going hard. Or hard-ish.

Moderate means just that.

Not hard, not easy… right in the middle. Easy enough that you could hold a conversation with the guy on the bike next to you, but hard enough that the conversation better be damn interesting if you’re going to.

Have some fun.

I mean, you’re listening to Whitesnake – How could you not?

Hey… some folks have been asking me about stretching for cycling/cyclocross, and as I was working on a long post on the topic, I came across this blog post. Check it out, really good stuff.

G’night,

M

Posted in The Workout Of The Day