Spin My Mate

[Paul H]

My friend Richard Wilder is a successful Triathlete/Duathlete. He wins include the European AG Triathlon & Welsh Duathlon Championships and he usualy does the best bike time. He did a 22min 10 mile TT last year and beat all the elite duathletes last weekend on the bike including Alistair Browne who came 12th in the Olympics last year.

Believe it or not, he hardly ever goes cycling. He is a gym instructor and his bike training just consists of just running spin classes. He does 3 sessions one after the other twice a week. I have done his class and it consists of short sprints/spins at various cadences.

Not sure what you take from this but thought I would share it anyway.

[url]http://www.tri247.com/results_3781.html[/url]

[url]http://www.tri247.com/results_7277.html[/url]

[url]http://www.tri247.com/results_6896.html[/url]

[Keith]

[quote="Paul H"]Not sure what you take from this but thought I would share it anyway.

[carl f]

He beat some very good athletes in the national elite race!
Paul,If you look at some of the run times at the lower end of the nat elite race,they are surprisingly slow for elite standard,(but still very good compared to a lowly AGer like me) do you not think?
Cheers
Carl

[Ivor]

Interesting, one point I'd make is though that he's perhaps missing out on valuable bike handling practice and getting to know just how much grip you've got in the wet.

[Rob Q]

That’s very interesting. I try to do at least 2 spin classes a week and although its great to keep the legs ticking over I have always used it primarily just for that. I always feel its just a mad 45 min session and always wondered how many miles a 45 - 60 min spin session generates? Perhaps your mate has some idea?

[Paul H]

The bikes dont have speedos but from what I experienced on his session, the mileage is very low.

[Sylv]

I still don't get the pun?

[huw williams]

Awesome This is pretty extreme training at the high end.

If you spin (at elite level classes) it consists of long threshold and above intervals. I don't know how long his classes are but even just 40 minutes each would mean he's doing 120 mins by doing 3 back to back.
Thats 2 hours of very high quality threshold work at mega fast cadences twice a week. You might say that's not very much in terms of riding time per week but it's extremely high quality and his race results reveal that he's only racing (on the bike) for around an hour at a time anyway. The mileage isn't a factor, as long as he's on the bike for his event time plus a bit more he's being highly specific.

Can you get him out on a training group ride Paul?

[Paul H]

His sessions are 45mins inc warm up, warm down and stretching so only about 20mins of spinning. Its a basic session of very short spins/sprints aimed at the general gym chaff.

[Marek]

http://www.thefredcast.com/?p=731

There is an interesting bit on this episode of the Fredcast. I am hearing quite a lot more about very short sharp intervals helping significantly improving performance. There is a bit on this podcast at about 20mins in or so. A bit yankee, but quite interesting.

Cheers

Marek...

[Robh]

[quote="Marek"]http://www.thefredcast.com/?p=731

There is an interesting bit on this episode of the Fredcast. I am hearing quite a lot more about very short sharp intervals helping significantly improving performance. There is a bit on this podcast at about 20mins in or so. A bit yankee, but quite interesting.

Cheers

Marek...

[Will]

[quote="Paul H"]His sessions are 45mins inc warm up, warm down and stretching so only about 20mins of spinning. Its a basic session of very short spins/sprints aimed at the general gym chaff.