The key component to Road Racing: LT?

[quote="Paul H"][quote]Some further readng on lactate and absolute numbers :-
http://www.fact-canada.com/discus/messages/13/1097.html

More discussions on the classic lactate test how high carbo breakfast or being glycogen depleted wil leffect results :-
http://www.fact-canada.com/discus/messa ... l#POST1813

[Robh]

Toks,

If your only only interested in 2009 there is really not much I could do to suggest the best training plan...though the focus might be different. Pure functional work
might be sustainable for 1 year, but does not follow our goals of being competitive in 2013, and beyond. So, yours are purely short term goals, you won't demonstrate the patience required to make the structural changes required to be even better in 2010 and beyond.

So, your post has laid out the difference between your approach and FaCT. One is short sighted and does not accept that we can make changes over 5-10 years, where the FaCT principles take a longer view of training and life.

Juerg might say that it is important to be happy when you ride. If your goals include being the best you can be in the short term, then train to your max starting today. If you have a longer term vision, and want to enjoy cycling, and the feeling of getting better every year until you die, then we have some great ideas to
help support that particular dream.

Rob

[Toks]

[quote="Robh"]Toks,

If your only only interested in 2009 there is really not much I could do to suggest the best training plan...though the focus might be different. Pure functional work
might be sustainable for 1 year, but does not follow our goals of being competitive in 2013, and beyond. So, yours are purely short term goals, you won't demonstrate the patience required to make the structural changes required to be even better in 2010 and beyond.

So, your post has laid out the difference between your approach and FaCT. One is short sighted and does not accept that we can make changes over 5-10 years, where the FaCT principles take a longer view of training and life.

Juerg might say that it is important to be happy when you ride. If your goals include being the best you can be in the short term, then train to your max starting today. If you have a longer term vision, and want to enjoy cycling, and the feeling of getting better every year until you die, then we have some great ideas to
help support that particular dream.

Rob

[Robh]

NEWS FLASH - another training group member with a big watts drop on the first step of the recovery line.

Interesting trend happening here Toks will you be the same if I ever test you?

Remind me again what are 2 x 20mins suppose to make you good at ? Riding 20 mins twice?

[-Adam-]

[quote="Toks"]I wanna be in a winning break with Matt Seaton... I want that XXXX from Finchley RT who gave me loads of unnessary stick to show me respect

[quote="Toks"][quote]

Rob,
Come on mate, talk to Uncle Toks whats going on?? Life's all about the hear and now!!! I wanna be competitive as a 2nd cat racer in the next 4-6 months. I can't be worrying about long term development. I'm a bloody old man already .

[Robh]

A nice diagram to bear in mind I've borrowed from Juerg when doing the above workouts.

The diagram is based on the research of Hans Seyle, the godfather of stress research as it relates to the reaction of surviving.

In very simple words.

A too often impacted "alarm " phase in any living system will ultimately lead death to the "death" of the structure which will have no chance to react on this alarm phase properly with a structural adaptation.

Stressor - reaction- adaption to failure or success.

The key to success is the positive structural adaptation versus the functional reaction as a chronic overload with destructive reactions . One needs proper recovery time ( recovery plan ) versus a expensive paid training plan.

To be able to develop a recovery plan you need a testing tool to assess what structure or system needs for now recovery time so they can adapt accordingly.

In sport UPS ( underperforming syndroms ) or the old term overtraining are possible signs of too many Alarm phases with not enough adaptation time.

[img]http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t209/sbc205/structure.jpg[/img]

[Juerg FaCT]

I have a question to Paul based on a graphic on here. Classical lactate curve , where Paul states the LT may be by 180 HR.
Let's assume the person in this test would have stayed stable by the wattge , he was pushing in the test as he reaches 165 - 170 HR where we see a trend in lactate increasing in the blood stream.
What would have happened if he would have biked there for another let's say 30 min. by rthat given wattage . What would the lactate numbers be and how would the HR rerspond, as well as body temp, respiration rate. But much more is the quesion on what would the VO2 have done ( dropping or climbing ) and why if dropping and why if climbing ) as by the same wattage the performance would be the same. so all the systems ( see race car would run the same. Same HR, same SV, same CO, same LVET same SVR and so on ) hmmm are we sure about that or ??? )how would the lactate "curve " look like ?
Thanks for this great discussion on here and I really enjoyed the long article about VO2 and as well the info on SV and CO.
I am wondering how they measure in the UK the cardiac info during a road test on the field ?
Thanks and very nice discussion from all involved.
( what is in the UK the definition of LT or AT or ANT as so many different words are used to confuse us ) smile have a great day

[Robh]

What's the definition of LT done on the classic test, lactate deemed to be stable? I know you have said many times LBP is lower than LT.

[Juerg FaCT]

hmm LT means lactate has to be stable?
Does that mean lactate is stable or wattage is stable or both have to be stable. And if they stay stable what happens with the HR . Does some of the club members has a test where we can see stable lactate by stable wattage and stable HR over a given time ? If yes it would be very nice to see that . Juerg

[Robh]

[quote="Juerg FaCT"]hmm LT means lactate has to be stable?
Does that mean lactate is stable or wattage is stable or both have to be stable. And if they stay stable what happens with the HR . Does some of the club members has a test where we can see stable lactate by stable wattage and stable HR over a given time ? If yes it would be very nice to see that . Juerg

[Marek]

I find this stuff quite interesting although do struggle a little bit to understand some of the terminology and adaptations you are trying to achieve. From what I have read on the forum it seems that you are advocating riding at a lowish heart rate, sounds like around 65% to 70% of peoples maximum heart rate as this is their LBP.

What I don't understand is the bang for your buck. If you have limited time to ride, will you see adaptations or do you ride at this level for the winter, as in good old fashioned winter riding and then bang in the higher intensity stuff a few weeks before you race?

I have limited time and a very varied schedule due to work, kids etc. I enjoy road racing at a 2nd/3rd cat level and am happy to stay at this level but like being competitive. I would tend to ride a couple of hours at a steady pace on a Saturday with a couple of hours at all out. I would then also do a few sessions in the gym during the week, e.g. spinning sessions and some weights etc. Have been riding for about 5 years.

I used to have a lot more time to ride when I commuted to work an hour each way and also did a similar ride at the weekend. So what have I noticed:

1. When I rode to work more and had more time in general to ride I felt generally a bit more comfortable when road racing. I did not need to throw in many intensive sessions to feel ok in the races.

2. Now, with less time available to ride, I notice that I can still compete at a similar level to before, but have to do some specific hard training a few weeks before racing to be able to feel comfortable. Unfortunately it does not happen that often and I am scratching around to get time to train, so most times I am just holding on for dear life.

Now riding around at this steady state that you seem to be talking about sounds very appealing, but I just don't understand whether or not it would have the desired effect unless I did a lot of it. I could try to do this in the gym maybe 3 times a week where I would sit on a gym bike for an hour at a time at this steady state and also could do a long ride slowly at the weekend. Would this make me faster/fitter by March next year. So if I did this and then in March threw in a few hard intervals to top up the higher levels etc, would I be faster than just riding hard at the weekend all the time?

I am not interesting in doing the LBP test as I think I can actually work out where it is, I think it is the difference between when you are breathing comfortably and when you start breathing rapidly as a simple rule of thumb. Although this could be something else.

Anyway, this is all very interesting.

Cheers

Marek....

[Robh]

'

[Robh]

Hi Marek,

I will let Juerg answer your questions hopefully he will do it in a manner so everyone can understand it...

Why guess your LBP when for £30 and 1.5hrs-2hrs of your time I can tell you what it is plus also look into your breathing pattern and try and find your crossover point for STF/FTF.

Using your guess of finding LBP by using resp rate, lets look at Keith's respiratory rates from last weeks LBP test:-

HR Resp rate

132 31
139 29
140 28
151 34
162 35
170 35
176 40

So where is his LBP? Don't go looking at his results. Is it 145? or 173?

His LBP was actually 160.

Maybe I should charge a lot more and people might think differently about the test...Like they do with expensive power meters.

Remember once you have your LBP you can train what ever way you want. Then retest to see if your training is working.

Cheers

Rob

[Juerg FaCT]

Hey Rob . first I need you r hel , as I like to show once in a while some diagrams and pictures here but I need somehow a permission for attachment or how can I do that.
To Marek I will try to slowly explain some of your very clear and very often asked questions concerning the common problem of time versus work , as many of us have.
The first part of the answer is simple.
You get the bang for your bucks depending on how much youy invest.
Very easy this days to understnad that . In any physical traing it is the same.
You can work out hard and intenses and you get realtive fasta big bang. meaning your body will "improve" or better react as a functional reactio. It will help you to "survive" by using reactions , which help you to push closer to your existing structural situation.
Stupid example:
You have 10 muscle fibres and normally you use 5 ( 50 %) to move during your daily activity . Now you push harder and strong you can activate ( functional reaction ) the 5 you normally rarely use. So you will now use 8 perhaps or 9. The body will under normal conditions never use 100 % ability ( controle emergency level) Certain situations will allow you to go 100 % like a life threa by crossing with a Grizzly bear or some drugs, which overrule this protective level. There are some risk with that ( later)
. So functional training will allow you to dif deeper in yoru existing ability . But as soon you stop this type of workouts you will move back to the more economically level of 5 fibres. If you maintain the high level and always run on 80 - 90 % thhan there is a inherent risk , that something can break down and you loose 1 or 2 fibres for repair reasons for a while. Now if you push a fixed physical performance ( wattage) you may not slow down ( you may feel something is wrong ) and you push closer to the natural emergency limitation. which again increases the risk of over training. Certain physiological biomarkers may help you to avoid this.
Problem : Your structure never will increase due to just functional workouts. You will stay on 10 fibres and in a bad case may loose due to age or overtraining a few. . If you try to find intensities , which help you to add some more fibres up to 12 or 13 you will have a hiigher ability to use 80 % from 12 and will possibly perform better.
Fibre is actually a bad example as we still fight over the idea, whether we can add more muscle fibres or only activate more.
A better example would be heart size , resp, Stroke volume. We can discuss that later once we get more familiar with questions and my swenglish. XCan I feel LBP yes many of you guys can feel that , but it is nice once in a while to confirm the feeling .