Friday Smash session Recap!

Friday March 18th 2022

Happy Monday all!

it was great to be back on friday to take you all on another wonderful workout involving two main climbs which left up starting right into the weekend. You all did a fantastic job keeping up with the pace on the epic and pushing harder on the jungle climb.

First:

I am happy to announce that I have added a later time for Friday smash session! yes! two time so if you cant make the earlier one, you can join a bit later.

Time 1: 7am mdt

Time 2: 8:45/9am mdt

You can sign up weeking under each time, or subscribe monthly now for the time slot you would like. Let's get the word out and get more to join!

Now let's recap the conversation from friday...

Incorporating hill climbs into training

This type of training can help you improve your time trialing speed and your ability to climb longer hills faster. It also helps develop your ability to ride faster on flat roads.

Short hills provide an opportunity to work on developing short bursts of high intensity. This type of effort is a “hill sprint”. You can also use this training to develop the ability to drop your riding companions on shorter hills. Short hills are sometimes called “sprinters hills” for this reason.

Long hills provide an opportunity to work on developing sustained power at threshold, either to benefit your cardiovascular system or your leg strength by varying your cadence as mentioned previously and riding at the limit of your threshold.

Now let's reflect why sweet spot training is so beneficial to getting stronger…

When training at sweet spot intensity, you are placing your body under sustained stress, but not so much that you can’t hold the efforts for a long duration. you’re training at a level that hits the sweet spot between intensity and volume… its a very happy place to be and aim to be able to ride at for longer and longer. On a cellular level, training at sweetspot increases your mitochondria density.

Mitochondria are small structures found in almost all human cells. Their main job is to perform cellular respiration. taking in nutrients from the cell, breaking them down and turning those nutrients into energy. In all, The mitochondria are the powerhouses of the cell.

What is the effect of increasing such mitochondrial density?

By increasing your mitochondria density, you’re making your body able to create energy more easily. When you increase the size and number of your mitochondria, through mitochondrial biogenesis, the mitochondria can more efficiently convert energy into ATP, meaning more energy is available to working muscles. In other words, a greater mitochondrial density will allow you to train or compete faster and longer.

What is this mitochondrial biogenesis?

Mitochondria use oxygen to produce high levels of ATP through the breakdown of carbohydrates and fat during aerobic exercise. mitochondrial biogenesis can be achieved by high intensity training and training like todays sweet spot. Now here is a cool fact…Exercise is not the only way you can increase your mitochondrial density; you can also make improvements through your nutrition. Branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs) are three of the nine essential amino acids that are required by humans. they cannot be synthesized in the body, they must be supplied by diet. Amino acids are the building blocks of protein.

BCAAs are present in:

meat, poultry, and fish, eggs, dairy products, such as milk and cheese, nuts and seeds,

soy products, such as tofu and tempeh, legumes, including beans, peas, and lentils.

Around .8 to 1 gram of protein per pound of lean body weight is typically sufficient to stimulate mitochondrial biogenesis.

Recommendation after hard rides over 60 min: Shoot to to have 35-40 grams of complete protein as part of your meal to best promote the muscle synthesis and cellular growth.

Now lets recap about cadence:

Why do I want you do do higher cadence most of the time rather than pushing 60 rpms all the time up a hill… well there’s a method to my madness 😉

Riding at a high cadence of around 85-90 RPM puts more stress on your heart and lungs, but a lot less stress on your legs and back. This means you delay leg fatigue and, once you have the cardiovascular fitness, you can maintain your pace for a lot longer. Riding at a low cadence means you have to push harder on the pedals to turn the cranks around which puts more stress on your knees, hips and back especially. Thats Why I specifically have STRENGTH days associated with slow cadence/ high resistance rather than saying its more of a ride… its targeting building the strength within the muscles and working to better your strength and pedaling so you can improve at training and power. If you’ve ever watched professional cyclists, or the Tour de France, you’ve probably admired the way they seem to glide along effortlessly at speeds of up to 60km/h. As a professional Elite cyclist myself, much of my training hours has been spent with cadence work and really drilling in higher cadence with the occasional on the bike strength. I spent many of my junior years working on drills and cadence to best optimist my pedaling and core stability. It doesn’t mean you a lost cause.. this is why I am here to help you. I still have to work on it to this day. Having the correct cadence at the correct time will increase you ability to be best optimized in power and ability to get stronger.

learning what your cycling cadence is and how to improve it, can make a big difference in your performance.

Tip: I alway suggest it to find your cadence first, then let power come along rather than trying to hit power and struggling to maintain your cadence target. This will allow for better adjustment and consistency, whilst relieving stress as you hit that cadence target right away and it starts you right where you need to be with power to follow suit.

Always keep that in mind.. cadence first.. then power.

changing your cadence isn’t something you can do overnight – it can take weeks, or sometimes even months. Your body will have adapted to your current cadence, and changing it requires some concentration and effort. And as you continue to work on it, you will get better and better at being able to do many different cadence ranges for the same power output. This leads to a most efficient you!

Thank you all again for coming and be on the lookout for what coming up this week!