- What is the key to cycling faster?
Well, aside from aerodynamics, it comes down to power.
And I think its fair to say that we'd all like a little more
or in my case, a lot more power
when it comes to riding the bike.
So what is the answer?
Well I'm going to be finding out from a pro
who certainly knows how to put the power down on the bike.
I'm on my way to find the Olympic silver medalist
from London 2012, Sweden's Lisa Nordén.
Now unfortunately for Lisa, she's actually struggled
with quite a few injuries since winning that medal
when it comes to the run.
But as a result she's had a lot of time to work on her bike
and she's improved so much on the bike
so much so that she's actually currently
the national title holder in Sweden for
the road race and the time trial.
So who better to speak to to find out
how to get more power?
(upbeat cool music)
- So Lisa, its very unusual to have a triathlete
who's at the top of their game in another sport as well
and for you, obviously its cycling.
Is there a magic recipe?
How did you become so strong on the bike?
- So I'm lucky to train with the Norwegian team.
They do a lot of biking, you see
even if they train for a short course, an Olympic distance
they seem to do pretty well
on seven perthue distance as well.
A lot of people think they do a lot of biking
maybe too much for short course stuff.
They manage to use it to their advantage
and for me its been a huge benefit
just to incorporate that into my training program.
And from having been a strong biker
it kind of took the biking to another level.
- Can you explain some of the key sessions that you do
and that have really started to make the difference
on the bike.
- So before, with Darren my old coach
the main thing for me to win medals
was to improve my swimming and improve my running.
So where do you put the time?
The biggest difference is in the first and the third length
so the biking was good it was strong
and we just kind of maintained the biking.
And I started to train with Ariel,
he wanted to up the biking.
So then we spent a lot of time building the engine.
So basically that's what the norwegians do
if its cross country skiing, running or cycling
you build the engine,
and you do that through threshold sessions
and lower threshold sessions.
So we done a lot of stuff that I had never done before
in the LT1 session.
So we stay around from 19 up to two hours,
that's the longest LT1 session alone
where its just continuously just LT1.
Which is slightly below seven perthue race pace?
- Okay.
- So for me its LT1 seven perthue race pace and threshold.
- Right.
- And then we also do a lot of threshold sessions.
So you have threshold and lower threshold,
not so much above it and not so much below it
so you do a lot of stuff that's kind of on
some kind of intensity.
- And can you give me one of your LT1 sessions
that's maybe your favorite or your hardest
or you think is kind of like a key session?
- So a good LT1 session is just 90 minutes continuous on LT1
and if you do a test, like a step test or something
you would get your LT1 and you get your threshold.
So its easiest to say like okay
this is where I need to stay for 90 minutes.
A good one also is 45 minutes in LT1,
five minutes on threshold, five minutes recovery
and you do it all once again.
- And that recovery is completely easy
- Yep.
- You just sit back.
- Yeah its easy.
- And how different for you like how many watts power
difference in heart rate between your LT1 and your threshold
like what's the, how much harder are you having to work?
- Its quite a bit, my LT1 has also,
I managed to push it up quite close
so when we worked a lot on LT1
it was actually really close to LT2
so there's not a lot of difference there
and now I've got my LT2 up a little bit more
and normally they follow each other quite a bit too.
We see a lot of good Ironman athletes,
the LT1 would almost be like right under the LT2
and then there's not a lot above it
so you kind of push everything up there.
When you do some short course and do some cycling
you need to have a higher threshold as well
so for me its maybe threshold 280 watts
and LT1 is now 235, 240.
And that's like, the truth.
So a lot of people, like, you get a test
and its like a little bit blurred up maybe
but this is like what you can do for really big sessions
and you can hold it in training.
- And what's a key threshold session that you've got then?
- So the biggest one we've done
that was in Sierra Nevada in altitude
it was seven by ten minutes with one minute recovery,
so a lot.
- A long time to concentrate with staying.
- Yah, but most of them its around 50 minutes to an hour
with very short rests,
so we keep the rest to maybe one minute, and the F roads
between eight, twelve minutes in between there.
- Okay, and you've obviously just been training
ahead of Nice in Font Romeu,
and there's quite a lot of hills there.
How are you using the hills to help your training?
- So normally, if you have a really big threshold session
you try to find a hill that's long enough
for you to start at the bottom and finish at the top.
I guess just training in Font Romeu
you get some overgear work
because you're going to hit some really steep parts
I only had a 28 on the back
so I didn't have really spinny gears
so some of the really long steep climbs
actually stuck in quite a heavy gear as well
and you have to use the dynamics of the hill
try to be as efficient as possible
so it's like find the right gear
read the road ahead of you
and just try to work with the hills.
- When you're doing say a session
you've got a target on what's to hold
but you know, in the ideal world
we don't normally have a set gradient
that's the same the whole way in you,
the hill is sort of undulating.
How do you guys go about adapting that to your program
without stressing like oh my god
I'm having to freewheel here
or how do you incorporate that into your session?
- So normally, a good thing is to do only
right hand turn loops, because its on the right hand side.
I have a pretty good area that's like a military area
so there's not a lot of cars
and I can do up and back or add like a few loops
to just turn around and come back
and its slightly undulating
so you hit maybe 60, 65ks per hour some parts
and you also have a few turns
and obviously you have a few turns to come back.
I normally have my average power up
not the normalest, but the average
and I just try to make sure that
that's always around my target watt
which means you need to be able to push
ideally if you have a long downhill
you have to push the watts in the downhill as well.
Otherwise you find that you're losing
your average power really quickly.
As soon as you stop pedaling you lose it.
And of course on some corners you going to lose it
but you normally get it back
because you stand up and accelerate.
If you have a really steep hill like here in Nice
you have a long long climb, obviously its different
because you're not going to be able to pedal downhill
and you're going to have, you might have to do a new lap
just to know that you're hitting
the part where you should be.
But its a really good practice
to try to stay on the average watts that you want to be
and also if you're looking at a race
if you're looking at a seven perthue race,
well obviously average once a month once you're normalized
and average watts is what you actually put down
and that's what matters.
So its a good figure to keep in mind.
- And when you're training
what numbers do you have on your bike computer?
What do you go by?
- So more and more, when I do time trial
I have speed as well, so trying to look at the speed
and just keep the speed up at all the time.
Average power, my three second average power,
my lap time, heart rate and k notes.
- Wow you've got a lot of things, wow that's huge yeah.
And do you have the same for racing?
- Yeah, yeah its good to keep the same.
What I don't have,
what I need to actually look at when I'm racing,
is the overall time, 'cause I don't have that on my normal
so then I have to like flick back
but I might not do that for Nice actually.
- Awesome, well thank you so much,
that's a real insight into, and yeah, really open.
We just wish you loads of luck for the race
in Nice on this awesome tour.
- Thankyou!
- Well a massive thankyou to Lisa
she might not have had that
magic recipe that we were hoping for
but she's certainly given
some very useful training insights.
And I think there's no excuses now
it's just time to go out and do some work on the bike
if we want to get any faster.
Well if you've enjoyed it
as much as I've enjoyed speaking to Lisa
give us the thumbs up like
and hit the globe to subscribe
and if you want some session ideas
well Fraser and I made a video
on three bike sessions to get stronger
and you can find that just down here
and if you want to lose weight through cycling
you can find a video on that just down here.