- G'morning, Trainiacs, we are at the end of October,
and with me racing super-league right at the end
of February, that means I'm about three months away,
that means, no, four months away.
Do I have to do this workout today?
(door squeaks open)
Of course I do, I have to do a workout every day!
(door slams)
It's my oxygen, it's what I do, it's my thing.
I'm triathlon Taren, not no-workout Taren.
So, with that race startin' to come up, and be
in the horizon with me announcing that...
(clicking and rustling noises)
How the?
What the?
There, with me announcing that I'm gonna be racing
a full iron-man distance race and Challenge Roth,
I'm starting to piece together my triathlon training plan,
when it's gonna start, how I'm gonna do it,
what workouts I'm going to include, and, how we're going
to include Zwift in that.
Because I love me some Zwift, but I also really developed
a fondness for fatbiking.
So, I'm tryin' to just balance out how I incorporate
little bit of fatbiking, lot of Zwift,
and today we're gonna talk about
how you can use Zwift in three of the best
ways possible to incorporate into your
triathlon training plan. Let's do it!
It's really showing that NTK slipped decaf coffee
into the morning coffee. Got nothin'!
(Upbeat music playing)
So before we get started here if you aren't already
following me on Zwift, who are you?! Why aren't you?
Go follow me, the first name is T and the last name is
Riathlon Taren. We are going headfirst into Zwift
this year, more Zwift content, we're going to be doing
Zwift rides with team Traniac. Second thing!
If you want to look as good as I do in the Trainiac kit
they are still available, just for the next couple days
and then not again for a few months.
Go to the Scody link that is in the description below.
Not now. Wait until the end of the video.
All right! Three of the best ways that you can incorporate
using Zwift into your triathlon training program.
So the first best workout that's critical to
incorporate into your triathlon training plain
is probably better to do on Zwift is your recovery workouts.
Now I do a one hour recovery ride every single Friday,
where I've got a heart rate cap.
It's really good to do it on Zwift because there's no wind
that can increase the difficulty.
There's also no hills, there's no scenery that's really
gorgeous that incentivizes you to go longer, and
push and ride longer than you should be.
And there's no friends around to potentially incentivize you
to get out of your comfort zone, it's really hard to
actually stay within your recovery heart rate because
it doesn't feel like you're doing any work
and it's almost no fun! But in the case of Zwift,
pick a heart rate zone, come on here, and you just
stick in that heart rate zone really easily, have a
good recovery session, and you're actually able
to absorb all of the hard training that you've been doing
and perform really well for all of the hard training
that you are going to do.
For just a wee bit more flavor that heart rate zone
should be somewhere in between about 60% of your max
heart rate and about 78% of your maximum heart rate.
In that zone is the real sweet spot that you are
recovering but not just doing nothing.
Challenging your body enough that you're getting the
blood flowing and you're actually going to build some
fitness, but you're not challenging and stressing
your nervous system so much that you're going to be
digging yourself a hole. If you want to add a little bit
of difficulty, just a little wrinkle in those workouts
that I really like to use that we're incorporating into
Team Trainiac, is nasal breathing. Get yourself
a Breath Right Nasal Strip and force yourself to
breathe only through your nose, that's gonna build
a lot of efficiency in your heart and lungs, that's going
to help you keep your heart rate nice and low when you
start pushing harder efforts later on.
And those harder efforts are gonna come, guarantee it!
Now the next place that's really good to use Zwift is
for those super, super intense workouts. Those absolute
peak efforts that we like to include during the week.
What I've built in to Team Trainiac is, on the weekend
when you've got more time, you go long, but the intensity
is a fair bit down because you're just building your
aerobic base, however during the week when everyone is
strapped for time, we want to get a
really efficient session going, and we want to build
some speed! So there are literally some like,
28 minute workouts that are like, bleeding eyeballs
kind of intensity in Team Trainiac, and that does a
really efficient job of building up your
mitochrondrial density, so that your limbs are
more efficient at using oxygen, builds your peak speed,
and, it decreases the perceived effort when you start
doing lower speeds. So it's all good stuff, sometimes though
it's just really, really hard to push yourself to those
absolute maximum efforts. I like to use group rides
to do it, but, the races that are on Zwift are equally
as good. They are right from the gun,
(claps) BOOM! SUPER intense. Have you ever done one?
God! So what you do in this case is, pick a Zwift race
that you want to do that is the duration (panting)
of the intense workout that you want to do.
You only really need a grand total of about 5-8 minutes
of extreme intensity to get that maximal effort training
stimulus and response, so you don't need a super long
workout, anywhere from 20-30, 40 minutes is good.
But make sure that you warm up before the race starts,
with about 5 to 10 or 12 minutes.
And then the final type of workout that Zwift is
really good for is like those (sniffles) 1-3 hour kinda
meat and potatoes, really race-specific workouts.
Any shorter than that and you're getting into those more
intense workouts that I just talked about where racing is
really good for it, but, I like to use groups for that.
I like to ride up to a place that we do intervals
back and forth and having those people to push me
I really find helpful, but you can use Zwift on the races,
and any longer than the three hours, that's a really big
endurance ride, in which case I really like being outside.
I like having scenery, I like having pit stops.
And on Zwift, at about 3 hours, your brain's
a little bit cooked, but that 1-3 hour meat and potatoes
really race-specific workout where you want to get
a lot of good work in, I think Zwift is fantastic for that!
In the case of those workouts, a lot of people out there
are probably saying, "Oh yeah, Taren, erg mode,
that's what you do, you create a workout, you go into
erg mode," and erg mode is where the trainer tries to
keep you at a level effort for a certain period of time,
so if you've written down an erg mode 5 minutes
at 220 watts, you can increase your cadence, you can
decrease your cadence, it'll change the resistance
so that you stay there. I don't like that actually!
What I like to do is I like to create the workout beforehand
have it written down, and at that point then what I'll do
is I will stick to that workout, but because I'm not
in erg mode, and I'm going in Zwift, the undulation is
changing the resistance of the trainer, which I find
really mentally engaging, and it makes a
1-3 hour workout go a lot quicker.
In addition to that, I think it's probably more realistic
to have to shift throughout, say those 5 minute intervals,
because, when you're out on a race, you don't just
pick a wattage and stay at it and have absolutely
no differences and variations in it!
No! You have little undulations, and you do have to shift,
so you have tiny little moments of the effort being
a little bit harder than your target, a little bit
easier than your target. And if you're building
that into your legs by shifting and riding through Zwift
in this virtual world, you're gonna be simulating a
race situation really, really well.
So there you go, Trainiacs, I'm a big believer in Zwift
but I think there's specific ways you need to use it
to get the most out of it, like I said, if you
don't follow me, what are you doing?!
Go follow me at T first name, last name is
Riathlon (space) Taren, and if you want a Scody kit,
you just have a few days left to get one!
So you gotta hit the link in the description below.
Later, Trainiacs!