Speaker 1: You don't need me to tell you that the world is a very different place now to
what it was just a few months ago. I'm currently at home as you might well see in social isolation
because two of my family members are at particularly high risk from coronavirus. We're hunkering
down and trying to stay away from basically everyone. Many of you are I'm sure in a similar
situation and so you like me may well be turning to your bikes for a little bit of normality
and a little bit of escape. Usually, I'd say that I ride because I enjoy it and also if
I'm being honest, probably because I'm a little bit addicted.
I also do pay a bit of attention to my fitness just so that I can carry on riding relatively
fast when the mood arises, relatively fast. However, when life gets turned upside down
it can be difficult to sustain. Here's the thing, in order to stay happy and healthy
I'm setting myself a challenge and I'd like you to join me. Despite all the restrictions
and the problems we face, can we in four weeks of lockdown living actually get better at
riding bikes? I don't know but I am really looking forward to trying. I'm going to be
testing myself at the start and at the finish to see just what I've been able to achieve.
Now, I'm going to be using Zwift for my riding so you can literally join me if you so wish
for workouts on races, for rides, or you can do your own thing and then just follow along
with the weekly video updates and everything on social media. The important thing is that
we do this. [music]
Is anyone else thinking the same thing, that life on lockdown should just be one long Netflix
binge but that actually, it doesn't seem to be working out like that? I didn't have much
free time before the coronavirus pandemic but it's all gone now. Working from home for
a start seems to be taking up more time than before.
Speaker 2: I've got to switch them for the first-ever [unintelligible 00:02:12] testing
get together. I was nervous and excited. Speaker 1: Should just talk about the GCN
show for a bit, quick chat about it before we start filming?
Speaker 2: [unintelligible 00:02:20] that. Well, I was back in the [unintelligible 00:02:24].
Speaker 1: My kids are obviously off school and they seem to have an awful lot of energy.
[kids shouting] Speaker 1: Anyway, all of this combined means
that riding is even more squeezed than it was before. Well, according to Striver my
average weekly total is between four and five hours, which doesn't sound like much and well
no, it's not. However, a lot of it is almost full gas. If I already don't spend many hours
on the bike but a large proportion of them I'll spend riding really hard, how is this
going to work? Normally, you just say well, dial up the intensity. Well, here is my theory.
By training smarter and with a purpose, I can get more out at the same volume of riding
that I was doing before, sop four to five hours.
Because my riding is now going to be inside, I'm actually going to be able to massively
increase the quality even on my time poor schedule. Then, the next thing is that my
rides can now be sociable, which is not an easy thing to do at the moment. In fact, it's
impossible in social isolation, but as I said earlier because I'm going to be riding on
Zwift, all of my rides can be sociable. You're already cordially invited to the workouts
plus because I'm a big fan of Zwift racing, I'm going to be doing one of those per week
as well for fun and also to dig a little bit deeper. You can basically smash yourself without
even noticing. Then finally, Zwift, they're also very kindly
supplying their top coach, Kevin Poulton, which is how I know that we're going to be
training smarter. Yes, you didn't think we were going to be relying on me, did you? Kevin,
thanks so much for offering to help out on this challenge, yes, for me and for everyone
else out there. My first question is, is it possible to actually get fitter in four weeks?
Can we see any gains? Because it's not a very long period of time I'll admit.
Kevin: Yes, you're right, it's not a real long period of time and everybody will looking
for about six weeks to see good adaptations from training. Four weeks is going to be on
the edge of seeing some real improvement but with the challenge we have and some specific
training, I think you can do some magic with you I think.
Speaker 1: Cool, good stuff. How are we going to quantify improvements then? There's loads
of different ways out there but what do you recommend then, for this particular one?
Kevin: Yes. I want to move away from our typical structure of testing in terms of ramp testing,
FTP testing. Now we have so many really cool climbs on Zwift, and I think a good challenge
would be for you to do the epic KOM in a forward direction. That way we're having a good, I
think it's going to be about a 15-minute effort for you out there. It's a real solid above
threshold effort for you, and over the period of four weeks, we should be able to see some
gains. Speaker 1: I'm looking forward to it. Anyway,
I'm very much looking forward to it. Kevin: I guess the only other point to really
raise is that when we're looking at doing an effort of 15 minutes, there's really no
getting away from the need to perform long intervals of 10 minutes or thereabout. Now,
genuinely we try and shy away from that tend to be, I guess, a bit more mentally challenging
in the longer efforts, so we do have some intervals that are our longer tempo of work.
You can also do that on your free rides. When you're doing your free ride climbing, you're
going to be doing now 20, 30 minutes at a time at a tempo kind of effort with a [unintelligible
00:05:55] cadence which is our [unintelligible 00:05:57]. You're going to get that [unintelligible
00:05:58] anyway. We do have some longer work in there, but the rest of it is pretty much--
If we're going to see some changes in four weeks, there's a lot of high intensity in
there for you. Speaker 1: Well, that's cool because sometimes
that's easier when you know that you're getting on the bike and you're going to absolutely
crush it and you get that work done in a short period of time. I find that quite motivating.
That sounds very cool then. I'm up for it, I'm well into the challenge. Yes, I suppose
I better go and actually get my climb time done and dusted.
Kevin: Also I’m looking forward to seeing what our first time is out there and what
the challenge is. Speaker 1: Good stuff. All right. Cheers,
Kevin. Thanks, man. Kevin: Perfect, thank you.
Speaker 1: It is time then to do the epic KOM to see where I'm currently at fitness-wise.
In order to do that, let me take you through to my indoor training workshop studio bespoke
extravaganza of a room, or just my living room again because this is real life. Right
then, let me talk you through my portable Zwift setup. I've got a Wahoo Kickr there
that lives in a cupboard in the utility room, I've got my iPad over there on top of a stand
that lives down the side of another cupboard, I’ve got a mat of course for well, to stop
me making a mess of the living room floor. In a similar vein, I've got a fan over there
by the window to again stop me making a mess of the living room floor. It's time. Let's
fill you in on the epic KOM, well, before I start, and I end up unable to talk to you
any longer. Basically, it's on the mountain route, so to get to it, you need to choose
Watopia, click through to the mountain route and then I think you’ve got about five and
a half K of gentle warm-up before it starts. My personal best is 19:44. I don't think that
was a full gas effort, but I have a suspicion that I was a little bit fitter than I am now.
We'll see how it goes. The other thing I need to mention is I turned the trainer difficulty
up to max. This was at Kevin's suggestion. Basically, it means that it really will feel
like six and a half percent. Thanks, Kevin. That fan is actually doing a remarkable amount
of good work. Thanks, fan. I’m getting properly psyched about this. Just over a K to go before
it kicks off and bid farewell. Boom, here we go. Oh, [unintelligible 00:08:48] kicks
in pretty sharpish. You can see I've just ridden under the Zwift waterfall feature,
six minutes in. For the snow line now. There’s little bits of downhill. I've been really
[unintelligible 00:09:10]. I'm really struggling to hold the power that I set myself. 30 seconds
to go. I hate to think what the neighbors think I’m doing right now. 20 minutes 22
seconds. Just under 40 seconds. It's better than last time. Now I've got two markers to
aim for at the end of our challenge. It's asked me if I want a bonus climb. No. No,
I don't want a bonus climb. Well, it's the morning after the night before
and the dust has well and truly settled. Didn't get any complaints from the neighbors in the
end. I'm wondering whether they were perhaps too embarrassed by the noises that I was making.
But anyway, at least you got to see that it was a full gas effort. That was me all in.
That is our line in the sand. Not overly happy with the numbers, but I've got to be happy
because that is where I'm at and it also means I know that I can improve. Now one thing I
didn't mention yesterday, actually I'm wearing a whoop band here, which is a wearable device,
tells me all sorts of different things. One of which, the big one, is my recovery
status. It did tell me that I was well recovered yesterday. It was whooping at 78%. Yes, there
was no limiting factors. That was me. I emailed the results to Coach Kevin for his feedback,
and he reckons over the next four weeks that that personal best time of 19 minutes 44 is
within reach. That is my absolute target. I want to beat
that. Yes, super motivated for it. Now what is coming up over the next few weeks? As we
said, two workouts per week and they'll be group workouts, so I very much hope that you
can join me. I'm going to be doing mine at 8:00 AM on Tuesdays and Friday mornings. It's
UK time, of course. If those times don't fit for you then there'll be workouts throughout
the week. But also of course you can do them in your
own time. You can find them in the library of workout sessions on this Zwift app and
we'll put the specific workouts that you need to look for in the description beneath this
video. Next week we've got 11 minute progressive climb, so that's three of them in one session
where we'll been mixing up intensities and cadences. Then we've got lactate shuttling
as well, which sounds particularly painful and I can't wait for that.
Now, one thing I haven't mentioned yet is the racing side of things. I haven't chosen
them yet. That's because I want your help on this. I would like you to suggest races
for me to do in the comment section down below and then I can pick four, one to do each week
over the next few weeks, so super excited about that sort of thing as well.
Then there's the free ride element. Each week we've got to rack up 4 to 5 hundred meters
of elevation in one single ride, and that will be fitted in around day-to-day life.
Then finally also need to mention that it's not just me doing this, but it's also my mates
at other GCN channels are taking part as well, so GCN Español, GCN Italia, after which--
There's going to be a little competitive element there as well.
Probably not little, probably massive competitive element. They will also be doing group workouts
as well. Stay tuned to social media and there'll be a GCN presenter doing those workouts quite
regularly, I would have thought during the week.
There we go then. The challenge is set. I couldn't be more excited. Hopefully you will
be too. Take part. Let me know how you get on in the comment section down below and let
us do this Four Week Fitness Challenge. [00:13:20] [END OF AUDIO]