(upbeat music plays)
- Welcome back to the Triathlon Training Explained Show,
powered by Training Beats.
Today, we're going to be addressing junk miles.
But more importantly, how to avoid them.
- Yeah, I mean if you're anything like me,
then you'll love riding your bike.
As long as the sun is out, the longer the better.
That isn't necessarily always the case,
and it does depend what you're trying to get out of it.
- As enjoyable as riding the bike is for riding's sake,
these junk miles won't be helpful for you in training
towards your long-term goal.
- Yeah, and it might sound slightly contradictive,
because you'd think normally, the longer you do something
or the more you do it, the better you're going to get.
But it isn't always the case,
and cycling is one of those exceptions.
So, we're going to be explaining why
and then, more importantly, giving you tips on how
to avoid those wasted miles.
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- If your goal is just to maintain the fitness
that you've already got, and to be able
to enjoy long rides with your friends, then
there is nothing wrong with those long, steady rides,
of course.
Before we go any further, it's worth pointing out, that
long, steady miles do have a point
in pretty much all training programmes at certain points,
but we'll come more onto that later on.
- But we're guessing if you're watching this video,
it's because you want to avoid junk miles.
That's because, as cyclists and triathletes,
we just want to go faster and be able to get stronger.
- [Woman] As athletes, we tend to be limited for time.
Most of us will have a goal.
With that in mind, you want to make every mile
that you ride on your bike count.
You're not gonna get stronger and faster,
if you're just doing all of your training in one zone,
or at one pace.
- [Man] So work out where your goal is.
You might be training for a sprint triathlon,
or even preparing for full-distance iron man.
Perhaps entering a sportive, or something
like a bike gratadium.
All of these events will have their own types
of sessions and specific training tailored for them.
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- So, whatever your goal, in order
to get faster, fitter, and stronger, you are gonna have
to mix up your training.
There's no point in doing the same thing every day,
plodding along, stopping for coffee and cake
whenever you like.
As much as we love to, it's not gonna help you on race day,
when you suddenly expect your legs to find another gear
or two.
- [Man] And let's be honest, who doesn't like a bit
of variety in life, whether that be mental
or physical change?
It helps keep the mind and the body guessing.
Mixing up your sessions like this won't only
help you motivate yourself, but it will improve you
as an athlete.
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- Training for cycling can be broken into zones,
for heart rate or power.
Now, junk miles fall into zones 1 and 2,
but there are several zones higher than that
that will give you a lot more benefit
when it comes to your training.
- So, the same thing that workouts have to split up
into different zones, depending on our heart rate
or our power ranges.
How many of these zones do we need and how do we divide
our time up between them?
- You might well hear variation in the number of totals
anything from five, six, seven, through to eight
and within those you've got a variation in the
upper and lower limits.
Just to confuse things slightly more,
some people might label them as your base,
easy recovery zone, endurance, threshold ,
and at the top level, speed.
But, it's not really relevant.
It's more important to understand the reasoning
behind the zones.
- For simplicity, let's use the five zone breakdown.
We'll talk about the rate of perceived exertion,
or RPE scale.
- [Man] On a scale of one to ten, with one being very easy,
two and three easy, four to five somewhat hard,
eight becomes hard, and nine into ten, almost a max effort.
Something you'd hold for no more than two minutes.
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- Zone one really is easy.
It's up to a four out of ten on the perceived effort scale.
You're going to feel like you've hardly done any work
at the end of the session.
If you're like that, then it probably means
you've got it pretty spot on.
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- This should feel fairly comfortable, at least
in the beginning.
But you will be working if you're out there for a few hours.
We recommend effort level five to six on the RPE scale.
But please remember that if you're out there
for a few hours, conversational pace has to remain
the whole time.
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- This is where it gets a little bit grey.
You're not getting the benefits that you do from
those really slow, steady, aerobic easy miles,
but also, you're not getting the benefits from going
hard enough that you would at race pace.
So, it's somewhere in the middle.
Effort wise, at about six or seven out of ten.
You should still be able to have a conversation.
It's just going to have a little bit less structure.
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- This is a race pace zone.
I'm afraid you're going to have to be good shape
to hold on to this effort for up to an hour.
But, let's not forget, the definition of threshold
is something that we can sustain for that period of time.
You'll know when you're in zone four.
Breathing's laboured, legs are trembling, and
you really just want to have to stop.
This is going to be an RPE scale of eight or nine.
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- Ouch, this is going to hurt.
It's right up there.
A nine or ten, out of ten for effort level.
So, with that in mind, they are going to be shorter.
Anything from around 20 to 30 seconds, up to
potentially five minutes.
But, these are really important if you get close
to your race.
Especially, if you've got a shorter distance event.
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It's time we looked at some example sessions that can
help you structure your training.
So, first up, we have got sweet spot training.
That is aimed at around 90% of your FTP.
But, don't worry if you're not familiar with FTP,
you can also use heart rate, and that would be around
75-85% of your maximum heart rate.
If, however, you are riding purely to feel,
then it's going to be moderately hard.
So, around a seven out of ten on the RPE scale.
It should feel tough, but sustainable.
To give you a bit more of an idea,
if your riding with other people, you should be able
to hold just a very short conversation.
Although, it's probably more advisable that
you save your breath for this effort.
You start with a 15 minute, steady warm up.
And then, you're going to have a main set,
of four lots of ten minutes at your sweet spot effort
that we just talked about.
Followed by a five minute recovery for each one.
A 15 minute block, times four, and then finish off with
a 15 minute easy warm down, which, will give you
a total session of 85 minutes.
Obviously, you can make this shorter or further,
depending on where you are with your training.
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- [Man] Obviously, this is only relevant if you
live or train somewhere where hilly, and the length
and gradient of those hills, will of course
vary on your location.
But, that's why you've got to have some flexibility
built in to your training, when your looking at these
types of sessions.
- [Man] Incorporating hills into long rides is a great way
to be able to mix things up.
It also means that we don't have to worry about things
like heart rate, power, and time that we're on the bike.
But when you do hit a hill, make sure it is hard.
Get the lungs working, really get that burn in your legs.
And also, in the winter time, they're a really good way
just to keep warm.
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- [Man] If you want something more structured,
find a good hill, five to eight percent gradient,
and give this session a try.
Warm up for 10 to 15 minutes, including a few 20 to 30
second surges, while both seated and standing.
As your main set, let's aim for up to six minutes in an
upper zone four for effort.
But possibly creeping into zone five
as we finish the interval.
All the while trying to stay seated for as long as possible.
Your recovery is simply spinning around and returning to
the bottom.
Try to make sure that this at least three minutes,
but do take up to six if you need it.
Because that gives us a one to one ratio of intervals
to rest.
To begin with, aim to repeat this three times through
and over time you can progress this up to six
intervals that could be a really good goal.
To warm down, just spin, nice and easy, home.
- This type of session is great for getting a winter base.
But, also for mixing up your training and it's become more
popular recently.
We've seen the likes of pros Daniela Ryf, the Iron Man
world champion, using it in her training, even in
her build up to Kona.
And also, it does reiterate, making sure you get
a nice, smooth, pedal stroke.
Let me quickly explain what I mean by over gearing.
It is being in a big gear, a hard gear.
So, the big cog at the front, and this you'll get that
grinding feeling, which will naturally reduce your cadence.
And it will draw your attention to your muscle recruitment.
And actually increase muscle fatigue in the legs.
It's great for training.
But, it's worth remembering as triathletes,
you actually want to come off the bike in a race
with less fatigue.
So for that, you're going to want to have a higher cadence.
Just make sure, you mix up some over gearing, with
some faster leg spinning as well.
- [Man] We're going to suggest three sets through
of five minutes at a low cadence of around 65 rpm.
If you don't have a cadence answer, don't worry,
just try and think of it roughly one pedal stroke
per second.
Following this, by three minutes of easie spinning at
a significantly higher cadence, say 90 plus RPM.
Then, we'll just roll straight back into the next set
to complete three sets through in total.
As you adapt to the session, progression be continuing
up to five or six sets of these over and unders.
- As a science, these sessions need to be short and fast
because it is actually important to remind the legs
to go fast from time to time.
You might say, why do I need to go that fast if I'm
only doing something like a half iron man or an iron man?
But it's crucial to work your top end speed, because
that will actually help improve your race pace.
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So within a steady 90 minute ride, try to include three
sets of five times 20 second all out, with a minute and 40
easy spin.
So, that's a two minute cycle total.
And then take four minutes nice and easy riding in between
the sets.
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- [Woman] As we mentioned at the beginning of the video,
there is a time and place for those long miles.
And in the off-season, I personally love just getting out
on my bike, going for a long ride with a friend,
making it social, stopping for coffee and cake.
And also, sometimes I just get on my bike for a
bit of a commute to work, because you can't beat that
feeling of that fresh air.
It's like time to clear your mind.
- And remember, riding your bike should be enjoyable.
And some miles are definitely better than none.
Perhaps, you spend a lot of time with an indoor trainer,
so getting out and learning how to handle your bike
in all conditions does help.
And also, you could benefit from riding in bad weather,
dare I say, because you never know what's going to happen
in a race.
- Yeah, but if you do want to get fitter, stronger, and
be able to race better, like we talked about,
you are going to need to mix it up.
So, why not give one of those session a go?
And let us know how you get on with that as well.
Hopefully, you've enjoyed this.
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And, we talked about sweet spot, but if you want a bit
more detail on sweet spot training, there's
a video specifically on that, that which
you can find just here.
- And if you're time starved then we've got a video
on five tips for strategies when you have
no time here.