(thumping)
- Welcome to this week's Ask GCN Anything.
And this week's hot topics are,
how to make a transition into racing,
how to make time-efficient on your training,
and how to improve your muscular endurance.
- If you want to have your question featured on the show,
use the hashtag #torqueback,
but to be in with a chance of winning
a free three-month subscription to Zwift,
use the hashtag #askgcntraining.
- Yeah, we do love hearing from you,
in the comments section below.
Right, I think we should get straight into some questions,
you ready, to go?
- Yes, I'm ready.
We'll use yours, shall we?
Jon Bowler, then, with,
guys, I love the show, I'm now, after 30 something years,
starting to struggle with numb testicles
within 30 minutes of riding.
Is it my seat, or do I need a bike fit?
I can't hack the pain anymore.
- Right, good question, Jon,
and a lot of people do suffer with this,
but I would personally look at your saddle, and your setup,
because you could be sitting at
a wrong part of the saddle, which then puts pressure
on places where you don't want pressure.
And I've had it before, but I have changed my saddle,
and that did make a really big difference.
So probably look at that,
and then if anything else does still happen,
then we have got a video on how to get the perfect setup,
so then, yeah, hopefully you don't carry on getting it.
- Certainly within 30 minutes, you shouldn't be experiencing
that sort of discomfort.
- Now you could also try experimenting with a saddle
that has a cut-out down the middle,
or indeed some kind of channel.
Now these are designed so that
the majority of your body weight there
is perched upon the two sit bones either side,
as opposed to the soft tissue in the middle.
This allows more blood flow through that critical area.
And one more thing to consider, is that women, in general,
will have sit bones that sit slightly farther apart
than men, but the good news is,
there are plenty of women's specific saddles on the market,
that take this into account.
(electronic thumping)
- And this week's Zwift winner is Steve H.
For this question, hi guys, and good show.
My question would be, after having
a bad shoulder injury racing triathlon,
I'm having a year out of racing,
and I'm just going to focus on my cycling fitness.
I use Zwift for most of my training,
and I do at least four hour steady group rides,
and at least one Zwift race a week.
What would you say, as the year progresses,
would be a good training trips for bike section
on that 70.3 triathlon race?
- Well, Steve, first off, we hope the recovery's going well.
- We do.
- And they can be quite slow to recover from,
so make sure you look after it, and don't push it too hard
in the early days, because that's not going to help you.
It's just going to set you back.
But then once you are back on the bike properly,
and you're back out on the road,
building up your mileage, what you want to do
is aim towards completing that race distance
at the same intensity you're going to be doing on race day,
so that's gonna be the upper end of zone three,
ideally, and that'll take you around 2.5, three hours,
I would imagine.
I'm not a triathlon expert at all,
maybe Hank knows more than I do.
- Yeah, I mean for that 70.3,
you're looking at about 90 kilometer ride,
so you wanna be going at about,
you wanna be doing about 120 kilometers.
- Yeah that's a good length.
- And making that 90 kilometers really hard.
- Yeah, 120% of race distance is
the upper end of what you need to be doing, isn't it, 125%.
- And then looking at your FTP.
FTP we bang on a lot about, but it really will help
you getting that bike section really fast.
So maybe doing some Zwift workouts to build that base,
and to build that FTP will really help you sustain
that sustainable power.
- And you want to do this in your race position,
we should have mentioned that, as well,
because that's where you're going to be riding
in on the day.
So there's no point riding a sit-up bike
and then all of a sudden racing in an aero position.
But, there is a triathlon channel.
- Yeah, do go and check that out,
and you'll learn a lot more than we know about triathlon.
Right, next question from Adrian Ricalde.
Hey GCN, I've been riding for fun and fitness
for a few years, and I'm now interested
in getting into racing, well, we do
like to hear that, yeah. - Nice.
- Is there a specific Zwift workout that can
help me identify my specialty, sprinter, climber et cetera?
It's actually a problem I had.
I didn't know if I was a sprinter, climber, time trialist,
I was kind of jack of all trades,
but you definitely found out what you were good at,
fairly quickly.
- Yeah, and it wasn't climbing.
- Ha ha, yeah.
- So we did a little digging,
and we couldn't find a specific Zwift workout,
but it doesn't mean it's not there,
to identify your type of rider.
However, the Sufferfest do do something
which does exactly that,
they do, I think it is a 10 second sprint,
a five minute max-effort, a 20 minute max-effort,
and a 60 second max-effort,
and this will give you your rider profile.
Obviously though, if you go and do them all
on the same session,
your numbers will be a little bit suppressed,
but they use that for their own training algorithms,
to give you a training program,
so if you want better numbers,
do them on individual days,
or maybe even on individual weeks.
It's good for your ego, that's for sure.
Rider profiling is something that's quite important,
but ultimately, if you ride in the group,
you'll probably have a bit of an understanding
as to what rider you are, anyway.
- Yeah, and let us know what rider you are.
- Yeah.
- It would be really interesting to know
if you turn out to be a climber, sprinter,
or just an all-rounder, like me.
- There's nothing wrong with being an all-rounder.
- No, true.
Next question from Bruno Kabbaz.
I'm almost two years without training hard.
I did the occasional group ride and turbo session,
but nothing that relevant.
What GCN training sessions should I watch,
in order to get my fitness back, as it's, well, long gone?
- Welcome back, Bruno. - Yeah, welcome back.
- Great choice you've made.
We recommend getting out on the road as soon as you can,
because that's the way you're gonna
work out where your weaknesses are,
where your strengths are,
and when you know what your weaknesses are,
type them into our search button on the channel,
on YouTube, and you'll come up with workouts
which will help target that weakness,
and make it more of a strength.
- Yeah, and I would build on that, Chris,
because I think getting out,
and getting out into the open air, will really do wonders,
and especially as you fall in love with cycling.
Because, ultimately, cycling takes you places.
But also, you can incorporate some really good sessions
into that road ride.
And behind us, we've got a video playing
of some really good, hard, workouts that
will build your fitness out on the road.
- Well, Chris, you always want to build
maximum muscle recruitment, don't you?
- Always!
- And you want to win bike races, don't you?
- Not anymore.
- Okay, so you want to win races to the caf?
- Ah, now that I do.
- And when included in a session, or a short session,
you get make it into a really good hit session.
- Yeah, you can, and to do this,
you want to start out in a fairly big gear,
kind of the gear I'm in now,
rolling at around 24 k's an hour, cadence 80 to 85,
and then, over the next 12 seconds,
through a maximum exertion into the pedals,
you wanna build that up to 130 revs.
- Alright, mate, enough talking about it,
I wanna see you do it.
Get them legs going, pump, pump, pump!
(fast techno music)
- Rrditch up next with,
I'm going to the Haruna hill climb in Japan--
- Oh, that's amazing. - 16 kilometers
does sound amazing.
16 kilometers, 1,000 meters of elevation gain.
To enter, you need to put in a time.
However, I've never done anything like this,
so how do I guess a time?
- First up, that's awesome, I've never ridden in Japan,
would really love to,
but that climb does sound absolutely brutal.
But to answer your question,
you can chuck into a bike calculator,
and you'll be able to find out an estimated time,
if you put in your power profiles,
your weight, and the distance, and the elevation
of the climb.
And it will pop out a number of an average speed
that you should try and sit at, and a time.
- Yeah, it's not going to be a million miles off,
so, good luck with that.
Next up then, Project Dandom.
- Should I cycle when I'm sick with a cold,
or should I wait?
- You should definitely wait.
You know, you could go out and ride your bike,
you might not feel too bad, but,
the chances are, you're going to make it worse,
whereas if you just took one or two days off,
you could recover completely, and be back on your bike,
and that saves, potentially, two weeks of proper illness.
- Yeah, 100%, and I would really build on that,
because it was probably the biggest part of advice
that I got from a coach was to really rest.
Because I was always one who just wanted
to jump straight on the bike, and not miss any training.
But really make sure you let your body recover,
and then you'll come back a lot stronger.
- Yeah, definitely.
Daniel Robinson, I live in Geelong, Australia,
and I ride the Cadel Evans Road Race track every weekend,
and then just ride around 10 kilometers every other day.
Is this enough training for one week?
- I would say probably not,
I know you're probably not wanting to hear that,
but I would try and increase that a little bit more,
wouldn't you say?
- Yeah, I'd try and get the 10 kilometers
up to around 20 or 30 kilometers,
but then also make sure you
take two proper days off each week, as well.
- Yeah, remember you can only get better and faster
if you let your body recover,
and let you soak in all that good training.
Next question is from Evan Reeves.
I've had an FTP below 200 for the three years
I've been cycling.
I've tried everything to improve it,
I hover around 75 to 85 kilograms depending on the season,
ride in all the zones lots of 40/20s,
and have developed muscles to disproportionate
to the amount of power that I can put out.
At least I look fast.
Which is half the battle, I guess.
Do I need to harden the effort up?
Is it a health issue?
Or will I always be slow?
- I like Ollie.
Harsh.
(laughs)
Well, Evan, I can't rule out a health issue,
because I don't know you personally,
and I can't do any sort of assessment,
but what I would say is
longer, more sustainable efforts are gonna help you,
and I've just thought of something else, actually,
so 12 to 20 minute efforts, really high intensity,
so the max duration to failure for those efforts.
So as hard as you can possibly,
or, max intensity to duration.
So as hard as you can go for those efforts
for that duration.
And then work to around 30 to 40 minutes of workload
in a single session.
That'll really give you a good boost over the 40/20s.
Because whilst they are good,
they are very on-off, on-off,
and your body won't ever quite adapt to sustainable effort.
Something else I was gonna say, though,
and I feel it works really, really well,
if you're a rider that's trying loads of different stuff,
and you don't feel like you're progressing,
is to actually set an intensity ceiling
for two or three of the rides you do each week.
And I've noticed this, certainly, since I've started
riding less, but I'm trying to go harder all the time,
it just doesn't work, your muscles get tired.
So I aim to stay well under 75% of a sustainable effort
on two or three rides a week. - That's a good point.
- And you feel so much better,
because, for once, you're not going hard,
and just trying to bash out higher numbers,
or whatever it is that you're aiming for.
And actually, by doing that, you do get faster.
- Yep, I think about your nutrition,
make sure you get enough sleep, all those other bits
will help you bring on.
And you won't be slow forever, trust me.
As long as you put in the training, you will get fast.
And we have actually got a training video of overs
and unders, to help your FTP, which should help.
So have a look at that, give it a go,
and let us know how you get on
in the comments section below.
(fast techno music)
- 10!
(heavy breathing)
Five!
(heavy breathing)
One, back down.
Last two minutes, keep concentrating!
Just under, it's gonna feel hard now.
- Ankush Rao laddak diaries writes in with
how to deal with saddle soreness?
- Right, it comes down to, one, hygiene,
two, some really good pair of shorts,
so make sure you get a good shorts,
that have a really good shammy.
And then saddle height, and what else, body position.
- Body position, yep, and if all that fails,
then a really good, clean pin
that you disinfect every single week,
and a good squeeze with some tissue paper,
and antiseptic cleansing stuff.
- Yeah.
Or you could use something called Hibiscrub.
And Hibiscrub is fantastic,
because it's actually what they use in hospitals,
it's a really good disinfectant, and it will really work,
we've used it in the past, as we've been racing,
and when you're racing constantly, these things can happen,
so try that, and if all else fails,
I would spend sometime off the bike.
- Yeah, that's probably good advice.
- Yeah, next question.
- Dan the Sci-Fi Man!
- 'Cause of the nature of my work,
I can realistically get out on rides at the weekend,
at the moment, while a lot of riders I train with
getting out during the week.
What's best to do during the week,
to make sure my fitness doesn't take dips during the week?
I've tried several turbo training rides,
but can't get motivated like being on the road to do them.
Thanks.
Yes, I think every cyclist out there will say
that sometimes it is just hard
to get motivated to ride the turbo.
- Yeah, definitely.
But just try and break it down a little bit into the week,
so maybe the first week you do one session,
in the middle of the week,
because you know it's gonna
benefit you when you get on out on the road at the weekend.
- Yeah.
- Then the next week, booming on the confidence
from week one, you'll try and do two,
so you can do some slightly longer efforts,
nothing too crazy, even just getting on the turbo trainer,
and doing some pedaling is going to make you feel
a lot better at the weekend, than if you did nothing.
- Yes, and you can really make a 40 minute session
go really fast. - Yeah.
- Just set a few efforts,
because efforts do actually make a ride on the turbo
go really quickly.
And then put it where you can put a TV in front of you,
make it a little bit more exciting,
but ultimately, we as bike riders,
we like being on the road.
- Yeah, good luck. - So, yeah.
- Next question from P Rivet.
- Hi guys, two questions.
First, is there a way to save cut tires?
And second, how do you buy a used power meter,
and how do you know if the power meter is accurate?
- Right, first off, well, yes you can,
because you can buy a thing called a tire boot.
A tire boot is a piece of plastic, rubbery type thing.
- Yeah, similar to a thick inner tube, isn't it?
- Yeah, basically, and you can stick that on
the inside of your tire, and that will be able to save
your gash in your tire.
But ultimately I wouldn't ride on that constantly,
I would more likely use it to get home.
- Yeah, exactly, or as a spare in the winter,
that sort of thing.
On the second question, though,
when it comes to buying a second-hand power meter,
it's a bit of a lottery.
You may not end up with a good one,
so what I would recommend is trying to find one
that's very, very recently had a fresh service,
so it's got a new battery, and it's been weight-tested,
calibrated on the bench machines
that they use at these places,
and you want to make sure that it's got a certificate
that comes with that.
Not all power meters or service centers offer this,
but it's well worth the investment
if you can find a place that has done that.
- Yep, next question comes in from Florian Fuhrmann.
Hey GCN, in six weeks and I'm off to Mallorca.
- Nice.
- I wish I was going. - You are in six weeks.
- Oh yeah, I am, shoot, forgot about that.
And I would like to train indoors to boost my performance
and confidence for those longer rides on the island.
I considered a six-week FTP Builder from Zwift,
or the TT tuneup.
Which one would give the biggest gains?
It seems that the TT tuneup is a little harder.
- Well, I did a very quick look over both of those,
and I actually think the FTP builder will
offer you more variety,
and therefore potentially be more enjoyable.
But, if I was you, I would have another quick long look.
Quick long look, that doesn't make any sense, does it?
But, anyway, another look over them,
and choose the one which you find, personally,
to be more appealing,
because you're more likely to stick with it that way.
- Yep, and then just stick with it,
and in six weeks you'll be flying around that island,
I promise you that.
- Might see you out there. - Yep.
Right, Chris, I'm afraid that concludes
this week's Ask GCN Anything. - Ah!
And don't forget,
if you'd love to get in on next week's show,
then to use the hashtag #torqueback.
- And if you would like to be in with a chance
of winning a free three-months subscription to Zwift,
don't forget to use the hashtag #askgcntraining.
- Yes, and if you haven't seen this video already,
then why don't you check out this one that Si did,
and you did, actually.
- Yeah, they're not fashion items,
they are, in fact, measuring devices.
- Yeah for mental health, which is a really important issue,
and I think it's a really good video.