- Have you ever wondered how the pros get themselves
into what they believe to be top shape?
- Well in this video we're going to go through some old
and new techniques that got them to top form.
You ready to go and try them mate?
- Better get out of these T-shirts into my kit first.
- Yeah, let's do a quick one.
(bass thumping beat)
Now let's start off with one
from the current World Time Trial champion,
Rohan Dennis.
Now he tells me that he had a friend
that filled his inner tubes full of water
to try and create resistance and weight.
And when he had a puncture,
he tried to conceal the water spraying everywhere
with his hands.
Yeah.
It didn't work too well.
(bass thumping beat)
- Hank recently spoke to Matej Mohoric,
stage winner in the Vuelta and the Giro
to get his training secrets.
And the insight that he gave us was
that he will always choose the lightest
and the fastest possible gear for training.
This is because he finds it motivating more
to push harder and to go faster
when training and when riding on a real training bike.
Even the tools and spares that he carries
will be as light as possible.
He even went so far once as to ride with latex tubes
on his training bike.
But, he did admit that pumping them up
and adjusting the temperatures every single day
did become a little tiresome.
Matej, I like your style.
(bass thumping beat)
- Now, on the flip side to Matej Mohoric,
Magnus Backstedt, winner of Paris-Roubaix,
use to train with the heaviest bike
he could get his hands on.
He also use to fill his bottles with lead
so that he would train harder.
Mad.
(upbeat piano)
- Lizzie Deignan got in touch with us
to tell us that her pro training secret
is that she will religiously start training
on the 1st of November.
However,
she won't use a power meter on her bike
until the 1st of December.
This allows her a good four week period
to regain that good connection with the bike,
smooth pedaling,
and in fact,
increase of fitness somewhat near where it was
before her rest period.
Meaning that soon as the power meter's strapped to her bike
it's going to be much less demoralizing.
Maybe this is where her confidence comes from.
(bass thumping beat)
- I managed to get ahold of ex-teammate Adam Blythe
to find out if he had a secret.
And he said to me he rides five hours in zone three,
keeping the chain tied.
Not looking at power,
but making sure he keeps on that tempo.
And he says that's his secret.
Boy that sounds really hard.
(upbeat piano)
- We had a surprise submission from Tao Geoghegan Hart,
who said that his key training session
and his secret to success
is a bike ride of only 90 minutes in length.
And it gets better still.
His bike ride is conducted at a heart rate
of 85 to 90 beats per minute.
I know, it seems unbelievable.
What he does do after 40 minutes,
or around 25 kilometers an hour,
and no more than 100 meters of climbing though,
is a long interval
sat at the cafe sipping coffee.
We were blown away by this.
You could be as fit as a World Tour bike rider
by drinking coffee.
Now okay,
this is obviously not his key session
for building fitness adaptations,
but it is the day where his body recovers
and therefore becomes stronger.
And it really emphasizes just how important it is
to pay attention to your recovery.
(bass thumping beat)
- Now my personal training secret was to motor pace.
I got my dad an old moped,
made him sit on it for three hours,
and I use to sit behind him
to try and replicate the speed of Peloton.
And this really helped me get speed into the legs.
And also helped with the sprint.
The sprinting of 40 50K an hour.
That's a secret.
Don't tell too many people.
(bass thumping beat)
- Right then, my key training secret
isn't actually that secretive at all.
I'm a complete training nerd,
and for years I've uploaded every single ride
to an online ride sharing platform.
Guess which one.
But because of this,
as soon as I worked out
that a 1,000 kilojoule workload
for an hour was 280 watt average,
I became fascinated with those numbers.
And the cadence of 85 to 90 was always key.
On my endurance rides of five to seven hours,
I would always maintain that number.
Partly because it was right at the upper end of my zone two.
But also partly because I just felt good doing it,
knowing that I was burning 1,000 kilojoules.
And I can honestly say
every single time I did one of those rides,
within the next two to three weeks
I have always won a race.
So it gave me a good confidence boost too.
- I hope that gave you a little insight
into what the pros get up to.
- If you have a favorite training session
that you think guarantees good legs,
do drop it in the comments below.
We'd love to hear about it.
- And give this video a big thumbs up
if only for that view.
Look at it.
- Mont Blanc back there. - Amazing.