(powerful music)
- Hello, welcome to Ask GCN Anything.
Coming up today I answer your questions
on shopping for jeans if you have big legs,
calculating your uphill power output
and coping with pain from hours on the saddle.
Don't forget if you have a question
that you would like answered on the show
drop it in the comments below using the hashtag #TORQUEBACK
and to be in the chance of winning
a free three-month subscription to Zwift
use the hashtag #ASKGCNTRAINING.
Turlu Tutuu is up first
with a question about jeans.
"Let's say I have sprinter legs, I'm referring to the shape
"not necessarily the power output.
"Any recommendations for pants to wear off the bike
"for casual or business environments?"
Well it's a really good question
and I would recommend trying to find a brand of jeans
or trousers that actually use a little extra Lycra
in the material rather than just cotton.
This will afford you a little extra stretch
and will help the jeans fit better around your thighs
and trust me I do feel your pain.
At the biggest my thighs were 66 centimeters
or 26 inches around and it made finding trousers that fit
comfortably really really difficult.
But as I said before,
jeans that do contain a little extra stretch to them
will make it easier to find something
that you can wear more comfortably.
And then if you do have deeper pockets
try and find something that comes with a specific cycling
fit so if you Google on Google, cycling jeans,
you will come up with a few results
but they're not gonna be the cheapest of jeans.
Good luck, bear with it,
you will find something that you're comfortable wearing.
Next up is a question about saddle pain
from Jelle Gacoms, "hi guys, fairly new to cycling,
"I only started doing road cycling about a month ago.
"I've learned a lot from the channel so thank you for that.
"I did 700 kilometers in total on the road now
"but every time I do longer efforts, over 50 kilometers
"I get massive pain, massive pain from the saddle.
"People I ride with say my body needs to get used to this
"and that it gets better over time.
"But my guess is something is not quite right."
Well Jella, any discomfort or undesirable sensations
down there, unless it's coming only from the skin is a sign
that your body is trying to tell you something's up.
So if you're getting any sort of soft tissue discomfort
or nerve discomfort down there then you definitely
need to stop and something to change that situation.
So it's either your cycling shorts maybe aren't padded
as much as they could be or the padding
doesn't quite suit your body but my suspicion
is that it's probably your saddle isn't quite made
for your seat bones and it doesn't fit
comfortably underneath you.
So what you want to do is you want to try and find a saddle
that's well, ideally you have yourself measured actually
so that your seat bones fold properly onto the saddle
and then maybe try and play around your saddle position.
Maybe the tilt of the saddle could help you a little bit.
If it is skin discomfort though that will disappear
over the time because your skin will sort of harden
back to the saddle but by the sounds of it
it's a little more than that.
Don't ignore the signs that something's wrong,
get something done as soon as you can.
This week's Zwift winning question
comes in from Michael Hogen
who after 36 years with only slights bouts of athleticism
has started running just over a year ago
and six months after that going to cycling.
Once a week he also does some calisthenics
on top of his two days or running and two days of cycling.
He wants to know how to improve his FTP,
his threshold power and his endurance.
We would say this is a fantastic job so far
and well done on your consistency of your training.
Doing those three activities
will really help you boost your fitness
and with the limited time you have available
for specific cycle training,
you'll certainly be using your time well
by doing it indoors.
Forgive me, I'm reading a little bit
of this off the screen from Zwift.
Because they write in with the answer for us basically.
This will allow you to complete very specific intervals
along with the other benefits of indoor training
such as training with an increased core body temperature.
You'll be targeting and making improvements
in your cardiovascular fitness from your running training
which means you can really focus your cycle training
on specific fitness aspects
including your threshold and your endurance.
For the cycle training,
it's beneficial to approach with two sessions each week
as a block of specific work.
By this they mean that in one week
you would complete two threshold type sessions
and then in the following week,
you do two endurance type sessions.
You do this and alternate them
because that will load each energy system at the time.
Which means that you can get that targeted volume
on those specific aspects.
It's also beneficial to complete your sessions
relatively close to each other,
give yourself then a day of rest or two
before you go running again.
And in terms of specific training
to target your threshold with two sessions a week
you'll want to perform one workout
that consists of three to five minute intervals
at threshold power with a short recovery of 90 seconds.
And over that time you'll be able to increase your output
for the intervals so the hard part of that session.
And for the second one look to perform longer intervals
of eight to 12 minutes with a slightly longer recovery
of four to five minutes.
So if you notice your recovery
is around half of your workload.
These sub-threshold intervals should be 88 to 94%
of your threshold which is otherwise known
sometimes as sweet spots.
For your endurance, targeted sessions,
we want to perform low intensity work
but endurance training does not consist
of steady low intensity riding.
So for your first endurance session of the week
perform two to three sets of 30 seconds on, 30 seconds off.
So that 30 seconds on is just above threshold power
followed by the recovery.
Start with five of those so five minutes worth of those
which will give you 2 1/2 minutes of workload
and increase the amount up to 10 minutes
which will give you 5 minutes workload.
For the second endurance session you want to perform
a steady zone two ride so that is really strict
at one level.
CnE is up next.
"I've never had a cutout seat
"but I'm thinking of moving to one for a little bit
"of extra comfort.
"Do your nadgers get wet in the rain
"if you're riding with a cutout?"
A most bizarre question because I imagine
if you're riding in the rain you gonna get wet anyway
regardless of what your saddle looks like.
Weirdly though, a few years ago I rode on the Factor ONE
the bike with the famous two down tubes
and you got absolutely soaked from the front wheel
when riding with that.
Your bottom would get filthy
and it's kind of a hidden secret
they don't tell you about that bike.
Anyway, next up is Frank Heinrichs.
"I have a style question.
"I use a top tube bag for the things I need on every ride
"and I just leave it on my bike
"and then add an extra large saddle bag for longer tours.
"However top tube bags seem to be regarded
"the ultimate style faux pas by some riders.
"Why is that and what do you think?
"Greetings from Southern Australia."
Well Frank, I really wouldn't worry about it at all.
Function over fashion always wins in my book
and if you find it's more comfortable to ride
with a top tube bag than anything else
then ignore the cycling snobs and you carry on.
Most riders do put stuff in their jersey pockets
but if you're going for a really long ride
then I can completely understand why you would want
a top tube bag and triathletes don't seem to mind.
So ignore the cycling snobs, it's not all about fashion.
- When it comes to packing your saddle bag
the question everyone already asked is,
well what do you actually need?
So in this video I'm gonna run you through
all the things that we think
you should be taking out on your bike.
(calm music)
- Next up is a question from Visa Jokelainen.
"Why on earth does UCI have an official list
"of riders taller than one meter 90?"
That's a brilliant question and I can completely understand
why you might be questioning that because it does seem
like quite a weird thing to have.
But it is in fact for the UCI rule
mentioned in Article 1.3013
allowing an extension of the reach
of the time trial bike by five centimeters.
So the tip of the extensions,
the tri bars on a time trial bike
must be no farther than 80 centimeters
in front of the bottom bracket
when measured vertically like that.
However if you are over one meter 90,
you're allowed that extra five centimeters.
The reason for this is a morphological exemption
as the text on your screen now will be describing.
Nik Blyth up next with...
"Hi guys, is there a formula to work out
"the power need to climb an incline?
"80 kilo rider, climbing a 10% incline
" at five miles an hour equals x watts."
Well yes there is sort of.
I mean I don't know the formula
and I don't know how they got to their answers
but if you know your weight, your bike's weight,
the weather conditions then bikecalculator.com is for you.
I've used it in the past with quite good effect
and if you look on your screen now
you'll be able to see the sort of chart
that you can input your values into
and it will come out with a number
that is a really good estimate.
I mean it's not going to be power meter accurate
but it's gonna be in the ball park.
Good luck!
Ant Newman writes in with the penultimate question.
"I desire significant gains in my 30 second max power.
"Should I incorporate contrast training
"based upon Post-activation potentiation
"into my training regime?
"If not, to where should my focus be directed?
"I prefer to train outside
"and have many convenient local hills."
And I think this is a brilliant question
and something that you don't actually hear that much
about in the world of cycling.
Don't go overboard as is often advised
for this sort of exercise
because if you fatigue the muscles
before you wanna go out and train them
they won't be fresh enough to hit the new peaks
which you're trying to achieve
by waking them up in the first place.
For a cyclist activating the muscles around
the glutes and the hips can be really beneficial
because in the world that we live in these days,
a modern lifestyle we spend a lot more time sat down
than we used to just like I am right now.
And then something like box jumps
for your explosive sprints will really help.
But again you don't want to go overboard with those
so you don't wanna reach too high
you certainly don't want to head up
towards your absolute max jump.
What you want to do is just try and wake up
the awareness of those muscle groups
that when you go out on the bike
you know that they're there, you aware of them
and how they function and propel you forwards on the bike.
The reason for doing these pre-training activation exercises
is that they will help the neural pathways
fire the muscles basically faster and more effectively
than they would have had you not done this.
So it's kind of like elongating your warmup
and preparing your muscles for what's gonna come.
But as we said at the start,
do not go overboard with the exercises,
the idea is to wake them up not to fatigue them
and detract from your training, good luck and enjoy it.
It's certainly something that has been played with
in certain teams that I've been in in the past.
The final question this week also comes from Twitter
and it's Andrew Lerner.
"Working towards an advanced degree at my university
"and my cycling fund is very limited.
"On a recent ride I took a little spill
"in a particularly fun group sprint.
"Sadly the worst of it was the hole in my favorite
"cycling bibs, can I stitch them back together?
Well yes of course you can.
Of course they're gonna be ever so slightly smaller
than they were before and they won't look quite as pretty
but there's absolutely no reason
why you can't stitch your kit back together.
That's it for this week,
if you do have a question don't forget to use the hashtag
#TORQUEBACK in the comments box below
and to be in with the chance of winning a free
three month subscription to Zwift
use the hashtag #ASKGCNTRAINING.
And before you do go why not head over to the shop
and check out our new Belgian t-shirts
to celebrate the Classics season
which is fast coming to an end actually,
shop.globalcyclingnetwork.com.
Although my wife wasn't particularly happy
to see me wearing a Belgian t-shirt this morning.