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The Flagellation Files: Break Workout

[The Flagellation Files is a regular feature on GamJams, with each installment providing a new workout designed to wear you down en route to building you up. Leave any questions in the comments and the coach who designed the workout will answer them there.]

 - by Adam Switters

We all love to race our bikes. I know we all love to ride our bikes, but we wouldn’t be surfing around a website like GamJams unless we truly loved racing our bikes (or reading about other people racing theirs). The best way to prepare for a race is often to simulate race efforts in a workout. If you spend all of your time at threshold, the first time you go anaerobic during race will knock you off your feet. That’s where the “break” workout comes into play.

Short for breakaway, the “break” workout simulates the actions of an aggressive race. In short, you’ll be simulating the effort it take to establish a break, the sustained power to keep a break rolling, and the leg searing effort it takes to sprint to the finish. In essence, you will be teaching your body how to recover from an highly anaerobic effort in order to go switch into threshold mode, followed by a final lactic acid building final effort. After a few weeks of this workout, your body will better adapted at recovering from anaerobic efforts without having to go into full shut-down, recovery mode.

The Workout:
Like any highly intense workout, you’ll want to make sure you got a solid 20-30min warm-up with one 5 min threshold effort to get the blood really flowing. Start the “break” intervals at a nice rolling speed, like you are sitting in the middle of a pack of riders. From there:

• 30 sec hard sprint
• 5min at your 30min FTP (30min TT power)
• 15sec hard sprint

Depending on if you use a HR monitor, standard recovery is easy spinning till HR reaches 10% below your Zone 1 HR. Start by doing 2 intervals in a workout and move you way up to 3. If you find that this is too hard, or too easy (are you crazy!!!), you can use your 60min FTP and 20min FTP for the middle section.

It is not a super long workout, but a rather intense one. Although it seems like a threshold workout, it's not really since you are anaerobic before you hit the threshold stage. So, while your power may be at threshold for the middle part of the interval, the first few minutes your body is still in the anaerobic state. Once your body gets settled and your workload becomes aerobic, you immediately become anaerobic again.

Hopefully next time you race, that breakaway effort won’t kill you for the rest of the race, or you’ll be better prepared to win if that groups stays away to the line.

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Adam Switters is a former professional cyclist and currently races for the XO Communications/Battley Harley Cycling Team. He is a USA Cycling Certified Coach and is always interested in helping out cyclists. You can check him out at his website www.SwittersCoaching.com. Feel free to comment if you have any ideas for workout or questions.

The Flagellation Files: HOP

[The Flagellation Files is a new feature on GamJams, with each installment providing a new workout designed to wear you down en route to building you up. Leave any questions in the comments and the coach who designed the workout will answer them there.]

 - by Adam Switters

In 2004, I had the pleasure of meeting Michael Carter, a legend in American bicycle racing. Carter is one of very few Americans to have competed in all Grand Tours and was rated as one of the best climbers in the world by various cycling magazines. Despite his small stature (I swear he’s under five feet), Carter puts out an extreme amount of power on the flat. I remember riding behind Carter suffering to stay on his wheel as he rolled his 53x12 at 28mph….for an hour straight. Talk about a workout.

I would later come to know this workout as HOP, or Hour of Power. The goal is sustain the highest level of intensity for an hour, whole staying completely aerobic. Similar to SFR, this is a low cadence, strength-building workout (we’ll get back to speed next week). Unlike SFR however, we are learning how to utilize power at speed.

The workout: Since we are trying to stay aerobic during this workout, we are going to peg the wattage at 90% of your FTP (Functional Threshold Power). In other words, 90% of your average wattage output during an hour long TT. On an RPE scale we are looking at about a 6.5 to an 8. You should maintain a cadence of around 60-70RPM. For the average competitive cyclist this is around a 52x14 or 15.

Obviously, you can’t just jump into an hour straight away. Slowly build yourself up to an hour. My favorite way of doing this is starting with 15min HOP, 30min spin, 15min HOP. Each week, take 5min away from your spin and add that to the last interval. By 6 weeks you should have built up to an hour.

Like SFR, I tend to do this once a week, but I am the time-trialist/power type rider. This is a great exercise for the base season and building up for TT’s. My favorite way to do this is on my TT bike and focusing on limiting hip rock and upper body movement. Try it out. I guarantee you’ll feel more powerful after 2 months of this workout.

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Adam Switters is a former professional cyclist and currently races for the XO Communications/Battley Harley Cycling Team. He is a USA Cycling Certified Coach and is always interested in helping out cyclists. You can check him out at his website www.SwittersCoaching.com. Feel free to comment if you have any ideas for workout or questions.

The Flagellation Files: SFR

[The Flagellation Files is a new feature on GamJams, with each installment providing a new workout designed to wear you down en route to building you up. Leave any questions in the comments and the coach who designed the workout will answer them there.]

 - by Adam Switters

In 1983, famed cycling coaches Aldo Sassi and Massimo Testa were looking for an on-the-bike strength training routine that was primarily an aerobic exercise. They came up with SFR, which in Italian stands for Salite-Forza-Resistenza, but most coaches refer to it as Slow Frequency Repetitions. The goal of an SFR workout is to increase muscular strength and efficiency in the pedal stroke.

Back in 2001, I was lucky enough to meet Max Testa. Testa was the head of the Mapei Performance Training Center in Italy for many years and was currently working at the Sports Performance Center of the University of California-Davis. Testa was the first one to introduce me to strength training on the bike, something that I have now been doing consistently for 10 years, and I believe the biggest contributor to my efficiency and strength.

The Workout

First you have to find a hill. The best hill is one that has a 3-6% grade and last at least 3 min. If you can’t find a hill, you can do this on a trainer and simulate climbing by raising up the front wheel. As a last resort, you can also do this into a headwind to simulate the added resistance of a hill.

This is a LOW cadence workout. Find a gear that enables you to push 35-45rpm at +/- 85% of your FTP (Functional Threshold Power) or threshold heart rate. Most likely, this gear will be the big ring with anywhere from a 14-19 tooth in the back depending on the gradient of the hill.

Since this is primarily an aerobic workout, recovery is fast. Usually no more than 2-3 minutes (more if lacking fitness) is needed. This is often the time it takes to spin lightly back down the hill 100yds past the starting point and turning around to do it again.

This workout is done in the seated position. Try doing them in the drops. Focus on creating a smooth powerful pedal stroke that drops the heel at the bottom of the stroke. I recommend riding in the drops and focus on limiting upper body movement. This is not an exercise in speed, but rather strength and cadence. Of course, if you experience knee or back pain, increase the cadence and decrease the intensity.

Cadel Evans does this workout once a week throughout the entire season, and I recommend the same. It’s a great way to keep your efficiency on the bike. Start with a few reps (3 x 3min) and slowly increase time and reps as you feel more comfortable with the workout (trying working your way up to 6 x 4min).

For some added intensity, try a 10 second jump at the end of your last 2 reps in the same gear that you are doing the SFR in. This is a great exercise in power and muscle recruitment.

SFR’s are not for everyone. It often takes a few weeks to truly see the benefits. Experiment with the best hill to perform these on and the correct cadence for you. Whether you are looking to increase your strength, climbing, or TT, this is a great workout for the cyclist on a training-time budget.

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Adam Switters is a former professional cyclist and currently races for the XO Communications/Battley Harley Cycling Team. He is a USA Cycling Certified Coach and is always interested in helping out cyclists. You can check him out at his website www.SwittersCoaching.com. Feel free to comment if you have any ideas for workout or questions.

The Flagellation Files: Pyramids x 5

[The Flagellation Files is a new feature on GamJams, with each installment providing a new workout designed to wear you down en route to building you up. Leave any questions in the comments and the coach who designed the workout will answer them there.]

 - by Adam Switters

Let’s face it, few of us are lucky enough to be able to ride our bikes for a living. Often enough, instead of making money, we are taking out a second mortgage just to be able to afford our sometimes absurd hobby, but we love it. The average cyclist out there is not Ben King - who can spend up to 30+ hours a week on his bike - but fathers, and mothers, and people who have real jobs and commitments besides being a cyclist. Plenty of people out there are fast (and a few who are incredibly fast) on less than 10 hours a week on the bike, and you can be too. Here is where I’ll be sharing workouts that you can do in 90 minutes or less and still grow your Fast.

Pyramids

This is a workout that simulates a fast, aggressive criterium. You’ll be hitting it hard out of the gates to simulate those early attacks, learning to hold it there for breakaways, and finally finishing it off with a sprint to the line. This is an intense workout and shouldn’t be done more than once every 2 weeks.
 
Warmup: When your time is limited, often the warm-up and cool down becomes condensed. You’ll need a decent warm up for this one though as we’ll be going anaerobic right away.

Take it out easy for 15min to get the blood flowing. Build into a 5 minute medium endurance set (about 15% below your 1hr TT power or roughly a fast tempo), followed by 5 minutes of recovery spinning. Now we are ready to go.
Time: 25min

Pyramid: Just as the name states, you’ll be building up in time, then bringing it back down. Each set lasts 5 minutes with a 5-minute recovery in between. Start your first interval at a nice rolling speed. Begin each interval with a slight jump to get yourself up to speed, followed by sitting down and powering through till the end. Start off with doing the intervals at roughly 85% max effort (we want you to get through the workout), and adjust based on how you are feeling throughout. Remember, each set takes 5 minutes, so you’ll be doing a total of ten 15sec efforts for the first set.

Set 1: 15sec on, 15sec off for 5 minutes
Rest (5min)
Set 2: 30sec on, 30 sec off for 5 minutes
Rest
Set3: 1min on, 1min off for 5 minutes
Rest
Set 4: 30sec on, 30sec off for 5 minutes
Rest
Set 5: 15sec on, 15sec off for 5 minutes
Time: 45min

Cool Down: 15-20min of easy spinning.

This is a very intense workout. It is important that you try and maintain good form throughout. Work on putting all of your power into the pedals and not wasting energy and extraneous movement and bike thrashing. Maintain a high cadence (90+ rpm) as this is designed as a speed workout.

You can adjust this workout as well. If you feel like you need a longer warm-up, cool down, or recovery in between sets, change the set time to 3 minutes. Remember to listen to your body, and this can be a great workout to get you ready for criterium season.

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Adam Switters is a former professional cyclist and currently races for the XO Communications/Battley Harley Cycling Team. He is a USA Cycling Certified Coach and is always interested in helping out cyclists. You can check him out at his website www.SwittersCoaching.com. Feel free to comment if you have any ideas for workout or questions.