FasCat Cycling Training Tips Podcast

It’s Recovery Monday here at the FasCat HQ and a rest day in the Tour de France, so what better to do than record a podcast? We’re joined once again by Coach Robby Ketchell, who has spent time in many Grand Tours, including the Tour de France. We talk about all things rest day, including what riders actually do on these breaks from the race, how the techniques and concepts apply to amateurs, and a recap of some of the key moments of the race so far. We also give a bit of a preview into the next section of the Tour and what we predict will happen.

If you’re interested in working with Robby to improve your cycling performance, he’s now available as a FasCat coach! To get started fill out our new athlete questionnaire for a coaching consultation.

Thank you for tuning in to the podcast, and for all of the great feedback on the show. If you have questions, ping us on Twitter @fascat and @jacksonlong, or by commenting below. Don’t forget to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast platform, and leave us a review on the iTunes store with your favorite thing about the podcast or how we can improve!

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Intro music: David Cutter Music // https://davidcuttermusic.com/

Copyright © 2019 FasCat Coaching – all rights reserved.

Join our *FREE* Athlete Forum to nerd out with FasCat coaches and athletes about your FTP, race data, power based training, or anything related to going fast on the bike!

The post Ep. 9: Tour de France Rest Day Show with Coach Robby! appeared first on FasCat.

This week on the pod, we have a special episode for you featuring our very own TT specialist, Coach Isaiah Newkirk! Isaiah races professionally for the 303 Project cycling team, and is a strong disciple of the time trial. Coach Frank and Isaiah sit down to discuss the in’s and out’s of time trial performance from training to equipment to racing.

Follow Isaiah on Instagram: @isaiah.newkirk

For more training tips, visit http://fascat.wpengine.com/tips

21133Check out our 40km Time Trial Training Plan if you’re looking to improve your TT this season.

The post Time Trial Training & Racing w/ Coach Isaiah appeared first on FasCat.

The off-season is a great time to do a cycling-focused weightlifting regiment in order to be stronger and faster next year.

Why should cyclists lift weights? How should cyclists lift weights? And how does strength gained in the gym translate to power on the bike?

Frank Overton and Ben Delaney address all these issues and more in this podcast, which is #7 in an 8-part Off-Season How-To series.

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We have many off-season training plans - including weightlifting plans - to get you through the fall and winter, all of which are included in a subscription to Optimize. Use the code 25podcast to save 25% off your subscription now.

How can I break up big rides into chunks? What power meter do you recommend for gravel? How can I follow a training plan when traveling for work? These and many other listener questions are answered in our 24th installment of Ask A FasCat.

Other subjects include improving sprinting and attacking power, periodizing for ultra-endurance events, doing power-based workouts on mountain bike trails, the difference between OTS and TSS, riding the entire Tour de France route as an amateur (!), and more.

Tune in for a good one, and don't forget to update your Optimize app for the latest and greatest data visualizations!

How about a little anaerobic work to go with your sweet spot base training? At FasCat in the wintertime we like to caress and nurture our athlete’s anaerobic system. One training myth we’d like to dispel is to only do base training for 2-3 months. Why not do both simultaneously, in the right amounts. We’ve long been fans of fast fun wintertime group rides for the short 10 – 20 second forays above threshold we see in athlete’s power data. While not a ton of time is spent above threshold there is value and benefit to including anaerobic work to your base training. After all, isn’t this how the sport of cyclocross was invented? 54547Wintertime Intensity Training Plan. 1 hour workouts Zwift Compatible.

This year a number of athletes are missing group rides not only for the social aspect but also for the training. And not only the base miles training and TSS but the anaerobic component that makes these group rides so beneficial. Doing a group ride on Zwift (not a race) over variable terrain with mixed high and low power output is OK but not quite the same as these 5 workouts we are presenting below.

First, what is ‘Wintertime Intensity’? Wintertime Intensity is 2 – 4 cumulative minutes of zone 6 work per hour. Two to four minutes is not a lot considering a one hour criterium or cyclocross race has more than half or 30 minutes spent in one’s zone 6. Wintertime Intensity as you would guess is prescribed in the second half to final third of one’s aerobic endurance phase or CTL build. As in our sweet spot part 3 plan or our new wintertime intensity plan.

These variable power wintertime intervals mimic the power demands* of road, mountain bike, gravel, fondo, cyclocross and even punchy time trials. In this training tip, we’ll describe the how, what, where, and why of wintertime intervals and give you five progressive workout examples plus a link to our WinterTime Intensity Training Plan that includes these 5 workouts** in an easy to follow, simple and affordable training solution.

*surges in the peloton, steep pitches up climbs, switchbacks, and technical singletrack, cyclocross accelerations

** compatible with Zwift and others 3rd party riding app.

The Wintertime Intervals are what we call variable power workouts and they have 5 main benefits:

1. Specificity of real world conditions
2. Help the time pass quicker during indoor training sessions!
3. Concise short high quality 1 hour workouts (designed for indoors and ERG mode) but just as easily performed outside with longer zone 2 warm up and cool downs.
4. Nurtures your Anaerobic System
5. Provides an introductory amount of intensity to one’s base training before the high intensity interval training phase

Wintertime intervals are structured over under or criss cross style workouts with short 10 – 20 second efforts at the beginning and/or the end of the interval. For example 10 seconds @ 150% on FTP followed by 2 minutes and 40 seconds at Sweet Spot wattages and/or heart rates followed by 10 more seconds @ 150-200% of one’s FTP before a 1:1 work to rest ratio 3 minute recovery. Then repeat.

That’s a 3 minute variable power sweet spot effort with 20 seconds total (10 second before and 10 second afters on zone 6 work of zone 6 work. One can do 6 of these in a one hour workout for 18 minutes of ‘wintertime intensity’ split 88 % sweet spot and 12 % anaerobic zone 6. Or 16 minutes of sweet spot work and 2 minutes of anaerobic work. That’s a perfect ratio for your wintertime base training Dec-Jan-Feb. Now the progression lies in spending more time in sweet spot and more time in zone 6 in the context of a one hour workout.

To get started with your wintertime intensity interval training we have the FasCat #1 Sweet Spot Cheetah Pounce” 4 x 6 minutes. We like to have a little fun with sports psychology and animal imagery in these workouts. And of course we are talking about the world’s fastest land mammal, the cheetah.

Carefully sweet spot stalk your prey (your prey being your training goals) at sweet spot wattages and/or heart rates for 5 minutes and 40 seconds and the “pounce!” on them for the final 20 seconds at a 115 – 150% FTP Zone 6+ effort. Pounce out of the saddle as if you were going for the win and and uphill sprint. Really give’er here because you have a 3 minute recovery interval after. Take a 2:1 work to rest ratio 2 minutes recovery and repeat 3 more times. If all goes well and you FtFP your power and heart rate data will look like this:

note the ‘extra credit’ watts for the l...