The Polarised TPs are opening my eyes to some different workouts.
In the year or so I have used TR many workouts have encouraged increasing cadence and my comfortable cadence has increased from 85 to 93rpm. In this workout you are encouraged to raise it further still, so I made it my main focus, and rode most of it at 102rpm.
At one point the instruction mention that a skilled rider can ride at any cadence between 60-120rpm. In the needle type workouts, I can get to 140+, not that I can hold that pace for long. From the performance perspective why would one ride at those extremes? What benefits do they provide?
Increasing my cadence increases my HR. I understand there are training benefits, eg, VO2Max workouts done at high cadence increase your HR, which is the critical aspect of those workouts. But if my HR is lower for the same FTP at a lower cadence, I’m guessing that finding the cadence that produces your target FTP at the lowest HR is interesting and possibly beneficial?
Does TR have a test workout for finding your best event cadence?
With such low intensity workouts you can focus on technique. I find that my right leg seems to have no problem with maintaining the higher cadence, but when I focus on my left it gradually reduces subconsciously, so I have to consciously keep it on track. (I’m right handed if that is relevant)
Another aspect of the higher cadence relates to my breathing. At my more comfortable cadences, I’ve noticed my breathing and cadence have a rhythm and synchronisation, eg, relax my breathing relaxed by cadence! But at this higher 102rpm and low intensity, that had gone. The latter seemed a benefit
Many of the instructions, not just this workout are often very quick, even though there is plenty of time for them to remain, eg, when completing say a hard interval and you need to change gear, sometimes both chainring and cassette, wipe your forehead, get your water bottle, etc, and it has gone, you frustratingly see a flash of a missed message. In this workout, there were no hard intervals, but some messages had gone by the time the 3rd blip had sounded!
Obviously, there are some here, who think just because they can’t feel exertion, that low intensity training serves no purpose. I’m putting my trust in the science.