I like them as well. 55-70 cadence. Not grinding, but trying to keep HR in the apt zone.
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Been doing my Z1 on hills too mostly. More interesting and you still get to work your muscle strength, havenāt seen anything that says low cadence work shouldnāt be done on Z1 POL days so fair game I reckon.
Does he still recommend eating horse meat?
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Iāve never really understood what low cadence training is good for (or any kind of non-self-selected cadence for that matter).
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Itās not a choice, if you want to go up the big hills (>9%) in āenduranceā HR, you have to spin slower. Unless you have a big cassette or big W/kg. In other words, the cadence is an output, not an inputā¦for these slow rides uphill.
In MTB racing 60-70rpm is self-selected cadence. However, in winter we canāt train off road here. Mimic this cadence on the road.
As someone said itās not rocket surgery LSD or whatever you like to call it prepares your body for harder efforts. It is a necessity, there isnāt any short cuts . It doesnāt matter the distance you want to compete in . In my opinion we all have a max amount of hours we can build to before it become detrimental, itās finding that sweet spot thatās hard and can take a while. Auld an dun.
For one thing, muscular endurance, or strength endurance. Before someone says āthereās just endurance and thatās itā, I mean the ability of muscle fibers to resist fatigue. Not sure how common this concept is in cycling, but itās pretty big in triathlon, because without this type of endurance your quads feel like theyāre made out of concrete, once youāre off the bike and trying to run.
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But isnāt that just endurance?
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Thank you! I canāt recall seeing any decent information about what the actual benefits are of low(er) cadence endurance riding are. To me it is an outdated training prescription from the 60s/70s/80s that we havenāt jettisoned yet. Kinda like the whole thing about applying power around a greater portion of the pedaling stroke but at least one study documented higher power-output riders just push down harder in the front quadrant of the pedal stroke vs spreading it out.
If oneās self-selected cadence is that low, thats fine, you do you, or if it is a race / event specific need, thats fine.
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Well itās a choice to go up that hill I suppose (unless you live on top of it 
). And it sounded as if you viewed the low cadence as positive, so Iām curious why.
I guess most cyclists are pretty interested in their muscle fibres to resist fatigue, but as mentioned by others, thatās just endurance for me.
A few angles to consider. Maybe one or the other resonates with you or makes sense:
a) itās not self-selected but a result by the available gearing and the gradient to tackle. In a sense you are doing a specific training if these are the courses you race in or like to tour across. And: 70 isnāt that low at all if you are riding long climbs, all the more if loaded (Bikepacking)
b) of course itās self-selected but especially to be a specific training for real riding conditions (just another perspective of a).
c) itās a way to get to your fast twitch muscle fibers faster and try to adapt them to be more fatigue resistant and less reliant on burning sugar only (very broadly spoken because Iām no metabolism expert). One way would be to ride really long (oh - that is what is thread is about, hehe). So that finally when your slow twitch and most economic fibers are quite toasted also the fast twitch muscle fibers contribute more and more and also by using all energy substrates, nut just sugar. One way to get to these strong fibers early and from the get go is to introduce enough force to have them participate. You have to generate adequate torque. A torque produced by around 55 to 70 or rather 45 (if your knees are up to it - start easy) to 60 cadence and upper Tempo zone. Thus the term K3 (from German Kraft=Force) and Zone 3. By having intervals of at least 10 minutes long with such a torque you are forcing the respective muscle fibers to a) do the work and b) use energy pathways with which you can endure longer time under load and not just sprinting and then fade.
d) c was a long winded explanation which basically also means: this kind of workout lowers your VLa max. Which is exactly what you (mostly) want if you are targeting longer events (Alpine Gran Fondos, Gravel races, Triathlon, Bikepacking etc.)
e) it is not to do strength training on the bike. There are weights and the gym for that. But - as weight training tends to have your VLa max go up and as you want to transfer your strength training gains towards specific gains for the bike, low cadence / high torque work supports you in that regard, too.
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This is a myth.
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I know you are quite handy with the literature. I would be happy if you could point me to a few papers discussing / researching this aspect.
I have previously. Studies using EMG, MMG, and PAS staining all indicate that motor unit recruitment is independent of cadence.
In this thread? Would have to scan it then.
But since you explicitly write āmotor unit recruitment is independent of cadence.ā I could very well support that. Just cadence doesnāt do jack. It has to be also coupled with high torque. Or rather, itās the torque, weāre after - and low cadences with upper zone 3 gives us this torque. And not only that - it gives us that torque in a Zone we can sustain long enough and can repeat it enough to not only recruit said motor units but also put them under the strain (as in: combination of recruitment and duration) we want.
18 d ago. Trying to link the threads now, but failing.
Here:
Increased torque at the same cadence = higher power. It is the latter, not the former that primarily determines MU recruitment. This is shown by the fact that altering cadence at the same power, thus varying torque, does not change things.
TL,DR: Want to recruit more MUs? Make more power.
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Cool thanks, will read
In the mean time: yeah, I can subscribe to that. More power, more MU recruitment. Wonder whether these sources say something over the merits (or not) of the case of trying to stay in a certain power range (thus being able to hold it longer, repeat it more often in a work out) but have sufficient MU recruitment or the recruitment of the right kind.
Given that even modern compact road bike gearing is still, IMHO, on the high side for long days of alpine climbing, spending some time training at low cadence (say 50-70 rpm) at sub-threshold power is very beneficial in getting acclimatised to how you might actually be riding for hours on end during an alpine event with multi-thousand metres of climbing. It is unlikely in those situations (unless you are elite level) to be able to ride at 80+ rpm or whatever your preferred cadence is at sub-threshold power levels. You will just end up putting out more power than you can sustain for more than 10-20 mins. But if you are riding mostly on flat roads, with a few short climbs you can tackle at VO2 power, then low cadence training probably doesnāt really matter. I do train a fair bit at low cadence and Z2/3 power simply because my target events demand that kind of riding.
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What I donāt get is why low cadence feels more fatiguing then (compared to self-selected cadence at the power), if itās the same MU working.
As for those saying that they train low-cadence because their event requires it: so far Iāve just changed my cassette to take care of this, not my training.
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