Let us not get stuck on the VLMAX thing, just assume that an athlete has a high 3-6min power relative to long 12-30m power. It seems that a lot of coaches successfully employ low cadence tempo intervals to “address this imbalance” insofar it’s a desired outcome for the rider.
A couple of questions?
Thanks a lot,
Old
From what I’ve understood three things:
Due to higher torque you will recruit muscle fibres (type 2A) usually not engaged as much under regular endurance rides, turning them more slow twitch.
Due to relatively low metabolic demand and aerobic nature lots of stress can be accumulated in this way. And thus also in those muscle fibres otherwise not engaged.
It is supposed to lead to increased efficiency.
However, although theoretically this makes sense, scientifically there is not as much evidence.
Why not focus on the FTP end? Lots of endurance training, FTP intervals leading into some VO2max work. Raise the ceiling, then raise the roof.
I personally think cadence intervals are stupid.
You know why low cadence intervals seem to work? Because they are usually prescribing long 10-40min work intervals and at tempo to threshold power. Do the same intervals at your preferred cadence and low and behold, same or better results. These intervals will slowly push up ftp and tte, especially if vo2 is used after.
Want to work on strength using low cadence? Go to the gym and see better results.
Thanks!. I also read something about fiber type conversion. Which makes me think about the convenience aspect, given the need to protect fast twitch muscle as we age.
It’s worth nothing that:
Join plans include routine low cadence tempo
Athletica.aI plans have the same.
Here’s an interview @plaursen did with Dani Sanders of INEOS, skip to min 60
I’m pretty sure this has been debunked. I think it was Kylie Moore in a podcast (among others) that I heard that your legs will use the muscle fibers either way just depends on the intensity. Low cadence doesn’t just automatically engage more.
That is the hardest to read paper I’ve ever seen. Looking at the table, they are basing their conclusion on the mean values with quite large standard deviations.
Plus, this is a noob gains study.
The way I see low cadence is that there is no iron clad evidence for it in ex phys literature. Lots of coaches prescribe it. It can’t hurt unless you hurt your knee or something with ultra low cadence. So, give it a shot if you want.
I suspect though that low cadence intervals will not be a magic interval workout unlocking even 20 watts in FTP. Marginal gains at best.
One thing about this discussion that I find interesting is that back in the day we used to do low cadence intervals out of necessity. My first bike had a 52/42 on the front and a 13-23 on the rear. When presented with almost any hill, one was going to be doing a low cadence interval whether they want to or not.
Interesting, why is that?
I personally ignored low cadence before because the lack of science behind it, but since using Join I started doing it and came out of a plateau. I can’t say for sure if low cadence work helped but it might.
Last month someone posted on this forum what I think is the best Low cadence video on YT right now from SEMIPRO CYCLING:
The Easy Way to Become A Stronger Cyclist (Latest Science) - YouTube
This is the study/presentation he mentions in the video showing you can achieve the same results (to me it seems even slightly better) with on-bike torque training vs off-bike squats:
John Wakefield of Bora likes them as well
Some more research links:
https://journals.physiology.org/doi/full/10.1152/japplphysiol.00636.2019
Always nice to have more references.
What are you take aways from theses papers?
Coaches like to prescribe low cadence intervals
-they add variety to the training
-they’re quite hard but not too hard
-they can be justified with vaguely scientific reasons why they “should” work
A lot of riders enjoy low cadence training for the same reasons
Why not conduct research using yourself as N=1? Using ERG do a 10 minute warm-up then dial in 70% of FTP zone 2 power and ride 10 minutes at each of the following cadences: 100, 95, 90, 85, 80, 75, 70 while wearing a heart monitor. Total time is less than 90 minutes. Track HR and leg RPE in tandem with increasing torque while watts remain stable.
I did a couple of 3x30m at 57rpm at around 85% of FTP, here are my observations:
It’s a very different type of stimuli….so anybody that says it doesn’t make a difference, it just shows they don’t know what they are talking about.
Very non conclusive. Still going through it. Will post soon.
I like to crank up the resistance to do low cadence work, and usually climbing will have a significantly lower RPE on my next ride.
Lately, if I’m feeling pretty good and the friends I’m riding with aren’t keeping up on the singletrack, I’ll shift to a hard gear and stay in it (i.e., single speed), and ride at their speed. Same effect, climbing keeps getting easier.
So my working hypothesis is that you can do more tempo at low cadence than regular cadence hence more volume = more adaptations.
Lower HR (i.e. less cardiovascular stress) doesn’t necessarily mean you can/should do more volume if your leg muscles are doing more work. You might actually be doing more work on a muscle cell level at higher torque (lower cadence) than at lower torque (higher cadence), thus creating the stress needed for adaptations without additional volume. Only way to know is do the extra volume and see if you recover well or not.
For example, during a summer trip I rode up a 1 mile @ 15% climb, probably 60ish RPM, and it was non-stop tension until I crested the climb. It was only a mile long, and despite being able to talk the entire time, my legs were completely drained using a 36x30, far more than any big gear tempo, SS, or LT effort I might normally do. I could not have done this two more times, and thankfully the two remaining climbs, though longer (4 miles and 2 miles), were not as steep.
Torque matters.