Thank you @bbarrera this articles helps me a lot!
One articel talk about 1:1 work-rest and the other 2:1 work-rest ratio. What is the opinion in this topic about this?
No opinion. I’ve only done the 2:1 work:rest variant and they were easy.
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A question if I may; I went out on a club ride on Saturday and fell out of the group on the first significant climb - about 5 mins at 6.5% - which took me by surprise. My overall feeling was “no power in my legs”.
For the last few weeks, my mid week intervals have included 4 x 12mins at temp 3.3wkg at low cadence of 55rpm to build muscle strength and help my climbing. Is this causing a lot of muscular fatigue and may be the cause of my issue? I’m trying to work out if this is a particularly fatiguing drill.
Question: is there a point t to including force rep work if you already have been weight training for some time?
I see force rep work takes about as a precursor to weight training as well as it being an early season activity. If you are already doing regular weight training for legs in the gym, is there much benefit to be had by including force rep work?
Some interesting comments about fatigue resistance in a recent podcast:
Breaks it down as:
- resistance training
- over-gear work
- long rides
And examples of different over-gear work.
I use over-gear work all year, along with the other two.
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Thanks @mcneese.chad, ton of useful information here. I am trying to slide this kind of effort into / around / in place of my thursday threshold effort on ssbmv2. Lucky that I have a couple of 20 minute-ish 5-7% climbs close to home that are perfect for this kind of thing. Definitely riding below threshold and focusing on good form.
@KWcycling I can only provide anecdotal input here. A friend is a track coach who’s spent time working with the French and GB squads. A conversation I had with them a few years ago … they said that they had moved some of their weight training sessions into the track’s infield, and their athletes were immediately getting on the bike and following weight efforts with bike efforts, in the hope of getting more specific recruitment.
In a me adding 2 plus 2 and probably getting 5 type of a thing - and tying it in with some of what’s been said on the podcast around strength training…I’m taking away most of the straight power benefits for me as an ageing roadie - from weight training come early in the piece as those neural pathways are opened up. After that the benefit that I’m principally concerned with is around knee / body stability deep into longer rides and associated efficiency gains.
Maybe low cadence work sits somewhere on the continuum between dedicated muscular endurance and strength work? I dunno!
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Haven’t come across it, but it seems to logically fit that it might…
Is there any evidence to suggest that low cadence work is useful for addressing power imbalances?
Hi, I have a silly question.
I want to include some low cadence/high torque to my training as I think generating force is my weakness.
As suggested by Chad I have tried to introduce some low cadence intervals within sweet spot sessions.
My normal cadence for sweet spot intervals would be 90-95 rpm with hearth rate around 150bpm.
The moment I start to lower the cadence and go down to 65-70 I actually feel somewhat easier to pedal. In fact my heart rate goes down immediately of 5bpm.
I am a little confused as I was expecting to have more hard time during those low cadence minutes.
How should I interpret this?
Am I doing something wrong?
Or is my “natural” cadence of 90-95 not so natural and it should be lower.
Or what else?
Any suggestion is appreciated.
Thank you
PS I am 53 years old and I manage to train 5-6hours/week (so time-crunched). I am quite light weight (66kg for 180cm).
I have been assigned a few High Toque / Low Cadence workouts recently and was told to focus on cadence and torque value, not power.
I was told to achieve a cadence of 50-50rpm and a torque value of .6 - .9 nm / kg, which converted to torque values of 43-63 nm.
For today’s workout, with focusing on cadence and torque, my power ended up being ~threshold for the intervals and not the wattage that was in the workout (tempo). To do this, I had to put the trainer in resistance mode and not ERG.
So my advice would be to set a Torque field on your bike computer and focus on cadence and a torque range as described above. Even by doing that, and having a cadence below 60, I was just barely scraping into the bottom of the prescribed torque range and it was not enjoyable. 
- That is predictable and entirely expected. Lower cadence increases muscular demand while reducing cardiovascular demand. Well documented and not a problem if you think it is.
- In what way(s) exactly do you feel it is easier?
- Impossible to say without a lot more info. For starters, why do you think that is your natural cadence? Do you actually land there when riding & training without looking? Or is it a trained practice to employ that cadence?
Thank you for the answers Chad.
When I say I feel it is “easier” to pedal I mean that I feel less demanding in general.
Let’s say I am doing a 10 min repeat of at sweet spot, alternating 1min high and 1min low cadence. The 1min blocks at low cadence feel less demanding.
That is why I was guessing that 90-95 cadence maybe is too hight at sweet spot for me?
btw, 90-95 it is a training practice I use. and a t higher power it feels ok.
Maybe at sweet spot I would better try to lower it?
OK, then it may not be that 90-95 is your “natural” cadence. Keep in mind that cadence can and should likely vary based upon effort level generally speaking. But to find your natural cadence I suggest just riding and deliberately ignoring (or even hiding) your cadence. Only look when you have settled in to a decent rhythm and see where you land without any external guidance.
Outside of that curiosity, it’s common for people to feel that higher cadence is “harder”, especially if they have not spent a lot of time at that level. Super common for newer riders to use very low cadence since they think the harder leg load is “easier” than higher heart & breath rate common with higher cadence. Again, it’s our systems at work.
Cadence is HIGHLY individual but working to expand that range is a decent recommendation for most riders. Be able to spend time in the range between 60-120 when appropriate vs sticking to a narrow range. As an overly simplistic summary, if a particular power/cadence combo is more challenging, it may be a sign you can benefit from working that are to become more capable there.
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I would try longer low cadence efforts.
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