Pro/Elite training

MSR this weekend to add to his collection…

Lest we forget, he was also on his way to winning the Tour de France Stage 13 TT when he crashed. Those other time trials are impressive, but you know, Tour de France usually draws some decent talent :stuck_out_tongue:

He actually got told via his earpiece that De Gendt behind him was quicker which made him push more and actually caused him to hit the barrier, is what he told on Belgian TV. Then again he had been working quite a bit the days before so.

ok fair enough, maybe it is close to that number. can’t take some random facebook photo as solid evidence though sorry :stuck_out_tongue:

Coming back to the actual topic of this thread, pro/elite training. I listened to an interesting German podcast yesterday, hosted by ex-pros. One is also the coach of a MvP teammate, who is a guest in the show.

Just some key points:

  • MvP had probably done to much volume in prep for MR. The teammate confirmed that he’s not on top form, they saw this at SB.

  • what seems key currently: those athletes who can push themselves really hard in training seem to have an advantage currently. Race hardness is critical, but this is lacking now. WvV is a known sufferer in training.

  • the MvP teammate is moving from cyclocross/road to 100% road. The key difference in training for him? As cx rider a 4h training sesssion was long, really long. Now as a roady this is a short one. And 5-6h more the norm.

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Echos what I mentioned in the MSR thread:

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I thought it was interesting to see Dan Lorang talk about the importance of Heart Rate in training.

From his podcast on ScientificTriathlon:

I would always recommend having both watts and heart rate on the bike, and if you had to choose go for heart rate.

I think sometimes amateurs focus too much on watts, and watts alone. I remember a Phil Gaimon video from a while back where he was talking specifically about the reaction his HR has and how his training will be adjusted accordingly (this is before his Whoop sponsorship so now he just plugs Whoop instead).

Back to Lorang though, it appears (and I could be wrong here) that he likes to continuously monitor his athlete’s heart rate as a reaction to the watts and track this over time to adjust training.

This might be obvious to many, but it’s a commonly missed piece of information, as some cyclists end up focusing solely on the watts and ignore the HR completely due to the variability.

When looking at a cyclist or runner, the watts/power are what the athletes gives, and the heart rate is the reaction.
When the heart rate goes up, there’s a reason for this.
The heart rate is important to see how the body is dealing with the load.
For example, you go out for an easy ride and have the first 20 minutes with an average HR of 120, if one day it’s 130 you know something is going on.
You can then decide whether to continue with the session or go a little easier.
The athlete may be able to identify an explanation - e.g. drinking more coffee in the morning, and the session can go on.
There are few parameters we can measure as easily as heart rate that give as much rich information.

Note, he doesn’t prescribe workouts to HR, but is consistently monitoring it and might change a workout according to the load’s reaction shown in HR

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This is great with DAn Lorang.

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thanks for sharing

some interesting stuff here (at 53 minutes) on Ineos training/diet manipulation.

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And if someone chose to use just watts instead of heart rate, this would work too. My experience says that everyone should focus first on how they feel. Then look at the heart rate and power. Just the feel on the bike (how legs feel etc.) tells a lot. I’m not telling what to use and what to not. I started with heart rate monitor and took me years to buy power meter, but never stopped using heart rate monitor.

Maybe… but there’s also other considerations when accounting for heart rate such as heat. If one day is simply hotter but the effort still feels easy, then there might not be an issue. There’s also the note that on occasions where overtraining occurs, some individuals may have issues getting their heart rate UP and so that could lead to more discrepancy.

Maybe… but there’s also other considerations when accounting for heart rate such as heat. If one day is simply hotter but the effort still feels easy, then there might not be an issue.

I think that goes with his next point in the session notes, where you can identify an explanation and then proceed (more coffee, heat, poor sleep, etc). He covered heat specifically and briefly in the podcast.

To the second point, I don’t know for sure, but I would imagine his experience covers this as well – Knowing what HR reactions mean in relation to overtraining or overreaching and keeping an eye on it. It seems like this is why Loran prefers to keep the HR on the bike combined with the wattage, that way all reactions to the effort are able to be taken into account. It becomes much easier to find out if something is wrong if you’re keeping both in check, especially over many years. He states many times that his coaching is a multi-year process to really figure out the athlete

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@Ivanecky By any means, that’s a great thing to point out. Without getting off subject of the pro/elite training thread, I think it just shows the importance of considerations in general and making sure the coach (even if self coached) knows the athlete well enough to determine what the reactions mean to the specific body and adapting accordingly.

A cardiologist buddy of mine has often told me something along the lines of, “You need to remember everyone’s heart reacts differently, but within the same range for their body. The sooner you can learn how your own heart reacts to different stimuli, the sooner you can prevent yourself from getting into trouble. By knowing your range with and without stimuli (caffeine, heat, overdoing), and knowing what your range means, you’ll set yourself up for a long life in sport and health.”

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his ftp is 450 he did a ftp test with the alpecin fenix livestream

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Not a Pro anymore but Contador published his numbers during a test in Tenerife in his Tinkoff years. I think the kit he is wearing was from 2014, the year he won the Vuelta (+Tirreno + Basque Country) and crashed at the Tour.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CEGv_18p4vH/

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That cadence :woozy_face: :woozy_face: makes my knees hurt

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Safe to say he did that standing.

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Yeah I know, have you seen the video of it? It’s impessive

Bit outside of normal for this thread but interesting bit in mainstream news.

If it’s behind the paywall… gist is elite athletes making do at home. Low / no travel. More rest. Little competition and putting up big numbers including PRs, country records, world records.

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