HI folks new to TR and have recently also purchased a stages bike which I have found very good and preferable to wearing out chains, changing positions/crank length and ease of use. I am a very average masters track cyclist 57 years old but looking to get competitive again.
Used to own a wattbike, and could do max start efforts north of 1k watts am curious as how to achieve this (irrespective of FTP from time to time) for strength purposes. If related to FTP would be roughly 500 to 600 percent of my current levels, additionally workouts for flying 200s and standing start 500m TT’s which have the same max wattages. Advice and thoughts much appreciated.
I am not sure if you do not know about training plan or training sprint. If the latter, here is great webinar about that with many actionable insights:
To simplify/clarify Im asking how I can obtain appropriate resistance/force levels through TR i.e. at the moment I the 30 second efforts only go up to 200 percent of FTP.
So my question is whether or not there is a specific workout Im not seeing or alternately can I construct my own for specific on bike strength training, rather than going to the track and doing start efforts. Not the training process itself.
Ahs so… do sprints in resistance/standard mode not in erg mode. This way you control the amount of power with resistance level and gearing. With resistance you will have to find percentage that works for you. With standard level 0, 1, 2 work the best.
Ah thank you thats likely the solution, as an old guy that has been riding since toe clips and straps were around on the road as well as the track, Im constantly technically challenged. Ill give it a try and report back.
I’ve done them at similar power and %FTP in TrainerRoad with a Kickr 2017 direct drive (wheel off). The Kickr supports Standard/Level mode when connected to TR via Bluetooth. Not sure if a similar mode is supported with Stages Bike.
Regarding level setting - I’ve played around with different levels. Level 2 generally works best for me when doing say 175W in zone2 and hitting a 5-sec seated sprint at 900-1100W for ~5-sec. I’ve got a short punch, power drops off quickly after 15 sec. Pretty much the same as I can do outside. #OldGuysRule
Excellent, the replies are very helpful, bbarrera what workouts are you doing when doing those efforts? There are so many in the library. I see there are some that have a 20sec effort and drop off these would seem to be excellent, sample/suggested workouts to try most welcome.
As someone who loves watching track cycling and hopes to try it sometime, please feel free to continue talking about track training. I’ve tried looking into it online and have found very little content on the matter.
I’ve gone down the rabbit hole looking for track training strategies and this whole subtype seems to be wildly underrepresented online.
I’m not sure I’ll be taking this on for myself, but I wonder if a person couldn’t apart training programs from other sports for this. I’m specifically thinking of running. Those training programs and strategies are out there for the various running track distances, and would seem to map to cycling.
About once every six months I get irritated enough thay TR has never done a deep dive on track that I post on here or submit a question. Whether it’s the fitness needed for a four race omnium day, the kind of training needed for a kilo or pursuit effort, the tactics of the different race formats, or the gear, there is so much material they have left completely unmined even while they spend yet another episode talking about how good carbs are
I think one of the big issues is that none of the TR standard hosts have been at all familiar with track. The only one I can think of is Ivy, who is a very accomplished track and fixed-gear racer/rider. Ivy didn’t put together training plans, although she would have been fun to listen to for a podcast. The Empirical Cycling guys that @splash mentioned have considerable track experience, so as mentioned, it’s probably better to look elsewhere for this content. (I seem to have listened to that episode, but since it was about 1.5 years ago, I don’t remember much of it. But it was probably pretty interesting. ) But I agree, there don’t seem to be many podcasts talking about the things mentioned here (kind of training needed, tactics for the different race formats, gear selection, etc.), and it would be awesome to hear some conversation about it. It’s too bad that there’s only one track here in NorCal that’s a little too far away from Reno for the TR guys to really do a “learning process” like they did with cyclocross a long time ago.
) But I agree, there don’t seem to be many podcasts talking about the things mentioned here (kind of training needed, tactics for the different race formats, gear selection, etc.), and it would be awesome to hear some conversation about it. It’s too bad that there’s only one track here in NorCal that’s a little too far away from Reno for the TR guys to really do a “learning process” like they did with cyclocross a long time ago.