Amber, Ivy, and Nate join Coach Jonathan for a discussion on what coaches mean when they say “consistency”, why it matters, and how to prioritize it, how to break away from a strong field, why cyclists have tight hips and what to do about it and much more. Tune in now for Episode 362 of the Ask a Cycling Coach Podcast!
Tune in Thursday at 8:00am Pacific!
Youtube Live Video:
Topics Covered in This Episode
What is training consistency and why is it so important?
How to break away in strong fields
Why power is key for calorie measurement
Mood and training periodization
Why training harder isn’t always the answer
Why cyclists have tight hips and what they can do to fix it
@Nate_Pearson when you discuss the Calories and PM thing, could you please redo the explanation of the Kj, KCal, Cal, Watts relationship. I was trying to explain to my workmates yesterday by memory and got well muddled up.
For future reference, my trick is just loading the default TrainerRoad Blog - Cycling Training Resources and Tips site and using the embedded Search at the top right. One or two key words usually can find one or more blog or podcast links worth a look. It cuts out the middleman (G) if you are fairly certain TR had it covered at some point.
From that TR blog post you’ll note that gross metabolic efficiency is typically (not always) in the range of .2 to .25. Lets look at an example from my ride yesterday:
Yeah, I wasn’t talking fine metrics. Just describing how directly Power measurement can relate to energy expenditure. One of my colleagues was talking about the amount of Cal the exercise machine told him he was using.
I can’t remember the number but I think he said it was 100Cal every 10minutes and I was trying to say that seems a bit high considering the amount of Power it takes to burn 400Cal per hour, which I thought I could remember from Nate in the pod many moons back being something like 200W
That’s about 115-143kcals using the 20-25% gross efficiency range.
Solving backwards, 166W average power burns 100kJ every 10 minutes. And using 1:1 approximation (23.9% gross efficiency), that’s about 100 calories (kCals).
A lot of interesting studies on gross efficiency… Here is one comparing cadence on 0% (flat), 4% climb, and 8% climb:
Lab data? Because weighing food is going to use estimates of caloric value. And from my previous short trip down the rabbit hole, efficiency has been shown to vary due to power output, cadence, and gradient. Gross efficiency is a range, it’s individual, depends on route and power and cadence, and can change over a season.
Awesome. I am really looking forward to this discussion. As a “train-now” athlete, I’ve been wondering a lot about the TR endorsed definition of consistency.
But isn’t it always indicative rather than absolute? Eating to the KJ over time, you’ll either go up or down in weight, and adjust to individual experience if not seeing the expected results?
Yup. The point is, don’t be fooled into a false sense of precision. You don’t precisely know calories burned on bike, you don’t precisely know the calories in your food, and you don’t precisely know your BMR. They are rough estimates to get you close, and you need to adjust food intake based on trends seen on your scale.