power to the pedals
hey all
So for the last few weeks I have been going to power cycling classes. Every Wednesday I go between excitement and dread for most of the day - why because for 90 minutes I climb into the hurt locker and suffer.
The dread is that these classes are incredibly hard and I am exhausted beyond exhausted at the end of each session. The excitement is that I know how much stronger and hopefully faster I am getting from the workouts.
Power cycling is a little different from Spin because you combine wattage and cadence in a controled manner. Wattage is the torque at which you are turning the pedal.
In class I am called fast legs - my average cadence is 99 - 102 revolutions per minute. When I first got into cycling and training with the Zimich's they impressed upon us that cadence should always be 95 - 105 rpm. High cadence is great for triathletes as you are using more cardio rather than muscle strength and thus when you get off the bike for the wee run your legs should not be done.
I knew about wattage and power but as we all know I am not fond of riding on a trainer and/or spin classes. However when I got into Roth and needed to take some serious time off my total race the bike was where i would be able to get the most gains. Peak and the coaches there impressed upon me the need to increase my wattage so that I would have a stronger bike and be able to finish sooner. That meant getting on the dreaded trainer and using a power meter. I hated each workout but it worked and so now I do them.
With wattage you are increasing the tension on the pedals this means focusing more on muscles to push the pedals rather than cardio in cadence. In Power cycling class we work on maintaining cadence while we increase the wattage - it is called an IHIT workout- Internal High Intensity Training. The end goal is that you will have more power while maintaining the 100 rpm cadence and that will translate to being covering more distance per pedal stroke = faster.
The advantages are enough that I am willing to climb into the hurt locker weekly. The goal is to get my average speed up to 30 km/hour on all types of terrain so that in Fort Langley Fondo so I can finish around 3.5 hours. To do that means it is Wednesday and me and the bike are off to the class.
On other news - councillor has me doing Yoga again - so far it has been okay - so namaste peeps namaste.
Shaun
So for the last few weeks I have been going to power cycling classes. Every Wednesday I go between excitement and dread for most of the day - why because for 90 minutes I climb into the hurt locker and suffer.
The dread is that these classes are incredibly hard and I am exhausted beyond exhausted at the end of each session. The excitement is that I know how much stronger and hopefully faster I am getting from the workouts.
Power cycling is a little different from Spin because you combine wattage and cadence in a controled manner. Wattage is the torque at which you are turning the pedal.
In class I am called fast legs - my average cadence is 99 - 102 revolutions per minute. When I first got into cycling and training with the Zimich's they impressed upon us that cadence should always be 95 - 105 rpm. High cadence is great for triathletes as you are using more cardio rather than muscle strength and thus when you get off the bike for the wee run your legs should not be done.
I knew about wattage and power but as we all know I am not fond of riding on a trainer and/or spin classes. However when I got into Roth and needed to take some serious time off my total race the bike was where i would be able to get the most gains. Peak and the coaches there impressed upon me the need to increase my wattage so that I would have a stronger bike and be able to finish sooner. That meant getting on the dreaded trainer and using a power meter. I hated each workout but it worked and so now I do them.
With wattage you are increasing the tension on the pedals this means focusing more on muscles to push the pedals rather than cardio in cadence. In Power cycling class we work on maintaining cadence while we increase the wattage - it is called an IHIT workout- Internal High Intensity Training. The end goal is that you will have more power while maintaining the 100 rpm cadence and that will translate to being covering more distance per pedal stroke = faster.
The advantages are enough that I am willing to climb into the hurt locker weekly. The goal is to get my average speed up to 30 km/hour on all types of terrain so that in Fort Langley Fondo so I can finish around 3.5 hours. To do that means it is Wednesday and me and the bike are off to the class.
On other news - councillor has me doing Yoga again - so far it has been okay - so namaste peeps namaste.
Shaun
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