Tuesday 15 November 2011

Bike fitting - Ankle injury

Ankle injury

"Adrian, thanks for your bike fitting earlier in the season, it has transformed my riding. A debilitating ankle pain that had lasted a year and defied the physio's, has gone.

I won our Club hillclimb, third in our 'All rounders' competition, and Clubman of the year!

Thanks

Tim"

Monday 14 November 2011

Turbo tips

Here are my tips to make the turbo more bearable.

1. If you know you will be using the turbo if poss get it ready the day before so you can just climb on it.

2. Have a plan before you get on, don't just get on and think what shall i do now! Some tips I've given before Blog

3. Have a good warm up, here is my Warm Up Blog

4. Use a fan

5. Good music or DVD

6. Towel and drink

7. Turn into a climbing session by putting something extra under front wheel apart from your riser block, if you add an extra 8-10cm this will recreate the gradients of the Marmotte or the Etape and use your muscles in a similar way to climbing seated, plus if you lower your cadence to 60-80rpm this will be as close as most of us will get to climbing for any length of time.

8. Create a rolling road by changing cadence every 3-5min but stay at the same intensity say from 80-90rpm to 100-110rpm, this will be like riding outside over a rolling route and staying in the same gear, cadence comes down as you climb and goes up over the top.

9. As above, but if doing 10min blocks of something specific change cadence ever 1min.

10. Here is a previous blog about bad weather (snow) long turbo sessions BLOG

Sunday 13 November 2011

Turbo warm up

A good warm up (WU) will help you get the best from the session, most people will go straight from their WU into the session, but I've found this not the best way to start this session. Whether it's a progressive WU or a specific WU, when you finish the WU stop for a few minutes, get off your bike, top up your bottle, go to the toilet, even sit down, then after a few minutes (3-5min) get back on the bike and then within a minute of getting back on your bike start your session, I've found the legs will feel far better with this time off the bike.

I found this out by being far too stubborn! I found quite a few times going straight from the WU into the session there was no way i could see the numbers (watts or HR) i wanted when doing a specific effort, so i climbed off having spat my dummy out, then sat around feeling sorry for myself for a while! then thought sod it lets try again, i got back on the turbo and straight into the session, straight away my legs felt totally different in a good way and i could easily achieve the numbers i wanted.

If you think about it this what you do after you have WUed up for a race, you sit around on the start line for a few minutes, you don't go straight from WU into the race, so this time off the bike during your training WU is getting you used to your event WU.

This could also help when training on the road, after WUing up take it really easy for a few minutes before starting your training again.