training 001
I had a lot of comments and questions about my recommendations about keeping your fitness level up over the winter. Winter has hit us hard the last few weeks, combine that with the fact that we’re in the middle of the holiday season, making right now the ideal time to get into a set workout routine.
 
We all have different goals so you need to do a little research into what your indoor training should or should not be. But there are some basic “rules” all of us need to incorporate into our winter fitness routines.
 
LSD – Long Slow Distance. Over the past several years this golden rule of off-season training has come under question. This is the practice of keeping most of your winter rides, whether indoors or out, at a lower intensity, specifically in the aerobic zone. The latest research I’ve seen still supports this training practice in most cases. The real advantage of training in this zone is that it teaches your body to burn fat for energy more efficiently versus your store of quick burn sugars. That’s why most people refer to it as the “fat burning zone”. The advantage to training your body to burn fat isn’t just the obvious. Yes, this time of year most of us are watching our weight. The real benefit to this level of training is when you start riding outdoors in the spring, your body will use the more abundant stores of fat to power your ride versus the less available sugars.
 
Training in this lower zone takes a lot more discipline than you might think. The simplest way to keep in the aerobic zone is to watch your breathing. A good LSD workout would look like this. Warm up for about 10 minutes just easy spinning. After your warm-up begin an 8 minute interval starting out hard. When your breathing becomes very fast and shallow (hard to talk), start to back off until your breathing is long and deeper (easy to talk). Your RPM’s should be in the 80 to 90 range. With a little practice you’ll be able to get right into this zone without thinking. After 8 minutes slow petal for 2 minutes then repeat 3 more times. For this workout, keep in this lower intensity zone, yes you can go faster but you’re training your body to burn fat. Do this workout twice a week through the winter.
 
Hammer Away – LSD training is very important but you also need to extend your system. That breathing sensation that I told you to recognize, when you first start to breath short shallow breaths, is your lactate threshold. That’s when your body is producing more lactic acid than it can expel so your metabolism speeds up to try to get rid of it. This zone is called anaerobic. You can mark this event on your heart rate monitor to be very accurate. We want to do most of our heavy anaerobic training in the spring and summer but we don’t want to totally ignore it in the off-season. If you’re doing 2 aerobic training sessions per week you want to add 1 or 2 anaerobic sessions for the perfect training week. An anaerobic workout always involves short intervals, for example, start out with your normal 10 minute warm-up and this time get really warmed up. Begin a series of 1 minute intervals with 1 minute rest between each. Pedal fast and hard, around 95 to 100 RPM is about right. I’d start out doing about 12 of these 1 minute intervals, as the weeks go by add 1 or 2 each week. You’re training your body to pedal fast, training your heart to be more efficient, move lactic acid out faster and increase lung capacity. All good stuff!
 
Understand the difference between these two totally different workouts. On your LSD days stay in the lower zone and this should be a longer ride of around 45 minutes to an hour or longer. On your above Lactate Threshold days go hard and really push yourself. The biggest mistake riders make is riding all of their workouts in basically the same training zone every time they train. Everyone of your workouts should have a specific training goal.
 
Don’t Ignore the Gym– I’m a firm believer in weight training. This is another area with a lot of misinformation going around. You may have read some statements like, “you don’t use your arms riding a bike” or “too much muscle is just dead weight to a cyclist”. That may have a little truth if you’re a professional cyclist, but unless you really believe Lance is going to call wanting you in the next tour, you’ll get a huge benifit from lifting weights. Do one lower body session and one upper body session per week and you’ve completed your week.
 
If you’re counting all this up, 2 LSD sessions, 2 above LT interval sessions and go to the gym 2 times per week that’s 6 days per week of training. Of course you have to decide what you’ve got time for and what fitness goals you want to reach. This training schedule will take you to a very high fitness level. You’ll easily tackle Ragbrai next year, ride a century or even get into some competitions if that’s your goal. It’s up to you.
 
Trainer or roller workouts are some of the most effective training you will do all year. You have total control over the workout, you control intensity, duration, the environment and the location. Done right you’ll greatly increase your fitness and riding skills. Concentrate on your riding form, work on peddling in complete circles, keep your upper body still. If you’re waving back and forth on the bike you’re using too high of a gear and wasting energy. Drink when you’re thirsty, during all of these workouts you should drink a full bottle of water. I’m not a big proponent of energy drinks, and they are not really needed for workouts lasting an hour or less like these, water is fine. Also, keep cool. Have a fan in your training area and use it.
 
Last advice, use this time of year to get a physical. To get in better shape you’ve got to push your body to a higher level. Never attempt a hard workout without knowing it is capable of handling it.
 
Oh, by the way, indoor training is a lot more fun if done with friends. Grab your stuff and come join us Thursday nights at 7 PM. Watch www.bikeiowa.com for the latest information about our training locations and times. We’ll start up again after the holidays on January 7th.
 
Live – Love – Ride
Danny Kruzic
President, Des Moines Cycle Club
USA Cycling Level 3 Coach