Coach Brady – Page 13 – Science of Speed

Weight

A common misconception is that all endurance athletes fit into the same mold, that in order to be serious about your sport you need to look like a pro. What you find when you look at the pro peleton is that there is a wide variety of body types present. Just because Chris Froome looks like a praying mantis on his bike doesn’t mean that a rider of similar stature will have the same ideal racing weight. Marcel Kittel is of a similar height but probably has about 40lbs on Froome. If Kittel had tried to drop that much weight he would probably wind up getting shelled out the back of his local club ride instead of being one of the top sprinters in the world. Forcing yourself into a target weight that is unnatural for your body type and build is not only unhealthy it can also rob you of training gains and cause your performance to suffer. When the body is chronically malnourished it is not getting the necessary nutrients to recover and rebuild from training. Resulting in little or no gain in fitness. Sometimes even a loss. Brad Huff is a professional rider who spent a couple years struggling to drop weight and actually wound up performing worse as his weight went down. Once his coach helped him figure out the problem he actually started the next season at a higher weight than he’d ever had before as a professional and his performance increased dramatically. That’s not to say small adjustments can’t be made to find an ideal racing weight but you’ve got to be smart about it. In order to lose weight at a healthy rate, knowing your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) is extremely helpful. BMR is the number of calories needed for basic body function. The number varies greatly from person to person and in order to get an accurate number you need to take a BMR test. BMR tests take about 45min to complete and are extremely easy. There are plenty of online calculators out there to guess your BMR but they are wildly inaccurate and can vary by hundreds of calories from one calculator to the next. When you’re looking at maintaining a 300-500 calories a day deficit for healthy weight loss, that kind of inaccuracy can really create problems. Armed with an accurate BMR you can track your energy expenditure from day to day using either a power meter or any number of algorithms that use, average heart rate, speed and elevation to calculate energy expenditure. Again, the more accurate the better. Where can you take a BMR test? Right here at Science of Speed! Do you have any questions regarding Diet and Nutrition? Send us an email and we will try to get it answered in our upcoming lecture (June 12^th).

You’ve Got to Have a Plan

Sometimes finding the time to train can be a struggle. Balancing work, family and a social life with serious training can often leave you feeling like you just aren’t doing enough to make any real gains. Having a structured training plan is a way to achieve those gains you’re looking for by maximizing the time you have available to train. Whether it’s 6-8 hours a week or 10-15 there is a plan that can help you achieve your fitness goals. With limited time available to train it’s important that the body is sufficiently stressed by the effort in order to make improvements in fitness. The most efficient way to do that is through structured interval training. Simply going out and doing hill repeats week in and week out will help you improve but only up to a certain point. Once your body adapts to the demands of the work, the gains start to become minimal and eventually plateau. Periodized training enables the body to go through periods of intense effort but also periods of recovery in order to make the adaptations necessary for improvement and then build on those gains. We offer a variety of coaching options from personalized static plans to fully customized 1 on 1 coaching packages. Do you have Training Questions? Send us an email and we’ll try to get it answered at our upcoming lecture on Structured Training (May 29^th).

Interval Training

Since the beginning of this year, Science of Speed coach Trevor has been on a new interval training plan. We tested his LT/Vo2 max before the start of the training and again 4 months later. In that time, he showed at 3% increase in power at threshold. We sat down and discussed how the training’s been going for him: Q: How long have you been riding? A: Years and years, as a commuter. I owned a car for about 6 months when I was 18 and I hated it. I’ve been riding every day ever since. Nothing serious until I did my first bike race on a steel commuter with front/rear fenders and a rack 4 years ago and I’ve been obsessed ever since. Q: How long have you been training? A: Since that first race 4 years ago. No real structure to it though. Just lots and lots of riding. Q: How long have you been doing intervals? Had you done any before? A: I started in January. Before that, the closest I came to interval training was when I would go for all the sprints on a group ride. Q: How has it affected your training? Right off the bat I learned I was capable of more than I thought I was, intensity-wise. Before doing Vo2 intervals, I did everything I could to avoid sprinting. I hated it. After a couple of months of focusing on Vo2, I realized I just never really tried to go that hard before. There’s been a definite improvement there. Time-wise there’s been a big change as well. Before this year, I just tried to ride as much as possible and hit the group rides hard. I would try to ride every day as much as possible. Doing interval workouts on weekdays and taking rest days has actually shortened the amount of time I ride by quite a bit, freeing me up to do other things. Q: How has this changed your fitness? A: Again, I think a big part was just never really going as hard as I could on a regular basis. Before doing intervals, I just assumed if I went out on the group ride and rode hard then I was getting a good workout. I definitely made improvements that way but only up to a certain point. Last year I felt like I’d hit a plateau. In the last 4 months I’ve made more improvements across the board than I did over the entire season last year. Science of Speed offers a wide variety of training plans, from fully customized individual plans to static training plans. Contact us today and let us help you take your performance to the next level!

Knowing When It’s Time to REST

The idea behind any training is to stress the body to the point that it has to make an adaptation in order to handle the training load. It’s only by resting that the body can effectively repair itself and improve. Finding the balance between training and rest can be challenging though. For some athletes, the problem is not finding the motivation to train it’s knowing when to stop and rest. Highly motivated athletes often run the risk of over training, resulting in not only a lack of gains but actually losing fitness. As they continue to push themselves past exhaustion the quality of their workouts begin to suffer and they are no longer capable of pushing themselves hard enough to actually accomplish anything and it simply becomes a death march. Another common issue is training through an injury. Aches and pains come with the territory and sometimes it’s hard to distinguish between soreness and an actual injury. It’s always best to err on the side of caution when it comes to pain, especially early in the season when a serious issue can ruin the entire year if it isn’t handled properly. Due to the repetitive motions and long hours of training in endurance sports, seemingly insignificant issues can become big problems if they are ignored. When treating an injury, always remember: ICE. The answer 99.9% of the time is ice, not heat. Heat encourages blood flow and as a result, inflammation. Which is the last thing you want. Icing a sore spot for 15-20 minutes, getting it elevated and taking a few days off the bike is the best way to get you back on the road as soon as possible. So how much rest is enough? One day of complete rest a week is usually plenty. Changing how you approach rest after your workouts can help a lot as well.Taking the time to replenish fluids and nutrients, stretching and putting your legs up in the 30 minutes following your workout will help you more in the long run than extending your ride by another 30 minutes and then rushing home to do the yard work. Some days it’s all you can do to fit the workout in and that’s fine, just make the effort when you can.

RedEye Velo Junior Camp

Coach Brady’s Camp Recap

This week I joined some of the RedEye Velo junior cyclists for their third annual North Georgia Training Camp. This three day camp has become a tradition for them in many ways. It is a great early season jump start to their mileage, a great learning experience and a bonding and team building experience for the entire team. The mountains of North Georgia provide not only some amazing climbing and great views but some challenge that may of these juniors don’t get the opportunity to frequently visit.

We awoke Monday morning to light rain, and temperatures in the low 40’s. After breakfast and delaying for several hours the rain ceased and we bundled up and hopped on our bikes to conquer 3 passes in the cold (Jack’s, Unicoi & Hogpen). With fresh legs everyone was feeling a bit froggy and the goofing off quickly turned into a pace that brought out everyone’s game face and as the road picked up so did the intensity. We summited Jack’s and the speed quickly picked up to 40+mph as we descended the sweeping turns that are on the backside of this climb. As the road kicked up again we knew that Unicoi was our next task. The road went up and the temperature continue to drop, the rain set in and what was once clouds quickly became fog that engulfed the roads ahead of us and made rider’s disappear into the fog as slight gaps formed between the riders. As we summited everyone quickly put on the garmets they had shed for the climb. As everyone slowly snaked their way down the wet, winding mountain roads we regrouped and pressed on with our largest task of the day at hand. Hogpen. The climb that nearly every 6 gap rider dreads. Grades of 8% and up leave you wishing you had an extra gear to shift into and cause you to be out of the saddle more than anyone even desires. The large part of the group stayed together until the start of the KOM segment which marks 10km to go and then I fell off the pace, the sign of minimal riding and a lacking level of fitness. The rest was left up to the pace setting of the remaining 3 riders and from the sounds of it ended in an attack with 1km to go. Tuesday we rode out with sunshine and weather in the mid 40’s. The much appreciated sun meant a warmer feel even without warmer temps. We rolled out planning on doing 60+miles on the day and when we arrived at the base of Wolfpen gap to find a “Road Closed” barricade with a rather serious looking construction worker we were forced to reassess our day’s plan. We decided to climb Neel’s gap instead and as we ascended the sun disappeared. What would come next was more like we had experienced the day before. Cloud cover, fog and rain met us on the way up and as we summited and began our descent we were graced with a bit of sleet as well. By far the coldest descent of the day left us all ready to be done but there was a great deal of work that still had to be done. After a bit of discussion we made the decision to climb back up Neel’s and search for a bit warmer weather. Once we began our descent down we found slightly warmer weather and wrapped up our day with tired legs.

Wednesday consisted of sunny weather and a short climb up Jack’s. Everyone was quick to express how fatigued their legs felt and it was apparent that motivation was low since a rotating pace line turned into only two riders with everyone else hanging off the back. After some clean up and packing we hopped back in the cars for the long 6.5 hour drive back to Tallahassee. As we reflected on the past three days we discussed the importance of hydration and nutrition, particularly as the weather gets cold and our senses and desire to drink something cold decreases. We also talked about the riders’ need for a greater focus on nutrition. As good as Skittles, cookies and Cheez-its are off the bike (wish I would have taken a photo of what they inhaled) they were not our focus of this weeks’ nutrition discussions. Some of the athletes are training with power meters and we discussed the utilization of power meters to accurately track calorie expenditure and how each athlete can better use this data during their training and racing to stay sharp and keep energy levels high. Thank you Redeye Velo for the opportunity to be a part of such a great camp and we thank you even more for allowing us to be a proud sponsor for another year!

Harden The BRICK Up! Part 2

ucy, Lance, Jeff and JT
of the Rose City Tri Club[/caption] Continuing our Harden The BRICK Up! series we met up with a group of athletes from the Rose City Tri Club this past weekend to work on pacing. Following the workout, the main focus of the discussion was on how much mental state can effect performance. Often an athletes will push themselves harder when they’re chasing someone down but once they catch or pass that person, their pace drops off. Or on an out and back course they find they can push a little harder on the return because they know the end is in sight and aren’t worried about blowing up too soon. By practicing at race pace over the same distances you will encounter in your event you can familiarize yourself with what those efforts feel like and have a better understanding of what your body is capable of. More often than not, you will find you’re a lot stronger than you gave yourself credit for.

Next month’s brick will be in Thomasville. Saturday, April 19th at 9am. (Here are the maps for Bike and Run)

Core Strength

Closing out our “Good plan, better body, best athlete” series we’re going to take a look at the importance of core strength for cyclists. Creating a solid core can have a huge effect on your efficiency, endurance, power and overall health. When I refer to core strength I am referring to not only the abdominals (which include the Rectus Abdominus, Transverse Abdominus and Obliques), but the Lower-Back (Quadratus Lumborum and Erector Spinae) and Glutes as well. While the cycling position (in which the body weight is carried on the pedals, saddle and handle-bars) relies heavily on core strength, it doesn’t do much to build it. By strengthening the core your efficiency on the bike is improved by stabilizing the upper body, eliminating any unnecessary movement and transferring that energy instead into the pedal-stroke. While a cyclist’s legs are the primary source of power, the core is the foundation for all movement. A strong core provides spinal stability and improves posture. Both posture and stability can help minimize lower-back pain. Adding a couple core workouts to your weekly training routine can go a long way to not only improve overall fitness but can also help prevent injury. SAMPLE ROUTINE (15-20min) Plank (4 sets. 30sec-1min)

Weight is balanced between the forearms and balls of the feet while Abdominals remain tight to keep the back level. Hold pose 30sec-2min. Side Plank (4 sets left and right. 30sec-1min)

Weight is balanced between elbow and foot while Obliques and Hip adductors are used to stabilize. Basic Abdominal Crunch (4 sets of 15-25reps)

“Superman” (4 sets of 15-25reps)

Start by laying on your stomach with arms overhead. Slowly raise both arms and legs off the ground in a controlled motion using the back to stabilize, pause at the top before slowly lowering arms and legs to ground. Back Bridge (4 sets of 30sec-1min)

Start by laying flat on your back, knees bent with about six inches between heel and glutes. Raise hips off the ground and hold using glutes and lower back to stabilize. ALL PHOTOS BY ALICIA OSBORNE

Harden the BRICK Up!

Rose City Tri Taylor Shiver, Lance Parker, Jeff Drawdy, Trevor Marshall, Joe Porter and John Bennett[/caption] Thanks to all the Rose City Triathletes who turned out on a chilly Saturday in Thomasville for our first brick workout! Despite the temperature, Joe, Taylor, Jeff, Lance and John showed up bright and early, ready to work. We had favorable winds on the 11mi rolling bike course and by the time we started the 3mi run the sun finally started to warm things up a bit. After finishing the run, we had a brief Q&A on topics ranging from pacing, riding position, hydration, stretching to recovery.

Special thanks to Melissa Thompson who, even though she’s still waiting on her brand new Trek Speed Concept and had no bike to ride still came out just to show her support. Next workout will be Saturday, March 15th in Tallahassee. 9am start. Course map for bike and for run

Foam Rollers

f you are unable to afford regular massage or simply can’t fit it into an already busy schedule a good alternative is a foam roller. While it can’t replace massage entirely it can help with releasing tight muscles and flushing waste from the muscles. Foam rollers come in a variety of sizes and densities. If you’ve never used a foam roller or are unfamiliar with deep tissue massage I’d recommend a softer roller to start with. Sample Foam Roller Routine (15min) Starting at the bottom or top and working your way along the length of a muscle slowly move along until you find a tight spot then pause and slowly work back and forth in smaller motions or rocking side two side, focusing on the tight spot spending about 10-15sec before moving on. Repeat this process several times, top to bottom, each time pausing at the tight spots before rolling back and starting again. Calf

Starting just above your heel slowly work your way up, stopping just before the back of the knee. Hamstrings

Starting right at the base of the glutes is a boney protuberance called ischial tuberosity (commonly called the “sit bones”) where the hamstrings attach. Roll down the length of the muscle until you are just above the back of the knee. IT Band/TFL

At the top of the femur is a boney point called the greater trochanter. Starting just below that and rolling down the side of the leg and stopping just above the knee. The ilio-tibial band (or IT) is a common problem site for cyclist as well as runners and spending some time working it after your workouts can do wonders to reduce knee pain. Glutes/Lateral Hip Rotators

All you do is sit on it and yet for cyclists, this can often be another very tight spot. Place your weight just behind that boney point on the side of your hip and roll upwards. Quads

As the primary muscle group used in cycling the quads can always benefit from a roller. Starting above the knee, work your way up towards the hips. Be sure to make several passes focusing on each of the muscles in the group. PHOTOS BY ALICIA OSBORNE

Structural Maintenance: Good Plan, Better Body, Best Athlete:

Continuing our “Good Plan, Better Body, Best Athlete” series, this month’s article focuses on structural maintenance, specifically the benefits of massage and chiropractic care. As an athlete you can get a lot of benefits from regular massage including improved blood flow to muscles, improvement in nutrient absorption, clearing metabolic waste, reducing muscle and connective tissue tension, improving elasticity and stress relief. Chiropractic adjustments keep the body’s skeletal system properly aligned, greatly reducing the postural issues that are so common amongst cyclists. Endurance athletes in general are especially good candidates for massage and chiropractic adjustment, due to the long and repetitive training hours they put in week after week throughout the year. Because of the long hours required for endurance sports, recovery often falls by the wayside but, it is absolutely essential for improvement, performance and injury prevention throughout the year. What all that actually means: -Improved Blood Flow / Nutrient Absorption / Clearing Waste Tight muscles restrict blood flow to those fibers, which reduces oxygen and nutrient supply to the muscles as well as the removal of waste products that are produced during exercise. In addition to simply feeling sore this also means your body’s efficiency during exercise is greatly reduced because your muscles are not receiving the fuel they need in order to perform. Deep Tissue or Sports Massage restores blood flow by pushing the blood back to the heart and stretching out that tightened tissue that is restricting blood flow restrict the returning blood flow. As tight muscle fibers relax the blood can now flow freely throughout, bringing in oxygen and nutrients and carrying the waste out. -Reduced Tension and Increased Elasticity Tension is due in part to waste build-up from lactic acid and also to tight muscles because of the fixed posture that is held during cycling. Muscles will shorten over time if they are not used in their full range of motion and the cycling posture is very restrictive (see last month’s article on stretching for more on this) Massage stretches out, not only the muscles themselves, but the connective tissue that surrounds them. Known as fascia, this connective tissue surrounds muscle fiber and bodies as well as muscle groups almost like seran wrap throughout the body. When the body isn’t properly stretched and hydrated, fascia begins to shrink and bind resulting in “tight spots”. -Cortisol (the “stress hormone”) Your body needs to be stressed to make performance gains but it also needs rest in order to ultimately achieve those gains. Intense training without proper rest can result in elevated levels of Cortisol. Cortisol causes your body to release stored carbohydrates and fats for immediate use enabling you to use all your body’s energy in one go. Cortisol can make you feel tired, rundown and moody, even after a day of rest. It is one of the hormones responsible for the “fight or flight” response our bodies undergo when placed in high-stress situations. Whether it’s an important job interview, race, or being chased by a pack of rabid dogs, the response is the same. In small doses this is a good thing. If your body is unable to lower the cortisol and it continues to build however, the results can be disastrous from a training and performance perspective. It has also been linked to reduced immune system function. Literally making you sick and tired through overtraining. Massage stimulates the parasympathetic response, the opposite of “fight or flight” and has been shown to reduce cortisol levels. John Engelbrecht, D.C., is a chiropractor, cyclist, and triathlete in Tallahassee. His practice, Engelbrecht Chiropractic & Rehabilitation can be found on the web at doctorjohndc.com and by phone (850)668-7062. As a chiropractor, he has treated a number of cyclists from serious competitors to recreational riders and has found they all have common issues related to their sport. Here’s what he says about back pain and the benefits of regular adjustments: “As a cyclist we’ve all experienced that nagging pain between the shoulder blades and the tightness that goes along with it. Maybe you are training for a triathlon and are logging hours in the aerobars. Maybe you are trying out new hand positions on your handlebars or did a long pull at the front of the pack. Either way, there is nothing quite like that annoyance. Fortunately, chiropractic adjustments can help to relieve those symptoms in as little as 5 minutes. The thoracic spine, or midback, provides the structural support for our upper body and shoulder regions. When we stress that region through our various cycling activities, oftentimes the spine becomes misaligned and the supporting musculature tightens and spasms to protect the area. A simple and painless chiropractic adjustment to the misaligned thoracic vertebra can eliminate that pain and offer immediate relief. Regular maintenance adjustments during your peak training months can also help prevent that pain from occurring at all. Adding regular chiropractic adjustments to your training regimen leads to happier, more comfortable training and a better race day performance.” Whether you’re training for a weekend crit or the Tour de France, receiving regular maintenance anywhere from once a month to once a week (pre and/or post event) can greatly enhance recovery and improve performance. Just like your bike, your body needs regular “tune-ups” in order to continue functioning at it’s best. Make sure your therapist is qualified to do the work you need, specializing in Sports Massage or Deep Tissue. Communicate your needs before the session begins and during don’t hesitate to ask your therapist and/or doctor to spend a little more time on a particular spot if you feel you need it. Your therapist and/or doctor will appreciate the feedback as it will help them give you the best treatment possible.

Coach Brady’s Camp Recap

Have questions about custom coaching?