The Mental Struggle
One of the best traits that came in my competitive lifting career was at some point you stop second guessing and stop jumping on every new training concept that comes along. After many years of training you hopefully figure out what works best in your own personal goals and you know specifically what you need to do to accomplish those goals. Training becomes more efficient as you weed out certain things and certain voices stating new research papers that just came out week after week. This is one of the reasons I no longer sit on strength or bodybuilding forums. Not to sound arrogant, but eventually I figured out what worked for me in my prime. After the competition years I could relax just a little more and train in a less rigid manner, which is not quite as sport specific.
My goal specifically is to improve sustained power output over the long course.
Lately though I've had a tickle of interest in improving my sprint even though I have no reason to improve my sprint. So I am conflicted and it really doesn't fit in with my overall training because I already train my legs pretty hard on Monday mornings. Having that anaerobic work and adding in more anaerobic efforts on the bike is not adding up in my mental estimation. My belief is that after a few weeks I would start digging a hole that I may struggle to get out. I think my game plan probably should stick with Leg day at the gym and then stay aerobic on the bike and let the legs recover during the week. The 4 x 8's at 105% +/- are probably about as intense as I should get and at least that is still an aerobic effort.
Because of this sidebar interest I've been messing around with the E-Motion rollers lately trying to see if I can get the wireless controller to work since that is what I have installed at the moment. I've struggled to get it to work like I want and the original mechanical resistance settings would be a much easier task to get set up just by setting the resistance and then shifting to the desired gearing as I ramp up into a sprint. I tried again last night to get the rollers setup using TrainerRoad using Standard mode for resistance, but did not get the setup dialed in like I wanted and was not able to get up to the wattage that I had hoped. I maxed out at about 600 watts as I shifted gears the electronically controlled resistance also went up and it messed up my ramp up to the sprint.
The image below reflects five attempts on trying to get the E-Motion roller resistance controller, TrainerRoad and the power meter all setup and working together. The first three attempts I was using the rollers as intended and the last two I used the fork stand to take balance out of the equation. The end result I still haven't found a setup protocol for all these electronics that works well for this type of effort. I am sure that I could get this to work with more testing and tampering with the settings within the application.
Nothing like the simplicity of a road bike, a hill, a power meter and some aggression.
I may give another try again. Perhaps I don't need to second guess my overall training goals. Since I am a recreational level rider that pretty much train solo these days or with a friend or two there really hasn't been a reason to sprint or work on sprints. Those 4 x 8's have been plenty sufficient to pull away from the wiliest of pitbulls. When training or riding solo who exactly am I going to sprint against? My goal specifically is to improve sustained power output over the long course.
Lately though I've had a tickle of interest in improving my sprint even though I have no reason to improve my sprint. So I am conflicted and it really doesn't fit in with my overall training because I already train my legs pretty hard on Monday mornings. Having that anaerobic work and adding in more anaerobic efforts on the bike is not adding up in my mental estimation. My belief is that after a few weeks I would start digging a hole that I may struggle to get out. I think my game plan probably should stick with Leg day at the gym and then stay aerobic on the bike and let the legs recover during the week. The 4 x 8's at 105% +/- are probably about as intense as I should get and at least that is still an aerobic effort.
Because of this sidebar interest I've been messing around with the E-Motion rollers lately trying to see if I can get the wireless controller to work since that is what I have installed at the moment. I've struggled to get it to work like I want and the original mechanical resistance settings would be a much easier task to get set up just by setting the resistance and then shifting to the desired gearing as I ramp up into a sprint. I tried again last night to get the rollers setup using TrainerRoad using Standard mode for resistance, but did not get the setup dialed in like I wanted and was not able to get up to the wattage that I had hoped. I maxed out at about 600 watts as I shifted gears the electronically controlled resistance also went up and it messed up my ramp up to the sprint.
The image below reflects five attempts on trying to get the E-Motion roller resistance controller, TrainerRoad and the power meter all setup and working together. The first three attempts I was using the rollers as intended and the last two I used the fork stand to take balance out of the equation. The end result I still haven't found a setup protocol for all these electronics that works well for this type of effort. I am sure that I could get this to work with more testing and tampering with the settings within the application.
Nothing like the simplicity of a road bike, a hill, a power meter and some aggression.
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| Attempted sprint effort as viewed in Xert Online |
So now that a few days have gone by I am back to staying dialed in on my primary goal for cycling. Which is just plain ole building of endurance and raising that threshold ceiling through indoor intervals at different durations and different intensities just around that sub-maximal mark.
Conflicted? Maybe I got a little distracted for a couple days or weeks, but that is quenched.
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