FasCat Cycling Training Tips Podcast

Welcome to another Q&A session of the FasCat Podcast, where we gather questions from our forum, website, and social media to help you ride faster!  This round Frank and Lacey dive into questions ranging from tips for young cyclists, heart rate behavior during workouts, tapering,  frequency of field testing, data fields to display, long term race goals, Haute Route nutrition, and so much more! Thanks to everyone who contributed questions, and congrats to the lucky winner of the Stages Dash head unit! 52180The one and only “Six Weeks to the Sweet Spot Training Plan” The FasCat community now has access to discounts on Stages products, learn more by clicking on the Stages logo in our latest power based training tip “Top 10 Reasons to Ask Santa for a PowerMeter” Show Notes: Scientific Basis for Pre Competition Tapering Strategies, Mujika & Padilla, Med. Sci. Sports Exerc. 35:1182-1187, 2003 Tapering  Using Zwift to FtFP Strava-Vals The Performance Manager Chart Podcast Join our *FREE* Athlete Forum to nerd out with FasCat coaches and athletes about your FTP, race data, power based training, or anything related to going fast on the bike! Comments The post Ask a FasCat #15 appeared first on FasCat.

The Performance Manager Chart in TrainingPeaks and WKO is one of THE best tools athletes can use for their training and performance.  Coach Frank busts out the pocket protector to explain and describe this impulse-response performance model. Athletes and coaches may use the model to plan training and therefore predict performance! One can literally design more watts into their annual training by using the PMC Chart. It also a dashboard to monitor training stress, training load, acute training stress and the almighty: form – the balance between your training load and short term daily side effects from training. Frank covers everything you need to know about the PMC:  what it is, why you should care about it, and most importantly, how you can use it to take your training and performance to the next level! For the scientific literature reference please see read visit the story behind the development of the PMC Chart here. As always, thanks to everyone for tuning in, subscribing and reviewing on Apple Podcasts, and for engaging in our forum! For more things cycling training, visit http://fascat.wpengine.com. Save 25% on your next training plan with code 25podcast Copyright © 2021 FasCat Coaching – all rights reserved. Join our *FREE* Athlete Forum to nerd out with FasCat coaches and athletes about your PMC Chart, FTP, race data, power based training, or anything related to going faster on the bike! The post The Performance Manager Chart appeared first on FasCat.

It’s December, which means next year is upon us and thoughts are quickly shifting towards the race season. What are you doing to ensure an improvement over last year? What kind of training are you doing? Are you just winging it? There’s a certain combo of art and science to the base building phase of a training calendar, and in Coach Frank’s extensive experience of coaching cyclists he’s come up with a healthy dose of each to help you go faster. What’s the key component? Sweet spot training. 32655The one and only “Six Weeks to the Sweet Spot Training Plan” We’ve talked about sweet spot a lot on the show and it’s weaved into almost everything FasCat does, but this week on the last episode of the year, Coach Frank breaks down how and why you should be incorporating sweet spot training into your plan to build a bigger and better base for 2020. He’ll cover: What is Base Training? Why Sweet Spot is Better than Zone 2 for Base Training Power Based Sweet Spot Metrics – Quantitate the SIZE of your base How many weeks to Sweet Spot? What training plans to do to get your Sweet Spot on What Sweet Spot base Building looks like day-to-day in a training plan And plenty more. Also, for even more sweet spot nerdiness check out our youTube channel and video training tip on Why Sweet Spot training is better than Zone 2. You may also find the Fatigue Dependent Training Plan Design tip a helpful read. As always, thanks to everyone for subscribing and leaving a review on Apple Podcasts, your support this year has been incredible! We’re extremely grateful, and excited about what’s to come in 2021. Now go ride your bike and begin sweet spot training! Copyright © 2021 FasCat Coaching – all rights reserved. Get FasCat Training Tips Delivered Weekly: Subscribe Join our *FREE* Athlete Forum to nerd out with FasCat coaches and athletes about your FTP, race data, power based training, or anything related to going fast on the bike!   The post Build a Big Base with Sweet Spot Training appeared first on FasCat.

 Coach Frank drops some wisdom about what types of training we recommend for the next 22 weeks. Why 22 weeks? Well, that’ how long it is from now until mid-May, where you likely want to be fast, faster, peaking, or crushing your A race. We’ll also touch on: what if you have 25 – 26 weeks, which is the Memorial Day Holiday, traditionally a big event week? Or training for the June 5 Unbound Gravel – formerly the Dirty Kanza.  And accordingly, we know some of you out there are chomping at the bit to start racing in mid March which is in 14 weeks. This is part 2 of our OG “Timing is Everything” Podcast and an amalgamation of previous podcast about what training you should do and when and how much of.  This podcast also address the existential “should you lift weights or not?” and talks about saving your form for later on in the year by way of sharing the Stanford Marshmallow Experiment. This podcast is broken down into 3 parts: ** Your training for the next 22 weeks ** Your training for the next 14 weeks if you are an early season racer ** And your training for the next 26 weeks and beyond if your goals later on in the year. 50726Weights + Base is Your Winning Combo! Thanks to everyone for tuning in, subscribing and reviewing on Apple Podcasts, and for engaging in our forum! For more things cycling training, visit http://fascat.wpengine.com. Save 25% on your next training plan with code 25podcast The post 22 Weeks of Training this Winter appeared first on FasCat.

From the FasCat family to yours, thank you! For tuning in to the podcast, for letting us help you get faster on the bike, we’re grateful to serve you. This week’s show, the FasCat coaches + Jackson share short messages of gratitude for you, the listener! 49244Shop our off-season resistance training plan. It’s a privilege to do what we do as coaches, and despite the uncertainties and madness of 2020, we want to take a moment to remember why we’re doing this and how lucky we are to be in our position. Hope your holiday season is positive and healthy! Thanks to everyone for tuning in, subscribing and reviewing on Apple Podcasts, and for engaging in our forum! For more things cycling training, visit http://fascat.wpengine.com. Save 50% with FAST50 during our Black Friday/Cyber Monday sale The post Thanksgiving Gratitude Podcast from the FasCat Team appeared first on FasCat.

Coach Isaiah comes on the podcast today to explain whether or not you should be doing specificity training year round.  Isaiah defines ‘specificity’ in terms of power output, skills, training on (or up/down) certain terrain, equipment, nutrition and of course duration.  We also break down which specifics apply to what phases of your training such as off season weights, sweet spot base, intervals or in season racing. 48934Shop our off-season resistance training plan. It’s a good time of year to start thinking about the demands your target races will require and how you might train specifically for them. From nutrition to skills and drills, specificity is one thing you can control during the hectic uncertainty of 2020!   Thanks to everyone for tuning in, subscribing and reviewing on Apple Podcasts, and for engaging in our forum! For more things cycling training, visit http://fascat.wpengine.com. Save 25% on your next training plan with code 25podcast   The post Should You Be Doing Specificity Training Year Round? with Coach Isaiah appeared first on FasCat.

Welcome to another episode of the FasCat Podcast! This week Coach Frank and Coach Jake explain how you can use Zwift to FtFP your FasCat Training plan. During the episode they touch on: How to FtFP Zwift Training  Zwift Group Rides & Zwift Racing  Analyzing your racing or training  Jake’s two favorite workouts specific to Zwift Racing We will also be hosting a FasCat meet up via Zwift next week, so be sure to listen (or read the transcript below) to find out more details! 48474Zwift Training Plan + Outdoor Workouts Transcript to the Podcast: 1. How to FtFP  The most important thing is to use Zwift to follow your plan & work for your goals. It is easy to get caught up in every race, every event, chasing riders, KOM’s and etc. The most important thing is to still FtFP – follow your plan. But over the course of this 1 hour podcast lets not forget that we still advocate riding outdoors. Zwift is good for those who can not for whatever reason. This is just another tool in the tool box. With our FasCat plans you can easily follow your training plans right in Zwift. If you are unfamiliar with this, check out our training tip & video for How to sync your TrainingPeaks account to your Zwift Account. Zwift has a workout menu where you can choose a number of workouts including the workouts that are from FasCat that you have loaded into TrainingPeaks. The only caveat to this is you can only choose that day’s workout. You can not just choose another workout from the week or month. But since you are FtFp’ing this should not be a problem. With these built in workouts Zwift will give you a list on the screen of upcoming power targets and time for each one. As you complete them it will give you a star. So you don’t even have to think or remember and just complete the effort. Let’s use a traditional week from a plan as an example. Export workouts from your plan Tues/Wed, maybe freestyle Thursday and Group Ride Saturday [for example]. Options on Sunday. 2. Zwift Training  So along with choosing a workout you can also freestyle your workout which I am a much bigger fan of personally and even recommend it to my athletes. We try to find ways that are more fun, while being just effective, to complete the training and not make it feel like a trainer workout. This is probably the greatest benefit of Zwift. You can do this with group rides or races that we will get into later but you can also freestyle it. And what is freestyle? Just ride? If you are having to do tempo or sweet spot intervals at a specific duration you can try to match it up with a climb or segment in Zwift. This way you are not just looking at a timer you can just look to go bottom to top, complete a loop or do a segment. There are numerous routes you can do. So find one that may be the best for the type of workout you are doing. Like the Sweet Spot TSS Rides? One neat feature you can do on Zwift is pull up a graph that will show you the zones you are riding by color at the bottom of the screen. It will show you a rolling 10 minute graph. Gray is zone 1, blue is zone 2, green is zone 3, yellow is zone 4, red is zone 5 and reddish pink is zone 6+. I joke with one of my athletes about zone 2 as we refer to it as the blue lagoon. It’s hard just riding zone 2 on the trainer let alone Zwift. 3. Zwift Group Rides & Racing With Zwift racing and group rides the most important thing you need to know going is what is your watts per kilo at each zone. Power to Weight Ratio  This will help you determine the best ride and category to join based on the training you are looking to get in. If you are in the base phase you should look more towards the group rides while approaching an interval plan can look at racing.  Know if you are looking for a zone 2 type of effort or a sweet spot effort. Remember you can also ride in a lower category so it’s not a full on racing effort. Make sure you know what course the event is taking place on. Is it flat? Climbing? This will also let you know the type of effort it may be. I find that if the course has some climbing it is far easier to get more sweet spot effort in. If it is flat you should be able to find a category to join or a group and roll mostly zone 2. One bonus to these events and races is that they will repeat on the same days or time. So get familiar with what events and races may work for particular training days. Where is the best place to look at the group ride and race schedule? In App or a website? Zwift companion app. Or the website. This goes with analyzing which we will get into. Riding with others, like an outdoor group ride, can be more motivating but only be effective if you let it work with your training. There are also time trial events. I find these to be the best to get in sweet spot or threshold workouts. They range from 15 – 30 minutes typical. Just very motivating again by completing an event start to finish as opposed to looking at a timer. Just important to not get carried away with your effort. Having the zone graph up while you race and really help you stay on track. Another great feature is the meetup feature. You can meet up friends and set up your own group ride or training. We should do a FasCat meetup Zwift ride! Nov 12th – 7pm est / 5pm mst   Every 2nd Thursday of the month Follow Jake Rytlewski on Zwift  Chat feature 4. Analyzing your Data This is important because you need to know if the training is effective, and if you are using Zwift to follow your plan and make trainingpeaks workouts turn green! But also if you are looking for results you can see what type of effort it will take by analyzing the racing. Analyzing your Zwift Racing Data: Most Zwift racing is not like any other outdoor races you will do where you can sit and truly benefit from a draft. Most Zwift racing is a steadier effort that averages 90 – 105% of FTP. So a lot of time in sweet spot and zone 4. Basically the old 40km TT type of effort. Of course there are accelerations at the start [vo2 effort], over climbs or even around corners but a lot of times in the events that are under 60 minutes you will be going as hard as you can. This is why after doing a particular event you analyze the data to see what type of training you are getting. Besides looking at the overall average norm power and intensity factor I like to look at the power by zones distribution chart. Then you can see what zone you actually spent the most time in. Was it more anaerobic than aerobic? Was it more Zone 2 or sweet spot? Again this is why it is important to choose the right category and remember which event may be the best for the training you are doing. Let’s not kid ourselves. Zwift racing is starting to become more than just a training tool. There are numerous racing leagues, national events and even a world championship! Also with the current world situations many are turning to Zwift to get their fill of competition and racing. So analyzing the data can be even more important! If you look at a Zwift race file again the start is very hard. This is where the initial separation will take place. The other places separation takes place are over the climbs. Most climbs will start hard and settle. Also throughout a race there will be accleartions from corners or even just the smallest bump in the road. Knowing this can help you determine the best training to do! 6. Specific Zwift workouts: #1 Sweet Spot Bursts #2 Threshold Over Unders A couple of workouts that can be really beneficial sweet spot burst and threshold over unders. With sweet spot burst you ride at sweet spot but do a burst of 8 to maybe as much as 30 seconds at anaerobic power then settle back to sweet spot so staying on the gas. So like a Zwift race you are steadily on the gas but making these burst efforts to stay with the accelerations. In a typical road race or criterium you have a lot of time in zone 1 and zone 6, but after looking at your file in a zwift race you will find you are more likely to be on the gas for most of it, so mostly zone 4 – 6. With the threshold over unders you will start and finish each threshold effort with a 15 – 30 second full gas effort. I find these simulate zwift climbing really well, or even the starts. You go hard to make the separation, hold it and then final push over the top. The post Using Zwift to FtFP appeared first on FasCat.

Welcome to another Q&A session of the FasCat Podcast, where we gather questions from our forum, website, and social media to help you understand training plan design and to help you get even faster on the bike. This go around we touch on a range of topics, including TT fits, fueling indoor workouts, and how strength training increases your FTP! Here are the questions and answers from the podcast: Neil: I’m just over 50 years old and I would love to continue to get better. But as i do that my question is this: Every training plan I see for progressing involves 5-6 sessions/wk. With my job  I can only do 3: one long (up to 5 hr) and 2 short ones at about 90 min. How do I adapt a standard plan into my schedule for maximum effectiveness? 48244Lift Weights & Sweet Spot Base! (& recipes) Well, I guess you could simply skip the workouts that you can not do because of work. However, I feel compelled to share this an old coaching expression I heard at a USA Cycling Coaches Conference years ago: 3 to train 4 to gain – talking about # of days per week it takes to improve.  I think your 3 days a week even with the 5 hour ride will be ok but you’ll be stuck like Sisyphus pushing the rock uphill and having it roll back downhill each week with those off days. If you can’t carve out an extra hour a day (do you work all day?) to hit 4 or 5 workouts per week you are 100% a candidate for a custom coaching solution.  That or maybe taking some strategically timed vacation days to help you achieve the desired amount of training to improve. Rob Davis (FasCat from Erie, Colorado): Last year was my 2nd year doing the offseason plan. About halfway through, things were feeling easy. I decided to keep the # of reps the same but up the weight incrementally for the hypertrophy and strength phases. Was pushing my limits a good idea? Or would it be more beneficial to FTfP to a Tee even if it felt easy? Why on earth would you ever want to not FtFP Remember, you are not a weight lifter, you are a bike racer and you don’t need nor want to feel demolished walking out of the gym. Bank those adaptations without the extra physiological stress and you’ll have higher quality on the bike workouts on the days afterwards. Combine the two together an you’ll get faster, aka increase your power output, FTP, endurance, etc…. So for this year – do a good Adaptation phase and set your 1 RM accurately and your next 3 phases should be just the right amount of lifting.  It could have been last year you improved so much that your 1 RM increase during and that’s why it felt easy. Josh Richardson (FasCat Athlete & Winning in the Kitchen Meal Plan User, Rhode island): Indoor trainer sessions: Is there a need to fuel at say the half hour mark with a gel for these sessions or if I am winning in the kitchen should I be covered? It depends on the length of that training session and what type of workout you are doing. Really you should treat indoor workouts the same as you would outdoors. So if you are doing an hour of zone ⅔ and are winning in the kitchen you could go without fueling. But if you are doing and hour and a half of SS you should be aiming for 25-40g of carbs per hour. Remember… the term winning in the kitchen captures all of the fueling you do both on and off the bike. That is why all of the meal plans include that allotment for ride fuel! Hydration: How much, how often, mixes, no mixes, carbs, electrolytes, etc. We have gels, blocks, bars covered pretty good in the, “what to eat on the bike episode”. 2 water bottles per hour when exercising strenuously and sweating a lot Indoor training is a great opportunity to hydrate 100% fully bc ‘hydration logistics’ aren’t difficult as opposed to outside rides. Water, electrolytes for short easy Zone 2 rides Water and GU Energy Drink Mix for intensity harder than zone 2 Roctane for your 200+ TSS and Simulation Ride Nat Orpen-Palmer (FasCat from London): I had a TT fit with a new fitter recently who recommended I do neck strengthening exercises to be able to hold a ‘turtle’ position for extended lengths of time. Do you have any advice on this or could you point me in the direction of some resources? Here’s how I have my time trial athletes practice their ‘‘turtling’: while they do their threshold intervals.  That means 1) Practice while you are doing your TT specific threshold intervals 2) Get down in the aero position 3) Scrunch your shoulders up to your ears to punch as small of a hole in the wind as possible. 4) Lower your head as low as possible – look at the ground directly in front of your wheel – eyes down. 5) Use a mirror to visualize this body position aerodynamic optimization 6) Now – this is the turtling part: because your head is so low your eyes can’t see in front of you – crick your neck back as much as you can without raising your head.  Use a mirror for this in front of you indoors while you are on the trainer. 7) Then to keep your head as low as possible look out of the tops of your eyebrows to see as much of the road ahead of you. 8) This is where you’ll actually be exercising your eye muscles and may be a tad sore the next day. You’ll be practicing getting your neck in the right position too – probably what your fitter was talking about. 9) Use a mirror to hold this position for the entire threshold interval session. 10) Once you start going hand the natural tendency is to pop-up and be less aero – see that and concentrate on getting back down low. 11) I don’t have athletes perform any neck strengthening exercises, rather practice while performing their threshold TT intervals Adam DeVoe (FasCast from Denver, Colorado): I know you highly recommend squats on a regular cage, but is the smith rack a reasonable alternative? What are the downsides to the smith rack? YOU can do a good weight lifting program with a smith rack. It isn’t ideal but neither is 2020. The difference between a smith rack and a free squat is that the smith machine is like a crutch in that it does force you to engage your core and balance the bar in a 360 plane. Because the smith machine moves only up and down you are more likely to develop poor squat form – so use a mirror and get some feedback on your form if possible. Good luck. I used a smith machine for the first 4 years I did the weight program bc I was new to squats and was intimidated by the free squat. David Kunz (FasCat from California): I’m 36, am in school, have a full time job and family. I have ~8-10 hrs a week to train, can you make a recommendation for how many events I should do in a season and the length of gravel event that I would most likely be competitive in? Right on David  – go for it.  So the number of gravel events you should do is up to you! YOu can do whatever you want.  For years, I’d do one a summer – the Crusher in the Tushar and that race was my #1 sole focus 365/24/7. It also depends on where you live in proximity to the races.  Big gravel events or smaller regional ones. Being in SoCal definitely do the BWR – that’s one of the biggest baddest gravel events of all time.  For distance choose the one you want – maybe the wafer to see how it goes and then the following year the full distance waffle.  Maybe you dive right into the waffle – there are no rules its just whatever you want. As for # of events it really depends on your personal situation – could be just the BWR. Could be the BWR + more.  Could be the BWR and then another one in the Summer/Fall. Abstain from more than one a month sustained for six months, I think. A big factor for many athletes is how much travel or not is involved to do the race.  The closer it is – the more gravel racing you can do. The further away, the less. Josh Van Cleff (FasCat athlete from North Carolina): For a Training Plan athlete, what’s the best way to approach a vacation or travel week where a bike isn’t going to be along? Depends on where this vacation falls in relation to your annual training plan and the timing in relation to your goals. The most serious cyclists take their vacations after the season is over and avoid vacations before their A events. Some general guidelines is no non bike vacations 6 – 12 weeks prior to your A event. If you go on vaca 12-24 weeks prior to your A event bring the bike (who goes on vacation without a bike?!)  But even still – how are you travelling with the pandemic right now? If by car – bring yo’ bike! When you take your vacations is VERY important and to answer your question – I’d have to look at your training plan in relation to the timing of your goals – inside 6-9 weeks and we’d have to take aggressive measures to counterbalance the offset of the 3 days but beyond 6-9 weeks I think you could make it up before and after. Its not FtFP’ing but you do get credit for thinking in advance and planning to make a plan. With the meal plan are the ingredients only measured in cups or also in European grams and milliliters? I live in Europe and I’m not familiar with American servings. For the meal plan, most of the ingredients are measured in cups. Adding the metric equivalent to each ingredient would cause the recipes to look overly crowded/confusing. However converting the recipes to metric is pretty simple. You can find a ton of conversion charts, but this one is pretty straightforward. Here is also a website where you can enter the quantities and it will do the conversion for you! Submitted via instagram (@vittorio_james1): If it is a nice day out and you are feeling good, can you spend additional time on the bike in zone 2 and still #ftfp? It depends. Zone 2 still carries physiological stress. So you are adding stress to a plan that was designed with a keen eye on enabling one to recover from and keep progressing. The additional riding may upset the fine balance. The bigger problem is that sometimes feeling good doesn’t mean ride more. Because you can’t go back in training when you’ve dug a hole and are feeling poopy and take back those days when you rode more. 30 minutes here and there of happiness watts are fine and especially fine if you can get to bed and achieve 8+ hours of sleep and win in the kitchen.  Winning in the Kitchen takes time so if riding more causes you to cut corner in the kitchen – don’t do that. Think of the extra riding like carbon offset credits – you ride 30 more minutes if and only if you can ALSO win in the kitchen more and sleep that equivalent time more that evening or have the prior evening. If you are losing in the kitchen or not getting enough sleep each night, rather than ride more – use that time to work on your nutrition and recovery. This is where having a coach is extremely helpful but as a self coached athlete my biggest piece of advice is to pay close close attention to your recovery and ability to hit your power downstream in your plan. If your legs aren’t feeling crisp with lots of watts x-nay the extra zone 2 -ay.   Pay attention to your FtFP carbon offset credits. 10. Submitted via instagram (objektivgesehen): I purchased the foundation plan for my upcoming three weeks but I’m unsure how or even if I could integrate some running training into the training plan. Do you have any tips/ideas?My biggest tip, sorry, is that there is no running in this plan. In order to FtFP – no running.  Now I can see Jackson rolling his eyes but seriously be disciplined.   If you are a ‘runner’ I’d give you a much different answer. But the single sports cyclists I know that run, injure themselves. Myself included.  And I used to run in high school! And that means time off the bike and time off the bike is not FtFP’ing Running is great especially for cross training in the winter and colder temps just be careful and start gradually and work your way up. If you are a multisport athlete that is also a different answer.  11. Submitted via instagram (benjahughes1980): What would you suggest as a good progression of plans for a 24 hour MTB race (A+ goal Race) over 12 months? Build to 1 peak or multiple peaks in the year? A good progression is what we talk about when we say Off Season training.   Lift weights and build a big aerobic engine.  To do so takes consistent work and approximately 28 weeks: 10-12 weeks for the weights and 12-18 weeks for the base.  All those plans are on our site.  Start there and do some interval training and then 24 hour specific training. As for a 1 peak or 2 peak season – that is much much more complicated and requires a whole separate podcast to answer or really hiring a coach.  My advice is to use the performance manager chart to track your training load, plan your builds, your periodization and of course your overloads, tapers and peak.  Everyone pays attention to the CTL but remember the whole entire purpose of the performance model is the optimize your form on the day(s) of your event  – so pay attention to your TSB – training stress balance to model out a 1 or 2 peak season. Again – a whole nuther podcast. Chad Grice (FasCat from Canada): I’m a 35-year-old male with an FTP just under 4 w/kg. I have a harder time than I think I should in my zones. As an example 2h of zone 2 is a struggle and even race files from last year don’t show a normalized power higher than zone 2. My peak 60min is also near zone 2 and I don’t believe that I could hold my FTP for an hour to save my life. I’m worried that I test well or my 20 min of suffering is really good compared to the rest of my curve.  What should I do? FTfP and see when I fail or lower my FTP for the training and if so how much? Something is amiss because zone 2 is your all day endurance pace, should be a 4-5-6 out of 10  Rate of Percevied Exertion with 1 being the easiest and 10 being the hardest.  I’d start by re- calibrating everything including your zones with a field test.  If you can’t hold your FTP for an hour that is not your FTP.   In the meantime, today, go back in the past 3-4 months of your power data and find your peak 60 minute power – call that is your FTP (until you test again).  Then your zone 2 is 60 – 75% of that number.    William Diaz (FasCat from Westminster, Colorado):  When should you stop doing repeats (intervals)? Can you do too many intervals where it’s not helping you anymore? Yes, you will get to the point with interval training where you plateau out and no longer realize further gains.  6 weeks is great for example our sport specific interval training plans. After that you may want to re-load your CTL with some sweet spot training or get into an interval training plan that has less intervals and more recovery to achieve higher form. These are out ‘race n recover’ plans meant to be followed during your race season. For example right now if you are cyclocross racing or if you were doing weekly criteriums, time trials, road races and so forth – even gravel. Roston Nordell: I’m looking into starting the 32 week resistance + sweat spot base, But I’ve done some research and every thing I read says I need to maintain the resistance training or else the benefits will go away, so could I get some information on when not continuing the resistance training how the muscles will be maintained? As a bike racer it is also a matter of how your time is best spent – lifting or riding.  We assume you are short on time so we’ve come up with a solution. https://fascat.wpengine.com/tips/video-should-you-strength-train-during-the-season/ Our approach acknowledges that after you complete the 10 week resistance training in the plan then your time is best spent riding as much as possible (sweet spot base) but doing strength and conditioning mobility exercises from your yogaglo, revo & foundation will help you maintain those strength gains and not provide so much that you can recover and ride as much as possible The full gas intervals you do after this plan will also help maintain strength gains. Then do this plan again next off season to rebuild any loses that may have occurred over the racing season.   John Michael Gray via Instagram (@Ridebikeseatfood): Will/how does strength training increase your FTP? In 3 easy steps! #1 build muscle – this is hypertrophy phase #2 trains that new and existing muscle to produce great force – strength phase #3 trains the new muscle that can now produce great force to make that force fast in speeds specific to cycling – this is your power phase. Force = mass times acceleration and Power = Force times velocity! [my 11th grade Physics teacher would be so proud] Evan with those physical equations, its not as simple as that – you need to train your muscles aerobic and anaerobically. So lift weights first, do your sweet spot and then don’t forget your full gas interval training. Combine the 3 together et voila – that’s how you increase your FTP!   Copyright © 2020 FasCat Coaching – all rights reserved. Join our *FREE* Athlete Forum to nerd out with FasCat coaches and athletes about your FTP, race data, power based training, or anything related to going fast on the bike! Comments The post Ask a FasCat #14 appeared first on FasCat.

Here are Frank’s Four Favorite and Fun Indoor Cycling Workouts: Sweet Spot Bursts Criss Cross ‘Micro’ Intervals Over Unders Zwift! 48013Works on Zwift and includes Frank’s 4 Favorite Indoor Cycling Workouts My four favorite workouts are all one hour and have a plethora of variations to last you all winter and to help make indoor training diverse, fun and motivationally stimulating.  I prescribe variations of these workouts Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursday and longer outdoor sessions without any structured intervals on the weekends.  One of my biggest rules to make indoor cycling fun and productive is to avoid steady power output – that tends to be boring.  For example 4 x 8 minutes on 4 minutes off – booooooring.  Productive yes, but with a little tweak this workout can become more realistic and dynamic by adding bursts which help the time pass by quicker. One last aspect of indoor training during your base season – hold off on the macho full gas go as hard as you can crazy hard workouts.  Concentrate on good old fashioned aerobic endurance using your zones 2, three (tempo), and of course sweet spot.  Bursts and short durations above your FTP are fine and good, but save the hard effort for late winter, early Spring. P.S. Don’t forget Coach Jake’s (the King of Indoor Training) 5 tips to help make indoor cycling more fun and productive Here are Frank’s Four Favorite and FUN 1 hour Indoor Workouts: 1. Sweet Spot Bursts: 4 x 8 minutes w/ a burst every 2 minutes The tried ‘n true sweet spot intensity: not too hard and not too easy, goldilocks.  This is ‘base season’ after all and not a time to be going full gas with hardcore threshold, VO2, and anaerobic intervals. During each 8 minute sweet spot interval ‘burst’  out of the saddle for 5 seconds at 200% of your FTP every 2 minutes. The bursts mimic getting out of the saddle up a switchback on a climb, a rise in the road or an acceleration in the peloton. The catch is to go back to sweet spot after the burst and not a recovery intensity.  Adding in those simple 2 minutes bursts will make each 8 minute interval whiz by! 2. Criss Cross Micro Intervals: Tempo > Zone 6 (20 sec) 5 x 7 minutes This workout looks more intimidating on paper than in practice. The 20 second forays to anaerobic watts every 2 minutes during a 7 minute interval are great for cyclocrossers, mountain bikers, road, gravel, time trial – just about every discipline of cycling.  Like the sweet spot bursts the catch is that you go back to tempo watts and not a recovery interval like a traditional steady state interval.  Your heart rate will climb over the course of the interval because 3 x 20 sec anaerobic efforts add up.  You can apply extra credit to your workout by going full gas for the last 20 seconder because each criss cross interval ends with a traditional recovery – but only for 2 minutes! 3. Sweet Spot Micro Over-Unders: 2 sets of 5 x 2 minutes Like the criss cross workout above we are using the 20 second foray up into Zone 6 to mimic a short punchy climb.  The sweet spot intensity is harder than that of tempo but the intervals are over in 2 minutes.  2 min on 2 min off with Zone 6 in the beginning and the end.  The set break in the middle allows for a higher quality 2nd set than without.  The challenge of these over unders is to not go too hard for the 20 seconds and to hold the sweet spot for 80 seconds in the middle.  ERG mode gets a bad wrap, but honestly this workout using the ERG mode is money – the smartTrainer changes the resistance and power so all you have to do is jam out to your tunes and pedal! 4. Zwift! I like Zwift (for many reasons) because it is a great way to get in an unstructured, fun, quality one hour of variable power endurance training – much like the Sweet Spot TSS Ride. The key is to not race! That’s right – save the zwift racing for your interval training later in your annual training progression after you’ve built your base.  Zwift racing tends to be full gas for the whole one hour and that kind of training needs to be used at the right time of the year and certainly not regularly in the winter. Concentrate on group and solo rides using the terrain on Zwift to match your training goal for the day. For example – use the flat Richmond course to pedal out a fun quality zone 2 workout.  Use the New York’s Central Park to hammer out some TSS sweet spot style on Saturday’s if you can’t ride outside.  Choose a group ride on Zwift, but give yourself some cushion so that you can actually sit in a little bit rather than being forced to ride all out as hard as you can.  For example, if your FTP is 3.5 watts / kg , choose the “C Ride” between 2.5 – 3.1 w/kg and get in some fun advanced aerobic endurance training. The possibilities on Zwift are really as endless as the variations of the three structured interval workouts above! What’s even better is that exporting these TrainingPeaks workouts to Zwift for the ultimate indoor riding experience is a piece of cake. It only takes a few clicks and then all you have to do is pedal! Below is a quick demo from our friends at TrainingPeaks that shows you how to sync your TrainingPeaks account to your Zwift account and follow your training plan using Zwift: Set yourself up for success! Make sure you have everything you need for your trainer session to make it as fun, comfortable and effective as possible! Indoor training does not need to be one of Dante’s nine circles of hell, it can just be another stroll in the park doing what you love! So get out there, or better yet… Get in there and ride! Copyright © 2020 FasCat Coaching – all rights reserved. Join our *FREE* Athlete Forum to nerd out with FasCat coaches and athletes about your FTP, race data, power based training, or anything related to going fast on the bike! Comments The post Frank’s Four Favorite and Fun Indoor Cycling Workouts appeared first on FasCat.

With the offseason approaching, we’re thrilled to release our Winning in the Kitchen Weight Loss Meal Plan! Get your nutrition habits dialed this offseason so you can hit your goals in 2021. Created by Registered Dietitian Lacey Rivette, these custom meal plans take the guesswork out of weight loss for cyclists and take into account your training, weight, and goals to provide an approachable and easy to follow weight loss plan with custom recipes and meal prep instructions. On the pod, Lacey and Frank break it all down and give you the deets on what you need to know, from some example recipes to how athletes should approach weight loss. Show Notes: Meal Prep Guide: https://fascatcoaching.com/blogs/training-tips/meal-prep-guide You Ate App: https://youate.com/ MyFitnessPal: https://www.myfitnesspal.com/   Thanks to everyone for tuning in, subscribing and reviewing on Apple Podcasts, and for engaging in our forum! For more things cycling training, visit http://fascat.wpengine.com. Save 25% on your next training plan with code 25podcast   This post appeared here first: https://fascatcoaching.com/blogs/training-tips/weight-loss-meal-plan