Changing Things up with Off the Bike Training

Last weekend the SDBC category 4/5 team got together for a dryland training session with Pat Jak from FitnessQuest10. Some of San Diego's best professional athletes, including LaDainian Tomlinson, train at this facility.

From my perspective, it was definitely a learning experience and time well spent. Pat's philosophy on dryland training is somewhat different to what I've been doing with the Cyclists Training Bible for the past few years. The exercises aren't necessarily so much different, the big difference is the approach. The Training Bible is more focused on power lifting, whereas Pat would probably term his approach as more of cycling training.

For example, the Training Bible is all about working up to big weights with squats, lunges, leg presses, etc. During any session you do squats, then you move on to something upper body, then you do some core work, then you do some leg specialization. Pat's approach is to do squats, upper body, core work as well, but rotate through the exercises. Pat's exercises are also a lot more core/balance focused. He has you doing squats, but he also has you doing a lot of ball work, jumping, and off balance activity.

Saturday during our session we did some exercise and a lot of watching as one of our teammates played the role of the guinea pig. Even though we only did a fraction of the exercises, those that we did really challenged my left leg to work as well as my right. This is something that is challenging from a number of perspectives; first I'm never too sure just how far my left leg can go, second I can definitely feel my range of motion / bound up tissue being pushed with Pat's balance focused exercises. Afterwords I had the pain/relief feeling that only those who've had to regain lost range of motion can understand; tissue that is being pulled apart and hurts a bit, yet feels better for it. I'm optimistic that a couple months of Pat's exercises will provide a giant benefit to me by directly addressing some of the weaknesses I have in my left leg.

Saturday afternoon when I went for a long endurance ride I could feel the benefits of Pat's exercises immediately. My left leg definitely felt like it was playing more of a contributing role in my pedaling. As a result, I'm going to get away from the Training Bible weight program for a bit and give Pat's approach a try. As with most people, I naturally have a hard time letting go of things that I know well, even though the new approach appears to provide such an overwhelming reason for change. I'm still wrestling with myself a bit as far as the change in direction goes. I'm going to try to do Pat's exercises 2 times a week in the mornings before work and see what effect they have on my cycling performance.

One More Week 'Till the Showdown

Next Monday will be the last week of the maximum strength phase of this year's weight lifting program. Last week I got up to 6 reps of 270 pounds (not including the bar, which weighs something like 35 pounds). So I've surpassed my goal of lifting 280 for one rep. My previous max of 320 pounds also appears to be well within reach.

Sometime during next Monday's workout I'll do a couple one rep lifts and see just how much I can lift. The weight you can do for 6 reps should be something like 80% of your max, so I ought to be able to do something like 325 plus the 35 pound bar = 360. Hopefully I'll have my crack spotter on sight just in case something goes wrong.

Once the maximum strength phase completes things will move to the strength maintenance phase, where the goal is to hold the strength gains of the past couple months through the rest of the racing season. I'll go back to 3 or 4 sets, doing 10 to 12 reps.

Here's a chart that shows my weight buildup for squats over the past couple of months (click it for a larger image). Note that the number of reps per set has been decreasing, while the weight per rep has been increasing.

Vacation / Tandem Riding

The weekend of November 15/16 Carol and I drove up the coast to Cambria (one of my favorite places) for some R&R and tandem riding.

Saturday we rode the tandem south from Cambria to Moro Bay, something like 58 miles return. Here are some pictures. This was a tough day of riding. Even though the terrain is pretty flat along the coast line, there was a big time Santa Ana wind going on. The upwind ride down to Morro Bay was a real grind. We were going 12 mph along flat ground for parts of this ride.

Sunday we rode north, getting in a 40 or so mile ride. This was a really nice day of riding. Little or no wind, cooler yet still sunny, and very peaceful.

The weekend we were away was the weekend of the big fires in Sylmar and Santa Barbara; luckily we were far enough north of all the action. Up in Cambria you would have never known that anything crazy was going on to the south.

Doing Well With the Weights

I'm a little surprised with how well things are going with my weightlifting. Months ago as I was telling myself I needed to get back into doing squats and leg presses I was envisioning myself lifting some big weight, my pelvis giving way and my femur flying out the back of me. Luckily it hasn't worked out that way.

Prior to hurting myself, I was squatting 10 reps of 225 pounds. Now that I'm again getting closer to the maximum strength phase of my lifting program, I'm again reducing the reps and increasing the weight. Last week I squatted 4 sets of 10 reps of 255 pounds with good form. When I looked back at my 2007 season lifting data to see how much weaker I now am I was really surprised to see that I was in fact now lifting 30 pounds more than I was back then.

The next 4 weeks I'll be increasing the sets to 6 or so, reducing the reps to 3 to 6, and increasing the weight. Hopefully 4 weeks from now I'll be able to break my previous max of 320 pounds.

After that things move into strength maintenance, the goal being to retain the strength gains of the past couple months through the end of the racing season. The sets will go back to 3 per session and the reps will move back into the 10 to 15 range.

My Left Foot Kinda Works

Last night I got some one legged pedaling in on the rollers.

These are a really good way to work on the roundness of your pedaling. Because you've only got one foot clipped in to the pedals, that leg is forced to exert effort the entire way around the pedal stroke. There's no longer any opportunity for the opposite leg to help smooth out your stroke.

I've known for a long time that if I really wanted to be able to race well again I needed to be able to do these smoothly with my left leg. I wouldn't say it's all there just yet, but I was able to get 45 revolutions in on my left leg at a time. There's still definitely some smoothing out to do, but it's at least encouraging to be able to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I'll continue doing these at least once a week in the hopes that my shin muscles continue to strengthen.

Here's a great video of a guy pedaling with one leg, he just takes it a bit further and also does it with no hands on the bars:

no hands on the rollers

Next Year's Preliminary Plan

Here's my preliminary training plan / racing plan for next year.

For those who may be asking themselves where the heck this crazy spreadsheet came from and what it all means; the training plan is based on the methodologies of the Cyclist's Training Bible. I picked this book up a few years ago when I learned the hard way that riding a weekly Saturday club ride was in fact no way to prepare to race.

At this point I'm choosing to be optimistic. By optimistic I mean that my sciatic nerve recovers to the point that I can legitimately pedal round circles with my left leg by the start of next season. i.e. I can again have the ability to sprint and jump away from the field. Getting back on my bike yesterday (for the first time in a month ) I definitely noticed that I'm better able to pedal while standing up, so that's a good sign.

If things do come out well, I'll definitely be gunning for some good results next year and driving to get the points that are required to get promoted to category 3. I think I have enough races done that I could simply apply for a cat 3 upgrade; however, it doesn't really make much sense to me to be promoted based on riding a certain number of rides. I'd much rather get there by winning races and earning points.

If things go less well, I'm still going to train to my plan as it's a great way to stay in shape and keep myself motivated to train. The less well path would have me probably only doing local races like the Del Mar Crit series, Barrio Logan, Encinitas Crit, and some other flater races. I'd also adjust my training goals and objectives if things do end up going pear shaped.

Back on the Rails

I got back on my bike today. It felt great. I did a 1 hour endurance ride after work. I left from work, headed up Vista Sorrento, north on El Camino, west on Via de la Valle, south on the 101/Sorrento Valley back to work.

The next 3 weeks will be spent doing some hit and miss prep work to get my body back and acclimatized to aerobic exercise. I'll be doing some riding on my bike, riding on the tandem, and any other physical activity that feels good at the time. Riding will be focussed on basic endurance and leg speed.

I've also put together a rough training plan and racing schedule for next year. I'll be adding next season's racing goals to the site tomorrow. I'll probably also post a copy of the schedule on the site as well.