Author Topic: Rate my intervals  (Read 70781 times)

Re: Rate my intervals
« Reply #275 on: 18 January, 2016, 08:22:24 pm »
when doing sprints during workout which technique is considered to be more beneficial - increasing cadence or increasing resistance? or both?

Dont know about the bike, but Steve Magness has an interested ng article somewhere about stride length vs cadence increases for the last 400 of a 10k track race. I think the answer is to have both available.

Re: Rate my intervals
« Reply #276 on: 19 January, 2016, 07:18:20 am »
Experiment.

Set the ergometer to load control and set it to a low Wattage. Get you HRM going.
Warm up thoroughly and increase the Wattage absorption slowly until you experience cardiac drift.
Reset a low wattage and note your HR through an increasing cadence range.
Increase the Wattage absorption and repeat the cadence sweep, noting your HR as you go.

Eventually, you will have a 3D chart of Cadence, Watts and HR. It will look similar to an internal combustion engine’s chart of Speed, Power and Brake Specific Fuel Consumption.

This is YOU. No-one else, only YOU. Don’t let anyone else tell you to do anything other than ride at Max power for lowest HR and the appropriate cadence for that point.

Re: Rate my intervals
« Reply #277 on: 19 January, 2016, 07:41:24 am »
The erg control seems to take the guesswork out, generally the resistance is set to less than you might think, but it is always relative to your FTP. Get that right and everything follows. Having tried violator and got through to the end (64 sprints) that   system - where you follow the indicated cadence with the resistance set - works well. You wouldn't want to have the resistance higher.

Re: Rate my intervals
« Reply #278 on: 19 January, 2016, 11:09:32 am »
Is the ‘resistance’ on your machine a curve to simulate load vs speed. Fluid and electric brakes do this OK, magnetic not so.
Set the resistance so power is about correct for 15, 20 and 25 mph along a level road on your real bike.
Your turbo now simulates a velodrome between the black and red lines.

I’ve never heared of one of those music tracks   :-\

Re: Rate my intervals
« Reply #279 on: 01 February, 2016, 10:45:22 pm »
Mine ? It's the Tacx Genius (actually genus Ironman which is the same, but a better price when I bought it) and although magnetic it makes a fair fist of adjusting the load vs speed. The incline simulation is 20% to -5 (yes it can power downhill, why?) Part of the reason I chose it was a reckoning that if it could simulate up to 20%, it would be better at the lower gradients/resistances. I was probably wrong.

As far as I can make out, the software sets the power and the device maintains your output, critical that is the bit where it calibrates, which is very odd indeed. To do it, you kick the pedal a fraction of a turn, the motor spins it up to about 20mph and then freewheels to zero. You then have to loosen or tighten the roller on the tyre.

In use, your cadence determines the absolute resistance so without changing gear you can either spin at 90 - 100+ or mash at 60 -70.Drop below about 50 and it all goes a bit pete tong as the resistance rises exponentially - stop with any target wattage over 100w, say, and it is virtually impossible to restart, only way to do it is to dial it manually then switch back to erg once you're spinning. Hopefully there will be a firmware patch to phase the resistance in over a fixed speed (8 mph?) but at the moment that's a severe drawback and one reason why the 20% gradient offered is probably not the best option.

zigzag

  • unfuckwithable
Re: Rate my intervals
« Reply #280 on: 02 February, 2016, 03:24:18 pm »
experimenting with my intervals by using youtube guided sessions and adjusting sustainable resistance during ~1min sprints which i currently find are in 310-320w range.

https://www.strava.com/activities/484225085
https://www.strava.com/activities/472986489

Re: Rate my intervals
« Reply #281 on: 02 February, 2016, 05:45:06 pm »
Mine ? It's the Tacx Genius (actually genus Ironman which is the same, but a better price when I bought it) and although magnetic it makes a fair fist of adjusting the load vs speed. The incline simulation is 20% to -5 (yes it can power downhill, why?) Part of the reason I chose it was a reckoning that if it could simulate up to 20%, it would be better at the lower gradients/resistances. I was probably wrong.

As far as I can make out, the software sets the power and the device maintains your output, critical that is the bit where it calibrates, which is very odd indeed. To do it, you kick the pedal a fraction of a turn, the motor spins it up to about 20mph and then freewheels to zero. You then have to loosen or tighten the roller on the tyre.

In use, your cadence determines the absolute resistance so without changing gear you can either spin at 90 - 100+ or mash at 60 -70.Drop below about 50 and it all goes a bit pete tong as the resistance rises exponentially - stop with any target wattage over 100w, say, and it is virtually impossible to restart, only way to do it is to dial it manually then switch back to erg once you're spinning. Hopefully there will be a firmware patch to phase the resistance in over a fixed speed (8 mph?) but at the moment that's a severe drawback and one reason why the 20% gradient offered is probably not the best option.

Drive downhill?? For a fixed gear.  :thumbsup:

simonp

Re: Rate my intervals
« Reply #282 on: 03 February, 2016, 08:59:32 pm »
experimenting with my intervals by using youtube guided sessions and adjusting sustainable resistance during ~1min sprints which i currently find are in 310-320w range.

https://www.strava.com/activities/484225085
https://www.strava.com/activities/472986489

Those are more like under-over intervals. For a session like that I'd be doing more like 125W in the recoveries.

Here's a VO2max session I sometimes do, which has some 3 minute intervals at ~290W and some 2-minute ones at 320W:

https://www.strava.com/activities/458884682

Note that the recovery is at around 100W, a really easy spin.

Another VO2max session, with a different protocol:

https://www.strava.com/activities/429150811

Those are a total of 40 intervals of 30s at around 300W. It was actually not too challenging, the one with the longer intervals is much harder to complete on target.