Imagine sitting down with someone and having a coaching discussion at your dining room table. That’s basically what my “coaching discussion” archives are. These archives are a repository for all the coaching discussion I’ve penned in the past few years.
Browse through the archives of my coaching discussion and learn how to be a stronger cyclist. Don’t forget you can contact me with questions or check out the Tailwind Coaching Newsletter for more great coaching discussion.
Zwift has taken the indoor training world by storm, offering massive potential for riding with people across the globe, training through built-in workouts and Fartlek training. The ability to build custom workouts in Zwift has been teased since the platform launched a few months ago. In the interim, the lack of ability to build and program your own custom workouts has been a major downside of the platform (at least for many cyclists looking for a training solution on the virtual platform.)
Until now.
The programmers behind the popular online social training platform have introduced the ability to build custom workouts in Zwift. You don't even need to exit the application in order to design any workout you can imagine. This short how-to video will give you the basics on how to build custom workouts in Zwift and what they look like when you ride them.
Click through for the video, and don't forget to share with your friends!
Zwift is the new kid on the block in the realm of socially driven cycling programs. It allows you to ride your trainer with anyone around the world. You can feasibly be sitting in your living room in Newfoundland, spinning away and you'll be able to pass someone from Australia doing exactly the same thing. Some cyclists have embraced it wholeheartedly and some have scoffed at it. A lot of cyclists have asked how they can do some kind of training with Zwift, and to this point, there have been few answers.
Sure, there are some workouts built into Zwift and you can always do any regular training plan workout while Zwifting (is that a word now?) But doesn't that take the fun out of training with Zwift? Isn't the point of a platform like Zwift to create the sense of actually racing through the streets, ascending climbs and bombing descents? How can you combine training and fun in one simple package?
In the following video, I'm going to show you how to get some in some training with Zwift: Fartlek training.
What is Fartlek training? How can it be done with Zwift? Watch the video and check out the info below to find out.
For a long time it's been said that the ticket to aerobic fitness is lots of riding at moderate paces. High intensity interval training was only for racers or competitive cyclists preparing for a hard event. The problem with that concept is that most cyclists have jobs, families and other commitments that prevent them from spending 25 hours per week training. They want to be fast, but they don't have the time to train to be fast. There has to be some way to boost fitness in less time.
High intensity interval training is the answer to that question.
What exactly is high intensity interval training? Why does it work so well? How does it help to build fitness so quickly? In this episode of the Tailwind Coaching podcast I'll cover the science behind high intensity interval training and explain how it can help you boost your fitness in a fraction of the time you might usually spend.
Click through for the podcast show notes and more:
This podcast is brought to you by Stages Cycling, creators of the Stages Power Meter. Check them out and help support the show!
Among the many weapons in the armament of the cyclist who wants to ride stronger, one of the least practiced and most important is VO2 max repeatability. The ability to accelerate and push your body to the limits, recover at threshold and repeat that process over and over is one of the most versatile and important skills for a cyclist to possess. It's also the one that's almost always lacking in the cyclists that I consult with or coach, and it's one I drill home in my training plans.
The real question most people follow up with is “why?”
Before I answer, first let's delve into VO2 max a little bit. For our purposes, a VO2 max level effort (or a Zone 5/Z5 effort) is a suprathreshold effort that is sustainable for around 3-8 minutes (depending on the intensity of the effort.) It is a mixture of aerobic and anaerobic energy production and is most often used in pursuits, attacks, bridging small gaps and short climbs. By the numbers, it's an 8 to an 8.5/10 on an RPE scale, 105%-120% of Functional Threshold Power and >105% Lactate Threshold Heart Rate.
After the jump, I'll give you some more detailed information and a couple workouts to help you build your Zone 5 Repeatability (Z5R).
Many cyclists believe that “riding more” is an ideal way to build more fitness. A large portion of their training is made up of “objective-less” rides in which they don't have any fitness goal other than to ride their bike. In reality, more focused training will help you see greater fitness gains in a shorter time, but that doesn't mean you have to go all out and follow a strict training plan.
In this short video podcast, I'll give you 3 tips to gain fitness on any ride you go out for. Whether you want to crush your group ride, start a race or hit that 18MPH average on your local neighborhood loop, these tips will springboard your fitness to the next level, create a functional fitness base you can build on and set you up for future success.
Don't forget to like and share this podcast with your friends to help them get faster too!
