and into your heart…
On this morning’s dawn bike ride with an athlete, I found myself waxing philosophical, technical and hitting my athlete with all different kinds of advice. She dreams of a great marathon off the bike and I know for certain that THIS IS THE WAY.
Our main teaching point was cadence on the bike and how great cyclists ride at higher rpms and are actually powerful at higher cadences, not just lower rpms as are we all. It takes serious commitment to cycling to develop a complete pedal stroke, to initiate the stroke from the psoas, and to recruit all the elements of the lower kinetic chain in our pedal stroke. Any newbie can push DOWN on the pedals and go forward, come home with tired quads and call it a day. But there is so much more to cycling…
If you cycle with an eye to aerobic endurance instead of simple muscular endurance, then you can do anything you want with your cycling and you might even find the run you want off the bike. In technical terms, this means riding at higher rpm after countless hours riding slower and finding “up and over the top”, “scraping the ground” and “knees to the sky” to round out the technique and power distrubution of your pedal stroke. Push down, go big, stay low RPM, burn just quads, deplete the muscle glycogen of that group in particular, and then begin that death shuffle off the bike. Or find another way.
So if you work smarter and commit to higher rpm in your riding, you may find yourself running off the bike like you have never known. Don’t believe me; look at our greatest pros. See any of them grinding away at 80 rpms and running record times off the bike? Not one. Not a single one.
Get your heart rate up and work HARD and SMART on the bike. Lighten up on the gears and leave the big gear work for big gear day. Get out of your legs and get that heart pounding in your focus on aerobic endurance, not just muscular endurance.
Get our of your legs and into your heart through smarter cycling training.
let me show you:
stacey@tristacey.com
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It's refreshing to hear these words from someone who knows what they are talking about. Yes, it's easy to push out big power numbers from a low cadence workout on the bike...it takes training to learn how to spin a higher cadence and still find that power. It's more than just where you feel most comfortable on the bike...you need to TRAIN yourself to find the best combination for a great run.
This is so helpful! Just did a bike/run brick today and I'm looking forward to getting into my heart! Thanks for the tip!