3 Sessions To Boost Your Performance
How to ride faster for longer: We demonstrate three different cycling sessions to best prepare you for your longest ride.
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00:00Spring and summer is the perfect time for cyclists to do rides or events that are that
00:08bit more challenging. So whether that's a hundred mile ride, a multi-day epic, or even
00:13just a long training ride, today we're looking at endurance sessions and how best to train
00:18for them. So I'm joined by Coach Watto, and I understand that you've put together some
00:22sessions for me today. I certainly have, yeah. We've got three good
00:25sessions for you to try today, Reaper. We've got the time-strapped cyclists in mind that
00:30most of us are. Training for longer events, we don't always have three, four hours a day
00:34to train, so we've got that rate down. So three sessions. One is going to be, I'll call
00:40it a pyramid session, so that's going to build up our ability to do longer, sustained efforts.
00:46There's a hill session, because we're very unlikely to find a road that's a course that's
00:50completely flat, so we're going to do some skills that get us over the hill and some
00:54hard work on that. And then we're going to do some strength work as well, because it's
00:58quite important and something that's quite often neglected is the strength work around
01:01it, so building up a nice, solid core and some of the leg muscles as well that we can
01:05utilise then when we're back on the bike. Brilliant. Well, it all sounds like a lot
01:09of hard work, so we should probably get cracking. Yeah, let's do it.
01:17So Coach, what is my first endurance session of the day?
01:21Your first session today is a pyramid session. So the idea of this is that we're going to
01:26build up your endurance by putting some harder efforts in during your ride. So you're going
01:31to go out on the lanes, 15, 20 minutes, half an hour, just get all nice and loose, get
01:36in the fresh air, just enjoy yourself, and then we're going to put some harder intervals
01:40in there. So you start off with two minutes, so two minute harder interval, two minutes
01:46easy. Three minutes harder interval, three minutes easy. Then a five minutes hard interval,
01:51and five minutes easy, and then we're going to go back again. So we start with five minutes,
01:57three minutes easy, three minutes, two minutes easy, two minutes hard, it's all done, and
02:03then we're going to have a 15, 20 minute, half an hour, and then you're going to go
02:06home. The intensity is going to be around about an eight out of ten effort, so it's
02:11not flat out, it's not sprint, it's manageable, we've got to get through it, but you're going
02:16to feel it. You're going to feel it in the legs, you're going to feel it in the lungs,
02:18and you're going to push hard through it. Brilliant. Okay, so the perceived wisdom
02:24behind this session, as I understand it, is that when you're doing this for an hour and
02:28a half, you can obviously ride at your max threshold, but then when you're doing your
02:33100 mile ride with your mates or your riding buddies, because you'll knock that pace down,
02:38you won't be riding so difficult, you can do it for a longer period of time.
02:43Absolutely. That's exactly what we're trying to get out of this session, so that we want
02:48the 100 miles to be sociable, nice and enjoyable out in the lanes. It's not the distance that
02:54tends to get people, it's the intensities. So if we can train to a higher intensity in
02:59training and ride at a lower intensity for the longer ride, then it's that much more
03:03manageable. Absolutely perfect. I think that is exactly
03:06what I need, so let's get into it and give it a whirl. Sounds good.
03:19So the bike I've been using to complete these training sessions is the Cannondale
03:23Synapse High Mod Disc with SRAM Red eTap. The Synapse is well known for its versatility,
03:29its excellent handling, as well as its performance pushing capabilities.
03:33It really is an all out brilliant bike, but it's also exactly what you would look for in the
03:39perfect example of an endurance bike, a bike that is going to keep you riding for longer.
03:44For starters, it's super lightweight, weighing just 7.3 kilograms in this size 56 that I have
03:51here. It then also has disc brakes for more controlled braking and clearance for wider
03:56tyres. It even has a removable seat stay bridge, so you can fit a mud guard should the weather
04:01turn sour. But what elevates this bike to an all day super weapon is Cannondale's genius use of
04:08carbon fibre. It's called Cannondale Save System and basically different parts of the frame can
04:14flex to absorb road chatter and the horrible bumps that you might find when riding along,
04:19keeping you in the saddle for longer and keeping you faster for longer,
04:23which, after all, is the most important thing anyway.
04:33So that was session number one done. What a killer it was. Thanks for that, coach.
04:38And now we're on to session number two, which is about climbing. And we're going to use this hill
04:43behind me. I'm not a particularly good climber. So what have you got in store? How much is this
04:48going to hurt? You're going to feel it. Yeah, you're definitely going to feel it. So the idea
04:54of this is it's hill repeats and it doesn't get any more difficult than that. You're just going
04:59up a hill multiple times and practising your climbing style and also getting the physiological
05:05benefits of going hard up a hill. So we're going to start with about six reps, six reps of the hill,
05:11going up, recovery on the way down, spending anywhere three to five minutes recovering before
05:16you're going to start the next descent. And then you can build it up as you get stronger and fitter.
05:21You can build it up to 10 reps, 12 reps, however you can manage and feel. But the more you do,
05:27the stronger you're going to get. Brilliant. And as my understanding is, this is an important
05:31session for when you're riding upwards of 100 miles, because if you're doing that type of
05:35distance, you're almost guaranteed to come across a climb of some sort, probably multiple ones,
05:40depending on where you live. And what this will help me be able to do is, even if I'm 60 or 70
05:46miles into my climb, I'll still be able to get up it because I'll have that conditioning and I'll
05:51have practised it and this will have given me that extra fitness and power that I need to get over it.
05:56Absolutely so. There's no completely flat roads in Britain. It's not a mountainous territory,
06:01but there's no completely flat road. So we're always going to find something. And if you're
06:04going on a course that's 80, 90, 100 miles, then you're going to find hills.
06:08Definitely, to train it, it puts it in the bank. You condition for it and you know how to do it
06:14and then you can cope with it much better than if it's a sudden surprise. So that's why it's very
06:20important to do hill repeats and it's very important to practise hills, so that when you
06:24get to ride them yourself, you know what to do. Brilliant. And what type of technique am I looking
06:29for on the bike? It's common to bob, you know, as it starts to get hard on your bob. But when
06:35you're bobbing, you're going to start to lose some of your efficiency. So you want to keep it nice
06:40and tight because it's the hips and the legs that are going to be doing all the work. Gear selection
06:45is very important as well. So you want to be changing gear before you have to. So as your
06:48legs start to lock, you're changing up, changing up. You've got 11 gears on the back or most people
06:53have 11 gears on the back. You've got to use them, yeah, and do that. And then the pedal stroke as
06:59well. So you're not just pushing down with your foot, you're pulling back as well. So you get a
07:02nice pedal stroke and that'll carry you up the hill. Brilliant. OK, well, this sounds like a
07:08lovely tough session, so I reckon we should just get into it and give it a whirl. Yeah, let's do it.
07:32So that's the first two sessions completed and they were great. Really enjoyed those. Enjoyed
07:42them, yeah? Brilliant. I think they're really useful, actually, especially the climbing one.
07:45Always something I need to work on. But now I understand that you've got a circuit session
07:50for me to do. I certainly have, yeah. It's a circuit based on building up some strength,
07:55core strength and leg strength off the bike as well. This is really, really important because
08:00the more stable that we are, the better that'll transfer over onto the bike. Sure. So by the
08:06sounds of it, flexibility is as important as strength when it comes to cycling. 100%, yeah,
08:11yeah, because we've got to be agile on the bike. As we pointed out in the hill session, we don't
08:16want to be moving around on the bike. The only thing we want to be moving really is our legs,
08:21which is pushing the pedals around, which is our engine to get us where we need to go. So if we can
08:26be agile and flexible, then that can only be a good thing again. Perfect. Well, I think we should
08:31take a look at them and look at the form and how you're meant to do them. Absolutely, yeah, I'd love
08:36to do that. Brilliant. Okay, so what we're going to do, we're going to start off with the lunges.
08:40So if you move to the side like that, so what you need to do is you're going to take a big step
08:45forward and you're going to stretch out the quads, doing a step forward. But the form of this as
08:51well is we don't want to be your knee going over the edge of your toe. So a nice big step forward
08:58and then like that. Okay, yep, keeping it back nice and straight. How's that feel? Yeah, I can
09:05really feel it in the hamstring. Yeah, that's looking better. Forward again, get back nice and
09:09straight and stand up. Okay, so what we're doing, we're doing, let's start with eight on each leg
09:18and then you can build it up then. So you can do it to, you know, eight, nine, ten, twelve, whatever,
09:22as you get fitter and you get more accustomed to the exercise. But remember, keep it low early
09:27on because we're going to be doing four exercises in a row and we're going to do three sets of that.
09:32So we want to make sure that we get through the whole routine and then we can build it up week
09:35by week. Okay, so the next one we're going to go into a plank. Have you ever done a plank before?
09:39I have done a plank. Okay, so if you want to go into the plank position for me.
09:42So how would I do a plank? So plank position, exactly what you've got there. So
09:50arms nice and straight, back nice and straight, that's good. So what you should be doing is
09:56feeling it on your abs there now, yeah? Yeah, feeling it on my one ab. On your one ab.
10:03And you shouldn't be feeling, the back should be nice and straight. So that's looking good.
10:07And then what we can do to make this a harder exercise is if you bring your knee towards your
10:13elbow and then take it back again. Then do it with the other side. And back again.
10:20They're called Spider-Man planks. How did that feel? Yeah, that's tough.
10:25So start off with the normal planks first, but that's just a progressional thing you can do as
10:28you get better at it. Sure. And do that. Okay, you can stop now. Again, sometimes you can do that
10:36and leave it to as long as you can go, but because we're doing this in a circuit, let's start with
10:4010 to 20 seconds of doing a plank and then we'll keep doing that circuit free and then we'll see
10:46how we get to it from there. Brilliant. So the next one's the hip flexor. So what we're going
10:50to do now is you're going to go back into that lunge position. Hold it there. And then what
10:56you're going to do, you're going to stand up and bring your knee to your chest. And then back into
11:01the lunge position. And again. That's it. So we're going to do eight of those in each leg. Stand up
11:07nice and straight. Leg up. That's it. And down again. Okay, stand up straight. And then do the
11:13other leg. But the beauty of this exercise, again, is it's a real stretch out for the hips because
11:19we spend a lot of time bent over on the bike and with the hips we can get quite sore. So it stretches
11:26those out. It's also stretching the glutes and the hamstrings as well, as you can feel as you're
11:30going up. So it's a great all-over workout, that one. Okay, next we're going to do some glute bridges.
11:35So if you line your back for me. Okay, knees bent. Put your knees in. That's it, about there.
11:44Close together. Put your feet together. Okay, and then what you're going to do, you're going to raise
11:48your pelvis up as high as you can. That's it. Hold that for a second or two. And then back down again.
11:55And again, up. Hold it for a second or two. And back down again. Okay, so again, we're going to do
12:01about six to eight of those depending on where we are with the circuit. But what they're doing
12:06as well, good core exercise, stretching out the core and the glutes and the hamstrings as well.
12:11So really giving you a good workout post-bike and hopefully unlocking those muscles and
12:18adapting those muscles that you might be not using as much or being a bit lazy with on the bike.
12:23Brilliant. And that's something you can do anytime. It shouldn't take too long.
12:28You can do that anytime. Do it straight off the bike isn't a bad thing to do actually,
12:32you know, while you're still warmed up and it gives you that activation and it's something
12:35that you can fit in quite easily then before you have your shower and anything to eat.
12:40So there you go, three hopefully not so gruelling sessions that you can all try at home,
12:45guaranteed to help boost your fitness and help you ride further, faster for longer, which after all
12:51is the goal. So thank you very much to coach Watto, head coach of Team London.
12:56They're some brilliant sessions. Pleasure. Thank you very much. But guys, if you have
13:01any sessions that you like to do at home or if you've got any big plans for this summer,
13:05do let us know in the comment section below and don't forget to like and subscribe and
13:10we'll see you next time.