Chain gang or solo
- Thread starter fraz101
- Start date
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Milzy
Guru
Remember when Lance beat cancer and he had no fitness and no contract? He had a lot of time on his hands and just aimlessly rode around for 6 hours a day with no structure. Then he was finishing high up as soon as he went back racing.
Ming the Merciless
There is no mercy
- Location
- Inside my skull
No structure does not say he only did high intensity or only low intensity. All 6 hours unstructured a day tells us, is that he was riding 42 hours a week
Dogtrousers
Kilometre nibbler
Nor, indeed, does it tell us exactly what drugs he was taking.
Milzy
Guru
Just the same ones as most of the peloton. Boardman wasn’t down for that so went into business and hill climbing racing.
berty bassett
Legendary Member
- Location
- I'boro
Zone 2 zone 2 all I ever hear is zone 2 !!
All zone 2 tells you is you can do x miles at zone 2 , if you do 50 mile zone 2 it doesn’t say you can do 100 at zone 4
If you do 100 at zone 4 , that tells you exactly what you want to know
Zone 2 is good for getting you on your bike and counting the animals in the fields like when Kermit and miss piggy ride in the countryside or if you have all the time in the world to pop to the shops for your paper
Now let’s have no more nonsense
And as for lance “ I only did it cos everyone else was “Armstrong the only good that come out of him being involved in the sport is that it highlighted the drug problem - am I right in thinking he had all wins stripped so he has won nothing ?
All zone 2 tells you is you can do x miles at zone 2 , if you do 50 mile zone 2 it doesn’t say you can do 100 at zone 4
If you do 100 at zone 4 , that tells you exactly what you want to know
Zone 2 is good for getting you on your bike and counting the animals in the fields like when Kermit and miss piggy ride in the countryside or if you have all the time in the world to pop to the shops for your paper
Now let’s have no more nonsense
And as for lance “ I only did it cos everyone else was “Armstrong the only good that come out of him being involved in the sport is that it highlighted the drug problem - am I right in thinking he had all wins stripped so he has won nothing ?
davidphilips
Veteran
- Location
- Onabike
As CRXAndy said about zone2,lots of Z2 and some short high intensity to peak your performance.The zone 2 does not tire you out as much as the zone 3, great for building base fitness then higher zones for building power/speed.
Lots of cyclists cycle at zone 3 most of the time and then wonder why they are not improving as much as they could do, reason is they are not in the higher zones to improve power or the lower zones long enough to build base.
Everyone is different and if wanting to train for cycling theres 4 basic requirements, First a bike any bike really does not need to be expensive or top of range just needs to fit, second a training programme one that you stick to, next good diet and last but just as important is recovery active or rest.
Ming the Merciless
There is no mercy
- Location
- Inside my skull
Z2 increases the ability to deliver oxygen to the working muscle cells, Z4 etc increases the ability of the muscle cells to use that oxygen. If you do one without the other you plateau.
Dogtrousers
Kilometre nibbler
I'm not picking an argument here, I'm just curious about how this works ...
What's the problem with zone 3 in this case? It's aerobic so surely time spent in zone 3 during a long ride is not lost - is it not contributing your endurance training just as zone 2 time is? Is the issue with this theoretical cyclist not that they are riding in zone 3, but that they are not riding enough hours in whatever zone? Because their zone 3 rides are shorter duration harder rides than they would be if they chilled out and rode for longer in zone 2.
I don't have a direct interest in this in that I never have a training plan of any kind. I just like riding my bike, but I also really like stats. So I enjoy retrospective analysis, but don't prescribe how I should ride. So when I look at one of my long rides in retrospect I see generally a roughly even split between HR zones 2 and 3 with a bias to 3 with (much) more 4&5 if it was a (very) hilly ride, bias to 2 if it was flat. The ratios are generally dictated by the terrain and weather, and sometimes external events like train times. On the road I don't really have the mental discipline or desire to do anything other than ride my bike how I always ride, so if I wanted mostly zone 2 I'd have to plan a flat route.
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Peter Salt
Bittersweet
- Location
- Yorkshire, UK
I may come across as anti-social but chain gang is absolutely pointless - from a training perspective (I'm assuming that's the perspective because this thread is in the training section).
If you're going out to train, you either want to smash it with intervals - not possible with others unless you have a group that wants to do the exact same workout and have very similar abilities OR you're looking to do a longer Z2 ride - again, not possible unless the entire group has the same mentality.
Nothing wrong with a chain gang - but from a training perspective, it's unconstructive.
If you're going out to train, you either want to smash it with intervals - not possible with others unless you have a group that wants to do the exact same workout and have very similar abilities OR you're looking to do a longer Z2 ride - again, not possible unless the entire group has the same mentality.
Nothing wrong with a chain gang - but from a training perspective, it's unconstructive.
davidphilips
Veteran
- Location
- Onabike
Z3 is just takes that bit longer to recover from and is not hard enough to produce adaptions, when i was training (must get back into it very soon) Z3 was always called the dead zone , yes feels great cycling quite hard but apart from keeping your fitness level, not really good for training.
TBH can not explain it any better than Ming the merciless did.
Recovery is just as important as training, lots of information on the internet etc but lower zones like Z1 (just very easy cycling) actually helps you recover.
Perhaps first and last 5 minutes of every cycle should be Z1 and never do 2 hard days in a row, Do either 3 or 4 weeks of progressive training and one week at %50 of distance or time as a recovery week, so even a recovery week cycle you can be in Z5 (not all recovery is easy) but now i am going on and perhaps becoming boring just some thing i could talk all day about. Stay safe and main thing for us all is just enjoy life, have a great weekend.
