How I'm Building Back Better Cycling Fitness With Limited Time to Train
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- čas přidán 9. 04. 2023
- Following my bad accident and injuries in May 2022, I had been making strong progress to build back my fitness and strength. And by early December 2022, my cycling fitness was getting close to where it once was. However over December and January, x2 consecutive and harsh chest infections set me back badly. This video picks up the story in early February 2023, in Tenerife, where after about 10days of being able to train again, it was time to re-assess my fitness and create a base to build from.
This video tracks a simulation of a Haute Route stage taking on 80km and 3000m+ of elevation, navigating through the beautiful Tenerife villages, lava fields and Jurassic panoramas in order to provide a tough test for my fitness, including a mountain top finish on the iconic Masca climb. This video provided a base for me to work from through February, March and early April, and during the video I also describe the style of training I've been completing in order to build back a better quality of fitness with often very limited time to train, and a lot of hours and stress at work. I hope you find some of the methods helpful.
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Thanks ever so much for all of your support! And whoever you are, what ever your do, please remember to LIVE THRIVE AND STAY HEALTHY !
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Congratulations Phillip. You look incredibly fit, my friend. By the way, the roads and views are excellent. The team is great. Greetings to dear Jane. Have fun.
77km / 3000m - that is a proper day out. Job well done. Good luck in the Crans Montana hope it goes well and gives you the break from life's current stresses. Have my own trip to look forward to in 6 weeks - Argeles Gazost valley for 7 days.
Awesome video!!! Musca has broke me a fair few times 🥵🥵
Solid training building structure. Glad you got over the chest infections.
Many thanks Phil for the nice video and the amazing climbs , good ride 👍💪👏🚴🏻♂️🚴🏻♂️🍻
Thanks for sharing, good to see you enjoying yourself... How many bloody holidays do you get per year ;-)
Nice video Phil! Enjoyed it!
Thanks Devon 🙏 - thats hugely appreciated !
Nice Phill. I have a family holiday to costa adeje in May. This vid makes me want to sneek off for a bit of biking. Looks amazing 👌👌
Cheers Lee 🙏 You’ll love Adeje - and for sure I’d hire a bike for one or 2 days and complete a ride to the top of Teide (it’s stunning) and if time allows a second day - try Masca. It’s on another level of beauty. Am soon going to be fit enough to take on the Lakes 💪
Thanks for the motivation Phil, cheers!👍
Great to see you out of the back brace. You guys looking good. I’d love to see Piglet on the new Supersix Evo 😎
Great video wish I had your motivation lost mine at the moment may be a need a cycling holiday to Tenerife
Inspiring as always Phil, thank you, cant wait to get to Tenerife in November
Good to see you back out there and glad you are recovering well! 👏
Well done. I need to go to Tenerife lol
Great video Phill, Tenerife looked stunning topped off with some excellent efforts - excellent practice for the Haute! That donut looked good 😀 I’m going to give the tempo with x10 threshold a go this week I think 👍🏻
I do love Tenerife, it’s got something for everyone, and incredible to explore on the bike. And 100% - give the Tempo with VO2 Max surges a go. They are proper demanding - but build up with 4 - 5 to 8-10 over time, and stick with them. You’ll find the fitness comes
Brilliant video once again mate. Really interesting to see how this training structure is working out for you, keep on reaping those rewards mate!
Cheers Nick 🙏 - hope you and Rhiannon had a good weekend with the family 💯. For sure - this kind of training is about the most efficient I’ve yet done - and has real world applicability . Not far off being able to ride in Snowdonia or The Lake District now 🤞
@@BikeRacingWithoutMercy it was great thanks Phill, though truth be told I'm glad to be back to normality and routine after driving nearly 700 miles in 4 days. That's great to hear, I've got a Snowdonia route in mind for the Burritos that I'm hoping we can do in late spring!
Great video again. So much fun you had Paul, as a training partner with you. Super environment.
Was lovely to see you earlier on the stream Agnes 🤩 - and I hope you are well. Tenerife is a magnificent place to explore - on and off bike. And for sure with Paul, I learned a huge amount of simple but highly effective tips to improve my cycling. Tony Martin Face TO THE MAX !!
@@BikeRacingWithoutMercy I am well, Phill. Thank you. Yes Tony Martin Face to the Max indeed 😊
Brilliant and inspirational vlog thank you. Starting off with the TM face asap
Too too kind, Ian - but massively appreciated ! 🙏The Tony Martin cue has been transformational for me - staying in control of the given interval / effort 💯
What a great video and some great insight to your fantastic into your training plans. Such impressive gains. I’m heading out to Tenerife in June for a holiday. Hoping to get some cycling in whilst I’m out there
Got that Tenerife tourist board sponsorship yet? Supreme views once again
🤣 Still angling for that Neils 🤞 - it is one of my favourite places to ride. Loads of climbs and such contrast . Hope you are getting into good shape for LBL 👍
@@BikeRacingWithoutMercy if it helps, tell them I have certainly been persuaded 🤣. Training for LBL is going well, thanks. It'll definitely be a spicy one. Looking forward to your video of your experience in flanders👍
Well he would need to learn how to pronounce Spanish names first. Nice vid though.
Nice one Phill, great work and great video! We visited Tenerife last August and went to Masca (amazing) but in safari Land Rovers via Mt Teide it was beautiful. I planned a couple of days cycling (even took my shoes and kit with me) but I just couldn't leave my wife with the kids on her own (guilt) maybe next time. 😁😁😁😁
You’re a great Dad and husband, Wayne 💯 - and on my family holiday there in August, we took a tour upto the top of Teide and down to Masca also . Hope you all enjoyed the break together
Sterling effort Phil great work beautiful location and ride.. 🤩🚴🏼♂️🚴🏼♂️🏅🚴❤️🔥
Thanks ever so much Pete 🙏 I think Tenerife is one of the most magnificent places to cycle - the climbs range from long and low gradients, to steeper than Masca. And the scenery is so varied - coastal views, through lava flows through little towns and villages through Jurassic. I love it 💯. Hope you had a great Easter weekend Sir !
@@BikeRacingWithoutMercy hope you did to Phil 👍🚴 many thanks
Well done, Phil 👍🏾 🙌🏾 Your recovery has been a journey worth documenting 🙃
Another fantastic instalment 👌🏾
Cheers Paul 🙏 - super kind of you! And hope no stressful call outs today !
@@BikeRacingWithoutMercy You deserve the accolades ✊🏾 I’ve just got home after my second call out of the day. Only another 9.5 hours or so to go! Keep up the good work 👍🏾
Great views and great thoughts 🙂
Thanks ever so much Pierre-Alain 🙏 - a beautiful place to cycle for sure … but not quite in the league of sublime Switzerland which is now on the horizon 🤩. Hope you had a good weekend !
@@BikeRacingWithoutMercy come on, there is no league, every part of the world has its beauty ! Neighbor's grass is always greener 😉
I'm planning to ride the climb from Sierre to Crans-Montana in a month. The road will be closed after the Giro leaves the station🙂a baby portion of what you'll get in June. Weekend was nice but still cold, little snow on tops, this should change soon. Hope you had a good weekend too !
Good video phil hope your doing well. I’m think the training you do is great for bang for your buck. I was doing similarly inspired by yourself workouts and feeling great until I have got a niggle in the medial side of my right knee so I’ve had to back off a bit I’m going to try to incorporate more strength work in to my regime and constant stretching to keep myself loose! Once I get back to training properly what with adding in the above I’m hoping to come back quickly to where I was if not fitter 🤞and hopefully not loose too much of the weather as it begins to improve!
am sure your followers are pleased to see you spinning about the continent again. any chance tony martin quads?
😁 FFF! I’d love the Tony Martin Quads… but struggled to get those when focussed on body building 🤣 The sissy squats and single leg Romanian deadlifts are pretty effective though! Was good to see you earlier - and the cobbles of Flanders were really challenging for me - holding a wheel wasn’t an option. It was more a case of ride a nice pace and keep smooth on the pedals… and on the cobbled descents… pure terror!
Great video. 👊
The training part is exactly what I've been saying since 20 something years ago.
People have been over training for a very long time.
When I got into cycling I saw that there was no training for cycling. That's when I created structured training using intervals .
I am the first person to ever do this.
It takes a lot for people to understand that base miles are not necessary.
You are starting to understand working out in order to gain fitness and not riding to get fitness.
Cheers Harry! Very kind of you. And agreed, I don’t ever ride the base kms (save when I was recovering from my injuries in July - August, when I could only ride low intensity indoors). I find base kms boring and believe base training to be waaaaay waaaay to time consuming, and doesn’t generate the fitness needed to deal with a steep gradient. My back ground in strength training showed me that the body responds well to intensity, good nutrition and full rest days for recovery. And the time with Adam in the Oxford Lab, showed me from a physiological perspective what we are trying to achieve when working at FTP/Anaerobic Threshold and also the benefits of funding a true LT1
@@BikeRacingWithoutMercy you are a super smart person and will make huge gains now. I don't think there is a person on CZcams that has more drive than you . You have all the tools now cadence and structured training. Nothing is more satisfying than to see your progression and gains day by day week by week. No other way to do it. 👊💚
I'm going tenerife in June, I may hire a bike myself for a cycling day 😬
I’d very much recommend hiring a bike and going with a guide. Cycling in Tenerife were excellent for me in Jan 2022 and August 2022. Alberto is a true Gent !
good one Phil 👊 did you bring your own bike this time round? And if so do you have a bike box u recommend? Id be paranoid that it ends up as "lost" luggage (though I see the BikeBoxAlan GPRS race has a tracking device) I reckon It would be cheaper to just hire once u factor in the cost of the box and extra £ for a once off, but if future trips were planned it might be worth it
@@duncana51 thanks Duncan🙏
Great work 👍🏿
Cheers Reggie - hope all good Sir !
there’s alot of breezy talk about nuclei in the muscle cells enabling a speedy return to strength/fitness levels after a spot of de-training. i think the process is rather harder than that. fitness is hard to acquire and easily lost. how are you finding it?
I agree. Muscle memory is real. The extra mitochondria build over years of training do not die. But it has taken much longer for me to get them fired back up than expected. More so the gym work than the aerobic . Post the crash I quickly (over 2 months) got my Lactate Threshold 1 back to 200-210W , and was then able to quite quickly rebuild my Anaerobic Threshold to 250-260W (over another 1.5months). Both still below where I was pre accident . And then with the Tempo and VO2 Max surges the top end was coming back quite nicely over 5 weeks to early Dec 2022 (pre getting the chest infections). But rebuilding the lost strength in the gym has taken much longer. I was only doing high rep conditioning from June to November, and low rep heavier since mid Nov - but still well below where I was in May ‘22. But I’ve found the process has been satisfying and have usually made small steps of progression each week. I’ve enjoyed the process of rebuilding - it’s made me think more about what I’m doing and why, and usually doing less with more quality. Hope you enjoy your rebuild too
How's your mental state on descents Phil? (Post crash i mean).
What is your nutrition plan like for your midweek interval rides and then what is it for ones like this?
HI Jake. I eat plant based plus fish and plenty of carbs - low fat. And in the AM train fasted, with water, amino acids and black coffee.
How many interval sessions do you do per week phil?
X3 intense trainings (including a Zwift Race), and 1-2 short 20-30min low intensity high cadence with strength work before. Sometimes I’ll do a much longer ride with upper tempo and threshold efforts and drop one of the intense trainings. Min x2 full rest days per week
You could unblock sinks with you 2 pipe cleaners 🤪
🤣FTW ! I have got a little skinny. Paul is a lot more solid that I - and much much fitter 😅
@@BikeRacingWithoutMercy I know, I'm an annoying scouser 🤪🤪🤪 I have the same helmet as you, I have a couple of POC helmets 👌🏻best helmets I've ever worn 👍🏻
how do you calculate LT1 and what is it useful for?
LT1 is a physiological threshold. If correctly calculated it should be the threshold between Z2 and Z3. It is where lactate in the blood starts to rise 1mml above the base level, and is our maximum endurance pace (if we eat enough carbs). But without blood testing, I like to find where it is by riding big blocks in and around upper zone 2 and lower zone 3 to find the power I can sustain nicely with controlled breathing, able to talk and very slow and gradual drift in the HR.
@@BikeRacingWithoutMercy Thanks! Is that power similar to maximum fat burning power or do you mainly burn carbs at LT1?
@@MarkBurghouwt The fat burning power is a bit of a myth in my experience. At mid Z2 (well below my LT1) I burn through 120g of carbs per hour and 10g fat. So for sure you need to eat plenty of carbs on the bike at LT1 in my experience. It’s the fastest endurance pace we can sustain for time, because the build of lactate in the blood is minimal (1mml above our resting base level), so correctly fuelled its a decent pace, but sustainable because the waste from the lactate is very easily cleared, and the breathing and HR are controlled. So without riding 4-5 hours, I find that 2 or 3 trainings with big blocks of power is best. Starting at e.g. Mid Z2 and see if the breathing, HR and ability to talk remains strong at the end of 2 hours. And if so add 5-10W and repeat another day. When the HR drifts too high / talking becomes a bit harder eg after 90mins or more, then likely we are just over our LT1
@@BikeRacingWithoutMercy thanks man, really informative and useful!
I hope you didn't ride for 4hr 15mi on just 1 bottle!