A few weeks ago I did a wee speaking engagement and met someone who said something to the effect of: “I thought your arms would be a lot bigger.”
Well, burst my bubble!
It got me thinking. How big are my arms, and what do they look like when I’m riding? Do they show that muscular prowess one would expect to have after so much training?
Mind, when this was said to me, it was shortly after having taken two weeks off to deal with the flu and I think my muscles did shrink rather quickly. But, one of the key points about handcycling that’s so easy to overlook is that it’s not only about riding with your arms, it’s also about incorporating your shoulders and back as well.
Further, each cadence requires a different type of muscle group to optimise it; a slow cadence might use one muscle group, but as high cadence might use another, and you’re never necessarily using one muscle group completely independently.
The trick for me, and one of the key points of my training, is getting all the muscle groups working together at all times regardless of cadence. Some muscles are definitely great at low cadences but those need to be trained to fire just as well at higher speeds. Similarly, other muscles rely on speed for their power, but they need to be trained to generate force at low speeds.
Everything has to work as one. Despite it appearing that a handcycle is all about working the arms, it’s about so much more, and especially about getting many parts of the body to work seamlessly together.
After a fairly long run of sprints, the VO2 max intervals have been brought back for me. These have been one of a small handful of rides that have really revealed the power of psychology.
The first couple of these I had no problem doing them, it was just a matter of getting on the bike, hitting the targets without over-reaching and be done. But, at some point something changed and I started to believe I couldn’t possibly sustain my VO2 max for as long as I needed, or do it repeatedly.
As this happened, when these rides came up I started getting uncomfortable and I’d subconsciously keep finding ways to delay them later in the day. I was well aware that I was delaying these and I knew why, but I also knew that I could meet the targets and, in fact, once I got riding I found these to be strangely relaxing and meditative.
This week, the VO2 max rides were reintroduced and this was the first week in a while where I didn’t have that subconscious fear that I’d fail. I was happy to get one and ride. In fact, yesterday, my 18th day on the go with training I was completely exhausted might otherwise not have felt like riding. But the VO2 max session drew me in…
I rode
I relaxed
I enjoyed it
Not yesterday’s session, but 1 min of VO2 max none-the-less:
So, when I was originally planning my own attempt at the Battle Mountain speed record, I worked out what speed I thought was possible to achieve. Then, when I joined up with the University of Liverpool Velocipede Team I got their targets which coincided well with mine.
But then I got to thinking… it’s seems that there is a tradition at Battle Mountain of having the police arrest all the riders who break the speed limit on Route 305. This got me thinking… I want that!
So the other day I popped online and “drove” the course looking for speed limit signs. I didn’t see any. I didn’t see much at all. There’s not much along that road except for scrub and desert.
Luckily, Lori from the Nevada Department of Transportation got back to me quickly with a reply not only letting me know what the speed limit was, but also taking the time to supply me with a map screen shot of a speed limit sign on the course.
To be honest, I was hoping that they still had the old school 55 mph U.S. speed limits out there but clearly times have changed. Given that the handcycling speed record is about 45 mph, hitting 55 could very well be within the possibilities.
As you can see though, NDOT have gone and put a 70mph limit on that road. Off hand, I don’t know if that’s physically possible on a handbike but, I still want to break the speed limit on that road and I’ve going to give it my best shot!
For those of you who haven’t seen it yet, I’ve got an interactive Q&A section on my website. Feel free to send me any questions you might have about my training, involvement in handcycling, Battle Mountain. I’ll try to answer any question as best I can and it might help me to know what my followers are interested in rather than me just rambling, as I so easily do. I’m not used to having followers so this would be a great chance for me to get to know you as well.
Off to the gym today, it’s a full weekend there, and 10 sprints this afternoon. With luck, I’ll do the right number today!
It’s a rest day today, the first full one I’ve had in about in about 19 days, and well needed. Currently I’m doing one of the things I struggle with the most, actually resting. Having a nice cup of coffee and watching the Tour De France helps though. I’ve had a full week of increasing weight training and over-working on the bike, which was my fault, as well as a few considerations about the psychology of performance. Luckily though, I was able to finish yesterday with a rather relaxing series of VO2 max sessions.
This week was week three of a refined strength session. As I get closer to race week in Battle Mountain, the weights are increasing with reps decreasing. But there are a few where the weight just can’t go up quite yet, so the focus is on keeping the reps up and working on going beyond what I feel is possible.
On the bike, much of the work has been sprints as that will be a critical feature of the ride. I’ve been using a variety of sprinting techniques from accelerating from a near stop to sprinting from a mid-level cruising power. The two styles take a surprisingly different type of focus to maximise the power output to hit the peak targets. They’ve also had the added challenge of me needing to compensate for the decreased crank length needed to match the race bike. All in all, the results show that I’m well on par with the power estimates that I did many months ago.
The biggest battle this week has been exhaustion. A couple of times this week I’ve actually had to sleep between strength and bike sessions, which is virtually unheard of from me. The only time I’m usually able to sleep during the day is if I’ve not slept at all for a couple of nights. This is a rather telling indication of how intense the training is just now. Of course, I did make it worse on a riding session the other day where I looked at the title and the time and went ahead with my sprints. It wasn’t until I reviewed the results for the second time about half an hour after the ride that I noticed I was only supposed to have done 10 sprints rather than the 20 I actually did.
It’s been a bit of a psychology week as well. I’ve finished reading “Endure Mind, Body and the Elastic Limits of Human Performance”, by Alex Hutchinson. It’s a great book looking at many aspects of the impact of psychology in a diverse selection of human feats from running to Arctic exploration. It reiterates on thing I’ve been well aware of in my training, the impact of the mind. While it might not be the one thing that wins you the race, it can very easily be the one thing that prevents you from doing so no matter how well prepared you are physically.
On the back of this, I was lucky to have been squeezed into a workshop on “Psychological health and Performance” hosted by Scottish Cycling at Emirates Arena and featuring Dr Tony Westbury. (Thanks to Paul and Craig at Scottish Cycling for getting me into the session, and thank to all the World Cup fans who didn’t attend for making room!)
The workshop was very informative and while it only scratched the surface of performance psychology, it did clarify a few things for me and opened up some new ideas to consider. It’s a complex subject and unfortunately, psychology has a bit of a taboo history behind it, with the somewhat still present belief that if you look at psychology, you’re weak. But, when you’ve had those moments either in life or in your sport when you’ve thought you can’t possibly go on, and somehow you found a means to do it, that’s what it’s all about: Understanding yourself and how to squeeze out every ounce of possibility no matter what the situation. Now, my next read is “Faster, Fitter, Happier,” by Dr Tony Westbury (Courtesy of Dr Tony Westbury and/ or Scottish Cycling).
With luck, today I will actually rest and leave the racing to the riders entertaining and energising me on the Tour De France. It’s the one day I get before going right back into a morning ride and an afternoon strength session and hopefully tomorrow, I’ll remember to only do 10 sprints instead of 20!
This week I headed out to meet up with Coach Davie Lines of Espresso Cycle Coaching to do some road testing. As we wind down to the last 8 weeks of training we are now looking at more frequent tests on the road. This week was an opportunity to test a number of changes that probably made the test much more difficult, but revealed how critical it will be to get the application of power correct.
The first road test was completed with a wide range cassette vs a much narrower range on the recent test. This gave me the opportunity to try out the finer adjustments in cadence that will be available in the race scenario. While it does impose some other limitations on the ride, more critical aspects could be easier to finesse.
I finally had the chance to try out my disc wheels as well. I’d previously picked them up for time-trialling but, as I’ve had to put the time-trails on hold, I thought I should get used to the road feel to eliminate one rider-to-bike interface variable. Being significantly lighter and more rigid than my usual spoke wheels, I expected them to accelerate faster and provide a much harsher and harder to control ride. I can’t say I noticed a difference in acceleration but they didn’t provide a ride any harsher than the spoke wheels. I certainly won’t be put off my ride quality, but I can confirm that it’s rather deafening having you head between two discs, but still a fantastic sound.
Lastly, I had the chance to try the new short cranks on the road. In my first trials of them, I saw a significant difference in power and the road testing confirmed that change. Despite this change, my ride today showed a noticeable improvement over the previous same ride. Ultimately, this simply means that a change in the mechanical system requires a corresponding change in technique and mind set. It would be very easy to see all the months of hard work I’ve done disappear simply because of an equipment change and give up. But, I know I’ve got that power there, it’s just a matter of getting it out, and the improvements over the last two comparable rides as well as the sprint PB’s from the other day show that the power is there. So, the biggest factor with this and all the other equipment changes is mind set and belief.
The end result of the road testing was;
As I was being followed by Davie I was able to get some external perspective on what I was doing and how I could change things to make improvements.
It revealed that the riding technique is critical. It’s not just enough to ride, I need to ride properly, and the specifics of how still need to be worked out.
Similarly, it’s not just about riding it’s about being fully aware and fully engaged on the target. It’s about putting every bit of energy and focus on the one task and not over thinking and over analysing it.
I can honestly say that the results of the road test were more revealing than something to cheer about. But, so often we learn more from our mistakes than we do from our successes, and I’m certain I won’t be resting on my laurels for the next 8 weeks.
Next steps are continuing to develop power and refining technique.
It’s been a busy week and very exhausting. So much so that this post was supposed to be out on Monday but by the time I’d gotten done with training and recovery, I had very little energy left to write and edit pictures and videos. So, here’s a some of the weeks run down
Coaching
Last weekend I spend my one rest day not actually resting that much, rather I headed out to finish my British cycling Level 2 Coaching award. It’s been a rather long journey as a handcyclist working on getting this qualification sorted out and I’m not ashamed to say that it took me three attempts. On my first attempt I managed to flip my mountain bike and fractured my ribs putting me in A&E and off riding for quite a few weeks. On my second effort there arose some debate about how to coach handcyclist, and how translate and develop material that would work within the boundaries of the existing coaching structures. After many conversations, I managed to get back on the course for the final day. Then under a hot blaring sun I presented my final lesson and along with quite a sunburn I managed to get my Level 2 coaching qualification.
Equipment changes
Along with all the training, I’ve also been working on matching my training bike up to the specs of the ULVTeam bike in order to get adjusted to the configuration I’ll be riding with. Recently I got a matching cassette so that the gear steps will be the same between bikes. I also got my discs situated and ready for the road testing I’d completed this week as well. But the biggest change came in a slightly mysterious package…
OK, it wasn’t that mysterious to me. I’d been talking with Chris at Draft Wheelchairs for a few days about this particular package. We went back and forth on some measurements and finally came to the conclusion that I just needed to try it. Chris was fantastic, as usual, with his tech knowledge and not only found me the parts I needed, but overnighted them to me with a note to try them to see if they worked before anything else. This was brilliant as I was hoping to get them situated for the road test this week. Big thanks to Chris at Draft Wheelchairs for all the info and the quick turnaround on the cranks.
In chatting about the bike design with ULVTteam, I discovered that the cranks they were using were shorter and narrower than those on my bike; 160mm vs 170mm and 5cm narrower. Realising this could be a crucial factor as I would be losing leverage and the width different could change how my muscles engage I opted to swap my stock cranks for some new ones, ASAP, so that I’d have time to get used to them.
I’m glad I did as the first ride on the new cranks proved to be a disappointment, with noticeable changes in power when compared to the same ride completed just days earlier. Then when I took the bike out for some road testing the other day, the same situation existed. With the change in leverage, my power levels just weren’t the same, and not by a small margin. This was very worrying.
With a reduction in power this lead to the idea that we might have to investigate changing the strategy for how the power is applied in order to compensate for the loss of leverage; basically, getting power via cadence. But in training there are a lot of options to work with. And on my ride yesterday, I opted to utilize some psychology. In a nutshell, I told myself that a change in equipment wasn’t going to diminish my power output. And pleasantly, it didn’t. Yesterday, even with the short cranks, I managed to set two PB’s in power!
New bigger equipment
The engineers at the University of Liverpool supplied me with this brilliant picture the other day.
This is the first I’ve seen of the bikes shells as one unit. Currently they are working like mad to smooth and polish the shell in addition to getting the seam between the top and bottom as smooth and close fitting as possible. Then, they’ll be one to assembling the inner components.
It looks like they are making great progress and road testing before Battle Mountain should be happening in the near future. Big thanks to the team for all the work they are putting into the bike.
More thanks
Speaking of thanks, I’d like to give a big thanks to my fried Dave K for proofreading my blog posts. Well, actually he read them and asked if I wanted him to point out my typos. So, a few messages went back and forth and hopefully I should look a bit more intelligent!
A wee teaser
This week I also got in another road test which I’ll be posting about shortly but in the meantime a small teaser from the road test this week
Today I celebrate 100 training sessions with Davie Lines and Espresso Cycle Coaching! With about two months to go, we’re getting down to the finer point of the possible techniques. One of the key elements that Davie has me working on is sprinting.
For today’s session I repeated the same ride I did on Monday: 10 second sprints with a 5 minute recovery in between. As an added challenge I’ve been pushing these over the 12 second make to help build in a bit of endurance. I was quite pleased that I set three new PB’s for 5, 10, and 12 seconds on Monday but Tuesday’s ride fell quite short of expectations, though it was a very different type of sprinting.
But today, everything is well in order as I, yet again, set three new PB’s for 5, 10, and 12 seconds! Everything is well on target and hopefully we should see some good numbers in the upcoming road test.
Check out the progression of max effort sprints across today’s workout with the first, fourth, seventh and last efforts (1m34s):
If you‘ve been following my blog, you’ll know that last week I was down at the lab Cardiff Metropolitan University. Running a couple of race scenarios was eye opening from a strategy point of view. Likely I still wasn’t at 100% after the flu, but it just goes to show how critical my performance will be and reiterates a comment that JP said about being strong as a bear. From that, we’ve now started a more focused training regime, and today was day two of the new workout protocol.
Under the watchful eye of Paul at Cardiff Met measuring my breathing and taking blood samples, I also had JP monitoring my power levels and times as I tested a couple of possible race scenarios. After a good first run, the second was less than stellar, and more of an embarrassment with all the watching eyes. But, sometimes you have to fail to see where you need to make changes to improve.
After running the tests and discussing the results in conjunction with some strategy analysis, JP came up with a rough plan for the next two months of concentrated training. After getting back from the lab and catching up with JP he sent me the details and I’ve been coordinating that with the work that my local coaches have been doing.
So far the plan seems to be going very well. We’ve increased the weight sessions to four times per week in combination with five sessions on the bike. Each weight session is more concentrated and focused.
The immediate upshot is, on my ride yesterday, I set new PB’s in 5, 10, and 12-second sprints. Given that yesterday’s ride was a series of 10 10-second sprints, I’m pretty pleased with that. And the power levels are right where my calculations for targets need to be. With two months to go it should just be a case of replication and refining sprint endurance.
My supporters have been great with this element. Bob at #BOBSGARAGE has taken on board the recommendations provided by JP and developed the sessions locally. As usual, he’s also schlepping weights and benches to make my lifting possible. As an added bonus, he also handles my injury flare-ups well. Just today, mid-session, I had a bad flare-up and in the process of trying to slide off the bench, I fell, knocking the bench over but luckily Bob was there to keep it from landing on me and he grabbed my implant controller and after a few minutes with that and some active meditation, I was able to carry on.
JP Nevin’s contributions to my efforts have been very generous as well. He’s got a wealth of experience as a coach with Help for Heroes and he’s been very kind to share some of that. Having seen Steve in the lab at Cardiff last week, it’s clear that the work that Help for Heroes does is absolutely fantastic and invaluable. If you’re not familiar with the organisation, check them out and support them if you can.
Brilliant day of training today in the gym with a new programme and on the bike with three PB’s in power. But, training is only half the story. For the last two weeks I’ve been getting some sneaky pictures and videos tracking the progress that the Engineers at the University of Liverpool. Looks like they are doing a fantastic job with the bike and I’m getting really excited to ride it.
Team leader Stephen has been great at staying in touch as we discuss various matters such as gearing and cranks to get my training bike situated to match the race bike as closely as possible, as well as incorporating the setup into the race strategy.
If you’ve not checked out the University of Liverpool Velocipede Team page please visit them here: https://www.facebook.com/ulvteam/
In the meantime, check out their amazing progress. Big thanks to Sigmatex for the beautiful rolls of Carbon fibre.