Where's the article on how to crush Rod up Little Italy?

I am sure that they sell a lot of wood pulp by putting these “silver-bullet” one-liners on the cover, otherwise they wouldn’t.  Take a look at the magazine rack next time you’re in your local mega-mart.

News flash: no one ever got skinny/stronger/faster by turning the pages of a magazine.

Conversely, I don’t really believe that the way to be a better cyclist is by riding and riding and riding.  Let me tell you a story about “a friend”…

This guy loved cycling, and he could ride all freakin’ day.  He always got dropped on the hills, however, which bugged the shit out of him.  He paid to have a “cycling coach” work with him on improving speed and hill climbing ability.  The coach gave him week after week of interval training sessions.  Did he get faster?  Marginally.  Did he still get dropped on climbs?  You betcha.  He also had knee pain, occasional hand-numbness, and his back would start cramping after 20 miles.

Was this guy’s problem that his Anaerobic Threshold was too low, his bike didn’t fit, and a need for chiropractic adjustment?

In my systems work, when we have a “problem” we do a “root cause analysis”… if the user keyed a name change and the software didn’t save the new name, is it a problem with the code (software), the keyboard (hardware), or is it an operator (wet-ware) issue?  In the case of our cyclist, he could do hill intervals until the cows come home, but he will be plagued with the same problems until he manages to:

• Stop ordering pasta and fries, and lose 40 pounds or so (root cause of speed issue),
• Do some real strength training on his core and posterior chain… I’m not talking about balancing his fat butt on a ball and doing dumbell curls… we’re talking squats and deadlifts here (root cause of back issue),
• Increase hamstring and hip flexor range of motion (root cause of knee issues).

Yes, I’m talking about me, and no, even with all the gains I’ve made in the last few months I can’t say that there is a magic bullet that I could print in a magazine and make a gajilllion dollars selling as an e-book on the internet.  It takes a lot of hard work, but work that is targeted at the root causes of your weaknesses, not just working harder.

Am I still getting dropped on hills?  You bet your ass.  But my ass is skinnier now, and the smallest chainring on my bike is feeling neglected.  So while I’m not up to “ludicrous speed”, I feel great.

The path to your goal will almost never be a straight line, but a step-by-step progression from point “A” to point “B”…

Max HR 169, 925 calories burned.  I’m hopeful that will put me across the 30 pounds of weight-loss threshold tomorrow morning!

Max HR was only about 160, for some reason.  Calories burned 750.

I have to get a handle on a schedule that won’t compromise family, work, school, weight loss, cycling, and sleep.  I think that either Saturday or Sunday have to be ride days, Monday, Wednesday, Fridays are probably kettlebell training, so Tuesday/Thursday must be some form of spin/hit/or ride.

I was totally pissed off this morning, so I played a little motivational video, then I worked it off with a good hour in the man-cave.  Today’s carnage:

Warmup lunges, squats, etc., then

4 sets:

• 45 seconds kettlebell swings, 24 kg
• 10 burpee/kettlebell deadlifts 2 x 20 kg

5 sets Kettlebell Complex, 20 kg, 4 reps each:

• Clean, Press, Forward Lunge

4 sets:

• 10 Blast-Strap pushups
• 10 Blast-Strap scarecrows

2 sets:

• 4 Assisted Chin ups

No.

I rested my sore muscles on Monday.  My legs were still quite fatigued from Saturday’s workout and Sunday’s ride. No bon-bons were injured.

Tuesday, I did an abbreviated HIT session (6B).  I was shocked to see that I was “done” with the Individual Leg Training drills already.  Just when you start getting really good at them, they disappear from the workout.  Curse you, Arnie Baker! (just kidding, Dr. Baker.  We’re cool.  I’m just tryin’ to be funny).  I had some time (and fatigue) constraints, so I bailed on the session after the 30 minutes of standing/surges.  I have a feeling that the rest of the program may have to adapt a bit, as I try to squeeze in more outdoor miles.  We’ll see how it goes.

Wednesday is the new bat-time, bat-channel for my weekly workout with Luka at Hocevar Performance Gym in Renton.  Training partner Lee needs her Saturday mornings free for Bugs Bunny cartoons (swim meets and triathlons… I’ll do the Bugs Bunny watchin’ around here!).  I think this will free up my weekends for some riding and home-stuff that has been suffering lately.  But I digress…

So, the workout starts at 8:30 p.m., an hour when I’m usually contemplating putting on my Elmer Fudd P.J.’s and curling up with a good book, or watching Alton Brown smoke a salmon with a cardboard box, hotplate, and pencil shavings.  I ate dinner around 6:45 (this will be earlier next week… no, I didn’t hurl, but it was kinda touch and go there for a minute), and headed to Renton around 8.  I decided to wear my Heart Rate Monitor so you could see the carnage (click to zoom).

Warm-ups, then a kettlebell complex (double swings, rows, squats, presses, reverse lunges, ouch), then jumping and wind-sprints.  I decided to “race” Lee on the second set of sprints, which is the point where I hit the 170 on the HRM, and almost tossed the stir-fry.  We finished in a push-up/plank position facing each other, and alternately slapping hands (R to R, L to L) while stabilizing our core.  Deceptively hard.

Came home, showered, watched the weather on the tube, and I was asleep by 10:30.  Slept like a rock, too.

Update: just noticed this bruising this morning:

Failure of my kettlebell clean technique, probably as I was getting more and more fatigued during the kettlebell complex. The bruising isn’t too deep, so I should be good-to-go in a day or so.

Max HR 169, 700 calories.

I thought about doing some kind of clever April Fool’s post, but I was way too busy today to be clever and take a picture of my hand poised over a tub of Ben & Jerry’s or something.  So nevermind.

I started an online class tonight through Villanova, work related.  Balancing school, work, family, cycling, and life should be interesting for the next 6 months.

Max HR 170, 780 calories.

The last big bulge in the curve is the standing portion. A few details:

• The big dip about 10 minutes before the end of that segment, the iPod ended it’s playlist.  There was no way I was going to do surges in silence. Note to self: longer playlists, dude.
• The jaggedy cadence curve at the end shows the surges, 15 seconds out of every minute for the last 7.
• The death plunge at the end of the curve is me getting off the bike, because the spasms in my gastrocnemius were beyond control.  I had to stretch them, then roll them out on the big foam roller.  Ouch.

Max HR 169, 800 calories incinerated.

Max HR 166, 1,030 calories over 1hr 46 minutes.

Tonight was HIT session 4A, 90 minutes of sweaty goodness:

The HRM says my maximum rate was 206, but I’ve never been past 181 or so.  Must have been the influence of a solar flare or something.  I think I got up around 172.  Calorie count shows 1,000, but that is probably wonky as well.  Let’s call it 850, shall we?

The weird thing is that for the second session in a row, I’ve had a very strong muscle cramp form in at least one calf.  It happens after the standing portion of the workout (which for the past two sessions is 25 minutes).  As I start the spin-out (5 minutes at 105 rpm), the inside of my calf (most especially the right) begins to visibly form a knot which forces me to stop pedaling and stand to stretch out the gastrocnemius.  I’ve heard pickle juice (yes, pickle juice) is a good preventative for this, so I sucked on a Pickle Pop during the ILT portion.  Didn’t help.  I may have to work bananas back in the diet on spin days, I guess.