Hi Kev,

I've started commuting 50km round trip on a single speed and my route has one long big hill (90 metres vertical over 3 km, with several steep pitches). I can spin fairly well for most of my ride but I'm standing for minutes at a time on the climb and really pushing hard for about 300 metres of very steep. So now that I'm getting some fairly good strength work on the bike can I remove the leg exercise portions of the weight workout? I was thinking of keeping the squat but getting rid of the leg press, leg extension and calf raises. What do you recommend?

Thanks,
Tom

Hi Tom,

The one training program (template) that includes the weights progression is the Tri-Winter Indoor Off-Season. That program also includes the LO-RPM bike (trainer) workout, which would be the one workout you would replace the SS ride with.

If you've used the Weights "Skelton" Template and built your own program around that, I might need to know what else you have included in your program.

To answer your questions on a personal level, I would need to know a whole lot more about your situation;
ie: What are you training for?
Is cycling a strength for you?
Are you an efficient "spinner"? Ie: Comfortable riding at 95-100rpm.
How often are you commuting on a SS bike?
Do you ever commute on a bike that would allow you to ride the hill at a consistent cadence?
Etc, etc, etc??

In general, riding a single speed bike over hilly terrain will provide plenty of strength training, which may cross over well to your normal geared bike. Our training programs use training with weights, as a means of enhancing the strength aspect of your swimming cycling and running. In that case, you may feel you have the cycling aspect of that covered on your SS bike.

Keep in mind that you can always select a hard gear on a geared bike and do a "structured" training session with the convenience and versatility of being able to ride at a desired cadence and power output that you can control, rather than being forced into various intensities/cadences by the terrain you ride.

As a coach, I strongly recommend doing structured training - with specific progressions at various training loads. I believe the SingleSpeed training is more of an un-structured choice - I appreciate you can choose where to ride your bike, so you can structure that, in a sense.

I'd be very interested in WHY you chose to ride a Single Speed. Just curious, really.

CoachKev

Hi Kev,

Why? For fun and because the bike just looks so good (matte black, no logos, no dangling bits, but I am a wimp and put brakes on). ;)

Basically, I'm just mucking around and not training too seriously for anything (my main sport has been adventure racing and I'm taking a couple years off from that), but I will be racing in the XTC Vancouver off-road tri in September to try something new. I created a new program for myself with the level 2 Olympic template, with 4 transition weeks in front of that (started several weeks ago) and the weights template with the 4 phases to help build up my strength to support the higher intensity later in the program. I'm training for the XTC race so I don't frustrate myself with a fitness inadequacy, bearing in mind it isn't an A race - none of those this year - and also for weight loss to prepare for next season.

Cycling has been a strength on MTB from years of adventure racing but on the road I've never bothered to suffer enough to race so I probably would not be considered a great cyclist. My natural cadence is around 103-106 and I'm very happy spinning. I've also been working to up my running cadence and that's consistently at 89-91 regardless of speed (a little faster when I go faster).

I started a new contract recently with a company near downtown Vancouver and with the better weather and my increased weight I decided to bike commute - generally 4 or 5 days each week. However, the only bike that I owned was my full suspension x-country racing bike and I refuse to take that baby out in traffic and road grit. I decided to buy my first ever road bike and with the promise of simplicity, much less to maintain, and only one larger hill on the way to work, as well as living in a very flat semi-rural area perfect for fixed gear riding, I decided to buy a single speed with a flip-flop hub.

I realize that bike commuting in general, and in particular on a ss bike, is counter to the whole idea of following a structured program. My bike volume is and will continue to be about twice the program's volume, with generally only one long weekend ride that will conform to the workout specification. Since I'm not planning on any longer races with steady state riding and since my one serious race this year will be off road (which is a delightful combination of anaerobic hammering and below-zone coasting with some tempo riding thrown in for good measure) I'm OK to improve my cycling fitness haphazardly. I believe the general cardio improvement and weight loss benefits outweigh the loss of specific race cycling fitness.

On the other hand, I am a seriously bad swimmer and my running sucks due to my weight so those two areas I really do want to work on and follow the program closely. As I initially wrote I have dropped several leg exercises from my weights program as I seem to be putting a fair bit of load on my legs on my commute (spinning 95-105 on the flats and on the hills either sitting with around 65 rpm or standing with 70-75 rpm, and one short section standing with 40 rpm) and my runs were suffering. Since dropping the extra leg exercises the runs have been more comfortable.

Regards,
Tom

Hi Tom,

Your bike sounds pretty cool and I'm sure it's fun, exept for those steep hills. I had assumed from your first message you had a freehub, since you hadn't mentioned the fixed gear, but the flip-flop with brakes is a great idea. Definately safer in traffic.

So, given that your racking up 200+ km/week on the singlespeed, forcing plenty of high resistance (load) on your legs, you may increase the risk of injury (by doing heavy leg weights). Also, with the type of work you're doing on the bike, you'd stand to gain less, from leg exercises, such as extensions, squats, lunges etc - at least as they apply to strength on the bike.

With regard to weight loss, gradually increasing your run volume, would be another good way to do that. You may add a couple of minutes to your existing runs, over time, so that your run volume increases by up to 10-15% per week. While doing this, you should aim to keep the run intensities around the Zone 2 area.

You may need to reduce your cycling volume a bit, as your run volume goes up.

If you're a few pounds heavy, you probably stand to gain more from higher volume, lower intensity running, to get lighter, than to be doing harder tempo/interval running, which also run a higher risk of injury issues (especially if your carrying a few extra lbs).

With regard to swimming being a weakness: I strongly recommend having a lesson with a swim coach, every couple of weeks, for a while (say June/July) to address the most obvious technique deficiencies. Weekly or bi-weekly (very short) lessons, in which one deficiency could be identified, could be added to your program. You could then work on that one aspect of your stroke, until your next lesson.

By addressing the swim weakness in this way, you'll become are more efficient swimmer(obviously). You can then make it through the swim in any triathlon, without being totally beaten up, allowing you to make the most of your bike strength. Put anoter way; without that attention to your swim weakness, you wil never see your true cycling strength shine through in a triathlon.

Good luck with your training. I have been considering the Vancouver XTC off-road tri, for a couple of years. Maybe I'll take the plunge in September and see you there. All the best...

CoachKev.