Written by: Josh Horowitz

Once in a while, especially this time of year as I get excited about the upcoming racing season (even after almost 20 years of this!), I feel compelled to dispense some coaching advice, so here goes.
I had this discussion with a fellow coach the other day that may apply to some of our racers who have been training hard all winter putting in the base miles and are now ready to transition all that strength and endurance into road performance.

We were talking about how most cyclists (and even many coaches), don’t fully understand the differences between power, torque, strength and speed and how they often use wattage as a gauge to measure their strength workouts when they should actually be thinking about torque, or heart rate for a muscular endurance day when they should actually be looking at watts.
Anyway, the conclusion that we came to is that the one thing across the board that most cyclists don’t factor into their training is that torque, strength and wattage mean absolutely nothing if they are not combined with leg speed. I made the statement that with 20 to 30 minutes a week of leg speed work, in about a month, just about any Cat 5 could be a 4, any Cat 4 could be a 3 and any Cat 3 could be a 2. Amazing, right?

So for those who have been doing low cadence strength and muscular endurance workouts for the last three months, just because you have seen you power and climbing speed improve, don’t think that you are necessarily at racing fitness. You must now increase your cadence on all your rides and intervals as well as introduce a weekly “high spin” interval which means 10 minutes to an hour on a flat road with no resistance at 120 rpm. Your might notice a momentary drop off in performance but within a month you will see massive gains. Of course leg speed is also crucial for the individual disciplines of bike racing, including sprinting, breakaways and climbing.

To reach Josh Horowitz;
Web: www.UltimateSportsPsychology.com
Web: www.LiquidFitness.com
Web: www.LiquidCycling.com
Email: josh@liquidfitness.com