Day 138\ Chocolate Milk & Recovery......

Now i'm in the habit of training and recording what i'm doing and the numbers are starting to rack up, i need to get in the habit of fueling better particularly during (mainly hydration but also carbs when i start riding longer) but more importantly immediately after sessions.

apparently does more than it says in the tin

For a while now there has been a movement towards chocolate milk as a bonafide 'ergogenic'. Yes you read correctly. Some of the research is flawed as the chocolate milk simply contains more calories than it's CHO sports drink rival. However the recently published paper by Gibson et al 2010 does provide us with one very interesting result.

Although performance markers were no different between the 2 groups doing intensified soccer training, as you would expect after only 4 days unless you were starving one of the groups, Creatine Kinase was reduced in the chocolate milk group. CK is an important enzyme in the production of energy and is used as a marker of muscle damage. It therefore makes sense that we would want to minimise it particularly if your training daily or taking part in contact sports, high intensity work or resistance work.

From my point of view it's yummy, cost effective and i don't need asking twice :-)

ref: Gilson SF, Saunders MJ, Moran CW, Corriere DF, Moore RW, Womack CJ, Todd MK. Effects of chocolate milk consumption on markers of muscle recovery during intensified soccer training. Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition 2010, 7:19

Day 137\ Monthly Numbers......

POsitive POSitive POSITIVE is the name of the game. I'm booked in at LAB3cube Padova next week to have my metabolic tests done and also be video'd on the bike and have a fitting, not that i necessarily need it after seeing Scherrit but it's part of the package. So quite excited by that now onto month by month numbers.

Month By Month

First lot of numbers are my training times and Km's cycled. When taken in isolation they don't really stack up to much but over time they will help with the balance of training, the percentage of training time made up of restoration v gym v bike. The massive spike of other activity in January is also what's known in training terms as 'a really smart skiing holiday'.

Day 134\ Numbers Numbers Numbers.......

Right it's a numbers game this training lark and training for cycling is the biggest numbers game of all. Last weeks numbers are in and i'm pleased to say it's my best weeks training since november and i'm feeling all the better for it. It looked like this

mon am gym 45mins pm 2x30mins bike
tues 27mins intervals bike and core
wed rest
thurs 30mins intervals bike and core
fri gym 45mins
sat 60 mins bike

Which when put in numbers is like this 288mins Av RPE 6.33 Daily Mean Load 199 Monotony 1.32 Strain 2348. Monotony was a bit high which made it the 3rd most 'Strainful' week. But that can be rectified with the bit between my teeth on the interval session, and a longer gentler ride to give more variation in intensity and duration thus less monotony and therfore strain.

Numbers Numbers Numbers

Month by month the numbers tomorrow.

Day 133\ One For the Future....

Thinking about other challenges and how to take Team AP forward after Lapinarello, so how about this...

The Engadin Ski Marathon

Day 129\ Short & Sweet...

Ok was tired yesterday after mondays double header, so kept it short and sweet and feeling well today, here's what i did.

Short & Sweet

Swiss Ball
Triset of Leg Extension/Mantis & Russian Twist 3x8

+4 x 20s Plank (varing rotation at shoulders and flex at knees)

5mins steady cycling

5x1min fast supersetted with 5 Overhead wall squats with a medicine ball between my back and the wall.

5x2 Chins + Bicep curls 30kg

2x8 triset from start

Done 25mins RPE 7

Day 128\ Back at it....

Right back from a week in the hills, and the big push started yesterday morning at 7am with 47mins in the gym on the TRX. Completing the session outlined here. Objective for the next 4 weeks is to get the numbers back to where they were before the whole lurgy, weather, christmas episode do some testing and get a bike, very important.

'Back at it' gives you a view from the hubble telescope!

Backed up yesterday mornings TRX session with cycling to and back from Tombelle where i was coaching some kiddies. It was cold but not unenjoyable although the run home was a bit of a drag. Quite nackered this morning. Some intervals tonight, bring them on.

Day 114\ A new start and some top advice.....

A new year and a 'New Start'. My last post i wrote about really getting bugger all done and that theme has continued over Christmas and new year. I managed one running session and one TRX session however, flight cancellations a further bought of illness or two, a diagnosis of mild Bird Flu later and i'm back home raring to go. Yesterday i got back on the bike and in glorious sunshine did 21km in an hour and felt great afterwards. However it did serve to reinforce a number of key points,

1. The need for appropriate kit
2. The need for a bike that fits and doesn't crush any important nerves!!!! 

Pop 'New Start' into google images and this is the result

While in London i managed to go and see my friend Scherrit aka 'The Bike Whisper' so he could have a look at me on a bike, as we are similar sizes it was his bike. I don't want to knock 'the steed' but this thing was like sitting in a bubble bath by comparison. The long and short of it was as follows'

• Sportive Bike (more comfy than out and out racer)
• Baby front cog (a sportive bike should have but compulsory for a bigger rider)
• Effective top top length of 575mm

Based on my desire to be comfortable on this ride and during the training hand built in steel could well be the winning specification. Also on the kit front were speedplay pedals. These are generally rated as the best around and are as you'd expect more expensive but i think they are worth it and i'll explain why.

From previous sporting experience injuries have occurred from contact, accidents or fatigue. Injuries in cycling also occur from fatigue but more as a result of repetitive strain type injury. Think about it, you aren't performing large, multidirectional open chain movements but a small closed chain movement. But you are performing it hundreds of thousands if not millions of times, so if you have a series of small errors in your setup or restriction on how your body wants to move naturally then you likely won't be able to feel it but after several months and a couple hundred thousand cycles it could potentially spoil your training and competitions, cycling really is all about 'the aggregation of marginal gains'. So for my money hand made frame with speedplays.

Other Tips

• Top quality shorts (makes sense really)
• Splodge of cream between the legs before longer cycles
• Longer cycles to be performed at 80rpm (including hills) and below aerobic threshold approx = 180-age +5
• Come out of sadle for 20-30 seconds every 12 to 15 mins to give your bits a rest
• Don't let your knees drop out to the side at the top of each stroke