Category: Training

The final wrap up to our 2023 build / season / year is the return of our Festive 5 Challenge!! 
A take on the well known ‘Rapha Festive 500’, but ours with a twist to ensure everyone can gain the most from the challenge, and make it applicable to you and your goals. Ultimately the purpose behind the challenge is to add a little focus and a training spike over the Xmas / New Year period when many tend to have time off work / extra time to train. Nothing like a challenge to keep (or even increase!) your consistency and compliance over the festive season!

THE INSIDE DETAILS: 

Commences: Xmas Eve (eve!) – Saturday 23 December.
An extra day this year thanks to the weekend…. ;-p
Concludes: New Years Eve – Saturday 31st December (9 days inclusive)
The Challenge: Complete YOUR challenge over the duration of the 9 festive days, as you see fit. Indoors or out. Pool or Open Water. On or off-road. You choose!

Here are some challenge options you could take on: 

FESTIVE TRI CHALLENGE
Swim/ride/run your way over the 9 days:
The Ultimate: 500km riding, 50km running, 5km (or more) swimming over the 9 days
The Consistent: 50km riding, 5km running, 500m swimming / day on 5 or more days
The Half: 250km riding, 25km running, 2.5km (or more) swimming over the 9 days
The Conservative: 50min riding, 50min of run/walk, 50min swimming on 5 or more days

Or any other alternative that works for you! (and why not make up a name and share with us?!)

Follow along: 
More details will be shared over the coming days and we’ll get the chatter started! 
FACEBOOK: All details, info, chatter and more will be shared in our FB group here
STRAVA: If you are on strava, why not follow us online here

CONFIRM: If you are joining in, and what challenge you are up for, as I will program accordingly and provide some guidance on how to tackle the challenge based on your goals.

I’m not a massive fan of ERG Mode in Zwift (and other indoor training platforms). There. I’ve said it! “WHAT?!” I hear you say? “ERG mode is the best! You can just have it set and not have to think!” And right there is exactly one of my points…. Now let me explain…..

Pretty much every athlete these days has a smart trainer for indoor bike sessions. A smart trainer is the ability of the trainer to be able to ‘talk’ to your computer / device / app and be able to control the bike’s resistance without the ‘need’ for you to change gears.

It then goes to the next step of having the ability to ride using ‘ERG mode’. And ERG mode is a setting in many training platforms such as Zwift and TrainerRoad whereas it fixes your power output to a specific target power in a structured workout and then automatically adjusts your resistance to match your cadence. If you don’t have ERG mode on, then you essentially have to generate the power / effort yourself – like the ‘good old days’! ;-p

Power is essentially calculated by how hard you are pressing on the pedals (torque) by how fast you are turning the pedals (cadence). So ERG mode uses these two measures to ensure you hit your prescribed power.

So if your session asks you to hold say, 200watts, the trainers resistance will automatically increase if your cadence drops (ie it will feel harder). On the flip side, it will decrease if your cadence increases – all with the aim of holding that 200watts.

When this feature first came out, everyone loved it. Oh to be able to jump on the bike, hit ‘start’ and simply ride without thinking too much. But lets think about that a little. Your riding without thinking? Without giving much focus on what you are doing – your pedal stroke, how hard you are pushing, what that ‘feels’ like – as long as you are able to ‘keep up’.

Now this CAN be great – especially for those who struggle to pace their efforts and regulate their power. It can also help you work through multiple intervals without being able to ‘slacken off’, or push for those last seconds / minutes when you may have previously given up sooner, or weren’t able to hold the power – think of it like a treadmill. Set a pace on the treadmill – you can’t slow down unless you manually change it. ERG mode does the same.

By having the power fixed to a specific target, ERG mode allows you to target specific training adaptions – ie if you are wanting to train in your threshold zone, or working on your VO2, and great if you are after a recovery or endurance ride and not go into that grey tempo zone…. ERG mode will make sure you are hitting those specific zones to stimulate the adaptions you / your coach is looking for.

To a lot of athletes, this can be GREAT! And don’t get me wrong, it can be, BUT there are also many reasons why I don’t love ERG mode……

WHY WE DON’T LOVE ERG MODE

• ERG Mode is set on a specific percentage / target of FTP. Instead of a range. So when an athlete is aiming to target say VO2, ERG mode will force you to hold one defined power number. But this is not THE only number, there’s a range you can be in and still hit your target. So if you are ‘stuck’ in ERG mode, you could actually be putting a cap / ceiling on your training effort. Not ideal!

• Your FTP can change based on the training load you are in, how recovered you are, the amount of fatigue you are carrying, etc etc. So some days your FTP will feel/be spot on, and others it may feel too hard or too easy. So some days, if you are in ERG mode an effort might feel too hard, and on others, it might be too low. Those athletes who have used training platforms such as zwift for awhile and know and understand this can adjust their bias / difficulty to reflect this, but an unseasoned athlete might just blindly follow along without understanding and adjusting accordingly…. And therefore not training as effectively as they could be. OR over train….
  
• ERG mode can turn into a downward spiral if you start to fatigue / are fatigued and cadence drops below that comfortable range. The resistance will increase – like someone is tightening the screws, and this increases the feel of the effort for the same power. If you still can’t hold it, resistance continues to increase and your cadence will continue to drop . If you kept persisting, you may eventually not be able to turn the pedals! (for anyone who has done a ramp test on Zwift you will know what I mean!) ;-p This isn’t a space where you want to get to in a training session and should be avoided at all costs.
  
• ERG mode has a ‘lag’ in the changes to your power targets. So if you doing a workout that calls for short sprint efforts, it can be an issue as it takes a few moments to bring the power up, and then the other end, takes a few moments to drop the power when your interval finishes! It will also mean short sprints won’t give the ‘feel’ of a true sprint – ie that big power spike as you take off, then the drop to the power you can maintain for the remainder of the sprint.. Not really gaining the biggest bang for your buck.
  
• Athletes can get a little lazy and not even change gears on their bike while using ERG mode. Some could see this as a benefit, I certainly don’t! While we are using the trainer to increase our fitness and performance, we should still try and replicate the outdoors as much as possible – and this includes changing your gears. So if you’re not, then make sure you start.
  
• I have also seen athletes who use ERG mode too much, loose their ability to be able to gauge their effort and pacing, being able to control power output with the appropriate gear selection and most efficient cadence and having the mental resilience to be able to push hard ‘on their own’ without being ‘forced’ to by ERG mode… Not ideal when you take your training and racing out on the road !
  
• Depending on the session, the effort, and how you are feeling, sometimes ERG mode efforts can feel ‘artificial’. A way I describe this to my athletes is, it feels like your trainer/device is generating the power for you, and you don’t feel in control of the power yourself. You might be hitting the targets and the power and cadence but it just doesn’t feel like ‘real life’ riding. As if your fighting against the trainer a little to get the outcome, rather than being on top of it and riding smooth with great technique at the effort required. If you do this too often, bad habits can form…
  
• I will often have athletes who love ERG mode, start with it on, but then during the session switch it off, and quite often they are actually able to push the same or MORE power with LESS effort. Go figure! And this comes back to that feel. When you generate the power yourself, you are nearly always going to get a much better feel than if you are pushing against the push/pull effort of ERG mode.

So – as much as there are some great aspects of using ERG mode and it certainly has a place in indoor training, I make sure my athletes aren’t using it ALL the time. I coach them to be able to know when it’s right / a good time to use it, when they may need to scale their bias/effort, or when they should switch it off and push the effort themselves.

SO – if you are using ERG mode often, I encourage you to switch it off every now and then, even within a session if you have repeat intervals, do one with ERG mode on, one with ERG mode off and see / feel the difference. Which one ‘feels’ more real life? And which one feels more artificially generated? And always go with the real life feel – even if it means your power is slightly lower….

The month of May this year saw the majority of our team embark on a challenge of their choosing. A chance to set a goal motivating for them. They were then tasked with the challenge to fulfill that, whatever it may be. But the aim was to set the goal, have a reason behind the goal and find the discipline and determination to work towards that goal, even when they may not have been ‘motivated’. You can read more on the challenge and what was involved here.

And the results were amazing and awesome to witness ! We had such a variety of challenges chosen, which just reminded me of the variety of individuals coached within our group. Some of the challenges chosen included:

• ‘Run every day in May’ – we had a few take on this challenge!
• Walk every day in May
• Swim every day in May
• Eat 2 x pieces of fruit a day
• Drink 2litres of water a day
• Activations prior to each training session
• Complete S&C each day / each week (aiming to solidify this habit!)
• Daily cold shower / cryotherapy brrrr !
• Consistency challenge, of training every day
• And so many more!

There was hundreds of kms and hours (literally!) dedicated in May for this challenge, all aimed at forming a new habit, or breaking an old one.. Sparking personal growth, building mental resilience or simply trying something new. A great challenge to take on alongside their other training when most of these athletes are in their off season or base season.

Some added bonuses that came out of our challenge included:

• Sense of self satisfaction and achievement
• Body fat loss. (bonus!)
• New healthy habits formed
• One athlete even stated “it did wonders for my body, but more importantly for my mental health“… can’t get much better than that !

As a Coach, this challenge reiterated the importance of community, of belonging, of taking ownership, of pushing oneself…

And as an athlete myself, what did I learn of my challenge? I will always join in challenges with my crew as I feel like it’s important to feel and understand what they are going through, the challenges they may face – the same with training. I complete many of the training sessions I prescribe because then as a Coach and an athlete myself, I know what that session will feel like…

So for me, I took on the challenge of running every day in May, plus adding at least 10min a day as ‘me’ time (something I find hard to do!), as well as daily cryotherapy. Either hot/cold shower or cold plunge every day. Oomph – a hard one in cold weather! But man did I see the benefits! These were not only invigorating, but I felt I slept better when I did this before bed – especially during the luteal phase of my cycle when a females core body temperature increases – try it ladies! Plus not to mention research into the many other benefits.. Read more here.

The run portion of my challenge – although was the most time consuming and physically demanding of my 3 goals, it was actually the easiest in a sense. And I find that many athletes are the same. As we love to train. We love to push our bodies and we love a challenge. But something like taking 10min out of your day to simply sit and be – oh how much harder that can be for many! (more on that…)
Personally I decided to include the run challenge as I’d had a love/hate relationship with running for a few months – probably longer. I just didn’t feel in flow, and just generally felt clunky. Mainly due to my lack of consistency. (so surprise surprise!). So nothing like a run challenge to up the consistency and boy has it made a difference !

The first week I was off to a slow but good start. It wasn’t a chore and I enjoyed having a goal as my motivation. Nice consistent week to begin. Week two felt much of the same, but I could feel it becoming easier, I was getting faster for the same effort. Into week three and I had some on and off days. One day I felt light as a feather, running faster and at ease than I’d felt in some time, then two days later I was day 1 of my cycle and felt heavy and as slow as a slug. A reminder to athletes that not every day you will feel amazing! And female hormone changes throughout the month can play a part in this.. Into the last week and I backed it off a little, I’d been doing 50km weeks along with my other training, with the longest run being an hour-ish. But leading into the last week we had a 24km ‘Pub to Pub’ Run – where a group of local runners would run from one town pub to the next town pub. I knew I hadn’t trained for the distance, but I was banking on the run kms in my legs carrying me through and that they did! I felt awesome the whole run and finished feeling strong, in control and ticking along at a nice pace! So another reminder to athletes that you don’t have to train for a specific distance to be able to do the specific distance well. If you have consistency and that general base fitness, you look after your body and recover well, you will be able to complete a challenge over and above what you have been training for. So don’t ever be too scared to take on a challenge ! But in saying that, my legs pulled up rubbish after this run! I could barely walk! lol So even though I managed the run well, my muscles definitely weren’t ultra conditioned for it, so I hobbled through the last 3 days of the challenge completing run/walk recovery runs. Job done though! ;-p

Onto the 10min of daily ‘me’ time. Call it mindfulness time if you wish. It was time where I could just take 10min to myself – that DIDN’T include using a device! I used a variety of options over the month including reading a book, sitting in the sun eating my lunch, taking a small walk, having a bath, sitting on the river after a run and just listening, feeling and being in the moment. Honestly, I really enjoyed this small amount of time each day of simply just being present. BUT at the same time I really found it a challenge to make it a priority. For someone who is naturally a ‘giver’ I found it tough to take back and give to myself. Note to self, must continue with this and continue to make it a priority!….

Moral of the story – consistency is ALWYAS key. It doesn’t have to be every day. But stay consistent in your approach and it will get easier, you will improve and you will reap the rewards… The whole idea for implementing the Motivate in May Challenge for our crew was to first motivate them into action, but then showing them that it is the discipline and the commitment to the goal that will carry you through to the end.

And I am pleased to say, our whole team did such an amazing job, physically, mentally and emotionally reaping the benefits that will carry them through into the coming season. So we are already one step ahead!

Until our next challenge….. 🙂

Here’s a little snippet of the fun everyone got up to !