How are AG’s and coaches implementing the Spinervals series into their own or their clients training?
With the increasing number of focused workouts currently out and those projected for late fall within the Competition, Fitness and Runnervals lines, it would appear that a user could just drop in a DVD and follow along without much thought to following a true Periodized plan.
I have had some coaches say that the series is great, while others have said that the intensity is too high, especially for the Iron-distance athlete.
Personally I feel that I had my best race performances, when I used Spinervals “No Slackers…” once a week for my indoor intensity session on the trainer.
I’d like to hear your/others’ thoughts as well. I had the same thought that the series, or a few of the DVD’s, would make a decent rotation of indoor work outs. I checked the web site and I can’t really tell the difference between any of the tapes (as the descriptions and web videos seem to be very similar).
Can you tell me any difference between them? I was thinking that maybe one or two would make good intensity sessions. Can you reccomend a couple that would fit certain work outs? What is "No Slackers good for, in your opinion.
i think they work awesome. If im training for I.M. i just keep the intensity a little below what they are doing(usually). Good skills work and help with the boredome of training indoors. I’m looking into the runnervals too.
Troy used to be my coach, and I spent a few occasions at the NBAC facility, where he used to conduct a Spinervals-type session on weekends. All I can tell you is that I had a sub 54:00 minute 40k split when I religiously used the few Spinervals tapes that he had out back then. But it’s hard work, don’t get me wrong.
Troy was always known as one of the better cyclists in the sport back when he competed. The guy pushed a bigger gear faster than anyone else I knew, for sure, so he knows how to set you up for the bike/run stuff.
I also had Troy as a coach a few years back, the premise is low gear and HIGH reps for your entire ride time. He never wanted you on the big gears, 90 - 100 RPM for a couple hours.
I’ve only heard good things about Spinervals, but which one is the best for strength improvement and time lowering?
I’m totally dependent on my Spinervals tapes. I have five (the two hour one – No Mercy maybe, Totally Time Trial, Time Trial Special, Zoot Challenge and the old one from around '95 with Tyler Hamilton in his big hair days), and I use them regularly. In fact, I don’t get on the trainer at all without popping one in. The old one is my favorite, but Totally Time Trial is the toughest to me. If I’m going to do that one, I dread it all day long. It hurts. Time Trial Special is a good one, too.
I plan on buying more of them. I’d like to have the whole library. I’m on the trainer at least once a week most of the year, but in the winter, I do about two rides a week, both of which are indoors. And I use Spinervals every time. I’ve heard that the intensity is too high for certain times of the year (i.e. “base”), but I don’t care. I use them anyway. They help me pass the time, and keep me training. Without them, I don’t think I’d be able to do any trainer work, at least not any hard intervals.
Spinervals are a staple of my training program. I can’t imagine training without them.
I lot of the DVD’s seem duplicative, if you read the descriptions. Totally Time Trial is as hard as you want it to be. Actually, they all are. I mostly use the Tough Love 3 hour DVD. When I first did it, it was all I could do to finish*. Now I do three hours on the road, and then come inside and finish* with the 3 hr DVD. I don’t think that most of the tapes are small gear/high cadence. It seems there is a lot of big gear work. Personally, I have to back down a gear (OK, two gears) to get the cadence up to 80-90. I have found that the big gears caused me to lose a little technique–you get focused on pushing instead of spinning, but that could be just me.
After a while, you get where you make up your own program. My training partner will work one of the DVD’s, and I will work my own routines alongside.
*I don’t mean to imply that I keep up the cadence in the bigger gears the way the animals on the DVD’s do.
Very simply put, they make you train harder than just about anything else you could do or watch while on a trainer. I use them 1 time per week for interval training over the winter. I went back into Central Park almost 1 mph faster than I left it in the fall.
That’s Troy’s gameplan. Be able to push a bigger gear faster than you’ve done in the past. And his live workouts in his groups are just a tough, if not tougher. He has you get off the bike in the middle of some of that stuff and have you do a series of “wall sits”. You know, those squats with your back up against the wall and hold 'em for anywhere from 30 seconds to a minute or more. Hurts me to even think about it.
Hey, what about the gym rat guy on the Lemonde trainer on the Tough Love tape that burns everybody’s ass for the full three hours and never breathes hard?
What about all the folks on the videos that are poorly fitted on their bikes? That’s one of the the first things I do when I get a new video – check out how people are fitted on their bikes. Some look pretty good, others look downright awful.
I’m not good enough to notice their bike fits, but I will pay more attention tonight on viewing. I do notice there are a few who don’t seem fit enough to complete the workout, and the camera avoids them. How did they get on in the first place? There is a funny story by Troy about his first Ironman in “Becoming an Ironman”. He did Lake Placid as a student a few days after a big keg party. I think he won, but I don’t recall for sure.
I try to make them as hard as I can. I still don’t think I’m getting up to the intensity level that I should, but it’s still very difficult. I really try make the Totally Time Trial workout a good one. Sometimes I’d rather do a 3 hour ride on the road than the 90 minute TTT video. Sometimes I can hear Coach Troy screaming, “Get your cadence up!” in my sleep. My legs burn just thinking about it . . .
I’m going to have to slap that one in the VCR (I use tapes, not DVD’s) in the next day or so. It’s been a while since I did that one.
Actually, Robert, the TTT DVD is just 4X15min–you can do anything for that long. I like that DVD as well. How about “When you slow down your race is over.” “C’mon Bruce, I won’t be there to remind you to work hard.”
I try to make every press of the pedals burn my teardrop quad. I try to maintain the HR and the cadence–but to do so, I have to use an easier gear. How is big front chain ring/rear cog 11 for grinding it out?
I got the Time Trial Special with my Kurt Kinetic trainer, and have got to say it’s the most painful time I ever spend (riding) indoors. I think it might be a little too intense for long distance folk, especially those who subscribe to Mike Walden’s periods of slow base and capilary building in the offseason - but it certainly is a killer workout.
Depending on how your offseason is structured, it may or may not fit your needs effectively.
Troy used to make me go out on the roads (I lived in a hilly part of Connecticut, near Groton) and do a series of hill workouts in my big ring and 11 tooth in the back. I think I was lucky to turn over a 30 or 40 rpm cadence some days
I remember one time at the Fairmount Park 1/2 IM, back in '96 (a race he won), he went by me on the bike and I was doing something like 23 mph and he had to be doing 25 or 26 and he was turning over the cranks a lot slower than me, but he had that big ring going with a really tiny cog in the back. He slowed down as he came up to me, and made sure to tell me that I wasn’t pushing hard enough on the bike. Before he took off and disappeared up the road.
Funnily enough, he always made sure to emphasize that I was to “go easy on the bike and save it for the run” at Ironman :-))
I think it might be a little too intense for long distance folk,
Although we are training for IM, we do Oly’s and sprints along the way, so we do the TTT DVD every week or two to keep that feeling of ceaseless driving.
