Strange things afoot

[sloggingscotsman]

Hi

A couple of strange things seem to be happening in my training, and I need a reality check from those in the know:-

1. On the turbo I never seem to get breathless. My knees can hurt a little and my legs can get tired. And I sweat buckets, but I never get out of breath. Unlike running where when I move up a notch I do. Is it normal or am I just not going hard enough on the turbo for breathing to be an issue?

2. On the turbo I find Hillaceous easier than Aerobase, which logically does not make sense to me. The only places that I divert from Troys instructions are:-

- Not standing up (scared my weight breaks the cranks)
- As I use a triple I sometimes have to use an alternative combination that produces the same ratio to avoid chain crossover.

Even going full pelt on Hillaceous it is my legs that cave in before my breathing.

Am I doing something wrong?

Just want to get the most out of my winter training , hence begging for your opinions on these. Or is it just my inexperience comparing what happens on runs when I go faster, with what is happening on the bike? I realise that I am still building bike muscles hence it could be that my bike muscles are just underdeveloped, relative to my run muscles (which they will be).

Hope the above makes some sort of sense.

[andys]

Several people have noted exactly the same thing and I get it as well but not to the same degree. It's been hinted that it could be a bad balance of abilities, your CV system is more developed than your leg cycling muscles. So you'd need to work on leg strength on the bike to bring the two back into line.

You could do something like big gear work (putting it in a high (hard to turn) gear and turning slowly, cadence ~60, for 5 minutes then 2 mins rest - repeat 3 times) but that'd not do your knee any good. One of my regular sessions is to hold a zone 3 heart rate (approximately 80% MHR) for 20 minutes then 2 mins rest - two or three intervals). That one's less hard on your knees as you can spin but should still give your legs a good workout. Warm up/down properly for both sets.