Low cadence workouts

I am doing muscle tension intervals as part of the 32 week training plan. I came across this:

Thoughts?

I knew this would come up immediately after it was posted. This is one persons opinionated piece really. But even so this is what he says towards the end:

“Some coaches — myself included — prescribe SFR intervals to their clients as a way to both change up the routine and activate cycling-specific muscles that have been trained in the gym.”

This is why we put in muscle tension work around the gym work. It is to activate the cycling specific muscles. It is best to do both and that is why we always, always strongly encourage our athletes to get into the gym to do the work. But also we only do 4 weeks of this. From there we move onto more explosive on the bike strength work with the sprint and standing starts. Cycling is dynamic sport so that is why we like these explosive on the bike power workouts. Rarely are you just steady riding in a big gear. But you are usually constantly changing pace. We also do sweet spot smash intervals which are like burst but using a bigger gear to do the burst.

Also there will be times when you are in race or ride where you are climbing or even riding through thick gravel where you are at a lower cadence so it is good to do this in practice as well. Any time you put more stress on a muscle it adapts to the training with recovery.

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Exactly what Coach @Jake says - MTi’s make up a part of our off season plans but are not in sweet spot or interval or in season plan.

From our training tip included in your plan (with scientific references) authored by Coach @Isaiah :
Paired with weight training, Muscle Tension Intervals help the body stabilize strength into pure power transfer to the bike, which ultimately allows you to capitalize on strength gains you make in the gym. While shown to work through use of EMG’s and other such technology, MTI’s should be used carefully especially if you have a past history with knee injuries.

Ericson, M.O., Bratt, ĂĄ., Nisell, R. et al. Europ. J. Appl. Physiol. (1986) 55: 229.

Duc S, Bertucci W, Pernin JN, Grappe F. “Muscular activity during uphill cycling: effect of slope, posture, hand grip position and constrained bicycle lateral sways.” J Electromyogr Kinesiol. 2008 Feb;18(1):116-27.

Sarabon N, Fonda B, Markovic G. “Change of muscle activation patterns in uphill cycling of varying slope.” Eur J Appl Physiol. 2012 Jul;112(7):2615-23.

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Thank you for the reply. I agree 100%. I have been doing several of the other plans through out the year mostly focused on sweet spot and this is a refreshing change. The only thing I change a bit is on the prescribe MTI on Sundays as I do that ride outside taking advantage of the nice weather here in Greenville, South Carolina ( cycling heaven). I love doing MTI and gym work. I will surely continue with the plan. I only have 28 more weeks to go!