# FTP, TSS, Indoor vs Outdoor Riding & Bike Power vs Endurance (Listener Q&A) | Ep 583

An episode of [Oxygenaddict Triathlon Podcast](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/951501034), 25 Mar 2026, 30 min.

Audio: https://traffic.megaphone.fm/APO6462518288.mp3

In this week’s episode, Coach Rob answers questions from athletes navigating the messy reality of training for an Ironman alongside work, family, and unpredictable conditions. From battling bad weather to juggling early starts, this is a practical, no-nonsense Q&A focused on what actually moves the needle. You’ll learn: • Whether indoor training is “good enough” (and when it isn’t) • How to structure back-to-back sessions when time is tight • The truth about FTP testing—and why your numbers might be misleading • How to bridge the gap between short power and long endurance • What a “too high” TSS score is really telling you about your pacing • Why comparing your FTP to social media is a fast track to doubt—and what to focus on instead • Simple, high-impact ways to improve bike performance before race day If you’re training for your first Ironman or 70.3 and trying to make it work around real life, this episode will help you stay focused on what matters and let go of what doesn’t. * * * * * * * SPONSORS * * * * * * * * Thinking about your first Ironman or 70.3 in 2026? At Team Oxygenaddict, we specialise in helping busy professionals fit high-quality training around demanding jobs and family life. We’ve just reopened for new athletes with only a handful of slots available. Book an application call today to find out if you'd be a good fit for Team Oxygenaddict for the coming season here: https://team.oxygenaddict.com/consultation-call/ * * * * * * * * * * * * precisionfuelandhydration.com Precision Fuel & Hydration help athletes personalise their hydration and fuelling strategies for training and racing. Use the free Fuel & Hydration Planner to get a personalised race nutrition plan for your next event. And then book a free 20-minute video consultation with a member of the PF&H Athlete Support Team to refine your strategy. Listeners get 15% off their first order of fuel and electrolytes with Precision Fuel & Hydration. Simply use code OXYGEN26 at checkout to claim your 15% discount * * * * * * * * * * * * Watch on youtube Listen on Spotify Listen on Apple Podcasts

## Transcript

[0:04] Hello, and welcome to the Oxygen Addict Triathlon podcast.
[0:07] We're brought to you every week by our sponsors, Precision Fuel
[0:09] and hydration.com. You can get 15% off your first
[0:13] order with the code OXYGEN 26. Welcome to the show everybody.
[0:18] I'm your host coach Rob Wilby from Team Oxygenetic Triathlon
[0:21] Coaching and every week I bring you an an episode of this
[0:24] podcast to help educate, motivate and inspire you for
[0:27] your Iron Man and 70.3 goals. If you are looking to complete
[0:30] your first Iron Man or even your first 70.3 Iron Man, you're in
[0:34] the right place. My aim is to bring you an
[0:36] episode every week to help answer all the questions that
[0:39] you've got about how to fit in the training for Iron Man and
[0:42] 70.3 around the busy life, around the busy family.
[0:46] I recognise that almost nobody listening as a full time
[0:49] professional athlete. Everyone's got life, jobs,
[0:52] university, you name it. Family, kids, babies, grown up
[0:56] kids, everything you're trying to juggle whilst also trying to
[1:00] go and complete an Iron Man. So the purpose of this podcast
[1:03] is often maybe a little bit different to the other ones that
[1:05] are out there, is that I'm specifically aiming at people
[1:08] who are trying to do this amazing thing, but fitting it in
[1:11] and having a compliment around your day-to-day life rather than
[1:15] feeling as though it's pulling your family in One Direction and
[1:18] you work in another direction and you in another direction.
[1:21] So on this week's episode, could be answering more athlete
[1:24] questions that have come in. So thank you very much.
[1:27] If you're one of the people who sent these and you can send them
[1:29] in via e-mail to help@oxygenaddict.com.
[1:32] That's the best place to send them.
[1:34] I do see some of the questions that come in through the YouTube
[1:37] channel. Some of them come in through
[1:38] Spotify. It's much, much easier if you
[1:40] send them in viathehelp@oxygenaddict.com
[1:44] e-mail address. And then that way I can collect
[1:46] them all, put them into a folder and get to them 1 by 1.
[1:49] So if you're one of the people who sent those in, thanks very
[1:52] much, very much appreciated and hope the answers really help you
[1:56] out. I recognise that not everybody
[1:58] is going to want to go for full coaching and it's my way of
[2:02] being able to help people along the way.
[2:04] So something you could do to help me back if you wouldn't
[2:07] mind. There's two things actually.
[2:09] The first is if you enjoy this episode, please give us a follow
[2:12] on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. Give us a like, give us a good
[2:15] review if you've enjoyed it. That's really appreciated.
[2:18] All of those little things are a bit of a pain in the bum to do
[2:21] actually do help the show get shown to more people.
[2:24] So Spotify in particular these days works like a search engine.
[2:27] It will promote episodes to new listeners.
[2:29] It will do analysis of their audience and say, hey, people
[2:33] like this have listened to shows like this.
[2:35] So it might be that someone out there who's never heard of our
[2:37] show before gets gets sent this to listen to as an episode.
[2:42] Maybe it'll really help them out.
[2:43] So enjoy if it's your first listen, there's 10 years worth
[2:47] of episodes out here at this point, so feel free to dig in
[2:50] and go back into the archives and I hope it really helps.
[2:52] Second thing is if you're looking for help training for
[2:55] your first Iron Man on 70.3, please feel free to head on over
[2:58] and check out the coaching memberships at
[2:59] teamoxygenetic.com. I put together what I think is
[3:02] the most comprehensive triathlon coaching programme specifically
[3:06] designed for busy age group as people with families, people
[3:09] with jobs trying to juggle their career and their and their kids
[3:12] around trying to do an Iron Man. Have a look on Darren.
[3:15] If you're interested, there's a link in the show notes to book a
[3:18] membership call with me. We can spend 3045 minutes having
[3:22] a chat face to face over Zoom. See if you'd be a good fit for
[3:25] joining the team. Answer any of the questions that
[3:27] you've got. I can show you our training
[3:28] plans. I can show you our athlete
[3:30] communication app. I can talk you through how we do
[3:33] everything and essentially how it's going to help you out on
[3:36] your path to Iron Man and 70.3. So check that out and please
[3:39] book a call if you're interested, right.
[3:42] So with no further ado, let's jump into this week's questions
[3:45] then. So the first one is a question
[3:47] from one of our athletes. I'll leave this anonymous here.
[3:50] And it's regarding regarding bikes blitz and how hard to ride
[3:55] on race day. And the question says I'm
[3:57] confused about the information that I'm getting about how hard
[4:01] to ride on race day. I've used my last FTP test and
[4:05] events do all the relevant biometric and bike data, and
[4:08] I've been looking at the different levels of TSS.
[4:12] I can ride that. If I ride at 60% of FTP, my TSS
[4:16] will come in under 220. If I ride at 65%, it'll come in
[4:21] at 241. If I ride at 70%, it'll come in
[4:24] at 278. The thing that's confusing me
[4:27] though is it estimates my average speed to be at least 2
[4:31] miles an hour faster than it seems to be generating when I'm
[4:34] riding outside using these watts on the road.
[4:37] And as much as I'd love to think that their race numbers will be
[4:39] accurate, I fear I've got unrealistic expectations as to
[4:43] the times I'm going to do and I need to adjust.
[4:45] What are your thoughts on this? Right, so this is a really great
[4:48] question and this comes back to using some kind of software
[4:53] solution to help you understand how fast it's reasonable for you
[4:58] to ride the course you're going to do on race day and and most
[5:01] importantly, still have energy left to run a really good
[5:06] marathon. So the software solution we've
[5:09] been using recently is called best bike split.
[5:12] We're actually also developing our own proprietary software due
[5:17] to various things. I'll go into it another time,
[5:20] but we've, we've become very, very aware of how useful it is
[5:24] to be able to answer the question of an athlete, how fast
[5:27] or slow do I need to ride? Can I ride and still be able to
[5:31] run a good marathon? And I think that's the
[5:33] fundamental key question that you've got to sit with
[5:36] definitely if you're doing Iron Man and even less so if you're
[5:39] doing 70.3, but definitely at Iron Man.
[5:43] The way that you've got to see this event is you need to leave
[5:46] yourself enough energy to run a decent marathon and must the
[5:50] point to not be absolutely destroyed and exhausted and
[5:53] facing a marathon at the end of your day.
[5:56] If any of you have been to watch an Iron Man before you've taken
[6:00] part in one, you'll know that I would say at least half the
[6:05] field are walking at least half the marathon.
[6:08] And they're not doing it just because they're tired.
[6:11] They're doing it because they're in pain.
[6:13] And a lot of the time I don't think it's because they're not
[6:16] prepared correctly, and it's not because they haven't trained
[6:18] well enough to do it. It's because of pacing errors
[6:21] that they've made on the bike. And this simply comes down to
[6:24] the fact that it's extremely hard to judge how hard or easy
[6:29] you need to ride on the bike and still have energy left to run a
[6:32] good marathon. So science has come along,
[6:35] software solutions have come along and they've allowed us to
[6:37] model the aerodynamics of you on the bike and work out how
[6:42] quickly you can ride the bike and still maintain a reasonable
[6:46] level of of energy left for the marathon.
[6:50] So for those of you who understand, TSSI want you to
[6:53] think that your TSS budget is 280 points.
[6:56] If you don't know that TSS stands for Training Stress Score
[7:00] and what this is, is a number derived to get an accurate 1 you
[7:04] need it derived from a power metre.
[7:07] But it will take how how long you've ridden and how hard
[7:10] you've ridden relative to your own threshold level, your own
[7:14] FTP and your own body weight and it will work out.
[7:18] If you like a standardised score of Training stress and it will
[7:22] relate back to one hour, going flat out as an hour time trail
[7:28] on the bike will produce 100 Training Stress Score points.
[7:32] So one hour riding 100% of FTP will give you 100 points to give
[7:37] you a kind of finger in the air number.
[7:40] What we're looking at for most people is to be in the sort of
[7:43] 40 to 50 points per hour on the bike, depending on how long
[7:48] you're going to be out there for.
[7:49] So again, we're in this situation then where fitter,
[7:53] faster athletes who are going to complete the bike, like faster,
[7:56] can afford to ride harder than a slower, less fit athlete, and
[8:01] also can afford to ride relatively harder relative to
[8:05] their own FTP level because they're going to be finished
[8:08] with the bike leg sooner. So if we go back to a couple of
[8:11] extreme examples, if we use a professional who's going to be
[8:14] completing the bike leg in four hours, you'll probably find that
[8:17] they're riding at 8283% of their FTP.
[8:21] But crucially, they're still only going to be producing 280
[8:25] TSS points because they're finished in four hours.
[8:28] For an athlete who's at the slower end of the field, who's
[8:31] maybe doing 8/8 and 1/2 hour bike leg, they're going to have
[8:34] to be riding at a relatively lower percentage of their FTP
[8:38] because they're out there for twice as long.
[8:40] So in our first example of athlete who's doing 280 TSS in
[8:45] four hours, that's 140. In two hours, that's 70 TSS
[8:50] points an hour. For a slower athlete, they're
[8:52] probably going to be accumulating 35 or 40 points an
[8:55] hour. They have to do that in order to
[8:57] stay within this same budget because then they can go ahead
[9:00] and run a good marathon. Now we're at the point we've
[9:03] coached over 1000 Iron Man athletes, male and female, and
[9:08] every time we've looked at the numbers it comes back the same.
[9:10] If an athlete go significantly above that 280 number, then
[9:14] marathon is compromised relative to what their number said they
[9:17] could do in training. So we need to dial it down and
[9:19] keep that idea in the mind of 280 TSS.
[9:23] Great question athletes ask at this point is, well look, I
[9:26] haven't got a power metre, how am I going to work out TSS
[9:29] points just using a heart rate monitor?
[9:31] Well, it is possible, but it's just not as accurate.
[9:34] I'd say we're, we're introducing a margin of error here of 10 or
[9:37] 20%. Plus heart rate takes longer to
[9:39] respond to a hard effort and it it's slower to to reduce when
[9:44] you back off the power. So especially if you're riding a
[9:46] hilly course, just using heart rate is going to skew the TSS
[9:51] score, I think in the wrong direction.
[9:53] What we tend to see when someone's riding with a power
[9:55] metre is if you're on a very hilly, spiky course, your
[9:59] normalised power is going to be much above your average power.
[10:03] Heart rate monitor is not really going to show that in your
[10:05] numbers. So having a power metre on your
[10:07] outdoor bike is a massive, massive bonus.
[10:09] Now I'd highly recommend if you've got the budget for it, go
[10:12] ahead and get yourself one of those, Get it as far ahead of
[10:14] race day as you can and train with it and get used to using it
[10:17] because it's going to give you this accurate feedback.
[10:20] What it will then show you in training is if you go out and
[10:23] you do 108 K in training and you do it at what you think you can
[10:28] sort of sustain on race day. If you come back and your TSS
[10:31] score is 350 or 400, it isn't a question of whether you feel you
[10:36] could continue to run well off that.
[10:38] You're just not going to be able to.
[10:39] It's a simple fact. You've gone too hard on the
[10:41] bike. You are going to blow up in the
[10:43] marathon. I can say that with a 99%
[10:45] certainty. So athletes, you've come back to
[10:47] us and said, oh, I think there's a problem here.
[10:49] I've gone and done my long ride, I've ridden 180K, I've come back
[10:51] at 3:50. Well, the answer is you've
[10:54] ridden too hard and you need to ride a lower relative percentage
[10:57] of your FTP. And one of the unfortunate
[11:00] things from an athlete point of view is often an athlete comes
[11:04] to us and says, I want to ride 5 hours 20 on the bike and then
[11:09] run a good marathon. Tell me how to train so that I
[11:13] can do a five hour 20 bikes. But or you know, whatever, pick
[11:15] a number here. And the reality is we can set a
[11:18] training plan and we can get the athletes do the training plan
[11:21] and they're going to progress through the training plan as
[11:24] quickly as their Physiology allows.
[11:26] And they'll adapt to the training and improve in in
[11:28] fitness as quickly as their Physiology allows.
[11:32] But it isn't possible to say I'm training to a five hour 20 bike
[11:35] leg because what's going to determine how fast you can go on
[11:39] race day is simply being sensible around trying to use
[11:43] the fitness. You've got to save enough energy
[11:46] to run a good marathon. And I'd really encourage people
[11:49] to do that. Don't have a target on the time
[11:51] for the bike leg. Have a target on the bike leg
[11:54] for a controlled TSS score of 280 or less.
[11:57] And then that way you can run a really good marathon no matter
[12:00] what the time comes back as you will run a really good marathon.
[12:04] Now to get into the specifics of our athletes question here,
[12:08] they've they've run the numbers through best bike split.
[12:12] It says 70% of FTP. I'm going to score 278 TSS.
[12:16] So that's in the right ballpark for the athlete.
[12:19] And then the the next nuanced part of the question is it
[12:22] estimates that my average speed is going to be at least 2 miles
[12:25] an hour faster than I seem to generate using these watts on
[12:29] the road at the moment. Is that realistic?
[12:32] So that's a really common question.
[12:34] And what I would say here is we do tend to see athletes go much
[12:37] faster on race day than they have gone in training.
[12:40] Some of that is down to the way best bikes split is going to
[12:43] make assumptions. So you can, you can adjust some
[12:46] things in best bikes, but you can adjust the sliders and you
[12:49] can reduce your aerodynamic coefficient of efficiency.
[12:52] You can reduce, you can increase the rolling resistance.
[12:56] You can do all these things that that kind of mean your speed is
[13:00] a bit more aligned with what you'll see.
[13:01] But I'd caution you here because on race day, the big thing that
[13:05] we see is the effect of managed junctions, meaning you never
[13:10] have to slow down and stop at a junction massively increases an
[13:13] athlete's average speed. Just the fact that you never
[13:17] have to slow down. Obviously you need to, you need
[13:19] to check and look right, but there's going to be Marshalls
[13:21] there. Often the roads will be closed.
[13:23] That has a really, really big effect on your average speed.
[13:26] Also on racing, you're going to be able to do smart stuff.
[13:28] You're going to be able to change your tyres to race tyres,
[13:31] you're going to be able to run them tubeless, You're going to
[13:33] be able to swap to different kinds of inner tubes.
[13:35] That will reduce the rolling resistance significantly and
[13:38] give you a boost. Race day you will be wearing a
[13:41] skin tight Tri suit. On race day that you probably
[13:44] are not wearing in training. You're going to have your arrow
[13:47] helmet on. All of these things will
[13:49] significantly contribute to the speed and honestly, it isn't
[13:52] unrealistic to see an athlete go 2 miles an hour faster on race
[13:56] day than they have been doing in training due to a combination of
[13:58] all of these factors. Now if you want to air on the
[14:01] side of caution, that's absolutely fine.
[14:04] In this athletes case, I think I advise splitting the difference
[14:06] and saying look, let's say your average speed will be one mile
[14:09] an hour faster than you're currently seeing.
[14:11] That gives you a little bit of a gap.
[14:13] Let's dial it back from 70% down to 6867%.
[14:17] You're still then going to be confident that you're coming in
[14:20] under that 280 TSS budget. But the key thing is to go to
[14:24] the software and run the numbers and then you'll see, having
[14:28] entered your body weight, your bike, your tyre combination, all
[14:32] of the things it will ask you to contribute, you'll get a
[14:35] realistic expectation of how fast you can be expected to go
[14:38] on race day. And if it comes out about where
[14:42] you think you'll be great. But if it's significantly
[14:44] faster, well, that gives you a little bit more leeway to play
[14:47] with in terms of how much power you can push on race day.
[14:51] If it's significantly slower, and here it tends to be,
[14:54] athletes on Hillier courses have a bit of a rude awakening ago.
[14:57] You know, if you're going to Iron Man Wales, it's quite
[14:59] common for an athlete to come back and say hang on, I've run
[15:02] the numbers and it looks like it's going to take me 45 minutes
[15:05] or an hour longer on race day with the current power numbers
[15:08] that I've got. Is that right?
[15:10] I'd much rather an athlete realises this 6810 weeks ahead
[15:14] of race day, then realises it two weeks ahead of race day
[15:18] because you've got the time to train.
[15:20] And frankly, you can then go out and make sure that the length of
[15:22] your long ride is appropriate to how long you're going to be out
[15:25] there on race day. So I hope that helps.
[15:30] Question 2 leads on from this a little bit.
[15:33] So it says, I see I've got an outdoor FTP test scheduled next
[15:37] week. I haven't yet got my new Tri
[15:40] bike fitted. So I'll be doing this outdoor
[15:42] FTP test on my road bike without arrow bars.
[15:45] Until now, I've been doing my indoor tests on my what bike in
[15:49] the arrow position. Presumably the different bike
[15:52] and position will result in significantly different FTP
[15:56] results. What should I do?
[15:58] Should I still complete the test outdoors or should they do
[16:00] another indoors? So it's a great test and it
[16:03] brings to light a couple of points we need to talk about.
[16:06] The first thing is different power metres measure power
[16:09] differently. So if you're an athlete who's
[16:11] riding on a what bike indoors and then a different bike
[16:14] outdoors with a power metre on, those two power metres are going
[16:18] to measure power differently. Sometimes they might be the
[16:22] same, but sometimes they might be 10/20/30 watts different.
[16:26] It's not an error in either of the power metres as long as they
[16:30] are accurate and repeatable to themselves.
[16:32] That's all that you're looking for here.
[16:34] But it's very, very rare that two different power metres read
[16:37] power the same. So if you're moving from, you
[16:40] know, a what bike or a kicker indoors to your outdoor bike
[16:42] with an outdoor power metre, those power metres will measure
[16:45] differently. So you need to have a measure of
[16:47] what the difference is, what the delta is there.
[16:50] And secondly, most people find that the power they can put out
[16:55] in a 20 minute outdoor FTP test is different to what they can
[16:59] put out indoors in a 20 minute FTP test.
[17:03] So it's well worth doing an FTP test outdoors on the bike you're
[17:07] going to be training on and the position you're going to be
[17:09] training in so that you've got something to measure those
[17:12] numbers to. Relatively, and I've talked
[17:14] about this before from my own experience, I had somewhere in
[17:17] the region of 30 or 40 watts less outdoors in my arrow
[17:21] position than I had indoors in my arrow position.
[17:24] I just couldn't put the power out outdoors.
[17:27] I still went plenty fast, but it's a hit to the ego to see in
[17:31] my in my case, the number was like 28290 indoors and it was
[17:35] like 240-2250 outdoors. So if I had tried to ride
[17:41] outdoors to the same numbers that I'd measured indoors, it
[17:44] would have been catastrophe for me because I just wouldn't have
[17:46] been able to put those numbers out.
[17:47] Similarly, I could put out much more power in a road bike than I
[17:50] could in the TT bikes. If I was riding outdoors with
[17:53] people, I was looking at my power metre on the road bike in
[17:56] a in a kind of competitive group ride situation.
[18:00] Again, my numbers would be much more similar and I would know I
[18:03] could be putting out 28290 at threshold outdoors on the road
[18:07] bike. Whereas if I was riding on the
[18:09] TT bike it would be more like 24250.
[18:12] So it's important to know those numbers.
[18:14] So what I would say to you all is as you get to the point in
[18:18] the season where you start to transition to be doing these
[18:21] rides outdoors, give yourself a window to go and do a test
[18:25] outdoors and find out what your number is.
[18:27] Because then you've got something accurate to train to.
[18:29] Because what you don't want to be doing is turning yourself
[18:31] inside out and trying to push 20-30 more watts than is
[18:36] reasonable for your Physiology simply because you're an athlete
[18:40] who puts out less power outdoors.
[18:42] OK, I wouldn't say it's 100% necessary to get outdoors and do
[18:46] an outdoor FTP test in the arrow position right now if you're,
[18:49] you know, if you're not racing till August or September, but
[18:54] the more data points you can collect along the way, the more
[18:57] you're going to be able to think, right?
[18:59] Well, OK, indoors I'm at this number.
[19:01] Outdoors I'm at this number. In the arrow position, I'm at
[19:04] this number. Relative to the road bike, I'm
[19:06] at this number. All of those numbers are going
[19:08] to be to a greater or lesser extent different.
[19:12] So learn what they are for you and then you can go and you can,
[19:16] you know, you can take it from that point forward.
[19:18] But I really encourage you to do that because the last thing you
[19:21] want to do is to swap over onto a different bike in a different
[19:24] power metre really close to race day and have that be the thing
[19:27] that skews your numbers. All right, at this point, if I'm
[19:29] going to give a shout out to our sponsors, Precision Fuel and
[19:31] hydration.com, you can use that free fuel and hydration planning
[19:35] tool on the website to receive a personalised strategy for your
[19:38] next race. And you can then practise this
[19:40] in training. The planners going to help you
[19:42] understand your own carbohydrate, electrolyte and
[19:45] fluid needs. They are the three levers that
[19:47] you can pull to to help improve and maintain your performance as
[19:51] you're riding. And honestly, I really believe
[19:54] this fluid, electrolyte and carbohydrate needs on race day
[19:58] are as important to your success as getting the training right,
[20:02] especially at the Iron Man different distance, and
[20:05] especially if you're racing in the heat.
[20:08] You need to be monitoring this stuff in training because it's
[20:10] not always going to be the same. You fluid and electrolytes are
[20:12] going to vary depending on how hot it is outdoors.
[20:15] So you need to be monitoring this in your training sessions
[20:19] and making adjustments so you know if it's, you know, much
[20:23] hotter or much cooler than usual on race day, you'll know how
[20:26] your body needs to adjust. Similarly, evidence is now
[20:29] showing that carbohydrate intake is trainable.
[20:32] So if you're a person who hasn't ever tracked how much
[20:35] carbohydrate they're taking in, you're setting yourself up for
[20:38] failure on race day. Start to record how much you're
[20:41] taking in in each of your long rides.
[20:43] See if you can increase that by 5 grammes of carbs per hour and
[20:47] gradually increase the amount that you're taking in so that
[20:49] your body learns to process it. Essentially, you're going to
[20:52] have more energy available to you come race day.
[20:55] You can even book a free one to one video consultation with PF
[20:58] and HS Athlete support team. And if you decide to make a
[21:01] purchase, you can use the code Oxygen 26.
[21:04] Genuinely love this company. They've worked with us for over
[21:07] 10 years at this point. Andy Blow and the team at PFHI
[21:10] think have created a product that solves a real massive
[21:14] fundamental problem that Iron Man athletes face.
[21:17] If you don't get it right, you're possibly not even going
[21:20] to finish on race day. So it's a genuine thing.
[21:23] I'm not shilling a product. I'm saying to you, you need a
[21:26] strategy. And regardless of whether you
[21:28] use their products or not, you will go so much better on race
[21:31] day. If you have a strategy for
[21:33] fluid, electrolytes and carbohydrate intake.
[21:36] Again, you can use the code oxygen 26 for 15% off your first
[21:39] order. OK Next up then question 3.
[21:43] Going forwards I'm going to be swapping from my Wahoo power
[21:47] metre on the kicker to a crank power metre on my TT bike.
[21:52] Should I gauge by feel whether the numbers align?
[21:55] Actually this question I answered in the previous in the
[21:57] previous question, haven't I? So again, just reiterate they're
[22:00] going to measure differently. So the two ways to do this is,
[22:04] yes, you can gauge by feel whether the two of them are the
[22:06] same. I'd have you go away and do an
[22:08] FTP test in this particular instance where you've got a TT
[22:12] bike with a crank power metre, even if it was a TT bike with
[22:15] pedal power metre, any kind of power metre on the TT bike.
[22:19] Stick that on your Wahoo Kicker. Have the kicker transmit its
[22:23] power data to Swift, you can see the number on the screen.
[22:27] Have your TT bikes power metre transmit its power data to your
[22:32] Garmin head unit and compare what the two do as you just ride
[22:37] along. So you can clearly see, and
[22:39] again, personal experience here, there's a 15 Watt difference
[22:42] between the power metre on my bike and the numbers that come
[22:45] out of the Wahoo. So I have to make that
[22:47] adjustment. If I'm riding on Swift and I'm
[22:50] looking at the Swift numbers, those numbers are 15 watts lower
[22:54] than the numbers that I see riding from my actual bikes
[22:58] power metre. But the key is they're
[23:00] consistently different, so they're repeatable.
[23:03] So that's OK. It doesn't matter.
[23:04] One's measuring slightly higher than the other.
[23:07] It just means that I know that if I'm reading the power from my
[23:10] TT bike, I've got 15 more watts essentially, and I need to make
[23:13] those corrections. Next question, I need some help
[23:18] climbing on the bike and I need some help about which gear I
[23:22] should be in. Many a time I've seen other
[23:25] cyclists overtake me and I'm confused as to whether I should
[23:30] be peddling faster to increase the RPM to achieve a specific
[23:34] wattage, or should I be peddling slower and pushing a bigger gear
[23:39] and therefore harder to end up with the same power?
[23:43] How do I know what cadence I should be riding at?
[23:46] OK, so this is a really good question and it's one that
[23:49] athletes new to cycling really struggle with.
[23:51] We shouldn't assume people have knowledge about this.
[23:54] So first up, what I would say to people who are relatively new to
[23:57] cycling is the rules that form fits function is usually the
[24:01] right one here. And what I mean by that is
[24:04] whatever you feel comfortable at is probably right for your body.
[24:09] And we tend to see a spectrum between smaller, slighter, less
[24:16] muscular athletes being more comfortable pushing a slightly
[24:20] faster cadence and using slightly easier gearing.
[24:24] And at the other end of the spectrum, we tend to see bigger,
[24:28] more muscular, more powerful athletes more comfortable
[24:31] pushing a harder gear at a lower cadence.
[24:36] So all things being equal, if they're putting out the same
[24:38] percentage of FTP, that smaller slighter athlete is going to be
[24:42] more comfortable at a slightly higher RPM, the bigger athletes
[24:45] going to be more comfortable at a slightly lower RPM.
[24:48] And let's put some numbers on it.
[24:49] We'll probably see that the smaller slighter athlete is more
[24:52] comfortable at or around 85 to 95.
[24:56] We'll probably see that our bigger, more muscular athletes
[24:59] are more comfortable at 70 to 80.
[25:03] So there's a different serifs of 10 to 20 reps a minute where
[25:06] they're comfortable. Now we can approach this in two
[25:08] ways. We can say that's where you're
[25:11] comfortable and that's fine and that's a great starting point.
[25:14] But the next thing to think of is how do we go about affecting
[25:19] different parts of the athletes Physiology to help them out?
[25:22] So in the case of the smaller slider athlete, it's usually a
[25:26] good idea to get them to do some specific training sessions,
[25:31] pushing a bigger gear than they used to, to get a little bit
[25:34] more muscular force in the legs to develop that feeling of what
[25:38] might have been called strength. But essentially it's pushing
[25:40] more force into the into the pedals because if we can broaden
[25:44] that range of cadence that you're comfortable at, you're
[25:48] going to be more efficient on race day.
[25:49] It means as you go over rolling hills, don't have to change down
[25:52] gears all the time, it just gives you a little bit of a a
[25:55] wider range to be able to push through.
[25:57] Similarly, with our bigger, more powerful athletes, it's good for
[26:01] them to practise changing into a slightly easier gear and
[26:05] spinning a slightly faster cadence than they used to
[26:08] because that's going to give them a wider range of cadences.
[26:11] It's going to give them some more options going uphill.
[26:14] And in general, I want you to think that especially for our
[26:17] stronger, more powerful athlete, if we can reduce the amount of
[26:21] force that your muscles have to push, especially when you're
[26:23] climbing, we're going to save you from muscular fatigue for
[26:27] the run. That's how to think of it.
[26:28] So if you're really comfortable grinding along at 55 Revs a
[26:32] minute, if we can, we can dial that back to 65 Revs a minute,
[26:36] 70 Revs a minute. It just means with every
[26:38] revolution that you're turning, you're pushing more force and,
[26:41] and those really high force reps tend to be the things that
[26:45] create the kind of fatigue that work against you running really
[26:47] well. So if you want to be able to run
[26:51] a little bit better, then maybe there's a tendency there to to
[26:53] tend towards that slightly higher cadence.
[26:57] That's the way to think about it.
[26:58] So if you can train yourself to be a little bit more comfortable
[27:02] spinning the bike, spinning the pedals a little bit faster, it's
[27:05] going to help you run. Certainly towards the end of
[27:07] your bike leg on race day. I think it's a great idea for
[27:10] the last few minutes of a bike leg for you to change the gears
[27:13] so that your cadence is a little bit higher than it has been.
[27:17] So think about your running cadence being about 9090 steps a
[27:21] minute. Think of it like that.
[27:22] If you can get your body used to that kind of turnover, it's
[27:25] going to get you in the sort of the mindset and get your body
[27:28] used to the idea that that's the turnover you're going to be
[27:30] looking for as you go onto the run.
[27:32] Makes that transition just a little bit easier.
[27:35] OK, next question added on from the same athlete.
[27:38] I really need to understand when to use the small chain ring
[27:40] opposed to the large one when cycling on the flat and on the
[27:43] hills. And so again, a really simple
[27:45] rule of thumb in here is let's have you right in the big ring
[27:48] on the flat. Let's have you change down to
[27:50] the small ring when you're going up a hill where you feel there's
[27:54] a significant increase in force in your legs.
[27:56] So use the big ring on the flats, use the small ring as you
[27:59] go into the hill to keep that really, really simple.
[28:01] And then adding on from this, should I ideally be sitting down
[28:06] when cycling steep inclines or should I be out of the saddle?
[28:09] So what I would say here is if there's a really steep incline,
[28:13] most people are going to find that they're going to be more
[28:16] comfortable out of the saddle. If you've got a longer shallower
[28:19] hill, you've got a lot to benefit from being able to ride
[28:22] that in the saddle. But for the really steep ones,
[28:25] you've just got a different mechanical leverage over the
[28:28] gears if you're out of the saddle and get yourself out the
[28:30] saddle to be able to climb that up.
[28:32] Now caveat, that isn't to say you should be pushing as hard as
[28:35] you can to get up the hill. You might need to do that in the
[28:39] early days if you're cycling, if it's really steep.
[28:41] And there are always going to be some hills that are so steep you
[28:44] basically have to do whatever you need to do to get up the
[28:47] hill. But I'd encourage you to try and
[28:50] ride those really steep hills with your marathon in mind, with
[28:55] the run in mind. Even in training, you don't want
[28:59] to be riding it as if you're watching the Tour de France and
[29:02] watching the two lead cyclists attack each other.
[29:04] You don't want to be going really hard up the hills.
[29:07] You really want to be riding them within yourself and as easy
[29:10] as possible to reduce the effect of force you're pushing through
[29:13] your quads in order to save that for the run, essentially.
[29:17] So there we go. Hope that helps.
[29:19] OK, that brings us to the end of this week's episode.
[29:22] We'll wrap this up. Here are some discount codes and
[29:24] deals for you. Over at
[29:25] precisionfuelandhydration.com. Use the code Oxygen 26 for 15%
[29:30] of your first electrolyte order. And at teamoxygenaddict.com, if
[29:34] you're interested in getting some coaching to help you
[29:36] through your Iron Man or 70.3, I think we've got the most
[29:38] comprehensive programme specifically designed for busy
[29:41] age groupers, balancing family life, work life, trying to do
[29:45] the awesome thing without it pulling your life apart.
[29:48] So if you're interested, there's a link in the show notes.
[29:51] You can book a membership call with me and we'll have a chat
[29:53] and see if you'd be a good fit for joining the team.
[29:55] So until next week, I hope you have a great safe training and
[29:59] racing week. I'm coach Rob Wilby and you've
[30:01] been listening to the Oxygen Addict Triathlon Podcast.

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