TriDot Podcast .202

Stroke, Spin, & Stride At Your Optimal Cadence 

Intro:This is the TriDot podcast. TriDot uses your training data and genetic profile,combined with predictive analytics and artificial intelligence to optimize yourtraining, giving you better results in less time with fewer injuries. Ourpodcast is here to educate, inspire, and entertain. We’ll talk all thingstriathlon with expert coaches and special guests. Join the conversation andlet’s improve together.

 

Andrew Harley: Hey, everyone, welcome to the TriDot podcast! We're talking all aboutcadence today, with two TriDot coaches teaching us everything we need to knowabout the rate at which our limbs spin their way through the swim, bike, andrun. The first coach here to guide us in this conversation about cadence isCoach José Ramón Callén. Coach José is the founder and lead coach at JoserraTraining based out of Huesca, Spain. He's an Ironman Certified Coach and has auniversity degree in sports science. José serves as TriDot’s market leader inthe country of Spain, spreading the word about TriDot and bringing new coachesand athletes to the TriDot family. He himself is a 28-time time Ironmanfinisher, who is equally passionate about seeing his own athletes cross thefinish line. José, a big welcome to your first appearance with us here on theTriDot podcast!

 

José Ramón Callén: Hi, Andrew. Thank you, thank you, thank youvery much for having me. It's a pleasure to be part of your show and do it withyou and with the one and only Jeff Raines, so I feel very, very, very happy.Before we start, I want to take advantage of this moment to say to youcongratulations on your job, because I think it's offering every weekhigh-quality content and that helps our triathlon community of athletes andcoaches. So thank you very much and congratulations, and today for me, it's adream come true.

 

Andrew:Also with us, as José alluded to, is Coach Jeff Raines. Jeff is a USAT Level 2and Ironman U Certified Coach, and A TriDot Master Coach, who has a Master ofScience and Exercise Physiology and was a D1 collegiate runner. He has over 60Ironman event finishes to his credit, and has coached hundreds of athletes tothe Ironman finish line. Jeff has been training and coaching with TriDot since2015. Hey there Jeff!

 

Jeff Raines: Hey, Andrew! Excited to record today with Joserra from Spain. I'veactually had the pleasure of meeting him in person when he came to the statesto our Houston TriDot Pool School. I was actually his lane instructor, and wewere able to hang out a lot that weekend. I'll also be seeing him again inperson in Nice, France coming up here very, very soon, so I can't wait to seeyou again in person, José.

 

José:Thank you very much, likewise. Thank you very much.

 

Andrew:Well, I am Andrew the Average Triathlete, Voice of the People and Captain ofthe Middle of the Pack. As always, we'll roll through our warm up question,settle in for our main set conversation about cadence, and then wind thingsdown on our cool down with Vanessa interviewing a TriDot coach.

 

We'vehad sports scientist Andy Blow from Precision Fuel and Hydration on the showquite a few times to help you nail your hydration and fueling strategy fortraining and racing. We've learned from Andy that you'll need to replace aportion of your carb, electrolyte, and fluid losses with what you eat anddrink, if you want to perform at your best. So Andy and the team at PrecisionFuel and Hydration have developed a Fuel Planner so that you can take theguesswork out of your race nutrition plan. Head over to precisionfuelandhydration.com to take the Fuel Planner and get your free personalized race nutritionstrategy. From there you can book a call with PF&H's athlete support teamto refine your strategy, and don't forget that TriDot listeners can get 10% offtheir first order of electrolytes and fueling products by using the code TRI23at the checkout at precisionfuelandhydration.com.

 

Warm up theme: Time to warm up! Let’s get moving.

 

Andrew:For our warm up question today, I have a triathlon “would you rather question”.These are always fun. Let's see what you gentlemen think of here. Would yourather race your next A race – which I believe for both of you guys is Nice,France – would you rather race that a race swimming in a wetsuit you've neverused before, riding a bike you've never ridden before, running in shoes you'venever worn before, or fueling with nutrition that you've never tried before?Coach José, it is your first time on the show today. What is your answer tothis “would you rather?”

 

José:To solve this question, I always wonder what's first – internal factors orexternal factors? What's first, physiology or gear? I think during an Ironman,Ironman 70.3, all kinds of races, we have many things that we can control, butwe have many things that we cannot control. At least, talking about physiology,something that is key to swim, bike, and run, nutrition is the closest part ofthe of the physiology to keep advancing, to have energy, to have liquids, tohave salt intake. So I would prefer always to be one hundred percent sure thatmy nutrition is one that I've been testing every single day during the specificpart of the season. Okay, gear always is gear. You can adapt maybe, you willreduce your speed, maybe you will have different feelings, but for surenutrition for me is number one.

 

Andrew:Okay, so that's the one that you would definitely want to have your own. Sobetween a new wetsuit, new running shoes, or a new bike, which one of thosethree would you rather have the brand new on race day?

 

José:Brand new. I prefer riding the bike.

 

Andrew:Yeah, and actually, José, that's my answer here, because I mean, how often doyou get the chance to ride a different bike? There's some really good bikes outthere. I love my Dimond Marquis and my Dimond Radiant road bike, but if youhave the chance to jump on a different bike just to see – you know, everysingle bike kind of has a different personality, a different feel, and just tokind of get to know a different brand and a different bike, is always kind offun. You don't normally get that opportunity unless you pay money to rent it.So my answer here is the bike. If I have to do something new on race daybetween these options, I would rather be riding a different bike, just as longas I can get the fit close to my fit, I feel like it would go relatively okay,maybe, probably. I'm not a great swimmer, so I'd rather have my own wetsuit.I'm picky about run shoes, so I'd rather be in my own run shoes. I agree withJosé's logic on the nutrition. I want my UCAN, I want my Precision Fuel &Hydration, so I'm going with you on the bike here. Coach Jeff Raines, are youagreeing with us, or would you rather have a different input be new on raceday?

 

Jeff:I am completely different than you guys, and I cannot believe your answer isnot my answer, and this is why. My official answer is the wetsuit. Because abike, like if my A race was a full-distance Ironman and I've never ridden thatbike before, that's a long time to potentially be uncomfortable. Kind of thesame thing with the run, if I haven't worn those shoes before, I might get ablister. So my answer is the wetsuit. I would rather do an Ironman in a wetsuitI've never worn before – because if it's a little off, the shortest portion ofany distance triathlon is the swim portion – so if I'm uncomfortable, I get itout of the way early. A short, sweet swim, and then I get all my good gear andstuff for the rest of the day.

 

Andrew:Make sure you're a part of the I am TriDot Facebook group. I'm going to posethis question today, the Monday this episode is going out, and we're going toask our community – would you rather do your next a race with a bike you'venever ridden before, shoes you’ve never run in before, a wetsuit you've neverswam in before, or nutrition you've never eaten or drunk before? I can't waitto see what you, our community, has to say.

 

Main set theme: On to the main set. Going in 3…2…1…

 

Andrew:We are thrilled to have Sailfish as the swim partner of TriDot Training.Sailfish was founded in 2007 by Jan Sibbersen, who was on the national Germanteam, and is the fastest swimmer to ever hit the waters of Ironman. TheSailfish mission is to create premium triathlon and open-water swim products.They offer swim skins, tri suits, and swim accessories, but the core of theSailfish product line are their award-winning wetsuits. Known for theiroutstanding flexibility, balance, buoyancy, and distinguished glidingproperties in the water, Sailfish wetsuits are truly made to make you faster.That certainly has been the case for me. I’ve swum in many different brands ofwetsuits over the years, and my Sailfish is the very first one that I put on,got into the water, and clocked swim splits I had no business hitting on myown. For me, it was truly love at first stroke. With several models and pricepoints, there for sure will be a Sailfish wetsuit that is right for you. Headto sailfish.com to checkout all the neoprene goodness, and use SFC-TRIDOT20 at checkout for 20% offyour new wetsuit.

 

Whetherwe are swimming, biking, or running our legs and arms spin around at a certainrate to help us move forward. The rate at which they spin is referred to as ourcadence. On your Garmin workout report, it may manifest as stroke rate, RPM, orsteps per minute depending on the sport. But don't be fooled, all of thoseterms are just different forms of measuring your cadence across all threedisciplines. And here to teach us everything triathletes need to know aboutcadence is Coach José and Coach Jeff. Now José, it is your first time with uson the show, so let's open the main set today with just a little “get to knowCoach José”. Tell us just briefly how you got into the sport of triathlon inthe first place, and give us some of the highlights from your triathlon career.

 

José:Yes, it was back in 1994. One day I was walking in the streets of my littletown here in the north of Spain, in Huesca, close to the Pyrenees, the bigmountains of my country, close to France. So I was walking and I met one of myteachers at high school, and he told me, “Okay, but you know, you are alwaysswimming, biking, running. You are always doing some kind of activity. You areso active. Why don't you try the triathlon?” And I said, “Okay, what'striathlon?” Because you know in 1994, it was unknown. Nobody was doingtriathlons. So I started doing some meetings with two guys that were startingthe triathlon team here in Huesca, and one year later, 1995, I did my veryfirst Olympic-distance triathlon in San Sebastian in the north of Spain. It wasvery nice, because this same year, Mark Allen won the sixth Ironman WorldChampionship of his career.

 

Andrew:Yes, he did. Yeah.

 

José:So I discovered Ironman Hawaii, Kona, Mark Allen, all these big names. And itwas like, “Okay, I would like to do an Ironman someday.” At this moment I wasstudying at university. So for me, the first thing was to study to be the beststudent possible, so my focus was on the degree, and at this moment I have timeenough to prepare for sprint and Olympic-distance triathlons. So I did allthese years the Olympic and sprint triathlons, and once I finished in 2002, Isaid, “Okay, it's my time, I will do my first Ironman.” I did Ironman Lanzarotehere in Spain, one of the most beautiful places in the world, and it wasamazing, actually. It was really beautiful, because all the process to preparefor the Ironman, all the feelings and the knowledge of course – because back in2002 everything was new. We didn't have triathlon coaches. We didn't havespecific triathlon bikes. It was everything new. Nutrition was new for us. Soit was nice discovering, and race day was the perfection. So I enjoyed a lotrace day, and one meter after the finish line, I promised myself, “Okay, fromthis moment on, I will do at least one Ironman every year.” And so far, fromthis moment, I've finished 28 Ironmans all around the world, including Kona,including Ironman World Championship Saint George. The most beautiful thing isthat now I’m training for the 28^th, it will be in Ironman Californianext October, and I'm very excited because I will meet there many of thetriathlon team and the TriDot triathletes. So it will be a very nice moment,which is very, very, very nice and I feel so proud, that every single day thatI wake up – and this is every single day – I go to do my TriDot training, andit's like, “Okay, I'm happy. I'm doing what I love to do.” It doesn't matter ifI do one Ironman, two Ironmans, three Ironmans, or 28 Ironmans, I love thislifestyle. I think this is the best way to keep training, to keep enjoying thislifestyle, and of course to share this lifestyle with my athletes. Because atthe end, for me, it's very nice to help other athletes to feel and to live andto have the same passion and the same big day when they are racing Ironman orIronman 70.3.

 

Andrew:All right. Well, it's been great to get to know José, and we will certainlyhave you on the podcast again, because you are a very knowledgeable andqualified coach. I just wanted to give our reoccurring audience a chance to getto know you a little bit before we talk about cadence. So let's talk aboutthat. Let's talk about our legs and our arms ,and the way that they move,starting in the water. Our cadence in the water is typically referred to as ourstroke rate. Jeff, José, what is stroke rate, and what are we looking for inthat number? Coach Jeff Raines, we'll start with you on this one. What is agood stroke rate? I mean, folks finish their swim workout, they pull out theirGarmin information, they see their stroke rate, and they're like, “Is thisgood? I don't know.” Talk to us about it.

 

Jeff:There's a couple of layers to that. I'll start very basic. Stroke rate is thenumber of strokes you take total per minute, counting each arm cycle. So rightand left each taking a stroke would be two strokes. Most wearables andmultisport watches will measure and show a stroke rate per minute average. Ithink that's the number you're referring to there, Andrew, and really whatyou're looking for is efficiency first, finding that perfect balance of effortand speed. So SWOLF is a number that you might see on some of those Garmindevices. It's a swim-specific kind of a score metric that Garmin devices willshow. It's kind of related to golf, it's to help you see the value of yourstroke rate as it relates to distance per stroke, versus the stroke rate andgetting the most out of each stroke. So kind of like in golf, the lower thescore the better, and so the lower that SWOLF score, it would show that onetravels far per stroke, and that can be compared and coinciding to speed andpace per hundred. So lower stroke rates are not always the goal, but for abeginner swimmer, I think lower stroke rates can show you how efficient you arein the water. You're getting a lot of distance per stroke. That's why lanelines in the pool are multi-colored. It's for a coach to see if you are gettingmore distance per stroke, maybe on one side more than the other side, thingslike that. But anyways, low swim stroke rates may show that one is moreefficient in the water, but once that body balancing is mastered, there is a pointwhere increasing your stroke rate can and will make one swim faster. But therecan be a cost, so you have to be careful. If higher stroke rates might be good,then is as high as possible better? No, not necessarily. I will just say,approximately your last 30% of the underwater stroke is called that finishphase of the stroke, and you want to get the majority of that finish phase. Soyou don't want to bail out early and not take advantage of that portion of thestroke. Many increase their efforts and also their stroke rates, thinking thatthey'll increase their speed, and they just start spinning their arms faster.They give more effort, but they actually swim slower. This is because they'repotentially bailing out early in that finish phase of the stroke, and throwingwater up to the sky, and losing that propulsion that they have built in thatmiddle diagonal phase or that propulsive phase. But anyways, water againstwater is speed in swimming, not water against air. So now to answer yourquestion, I find that for most, 50 to 60 strokes per minute tends to be thefastest that most upper age-groupers can maybe swing their arms for long courseracing and still get the majority of that finish phase of the strokeeffectively. And I have to throw this out there, because this is the key andthis is the real answer. The key is to get faster and more efficient at lowerswim cadences, then slowly over time, work your way up and not rush theprocess. Just because you hear or read that slightly higher stroke rates canmake you swim faster, doesn't necessarily mean that it's true for you in thatmoment of your swim career.

 

Andrew:Perhaps the swim is the one area where there's other things going on to lookat, right? There’s the SWOLF score, there's the distance per stroke. I thinkthere's less emphasis on having a particular cadence, because there's a lotmore to the picture. José, when you talk to your athletes about their strokerate and some of these other metrics like distance per stroke they're covering,what are you looking for in the data with your athletes?

 

José:First of all, I like to mention and to explain to my athletes that the strokesper minute is the number of opportunities that they have to move forward.

 

Andrew:Hmm, interesting.

 

José:This way they focus on every single movement, so every single movement that youare doing when you are swimming is key. There are no movements that are notimportant. So before starting with the process to know exactly the number ofstrokes per minute, we need to talk about technique. And for this reason –since I went to Houston and I had the great opportunity to meet Jeff, to havethe lessons from him and Jeff Booher – I highly recommend TriDot Pool School toevery single triathlete, every single swimmer. Because it doesn't matter thelevel of fitness that they have, they will improve, and most importantly, theywill be more efficient. The technique will be better. So first, focus on yourtechnique, let's do the correct movements when you are in the water. I thinksomething very, very nice to work is to find the exact tempo for every singleswimmer. For this reason I always work with my triathletes with the tempotrainer. A tempo trainer is a very, very small little device, it’s very easy tofind. It gives you the opportunity to constantly swim at that exact strokes perminute. It's a very small device you put between your head and your swimmingcap, and then it starts signaling you the times that you are doing everymovement, so that you just need to focus on your technique and at the same timerepeat the number of beats that you are listening to. So with this in mind, wego to the pool and then for different intensities we'll start working, trying,as Jeff said, to find the best balance between, “This is my upper limit, andthis is my lower limit.” Because we need to balance between the speed, thetechnique, and at the same time the stroke rate. I remember during the summerof the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, I was working in the High Performance AthleticCenter, in Barcelona with the Laboratory of Physiology. It was very nice to seeall the professional athletes – swimmers, triathletes, athletes , everybody –and when we went to the pool to do some assessments with them, it was very nicebecause the coach on deck had the decision to stop the number of repetitionsthat they did when they were swimming at race pace, when the technique or thestroke rate was bad. So there is no way that this swimmer can improve his orher performance if he is not using the correct technique, or is not swimming atthe perfect temp.

 

Jeff:I like that, because it doesn't reinforce bad habits. That's awesome.

 

Andrew:For our athletes – because inevitably they're going to go to the pool, they'regoing to think about their form, they're going to get out of the pool, they'regoing to look at the numbers and the data. If we just happen to see a strokerate that's higher than what Jeff recommended – Jeff recommended 50 to 60 aswhat we should hopefully be seeing – if we see something higher than that, orif we see something dramatically lower than that, are there implications forour swim form? Can we learn in the numbers, “Oh, we might be doing X, Y, or Zin our swim form?” What can we learn from the numbers we're seeing in our postworkout report?

 

José:Yes, we can learn a lot of course. Because, you know, numbers are perfect to becombined with the rest of the things in the training. Of course, feelings arevery important, because, you know the athlete has this human side that we needto analyze every single day. So I think it's very important to have thenumbers, to have the feelings. And with this balance, I think when you ask theathlete, “Okay, how did you feel when you were, for example, 85 strokes perminute?” Okay, depending on the reasoning, maybe we have one direction –

 

Andrew:I probably felt tired. Yeah, I probably felt like I was working too hard.

 

José:Yeah, because here the goal is to keep going and to move forward, not justduring the swim portion. We need to take our bike and then to run. So we need,as Jeff said before, we need to be efficient. Everything about triathlon, aboutendurance, about long distance is about efficiency. We need to be efficient.And in the water is very important to sustain the speed, to sustain the pacethat we are swimming. If we are all the time accelerating and decelerating,accelerating, decelerating, we have a big problem. The first problem is thatwhen we are doing that, we are increasing the quantity of glycogen that we areburning, because we are all the time moving at a different pace, and then weincrease the pace, then we lose this part of the glycogen. So if this athleteat least is doing this 85 strokes per minute, and he cannot sustain the entirethe entire length of the of the session or maybe the race, there's no way thatthis is a good stroke rate for him. And the opposite is correct, too. If he isswimming too low a cadence, low rate, and he's going too slow, there is no waythat this athlete will have the best chance to have the best experience. Itdoesn't matter if you want to qualify for Kona, if it doesn't matter if hewants to finish the race, because at the end we always want that the triathletehas the best experience and to achieve the goal. So we try to have more time ascoaches to analyze the single data, and to talk to the athletes and to explainand to have the education side, the human side. So this is beautiful because wesave time creating the skills, and then we have time to create thecommunication with the athlete. So for this reason we have more opportunitiesto analyze, “You need 85, you need 80, you need 65. Or maybe for this distanceyou need 85, and for this distance you need 67.”

 

Jeff:I also want to throw in that your swim cadences or stroke rates will beslightly higher in open water than in a pool. But it shouldn't be much higher.In a pool, let's say a 25-yard pool, you might have two to three walls perminute, right? You glide into the wall, you flip turn, you turn around, youpush off, then you streamline off of that wall. That might be two to fourseconds per wall that your average stroke rate is zero, and it brings down thatactual overall average. So know that in a pool, the stroke rates might beslightly lower than actual. But in open water your stroke rate should be aboutfive to eight strokes per minute higher – that's kind of like my “rule”, I'mdoing air quotes here –in open water it shouldn't be more than about five to eightstrokes per minute higher than in a pool. If your average stroke rate in openwater is significantly higher than in a pool, then usually the buoyancy of thewetsuit and the neoprene is throwing off the timing aspect of your stroke, andyou're kind of spinning out. That's why a lot of athletes get into open wateron race day, they're just pushing way, way hard, and they get home and look atthe data and they're like, “I swam so much harder than I ever do, and my pacewas lower than every single swim I do.” That's why it's key to get into openwater as much as possible, get used to your wetsuit and how it affects yourbody balancing and your stroke rate, so that it doesn't ruin your race day.

 

Andrew:Now, Coach José, I didn't mention this at the top of the show, but you are alsoa certified cycling coach. So I'm going to have you transition us out onto thebike in our conversation on cadence. Now our legs go round and round with acertain revolutions per minute or RPM. So Coach José, what cadence, are welooking for athletes to hit out on, the bike?

 

José:When we talk about cadence, always what we know is that we need to balancebetween the effort, and the energy expenditure, and the speed or the power thatwe are producing. This is the first portion. The second one is we need to dothat in a good position on the bike. So to visit your bike fitter is key to bein the perfect position. If you don't have the perfect position on your bike,there's no way to sustain a correct cadence. The third part will be to have theaerobic endurance to sustain this effort, this is key of course, and themobility. When we are talking about US sport, we need to sustain the higherrange of the options of these athletes. So what I mean is if we are doing atraining Zone 2 and this athlete, when sustaining, for example, 200 wattsin Zone 2, if we see that the heart rate is constant, “Okay, this is a verygood cadence for this athlete at this at this intensity.” If we increase thecadence, and then the heart rate goes up while the power is the same, is whenwe are having the information that, “Okay, this is too much for this athlete.”

 

Andrew:Yeah, that makes sense.

 

José:So when we are training, I encourage my athletes to do some tests when they aredoing their Zone 2 session. For example a one-hour Zone 2 session onthe bike, especially when they are indoors on the indoor trainer, they have thebest opportunity. So first ten minutes you will sustain Zone 2, your poweris Zone 2, then we will analyze your heart rate. If it's constant, okay.If you are pedaling, for example, 80 revolutions per minute, let's do the nextten minutes sustaining the power, then let's see the heart rate. Is your heartrate constant? Okay, let's go for more cadence. This way you will find themoment where the cadence is not coupled with the power. You are finding thisnumber, and this number usually is in the higher range of the options that thisathlete has to sustain a good cadence. So for example, if this athlete is goingto decouple at 95 revolutions per minute, then this is the best moment todecide that maybe we need to go in 80, 81, 82 revolutions per minute during thefull training or during the full competition. So the first part is to do thiskind of test that is very easy to replicate, because you can even repeat itevery single week. It depends, for example, on the fatigue that you have. Ifyou are very tired, “Okay, I want to see you the last hour during the Ironman –180 kilometers or 112 miles – how are you feeling, and if you are able tosustain the cadence at this moment?” Because then you will be very tired, andat the same time you need to save energy to run the full marathon. So it's notjust, “I feel fresh, I have this cadence.” This is good information, but let'stest this cadence in a different situation. This is very nice with TriDot too,because you know when we are doing for example a session with high intensityintervals, for example Zone 4 or Zone 5, at the last part of thesession where you have Zone 2, you have there a good opportunity, afterfor example three hours in your bike ride, to test specifically your fatiguecoming from the three hours and coming from the Zone 4 and Zone 5,which is your best technique. Which is your best cadence? So now with thefatigue, we will mimic the conditions of the race that you will have maybe inone, two, or three weeks.

 

Andrew:Yeah, very interesting to just have the mindset of just testing that cadence.Because with heart rate, what we know from the podcast, heart rate does notlie. Heart rate will let you know when your body is working harder than itneeds to be working. So you start slowly raising that cadence, and you findout, “At what point does my heart rate start climbing at the same wattage?”Yeah, that's a very interesting test, just to see how your body responds.There's some people I think in the cycling world, we call them “pedal mashers”,they like to just kind of go with a slow grind, they have powerful legs andthey can do that. I can't do that. My legs wear out very quickly if I try to goat a low cadence. I like spinning at a higher cadence. So everybody can findout – for you, how does your body respond to different cadences? Greatexperiment there, José, to kind of play in our Zone 2 training with that. CoachJeff, is there anything additional here that you talk to your athletes aboutwhen you're having that conversation about bike cadence?

 

Jeff:Yeah. First of all, I'll say that higher cadences feel easier because there'sless muscle activation, but it taxes the cardiovascular system more, and it canelicit dead spots in the stroke. Now on the other end of the spectrum, lowercadences could be more economical because it taxes the cardiovascular systemless, but it can tax the musculature more. So there's no perfect cadence foranyone, it's all about being efficient and having a smooth pedal stroke. Andyou want to train the full range, but then kind of do what José was saying, youcan kind of play that game and find what your sweet spot is for you. You couldpush 200 watts all day long in an Ironman – that's what you're supposed to push– but if you're pushing it at a 60 cadence, or you're pushing it at 100cadence, there could be a big difference there on how you feel and how you runoff the bike. Also, you want to keep fluidity in the ankle, and you want tothink “square”. Thinking “square” can help – forward-down-back-up. You mightmash down 250 watts, but you might be pulling up the back after the stroke at80 watts. So the average is a lot lower.

 

Andrew:Interesting, yeah.

 

Jeff:I'll say this and end here. On the bike, we're trying to accomplish three mainthings. We want to improve our physiological fitness through our aerobiccapacities (VO2max), improve our anaerobic lactate thresholds, and improve uponour efficiency and economy. It's kind of like your fuel economy in a car,right? This is the energy expenditure to produce sub-max power or pace, andspeed inside of that, but be able to hold higher percentages of your max forlonger durations. That's where cadence comes in, kind of that third piece orthat third spectrum. We want to be efficient when we do that. Wherever you fallin that range on the bike, I like to switch to higher cadences the last fewmiles of long-course. Spin out a little bit, so you’re flushing out lactic acidor tight hips or whatever, but more importantly, I like to match what is soonto be the higher run cadence that is probably about to happen in T2. Inlong-course cycling, as people get tired, their hip flexors, their glutes,everything's getting tight, and their cadences tend to fall a little bittowards the end. And if your cadences are too low and then you get off the bikeand you hold a higher run cadence, it can just skyrocket that heart rate.

 

Andrew:Your body’s going to freak you out. Yeah, your body is going to be like, “Whatare we doing?!”

 

Jeff:Actually, there's two sayings in long-course. Early into the run, whatever yourheart rate is at mile two or three of the run let's say, it probably won't belower than that again without slowing down or walking. The other saying is,once you slow down or walk, you never get that original pace back again, and atleast maintain it until the end. So I like to keep my bike and run cadenceswithin a 5 to 10 RPM kind of a window. Then as you get towards the end of thebike, you kind of match what is soon to be that run cadence, and that canreally help those legs off the bike.

 

Andrew:There's a lot of times in TriDot where certain workouts will prompt us to usedifferent cadences throughout the workouts. So on things like spin-ups orhigh-cadence pedaling in our warm ups, we intentionally are spinning our legsat an exaggeratedly high cadence. There's sometimes in our harder intervalswhere sometimes TriDot will have us intentionally doing exaggeratedly lowcadences. Workouts like power-builder for example, it might have us holding 60or 70. What is TriDot trying to do to us when it's prompting us to spin with amuch higher or a much lower cadence? Coach José?

 

José:I like to remember here one training that I saw from Sebastian Kienle. You knowSebastian Kienle is one of the biggest cyclists all over the world in ourhistory.

 

Andrew:Oh, he's fantastic. Yeah, he's had a great career.

 

José:Yeah. So one of the key sessions that he has before Ironman Hawaii is afour-hour session, with two blocks of 45 minutes separated by 30 minutes inZone 2. The two blocks of 45 minutes were basically at race pace or race power,but with the cadence higher than he would expect to do in Kona. This way he wastrying to mimic the same power during the race in Kona, but at the same timeincreasing the cardiovascular load. This is something that we are doing withTriDot. As you said, Andrew, some of the training is telling us, “go over 100”for example, the reason to do that is because TriDot wants to increase ourcardiovascular load. This is very important. When we go to the other side, wego below 60 revolutions per minute, that is when we are increasing ourstrength, muscles, joints, ligaments, tendons. So this is the other side of thespectrum, but both of those training sessions are very good to improve thatcoordination. All the muscle fibers are coordinating much better when you areincreasing or decreasing your regular cadence. For this reason, when you areaiming your specific cadence, then you are going to do a more efficient effort,and this is key. As we said before, efficiency is everything when we aretalking about endurance sport. So when we do high cadence or low cadence, it'sfrom the cardiovascular system load, or from the muscular or strength trainingload. This is very important. It's not like a joke, this is key. As I saidbefore, even the best professional triathletes in the world are using thosemethods, because they are very, very important to really improve theperformance of every single triathlete.

 

Jeff:Yeah. I would even say low cadence is actually fast-twitch muscle fiber type,because it's recruiting more power per stroke and using that anaerobic glycogenas a fuel source. It’s more anaerobic, but believe it or not, you usually holdlower heart rates at slightly lower cadences in riding. High cadence isslow-twitch, because it's an easier gear and less motor unit recruitment, buthigher in the cardiovascular demand. Just like José alluded to Lucy Charleshaving an 80-plus stroke rate in her swim, and then I said most upperage-groupers could maybe stay in that 50 to 60 range. Well, I would say thatlow cadence for triathletes is usually anything about 75 RPM or lower. That'sreally low cadence. Really high cadence would be anything 90 to 100-plus. Youmight have watched the Tour de France that recently happened – good job, Mr.Jonas!

 

Andrew:Sure did, yeah. Jonas Vingegaard!

 

Jeff:Ah, it was great. It was great. But you know, they hold really, really highcadences, but they're not running off of the bike. They also have a muchgreater cardiovascular engine than we do. So I would say for long-course,triathletes tend to fall in that 80 to 90 RPM range. Pro cyclists though, notusually triathletes specifically, usually hold much higher than that, 90 to 120cadence. So we just want to know that point at which we're not overly taxingour cardiovascular system, but we're not overly becoming too anaerobic with aglycogen burn. We want to find that sweet spot, and be able to hold that forlong durations and maintain it, but keep an efficient pedal stroke in doing so.

 

Andrew:We will transition to the third sport here, running. Coach Jeff, I'm going torelease you first, because you are very passionate about talking run cadence, Iknow that's kind of a specialty of yours. So let's talk about optimal runcadence. Here at TriDot, we go where the data tells us to go. So Jeff, what dowe know about the optimal range for run cadence?

 

Jeff:You know, I like safe ranges. Where you fall in those ranges, it depends. Areyou a 5K-er, or are you a triathlete that runs 5K off the bike? Those are twocompletely different things, right? Then are you a marathoner, are you anIronman, are you ultra – all those things, but where do you fall in thoseranges? It depends, but I use the 160 to 180 cadence range. I think most peopleread, or see, or say, 180 cadence. But if you go on a 10-mile-long run and youraverage cadence wasn't around 180, you’ve got to fix something. “There’ssomething up, we’ve got to get that cadence exactly 180!” I would disagree withthat. I would agree and say that yes, shorter strides and higher cadences aregood, especially in long-course triathlon and running off the bike, becauseit's safe, it's efficient. But there is a point where you can start tomanipulate that. I would argue that – we talked about swimming. There is apoint in your swim career where increasing your stroke rate could make youfaster, right? Higher cadences feel easier on the bike. But for running, wedon't increase our steps per minute to speed up. It’s a misconception. Ourcadence in running should not change much as our speed changes. And I would saythat's more of that Zone 2 through 4. Zone 2 is kind of that aerobic threshold,Zone 4 is that anaerobic threshold, Zone 5 and 6 are a little bit different.Zone 5 is hill repeats, it's more muscular, physical, external-responseoriented. Then Zone 6 is sprinting, so that's kind of the outlier. But I wouldsay that Zone 2 to Zone 4 pace, your cadence should not change much as yourspeed changes. What you manipulate is your stride length. People will think,“Okay, I'm jogging in an easy Zone 2, I'm just trotting here. Very slow, calm,cool and collected. My cadence is 160. Uh-oh, I got a Zone 4! A TriDot 3 x8-minute Zone 4, let's go! I got an 8-minute surge, here we go!” Now as youaccelerate, your cadence will increase. But I would say that if you're goingfrom a Zone 2 at let's just say a 160 cadence, the idea might be, “All right,now I'm at Zone 4 running, is my cadence going to be closer to 180? I got totake more steps, I got to speed my legs up to speed up my speed and pace,right?” Wrong! I would argue that your cadence should stay about the same, andI use that same 5 to 8 window, so your cadence shouldn't change much as yourspeed changes within that Zone 2, 3, and 4. What you're manipulating is yourstride length. So some people think, “Okay, well if shorter stride/highercadence is the goal, maybe I should be at the upper end of that. If I hear 180is good, is 185 or 190 better?” But with too high of a cadence, that's wherevertical oscillation comes in. So if you have a really, really, high cadence,let's say 190 steps per minute, you could have too great of a verticaloscillation.

 

Andrew:Yeah, you're probably wasting energy in some way, almost like on the swim,right? If you're just flailing your arms on the swim because you think fasterarms is faster swimming, you're probably wasting energy. The same if yourcadence is too high on the run, it sounds like.

 

Jeff:Exactly. If your vertical oscillation is too high, I first look at yourcadence. Is your cadence exaggeratedly high? It's not low-cadence running, butmaybe you go from a 180 cadence to a 178. That's still the very high end of thespectrum, right? But now your stride length comes into effect. Most people are0.9 to maybe 1.1 meters per stride, that’s kind of a number you'll see inGarmin or something like that. You go run a certain distance, you come home,and “Here's my average pace, here's the distance I've traveled. Oh, my averagecadence was 180, my vertical oscillation is really high, and my stride lengthis only 0.9 meters.” So things that I do with my athletes is you can manipulatethat. If your vertical oscillation is too high, maybe we could slightly loweryour cadence and try to get that 0.9-meter average stride length up to 1.0,1.1. You're taking about the same amount of steps or even less, but you'retraveling further per step. You're not any fitter. You're just manipulatingyour stride length versus cadence, and you could run ten seconds faster permile, and it has nothing to do with fitness.

 

Andrew:Yeah. Very, very interesting. And Jeff, I know with your athletes that you lookat that data very individually, session-to-session, and you're really workingwith your athletes on their form in the ways you just outlined. But José, foryou, as you're looking at the run data of your athletes, and you're havingthese conversations about their form and what you're seeing in the numbers,what are you looking for your athletes to have –what in our cadence or ourstride length data triggers you to say, “Oh, we need to take a harder look atyour run form?”

 

José:It was very nice, some weeks ago we went to Ironman Vitoria-Gasteiz with someof my triathletes. The day after the Ironman, we met Gurutze Frades, who wasthe winner of the race. She ran 2 hours, 53 minutes, she is one of the bestprofessional runners in the sport. She is very nice. We met her with my wife,who qualified for Kona for this year, so they were very, very excited. Westarted talking to Gurutze, and she is very friendly. So we started talkingabout, “How do you train your running to be as good as you are?” This isbeautiful, you will love it because it fits perfectly with TriDot – first, shejust trains three times per week by running three times. She's a professionaltriathlete, running 2 hours and 53 minutes.

 

Andrew:And that's it, yeah.

 

José:Second, she always trains running after the bike, so when she's tired. So if wesee the schedule usually planned for TriDot, we have the Wednesday runningafter the Tuesday bike with some kind of repetitions. Sunday is the same, youhave your Sunday running session after your bike session on Saturday, and thenyour transition, so you are tired. It fits perfectly with the same idea fromTriDot, it’s brilliant. So when I explain to my athletes this concept, it’sexactly the same. I want to see you – especially when we are getting closer andcloser to the race, I want to see you running with this form and goodtechnique, but at the same cadence that you will sustain during the last partof the Ironman. Because when you see how the speed is decreasing during the42 kilometers, 26.2 miles, many times it’s because the athlete is reducingboth the cadence and the stride length, as Jeff said before. So first weanalyze, “What is your cadence when you are racing fresh?” “Okay, you arerunning fresh, so this is your cadence. Now let's analyze this on Wednesday andon Sunday when you are tired.” Then this is the perfect combination to know,“Okay, we have different numbers, so we will go for the lower cadence, or maybethe cadence that you have when you are doing the running after the bike, sothis is more similar to the race conditions.” So this number is our firstnumber. But always we are trying to increase, as Jeff said, not just thestrides per minute. The length is also very, very, important. Because if youincrease your power every single step, you are increasing the length of thestride, and this is just as important as the number of repetitions that you aredoing. Imagine if you increase just 5 centimeters every length, at the end ofone minute, or at the end of one kilometer, this is a huge difference. So wealways focus first on the technique, second after the technique – when we arerunning and the intensity that we are running – as Jeff said, the differencebetween the low intensities and the high intensities is not that much, it'sjust two, three, four strides per minute. Then when we analyze this, we try tomimic this when he is or she is tiring.

 

Andrew:Yeah, very interesting to think through what numbers you are seeing in afresher session versus a more fatigued session. And yes, TriDot definitely hasyou fatigued from the day before for a reason on those running days. I amabsolutely aware that, early on in a race – whether it's a sprint and I'm goinghard, or an Ironman and I'm going a little a little easier – but absolutelymiles one, two, three, early on in the first 25% maybe of the run split, I’mvery focused on my form, very focused on my numbers, on holding a certain pace.Then as you fatigue, as you wear down and are starting to see spots as you getcloser and closer to the finish line, suddenly it can be easy to let thosethings slip away, right? You kind of enter this survival mode where it's,“Okay, I'm not focused on my form, I'm not focused on any particular numbers,I'm just hanging on for dear life.” For our athletes at home, what can we do inour training? What can we do in our swim, bike and run form? Whether it's ourstrength or our technique, what can we do in training to help us hold bettercadences and better technique longer into a race? I'll start with Jeff Raines,and then we'll go to José to close this out. Jeff Raines, what do you think?

 

Jeff:You know, our goals are to have the least amount of ground contact time aspossible, vertical oscillation as low as possible, right? The more time youspend on the ground equals more movement, and the more movement you have, itcan lead to deviations or injuries. So what we need to focus on in ourday-to-day is knee drive. Our glutes and hip flexors are the first things to goin runners and triathletes, when we're late into the race or we start tofatigue. The more successful runner, especially in triathlon long-course offthe bike, is the runner that can maintain the distance per stride, or that kneedrive, for the longest into the race. Dr. BJ Leeper talks about it all thetime, it's the sagittal plane. As runners and triathletes, we don't get out ofthat sagittal plane enough in our training. We can neglect that side-to-side,and we get really tight, especially coming off of a long bike ride on race day.We have tight hips, glutes, and hip flexors before we even start the run. Thefirst things to go in triathletes is that knee drive, and what happens is, byhuman nature we subconsciously start to reach out the lower leg to try to grabmore distance to compensate, then we start to maybe overly heel strike, orwe're not landing perfectly under our center of mass. So we lose the kneedrive, we lose distance per stride, our cadence starts to fall, we start tooverreach the lower leg, we put the brakes on. Then we start to have lowercadences, then we decrease that stride length, and then we slow down and we neverget the original pace back again. So what we want to be able to do is maintainthat stride length, that distance per stride, for as long as we can into thatrace. So doing run drills day-to-day, strength training – I can't stress thisenough, mobility before stability. We want to wake up the range-of-motion, wewant to get out of the sagittal plane, stretch, yoga, all those things. Thenover time we build stability and strength around that, then longevity – that'swhere muscular endurance comes in. So we want to be able to maintain that kneedrive long enough to maintain the speed and cadence to get to the finish linewithout positive splitting, slowing down that second half. I think that's thebigger goal.

 

José:First of all, I think the answer from Jeff is absolutely brilliant, I agree onehundred percent. It’s beautiful to listen to all this knowledge, all thisinformation, I think it's great. Second, I think again TriDot is giving usevery single session for a reason. When we are running after the setZone 4, Zone 5, we are running with a certain kind of fatigue. Thisis the first moment to focus on your technique, because this is the best momentto mimic the conditions of the race, while you are running one hour and 30minutes for example, one hour and 45 minutes, and you have been doing some kindof repetitions before. Then the rest of the session will be in Zone 2. Zone 2is quite similar to your race pace, so that is when you need to be absolutelyfocused on your technique. Repeat your numbers, try to mimic the same numbersthat you have in the beginning of the session, and the end of the session. Keepthis cadence, keep this length. This is the most important part, the criticalpart, which is the last part of every session. Especially when we areapproaching race day is when we have the longest sessions. We have the longestrun session after the Tuesday bike session, so we have the opportunity to dothat, when have most of the times the Zone 3 repetitions at the end ofthis session. This is very important. So sustain your technique, your cadence,your leg strength, everything at the end of the session. It doesn't matter ifyou are running Zone 3, Zone 4. It's not just the time, it's not just the trainingzone, it's not just the heart rate, it’s everything about technique.Remembering again the conversation with Gurutze Frades, we asked her, “Gurutze,how is it possible that you are running the first mile at the same pace as thelast mile, and with the same cadence?” And she answered, “This is because Iarrived at a point where I'm running at this pace, and it's like I'm walking.This is easy for me. Okay, I'm in an Ironman, it's tough, at the end I’mfatigued. But for me, it's natural. It's never muscular memory. It’s everythingabout repeating, repeating, repeating.” Again, we fatigue, so this is key tounderstand that it's not just to cover the minutes, to cover the intensities,heart rates, pace. That's very good, that's very important, but we need to focuson the technique. So we have one hour to improve our fitness level, but we haveone hour every single session to improve our technique, our feelings, ourmotion. This is something that I repeat every single day to my triathletes.

 

Jeff:Just because you nailed your 3 x 8 minutes of Zone 4 inside of that hour run,just because you nailed that and got 100 TrainX score in TriDot, I would arguethat you could still fail the workout because of exactly what José said, and Ithink it's brilliant. If you've already done your 3 x 8 minutes or whatever,and in your balance of time, your last 30 minutes, if your cadence fellsignificantly, your stride length diminished, your vertical oscillation was wayhigh, your form broke down the second-half – you may have gotten a 100 TrainXscore, but you may have failed the workout.

 

Cool down theme: Great set everyone! Let’s cool down.

 

Vanessa Ronksley: It's Coach Cooldown Tip Time, and I'm Vanessa,your Average Triathlete with Elite-Level Enthusiasm! Our TriDot coach on theshow today is the type of human who instantly makes you feel amazing when inhis presence. I'm talking about coach Kurt Madden. He is truly an inspiration,who lives his life with peacefulness and inspiration every single step that hetakes. This is probably why he had a successful 40-year professional career asan educator within the coaching community, as a teacher, an assistantprincipal, a principal, and as the CEO of five different nonprofits in thecharter school system. In the endurance sport world, he has earned every singleone of his accolades, ranging from 2nd place overall in the Leadville 100-MileTrail Run, all the way to winning the Ultraman World Championship not once, buttwice, all with large doses of modesty, grace, and gratitude. He began coachingtriathlon in the ‘80s, and is now a full-time TriDot coach. Kurt has beenmarried to his wife, whom he fondly refers to as Queen K, for 44 years, andtogether they have two sons, Kip and Kai. It is truly an honor to have you onthe cooldown Kurt!

 

Kurt Madden: Thank you so much, Vanessa. It is great to be at the cooldown, one ofthe favorite favorite favorite parts of any workout.

 

Vanessa:Oh yes, you've got that right! That's funny. So I have here a nickname that Ithink no one would actually believe once belonged to you. The nickname is“Butterball”. Where did this come from, and how long did this last in yourlifetime?

 

Kurt:Wow, Vanessa, you're bringing out everything, I guess. The story goes somethinglike this. I was a very chunky little baby, and I was told that for probablythe first four or five years of my life that I had some very large thighs. Idon't think it was all muscle mass, I think it was just flat-out adipose. Andthe more I developed they're going, “I think we should just call himButterball.” Then I don't know what happened, I guess in my teenage years, Iwent from a butterball to kind of a mad dog. That transformation, I think itwas inner city, I was playing sports all the time, and I knew that for me tosurvive as an athlete, I had to be a little bit different to show them that Ihad a little bit of swag. If I hadn't done that, I'm not sure what would havehappened. So today, I don't think I've gone back to the butterball yet. I mightat some point, we'll see what happens.

 

Vanessa:That's awesome. I love that. Thank you for sharing that. Speaking of sharing,you have a plethora of amazing tips, because you've been coaching your entirelife. I would love for you to share one of your tips that has helped yourselfand also your athletes to build wild success.

 

Kurt:As I've kind of reached into my toolkit on coaching tips, I think this one issomething that I've learned, I think that there's a lot of transfer. It'sreally looking at your main set, and saying, “How can I get a bigger return oninvestment?” So I want all of our listeners to think about all of your races,from an Olympic, to a 70.3, to a full. And the real question means, at anylevel, “When does the race actually start?” What I’ve found is that in theswim, using an Olympic distance, the race kind of starts really at about say athousand yards. I go up to a 70.3, the race really starts at about 1,500 yards.Then I go to a full, probably right around 3,000 yards. So what that means is,that's later in the swim. Aha! So why don't we adjust our training a little bitto kind of take it easy in the beginning part of the workout, even though themain set might be initially. Move some things around to say you want to be atyour peak performance in all of your swim sessions from, say, 40 minutes toabout an hour. In doing that again and again, those repetitions day after day,week after week, you build up to that A race, all of a sudden that musclememory goes right there. So that is for the swim. Now on the bike, verysimilar. You look at the Olympic, same thing, “When does the race start?”Probably at about mile 15. When you go to the 70.3, it's probably at about mile40. For the full, it's at mile 70. You never, never, never want to get to thosepoints, and on those race distances, to say, “You know what, I’ve alreadyburned all my matches. I've got nothing left. No, wait a minute, there’ssomething called the run after that.” So by pushing out that main set, not togo into it in their first 10 or 15 minutes on the bike when you've done yourspin-ups, but push that out. Probably the best way I could explain it, if youhave a three hour and 30 minute bike ride, you would stay in Zone 2 all the wayup to about two hours. Then do the main set, it might take an hour, and thencool down. This is why. When you race, you want to feel at that point on thebike that, “Okay, I'm warmed up now. I'm mentally hanging in there. I've donethis many, many times.” Again, your legs, your muscle members can be fantastic.I find that people that jump right into that main set on the bike in the first20 minutes, two things happen. They push way too hard. The second thing thathappens, they can't get their heart rate back down. And then thirdly, oftenthey kind of give up. They kind of give up, and they don't quite finish with goodform versus stay in Zone 2, stay in Zone 2, get after that main set, cool down,now we're going to go ahead and take off on the run. So that's what I find onthe bike. And then the run is identical. Biggest mistake people will admit toyou is, “I started way too fast on the run.” Break it up into small chunks. Ifind for the Olympic, get to the 5K like, “I still know my name, and I knowthat I'm still the same person, because I want to finish strong in the secondhalf.” When I look at the 70.3, athletes tell me again and again, “I was fineuntil mile eight. The last five, the wheels came off.” In the full Ironman,mile 16 typically is that time when you can have your biggest gains or yourbiggest losses. So in your training, look at a two-hour run, look at an hourand 30 minute run, push that 15-minute main set all the way to the end. I'veseen it myself, I drank the Kool-Aid. You do that week after week, all of asudden you get to the race, and it's like, “Oh my goodness, this is just liketraining. My legs know exactly what to do.” So I think by pushing that main setout, it really makes a huge difference. And it teaches an athlete patience. Ithink in our sport, even at the Olympic distance, patience is really key,versus, “I'm kind of impulsive. If I'm a guy and a girl goes by me, I'm goingto start to chase her, because I don't want a girl to go by me on the bike.”No, sit back a little bit. So hopefully those tips were helpful to ourlisteners today.

 

Outro:Thanks for joining us. Make sure to subscribe and share the TriDot podcast withyour triathlon crew. For more great tri content and community, connect with uson Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram. Ready to optimize your training? Head totridot.com and start your free trial today! TriDot – the obvious and automaticchoice for triathlon training.

 

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