Quick drive-by post as work is eating my brain.
Last night, I finally put the bike computer onto my bike. It’s wireless and is designed to measure speed and cadence.
Now, speed and distance while on a trainer isn’t all that meaningful. I suppose I can use it to compare workouts, but it definitely doesn’t translate to the same thing when biking outside.
But what does translate is cadence. Cadence is the speed at which your legs are completing revolutions. How many revolutions per minute am I making?
There are lots of recommendations of what cadence a triathlete should be using. And it does somewhat vary by triathlete, I suppose. If a fast cadence is killing you, it’s clearly too high. But from what I’ve seen, somewhere between 85-100rpm.
That is not what I was doing last night. Of course, I have my gears set so that pedaling is relatively challenging. I need to change that and see what happens if I spin a bit faster. I obviously have to monitor my heart rate and make sure it’s not getting out of control, but I think this new addition to my bike will improve my training.
Any recommendations from cyclists out there? What should my cadence be?
I shoot for between 85-90.
I wasn’t done and it posted! LOL For triathletes it’s especially important not to “mash” the pedals during a race so we can save our legs for the run. I think there is a time and place to do a lower cadence in a harder gear, but that’s during a specific training period. Overall, I think getting used to a quick cadence is more beneficial. I’ve been training with cadence for almost and year and I’m just now starting to see the results!
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Yeah, my coach echoes what Jennifer said. I’m working on the same thing – cadence. I like the power and speed from the big gears, but change is good, right? 🙂
Diana Kurcfeld recently posted…the ups and downs of weight and training