 Hey what's up everyone welcome to another video my name is Dylan I'm a cycling coach at CTS and today I'm going to be answering some of the questions that you guys have left me down in the comments over the past couple months. We'll be covering everything from what cyclists should be doing in the gym to what I eat in a day to whether or not training peaks metrics like fitness, fatigue and form actually matter and more so be sure to stick around for that. If you're new to this channel I make weekly training, racing and gear related videos going over tips and tricks that I've learned in my 12 years of racing and training experience that have gotten me to the top of the ultra endurance mountain bike game in the US and as a cycling coach at CTS. If you want to learn how to get faster or just more about the science of training in general then be sure to subscribe and if you have a training question or a topic you'd like to see me cover in a future video be sure to leave it down in the comment section below. I do my best to get to all the questions in the comments. All right let's jump right into the questions. Our first question comes to us from Derrick. Hi Dylan thanks for the video great as always. For weightlifting do you suggest low reps, high weight or high reps low weight? I've made two videos about weightlifting and I addressed how much weight and how many reps you want to do in those and I'll link those in the description below but here's a quick refresher because a lot of cyclists are confused when they get in the gym. Because cycling is an endurance sport many assume that you need a high number of reps to train for cycling in the gym however the research actually points to using lower reps and higher weight. For example this study on weather strength training improves cycling economy and competitive cyclists they use four sets of four rep max three times per week for eight weeks to find a 17.2 percent increase in time to exhaustion while the control group showed no significant increase. Another study on strength training for five minute all-out performance used three sets of four to ten rep max twice a week for 12 weeks. The strength training group showed reductions in oxygen consumption heart rate blood lactate concentration and rate of perceived exertion during the last hour of 185 minutes of submaximal cycling and in the five minute all-out effort their average power increased from 371 watts to 400 watts while the control group saw no significant increase. This is contrary to what many might think wouldn't you want to do endurance lifting for endurance sports? Well the thing is that the physiological reasons for why we're lifting can actually be better achieved through using lower reps and higher weight. This study concluded that the improved endurance performance from lifting may be related to delayed activation of less efficient type 2 fibers, improved neuromuscular efficiency, conversion of fast twitch type 2x fibers into more fatigue resistant type 2a fibers, or improved muscular tendinous stiffness all of which are enhanced by heavier lifts. Now although you want to do a relatively low amount of reps and high weight I'd advise against busting out your four rep max in the squat the first time you get in the gym. Your two main lifts for cycling are the squat and the deadlift and you want to start around the 15 to 20 rep range and slowly decrease that over the course of three or four weeks until you get down to the four to six rep range. With each session the weight should be increasing to account for the fact that the reps are getting lower and that you're getting stronger. Starting off with lower weight higher reps gives your body a chance to adapt to lifting by not only strengthening your muscles but also strengthening your connective tissue which is important for injury prevention. After three or four weeks when you get down to the four to six rep range I would focus on increasing the weight that you can lift at that rep range. Hey man is there a strava for lifting? I mean how am I supposed to stay motivated when I can't get a KOM and brag to people on the internet about it? For our next question Nvia3000 asks can you give us an example of what you eat in one day of training? I do adjust what I eat depending on the training day. For example I try not to eat as much during a recovery day as I would on a day where I'm doing a five hour training ride. This of course is easier said than done. Yeah he's lying. However I don't count calories and if you've seen my video on weight loss you know why. If you're counting calories but you're still constantly hungry that's unsustainable long term. You need a diet that's naturally low in calories but still leaves you satisfied hence the low calorie density approach. A systematic review on dietary energy density and body weight looking at many studies concluded that their findings highlight the growing body of scientific evidence suggesting a relationship between energy density and body weight and that consuming diets low in energy density may be an effective strategy for managing body weight. What does this look like in terms of my own diet? Well for breakfast I usually have oatmeal with fruit like blueberries, blackberries, strawberries, bananas, etc and I usually put a scoop of peanut butter in there as well. Then for lunch and dinner my go-to is a mixture of some sort of beans like black beans chickpeas or lentils with either rice, quinoa or sweet potato, vegetables like broccoli, peppers, onions, mushrooms and tomatoes and a ton of herbs and spices like turmeric, cumin, black pepper, oregano, basil, etc. The spices are important because they're extremely high in antioxidants and in fact the whole diet is high antioxidant. As far as the amount of food I eat it can vary quite a bit but I usually consume two to three bowls of oatmeal a day plus two bowls of that mixture I just described plus snacks throughout the day and then on rides I usually consume cheap granola bars from the grocery store just mainly because I don't want to spend a fortune on ride nutrition. Unlike your diet off the bike which should be as unprocessed as possible what you eat while riding should be simple and easy to digest which means processed food. The harder you go the less your stomach can handle and if I've got a really hard day or a race I might take it a step further and use gels. Even though I don't count calories I do have a general idea of how many calories I consume per day because I have used food tracking apps before. It's usually three to four thousand calories per day at 60 to 70% carbs 15 to 20 fat and 15 to 20 protein. For our next question Brett Fifield asks next video baggy shorts on downhill MTB discuss uh yeah wear a skin suit it's faster next question Adam Mills asks my egg beaters have been in the box for about three years can you tell me what you like about them please egg beaters I like the fact that I get to rebuild them every other ride if you watch my video on my bike setup you may recall that I said that I use Shimano pedals for training and Crank Brothers pedals for racing why do I do this because they weigh less that's really the only reason I actually don't really like the engagement as much and they require a lot more maintenance which is why I don't use them for training all the time the Shimano's are bomb proof which make them a great training pedal and the weight savings on race day extends beyond my pedals to my shoes as well I actually run road shoes for mountain bike racing and the weight savings from my training pedal shoe combo to my race pedal shoe combo is almost a pound or half a kilo let's break down exactly how I'm getting this much weight savings from a simple swap the Jiro Empire SLX road shoes weigh 175 grams per shoe so 350 grams per pair now if we take a look at the Jiro Empire mountain bike shoe we can see that they weigh 315 grams per shoe or 630 grams per pair that's 280 grams by making this simple switch the Shimano XTR pedals weigh around 310 grams and the Crank Brothers Eggbeater 11s weigh around 175 grams so that's another 135 grams I use the Crank Brothers three-hole adapter which makes the conversion easy but I have had friends who've just drilled mountain bike cleats into the road shoes and then broken them while riding so I don't recommend doing that obviously if you have to do any extended hiking this setup is less than ideal well believe it or not you can do steep dirt run-ups in road shoes without much trouble but they are going to get trashed quicker Rob Inman asks this may be a training peaks topic but I'm curious as to your fitness fatigue and form pm values projected on race day with an a race taper I'm currently tapering and can barely add much intensity or volume over the final nine days without pushing those form values down and fatigue thanks and love the content great question Rob if you're a regular training peaks user you're probably familiar with fitness fatigue and form or CTL, ATL and TSB I don't have time in this video to explain what each one is or how it's calculated but I'll happily share those values from my last 300 mile race wins for the Kohado 100 my fitness was 103 fatigue was 80 and form was 21 for the Mohican 100 it was 86 77 and 3 and for the lumberjack 100 it was 99 113 and negative 21 if those numbers seem like they're all over the place that's because they are and if that tells you anything it's this those numbers matter way less than you think they do you know somebody asked me today what my greatest fear in life is and I gave it some thought and I came to the conclusion that it's my CTL dropping below 50 yes your CTL will drop when you taper just let it happen let's talk about some of these numbers though why was my CTL for Kohado 103 and for Mohican it was 86 well two weeks before Mohican I purposely took a week off the bike in order to reset before the second half of the season how did I know I needed a week off well my results and numbers started to suffer and instead of banging my head against the wall I rested and came back stronger because of it my CTL was almost 20 points lower for Mohican so was I less fit for that race no in both races I had a normalized power in the 260s and Mohican was arguably a better race with a bigger gap to second place and a coarse pr my form for lumberjack was negative 21 this is usually a huge red flag and is an indication that you didn't taper enough the actual story is that I was still building up fitness from that week off and I had very little residual fatigue meaning I could do a much shorter taper as opposed to a long build up where you might want a longer taper don't get me wrong these numbers are a helpful tool but they're not the end all be all and they don't give you the full picture these numbers reward high volumes of training even if that's not necessarily specific to what you're training for for example a crit racer who did 30 hour weeks of zone two to get a CTL of 100 would be worse off than had they done 10 hour weeks with specific crit interval sessions to get a CTL of 50 a review on high intensity versus high volume training stated that when training does not have an appropriate blend of both high intensity training and high volume training inserted into the program performance ability can stagnate this can be a problem for athletes who chase CTL because they often fall into the trap of ignoring workout quality increasing your CTL encourages harder recovery days and adding in tempo miles even if that's not specific to your event although it says fitness next to that number making it higher won't necessarily make you more fit and oftentimes you need to let CTL come down in order to taper for a race or improve workout quality for those of you who don't obsess over these numbers I've probably completely lost you at this point so if you're still watching congratulations on actually making it through one whole youtube video for a last question tom clays asks what kind of tools do you guys take with you for mechanicals is your race over if something happens are you carrying chain tools tubes chain links co2 hexes etc seems like my tools weigh a lot but you didn't mention any of that you elite riders are something to behold as I watched the lead group lap me in the lumberjack when I wasn't even halfway yet y'all killing it unreal I need to ask for a picture or something next time but kind of in awe thanks tom I really appreciate that and next time you see me at a race don't be afraid to come over and say hi now about the tools this is one of those do as I say not as I do situations because believe it or not I don't carry a tube with me while I'm racing what that sounds like something I do I do I do carry a lightweight multi tool a 25 gram co2 and a tire plug if I do get a flat the tire plug in co2 is usually enough if the sealant doesn't seal it already and to be honest I haven't gotten a flat in four years and that flat that I got four years ago was because I was running weight weenie tires these days I always run tires with protection for every course if it gets to the point where you have to throw a tube in your chances of winning or getting on the podium are greatly diminished and with how rarely I get flats it's not worth the weight penalty to me do I recommend doing this no I do not take a spare tube with you and finish the race all right now that you guys have seen the full scope of how much of a weight weenie I really am I think we'll end the video there thanks for watching and I hope you guys found this information helpful leave your questions for the next DJ Q&A down in the comments if you like this video be sure to give it a like share with a friend and subscribe if you want to see more training and racing content be sure to follow me on instagram twitter and facebook if you want to check out my training check me out on Strava and finally if you're looking for a coach shoot me an email at djohnson at trainwright.com