[Danksta]

Nur mal als Diskussionsgrundlage zum Thema Trittfrequenz:

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Let’s talk cadence. This has become a very hot topic and one that is worth exploring in your own training. If you watched the Tour de France for the past few years it would have been impossible to not notice a dramatic difference in the cadence (pedal turnover rate) between the eventual winner and that of the rest of the riders. As a triathlete your race demands are going to be different than for a stage cyclist, but nevertheless there is a lot you can gain from this technique that will help you out in a sport requiring three disciplines.

The theory behind higher cadence riding is that the length of muscle contraction is too short to build up as much lactic acid as in lower cadence riding. It is also suggested to facilitate the flushing of lactate better than a low cadence where the load on the leg muscle can be more constant. Low cadence in theory has less time during which the muscle relaxes and let’s the flushing action take over. During the rest moments in the pedal stroke where one set of muscles relaxes and another takes over (normally around the bottom and top of the peddle stroke) is when the muscles can flush out lactate, and as a result keep up the power output.

Some people are suggesting however that not everyone is built to take advantage of this technique. Jan Ulrich, for example, said it didn’t work for him because of his body type. I am not one to say whether this is true or not. But even if you are a person who for some strange reason cannot gain benefit from a higher cadence on the bike (and also running) of 90-95 revolutions per minute (rpm) it is a physiology worth attempting in your training. Here are some of the reasons…

First and foremost, your workouts should be designed around making race day seem like just another day of training. The closer your race can feel to a training day, something you have done thousands of times before, the less your body will perceive your race effort as a high stress situation. And one of the absolute keys to having your best race performance is to keep the stress level (perceived or real) as low as possible.

So how does this relate to high cadence training? To answer that let’s think about how one feels during a normal aerobic training ride. Usually the cadence is relaxed (for most triathletes this means a cadence on the flats of around 80-85). However, when you get into a race, especially if it is an event shorter than an Ironman, cadence rates are elevated (85-90 and higher). This is one of the reasons training at a higher cadence can help you in your race. If you have trained at 90-95 rpms, this will eventually become your relaxed aerobic training cadence. Then when you are in your big race and still at a cadence of 90-95, it will feel just like another day training, which is a low stress signal to your body.

If you never do higher cadence training try this out. First purchase a cyclometer for your bike that can give you cadence feedback. Now go out and ride for 1-2 hours at a cadence of 90-95 rpms on a rolling course and keep your heart rate in the upper 10 beats of your aerobic training zone (the heart rate zone that you have for your long endurance workouts in each sport). If you are used to training at a lower cadence, the pacing of this turnover will feel exactly like the franticness of a race. Do this for a week straight and see if the higher cadence starts to feel more normal. Also, monitor how your runs feel each day after you ride like this. Almost immediately you should find that your turnover running will increase also. This is a good thing to have happen. World-class endurance runners usually have a cadence rate of 90-95 foot strikes counted on one foot per minute.

The end result is that you will start to ride at a higher cadence, and also you will be able to run at a higher cadence. This will help you out immensely in your races. It may get you to the finish line faster because of the lactate clearing effect. It will also get you to the finish quicker because it will train the neural pathways from your brain to the muscles that cause muscle contraction. And just like training your fat and carb metabolic pathways, one needs to build efficiency between the brain and the muscle. And the best way to do this is through higher cadence training. In fact, a lot of the fatigue that one feels in long events such as an Ironman is a tiring of those exact pathways. You may have all the calories you need, but the link between the gray matter and the red matter is fatiguing. The more this is trained, the less it will fatigue when it counts.

This type of training is especially important during your base period when workouts are done at lower speeds than they will be done at during your interval sessions near the races. As I have said many times over the years, just because you are training slower does not mean you need to look like you are training slower. So even at very easy training paces, if you keep your cadence rate up, the timing of muscle firing will give you the neural fitness you need to transition into speed work without a hitch. If you train at 75-85 rpms in your base but then suddenly try to up it to 95 during speed work, your body will have a tough time responding because you are asking it to do two things: go faster and go at a higher cadence. But if you lay the foundation needed to make higher cadence seem normal during your base work, then the only thing that will change in the speed phase is an increase in speed during your interval sessions.

I hope this is food for thought.

Mark Allen

Olaf hat mir mal etwas sehr einleuchtendes zum Thema tiefe Trittfrequenzen erzählt. Sinngemäß:
Nach ~120-140km geht die Fähigkeit, die Frequenz oben zu halten bei fast allen Athleten den Bach runter. Dann kommt man nur noch mit Kraft weiter.

Ich habe mein Training ein wenig an seinen Ratschlägen orientiert, mit mehr langer KA versehen und konnte zwei fast konstante Runden in Frankfurt fahren.