7 Comments

1. 

   Moritz on January 8, 2012 at 5:49 am

   Jim: can you expand a bit on the reasons why you use an increasing cadence ladder (as opposed e.g. to a decreasing cadence ladder) ?

2. 

   Jim Karanas on January 8, 2012 at 8:13 am

   You certainly could use a descending ladder Moritz. I find Endurance is best developed indoors using cadences that simulate riding on a flat road when I’m not purposely training in a Big Gear (see earlier article). This means 80-100 rpm. So, to enable the students to practice this entire range through the 3 intervals you ladder up or down. On one side you could say start with the high end of the range and ladder down as the students warm up and can handle the bigger gear more effectively. That makes good sense. In this situation (indoors, long intervals) laddering up will likely enable them to sustain a high-end aerobic HR more easily when they are tired in the 3rd interval (spinning keeps the HR higher) plus if you use music with a slightly faster tempo, it will create an ergogenic effect and they will feel as if they are going faster and again, try harder. Please read my article being published next week on Beatmatch. Beatmatch is what I would recommend for the Zendurance training.

   Thanks for reading.

3. 

   Moritz on January 9, 2012 at 9:05 am

   Thanks Jim for your reply ! I’m from Europe and we are mostly “beatmatch inclined” here 😉 The reason for my question was mostly to ask if there are underlying ojectives to use a decreasing cadence ladder. I know increasing ladders are harder (increased cadence adding cardio vascular stress) and participants tend to lower resistance to almost zero if exhausted.
   For my curiosity: can you explain “ergogenic” ? My dictionary does not list this and Wikipedia is not realy helpful either.

4. 

   Chuck Cali on January 10, 2012 at 10:12 am

   Moritz,

   Let me take a stab at this definition. In the context of indoor cycling ergogenic can best be described as feeling correct for the class objective.

5. 

   Moritz on January 11, 2012 at 8:50 am

   Thanks Chuck, now it makes sense to me

6. 

   Jim Karanas on January 12, 2012 at 9:45 am

   Moritz:

   I’m sure Beatmatch speaks to you if you live in Europe. It’s funny, I usually spend a lot of time talking to Europeans about the benefits of Freestyle.

   To add to what Chuck says above: An “ergogenic” aid is an external influence that has been determined to enhance performance. Synching you cadence to the beat (Beatmatch) has been shown to create an ergogenic impact because moving “with” music stimulates performance. This is well documented though not completely understood. It is believed a musical rhythm somehow provides an external auditory stimulus when synchronized with movement that enhances our motor behavior process. We put out more power when we move to a beat.

   One of the clearest examples of the benefits of using Beatmatch (called Synchronous Music in the science lit) was observed when the Ethiopian runner, Haile Gebreselassie, broke the indoor 2000-meter record in 1998 while synchronizing his stride rate to the rhythmical pop song Scatman.

   Also, when using Beatmatch, I personally find an increasing ergogenic effect with increasing cadence. Synching my pedal stroke at 100 rpm is a lot more fun than synching my pedal stroke at 80 rpm. There is no research supporting this in the literature, and maybe I just like slightly faster cadences, but that is why I ladder up in the Zendurance audio profile.

   Going back to your initial question, by using an ascending ladder, I feel I can encourage my students to give me a harder effort when they are tired in the 3rd interval as a result of the ergogenic impact of both Beatmatch and a faster cadence. You raise a good point though. They might be reducing the resistance to spin faster at the end. This is likely but as long as their heart rate, power output or even RPE is greater, I don’t think an easier gear is detrimental. Remember that the Beatmatch is controlling their rpm. Their cadence will be maintained by the beat of the music and they will be pedaling below 100 rpm.

   Thanks for the discussion guys.

   Jim

7. 

   Linda Harty on August 23, 2012 at 5:40 pm

   I taught this profile on 8/21/12 and 8/22/12, and my students LOVED it. I used the three 15-minute songs but swapped in my own choices for warm-up and cool-down songs. The students loved the music as well as the workout itself, as did I. One student who came to my yoga class the next day said the Zendurance workout the evening before had left her feeling wonderfully calm and peaceful for the entire evening. Nice job, Jim!

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