by Joan Kent | Dec 22, 2014 | Master Instructor Blog, Strength Training, Training With Power
Image credit http://cyclefit.co.uk/sportive-preparation-should-i-lose-weight-or-increase-power-part-1
As a nutritionist, I hear many clients say they want to lose weight — to look better, have more energy, improve their health. But losing weight can also help you increase your power on the bike.
Ratios intrinsically provide two ways to improve the ratio — by manipulating either variable. The results of improving both variables can be dramatic.
As covered in a previous post, efficiency — the ratio of work output to expended energy — can improve with increased work output or decreased energy expenditure (or both).
In the same way, your power-to-weight ratio on the bike (measured in watts per kg) can improve with increased power or decreased body weight, or both.
Power is itself another ratio, of work to time. If work increases or time decreases, the result is greater power. ICI/PRO is currently covering this topic in depth.
So that provides 3 variables in the power-to-weight ratio: increase your strength (work), increase your speed, or decrease your body weight (or all of them).
Why Lose Weight?
Even if you’re not overweight, weight loss may improve your power-to-weight ratio. It need not — and shouldn’t — involve a strict “diet” that leaves you hungry most of the day.
It does involve careful monitoring of your numbers — how many calories you burn (using your power meter or, preferably, a wearable calorie counter 24 hours a day), and your calorie intake.
The goal is to eat fewer calories per day than you burn, but not by much, just 150 to 300 calories. If that feels too restrictive, drop the deficit to 100 calories. The result would be a slow decrease in weight that you can stop or reverse at any time.
These days, the general recommendation for weight loss is rapid loss. (Is that to match up with HIIT and the shorter-and-harder approach to fitness, I wonder?) Rapid weight loss is said to keep the “loser’s” motivation high.
Yet gradual weight loss — while also training for power — has the advantage of maintaining fat-free mass (FFM) so you won’t lose strength, an important variable in the power ratio.
Holding On To FFM
Weight loss often decreases muscle mass, especially rapid loss. But in the long-running (13-plus years) weight-loss program for which I was both the nutritionist and a training coach, we typically saw steady or increased FFM while the participants lost weight at a slow, sustainable rate.
That helped them maintain strength and power so they could do the training, which was frequently high-intensity. The intense training, of course, was designed to increase strength and power.
Maintaining FFM also prevented participants from having to drop calorie intake more and more (and more) for continued weight loss.
Don’t Bonk
Make sure you don't restrict calories on the ride itself. Whether you’re riding outdoors or doing tough power training in the studio, under-fueling before or during the ride could cause you to bonk.
Even without bonking, you may still feel week and have difficulty working up to your capacity — the power you’re trying to improve. Fuel as usual while riding.
Keep the calorie restriction small. Cut back a little more on days that you’re not training hard, or at least save the restriction for after the ride. If your power ride is late in the day, early A.M. calorie cutbacks may work. Just keep your pre-ride meal about the same as usual, and eat or drink whatever you need on the bike.
Be strict about post-training refueling (covered in a previous post) so you can train well the next day.
Technique and Efficiency
In all of this, don’t forget that better technique on the bike will help you waste less energy by reducing the energy needed for pedaling, reducing energy lost as body heat, and retaining more energy for your next pedal stroke. Your functional strength, a power variable, will increase.
Combining good technique, all the power training tips you’re currently getting here on ICI/PRO, and gradual weight loss will help you dramatically increase your power-to-weight ratio on the bike.
Wishing you great success with this!
by Joan Kent | Dec 15, 2014 | Best Practices, Engage Your Students, Master Instructor Blog
The word “technique” intrigues some and makes others yawn. But there’s much to be said for technique. It’s the foundation for all athletic performance features.
Technique involves improved skills. In the broadest, most general terms, that means eliminating unnecessary movement; making movements in the correct directions; applying the necessary power, but no more than that; using the right muscles for the activity; and using optimal speed if time isn’t a factor.
Okay, that’s a dry list. Still, the benefits of good technique — and the consequences of bad — affect training and performance. The last thing I’m going to do is describe cycling technique; vastly superior riders have done that in too many venues. (Check out the excellent videos here on ICI-PRO.) Instead, I’d like to list some benefits of good technique.
Efficiency
The main benefit of good technique is efficiency. Efficiency is the ratio of work output to expended energy. If work output increases OR energy expenditure decreases, efficiency has improved. Efficiency and technique are closely related because principles of efficiency are so similar to principles of technique.
Many activities have an optimal rate. Rates above and below that cost more energy. The mechanism behind that is stored muscle elasticity, which requires the shortest time between muscle relaxation and contraction to prevent the loss of energy as heat.
Good technique reduces the energy required for the pedal stroke, reduces energy lost as body heat, and retains more mechanical energy for the next pedal stroke. Strength goes up — functional-type strength.
Practice reinforces cycling technique, so it improves efficiency.
Consistent velocity
Consistent velocity also affects technique. Unintentionally accelerating or decelerating due to poor technique wastes energy. Obviously, holding a single cadence throughout a cycling class isn’t usually part of the workout plan.
But staying consistent during a song or segment — an important technical skill — can increase efficiency. Beatmatch is an excellent teaching tool for helping students develop consistency.
What else affects efficiency?
Efficiency may involve factors other than technique. For example, it may depend on the contractile properties of the muscle: slow-twitch is more efficient than fast-twitch. It may depend on training, which can increase strength and endurance by increasing muscle efficiency. Big-gear training, for example, can improve efficiency in fast-twitch fibers.
Other benefits of good technique
Doing something with correct technique feels good, probably because the body is being used the right way.
Correct technique makes the student look good. In my master’s thesis, I compared the principles of technique and efficiency to principles of movement aesthetics. It turns out that what makes a movement correct and efficient is also what makes it beautiful.
So technique leads to efficiency, and that wastes less energy. The less we waste, the more energy is left for the demanding parts of the class when it really counts. And the better we look and feel cycling.
You’d like your students to look and feel good while taking your class, complete it successfully, and want to come back for more, right?
Jim Karanas always said, “Endurance athletes don’t mind expending energy, but they never want to waste it.”
Good cycling technique is the key.
by Joan Kent | Dec 8, 2014 | Health and Wellness
In a previous post, I listed the DSM-5 criteria for addiction and left tolerance and withdrawal for another time because they take a bit more explanation. For the sake of completeness, here they are. I promise to keep this short!
Tolerance and withdrawal are linked with addiction, but addiction can occur without them. Once called the classic markers of addiction (criteria 1 and 2 in the DSM-IV), tolerance and withdrawal have been moved to 10th and 11th places in the DSM-5 criteria for substance abuse disorder.
Tolerance
Tolerance is reduced effectiveness of an addictive substance. We’ll talk about sugar. A larger dose is needed to obtain the same effect, which may increase sugar intake.
Tolerance involving endorphins occurs with sweet substances. Sugar and artificial sweeteners can both change endorphin (beta-endorphin) function through up- or down-regulation. Endorphins are produced in response to pleasure or pain.
Serotonin is another brain chemical that alleviates pain, and tolerance can occur to its effects, as well. Serotonin production is higher when insulin release is higher, so more sugar means more serotonin.
Carb sensitivity — the exaggerated release of extra insulin when eating sugar — would also increase serotonin production.
Withdrawal
Withdrawal is a predictable set of symptoms that most addictive substances will produce when chronic use stops or drops.
Withdrawal includes physical symptoms and negative moods, both associated with low levels of specific brain chemicals.
It’s common to use more sugar, or a closely related food, like fruit, to relieve or avoid withdrawal symptoms.
Addiction involves two types of reinforcement. Positive reinforcers establish and sustain habits because they cause pleasure. That’s what typically creates an addiction in the first place.
Negative reinforcers establish and sustain habits because they alleviate pain or distress. If eating sugar takes away the discomfort of withdrawal, the sugar is a negative reinforcer. That’s true even though it started as a positive reinforcer.
Most addictions will run in this direction — toward seeking negative reinforcement to stop withdrawal — no matter how “positive” the reinforcing effects of the substance or food were in the beginning.
Any positive reinforcer can be addictive. Any negative reinforcer can be addictive, too. The negative reinforcer can be either a substitute or the substance itself.
So anything that’s substituted for sugar and takes away withdrawal symptoms (negative reinforcement) has addictive potential. I’m thinking fruit, agave, sweeteners.
What Withdrawal Looks Like
80% of self-labelled chocoholics reported irritability or depression when avoiding or cutting down on chocolate. They felt preoccupied with chocolate at those times. Abstinence from chocolate led to relapse and overeating of chocolate in all participants.
One thing that occurs during withdrawal is craving. A craving is an intense urge or desire for a substance. Cravings are typically highest when withdrawal is most severe — and the greater the intake, the greater the withdrawal and craving.
Cravings may be triggered externally (seeing or smelling the sugary food) or internally (tasting a little). Withdrawal is also internal triggering.
Among women, chocolate is the most craved food, and the cravings peak premenstrually. Chocolate contains stimulants and mood-elevators, including caffeine, theobromine (similar to caffeine), tyramine and phenylethylamine (the being-in-love chemical). These were defined as the “psychoactive components” of chocolate.
Yet, when chocolate wasn’t available, all the substitutes were sweet, rather than stimulants like caffeine.
PMS and morphine withdrawal share several symptoms, including cramping, carb craving, sweating, fever, increased appetite, insomnia, irritability and nausea. During PMS, endorphins drop, so PMS has been described as periodic withdrawal from endogenous opioids (endorphins).
Or periodic morphine withdrawal??
by Joan Kent | Dec 1, 2014 | Engage Your Students, Health and Wellness
Have you heard about stomach hunger versus mouth hunger? Many nutritionists and dietitians talk about this. A client mentions eating Something Bad, and the practitioner asks, “Was it stomach hunger or mouth hunger?”
A variation on the question is, “Was it physical hunger or emotional hunger?”
Peak-performance motivator Anthony Robbins says, “If you ask bad questions, you get bad answers.” Asking a client whether she ate because of stomach or mouth hunger — or because of physical versus emotional hunger — is the classic Bad Question.
And it gets bad answers. Answers like “I don’t know” or “I’m not sure.” Sometimes the answer is another bad question: “How can I tell?” The client is trying to figure out if she was hungry for physical reasons or emotional ones.
Despite these rampant failures, the question persists. One book even uses the term “intestinal hunger.” Does anyone out there have any idea what that is? If I can’t understand it, what chance do my clients have?
Of course, if you’re not comfortable handling your participants’ food and eating issues, by all means refer to a nutritionist. This post is about awareness of what some of your participants may go through daily.
A Better Question
Here’s an idea that might be good for practitioners to adopt. I never use the term “hunger” for anything but physical hunger. Instead I ask, “Were you physically hungry, or did you just have an urge to eat?”
That question gets real answers and can uncover some important issues. People can tell the difference.
The urge to eat could have much behind it — emotions, stress, shifts in brain chemistry, shifts in hormones. Some clients might need coaching to explore the emotional component and retrain their responses not to involve food. Some may need to change their diets to change brain chem and/or hormones.
Real Hunger
Hunger is a specific, physical signal that the body needs food. I’ve explained in detail what hunger feels like to clients who don’t experience it.
Why don’t those clients experience hunger?
Some may not because, for years, they’ve been eating for reasons that have nothing to do with hunger:
– the clock says it’s mealtime
– everyone else is eating
– appetizing food is here now
– they ate too much at the last meal
– they’re stressed, depressed, anxious, or even happy.
Readers may conclude that the items in the last bullet show “emotional hunger,” but I’m suggesting that the word “hunger” causes the confusion. It’s more appropriate to use it only when physical hunger signals are present.
How Do I Know If I’m Hungry?
Clients who never feel hungry may be confused about how to determine hunger. If someone says, “I ate breakfast at 7 am, and now it’s 12:30, so I must be hungry,” that’s a thought process, not hunger. The best tactic is to help clients retrain their recognition of hunger through increased awareness of body signals.
It’s helpful to stay aware of misinterpreted signals. An obese client told me his hunger was “here” and placed his hand on his throat. Further questioning revealed that he actually had GERD (gastro-esophageal reflux disorder), which we alleviated in two ways. One was monitoring his work position after eating (he sometimes worked from home in bed). The other was taking an OTC remedy before the meal. (Don’t worry; I checked with his doctor.)
Clients who eat lots of sugar may not experience hunger. Despite research, I haven’t yet found a satisfactory explanation for that. Client symptoms, however, can typically be traced back to drops in glucose. If someone says, “I don’t get hungry, I get a headache,” that could be one sign of reactive hypoglycemia. Other examples exist.
So the absence of hunger could reflect lack of awareness, chronic overeating, or chronically high sugar consumption. When I uncover a solid explanation for the last, I’ll definitely let you know.
In the meantime, if you refer your participants to a nutritionist, please screen them and find one who doesn’t ask about mouth hunger.
by Joan Kent | Nov 24, 2014 | Engage Your Students, Health and Wellness
(Indoor cycling instructors probably have their holiday eating under control, so this post is for your participants. I hope the information helps them.)
Quite a few years ago, I was on staff at a 10-day seminar on nutrition and eating behaviors. We lived at the ranch where it was held. Staff and participants alike followed the same mealtime rules.
Frankly, the seminar wasn’t particularly good. But we did one great exercise that helps me to this day.
The Standing Ovation
In the dining hall, we had to stand and announce that we were going back to the buffet to take seconds. At that point, everyone in the room gave us a standing ovation.
The reason behind this is simple. Some people tend to pile food on their plates when they go through the buffet line. It prevents the embarrassment of returning for more. The problem is, once the food is on the plate, it’s easy to keep eating, even when we don’t want it.
Giving yourself permission to get seconds eliminates the need to pile extra on the plate. Start with a small portion, and get more only if you really need and want it.
A Better Standing Ovation
The other part of the exercise was this: We had to stand and announce whenever we were throwing away food. Again, everyone in the room gave us a standing ovation.
I’m convinced this is one of the most valuable exercises anyone with food issues can try.
Most of us grew up learning that it’s a sin to throw away food. Didn’t you? Because of the starving children, right? Where were they starving when you learned it? We all heard different countries, different locations, but the sin was the same.
Kids immediately see through this nonsense and say, “So send it to them.” No one can convince kids that shoveling food that they don’t want or need into their mouths will help starving children anywhere. And yet this “teaching” persists and its negative lesson lingers into adulthood.
U.S. Food Production
Meanwhile, the U.S. produces 3950 calories worth of food for every man, woman and child (even infants) in the U.S., each and every day. 3950 calories is far more than most adult men need, and certainly more than women and children need.
So much of the food the U.S. produces is excess. There’s almost no way to prevent wasting of food.
Under circumstances like those, throwing away food isn’t a sin. It’s survival. And learning to be 100% okay with doing it is the smartest strategy.
Convincing My Clients To Get Rid Of Trouble Food
It isn’t easy to convince my clients of that. One client bought a giant tub of dates at Costco. Even though the date sugar kept triggering binges and her weight was creeping up, she kept eating them daily. When we talked about it, she said, “They’re almost gone.”
Perfect. Don’t put the dates in the garbage. Treat your body like a garbage can and put the dates in there. Yikes.
Another client had dinner with her parents at their home twice a week and couldn’t refuse the giant portions her mother served her. She had a problem with the sin of throwing away food. I wish she’d learn to use plastic containers for the purpose for which they’re intended.
Seminar Benefits You Can Use
After the seminar at the ranch — and all those standing ovations! — I can throw away any food. Now, I’m definitely NOT telling you to buy good food and throw it away for no reason.
But if a food — especially sugar — is making it difficult or impossible to stick with your eating plan, it needs to go. Not when it runs out, but now.
The impact of the sugar you can’t stay away from is huge. It goes beyond the “empty calories” most people talk about when discussing sugar. (Does that phrase bore you as much as it bores me?)
Toss That Sugar
Sugar increases appetite by inhibiting your satiety center. It changes your food preferences and makes you want more junk and fewer vegetables. It can make your eating feel out of control. As all of that happens, it affects your self-esteem, and not in a positive way.
And sugar will — as always — be everywhere this holiday season, along with holiday buffets.
Stop treating your body like a garbage can. Throw junk in the real garbage can, where it belongs. If you need to ruin the food first, do it. (Dishwashing liquid is handy for that!) Dump it and move on.
Your body deserves better. So does your brain, and your self-esteem. Can you hear the standing ovation?
