Can I Survive A Mathieu Van Der Poel Training Session?

could you survive a pro-cyclist training session I'm going to find out if I can by trying one from an absolute hitter of all the Riders on the planet no one looks as powerful and as threatening on a bike there's Matthew van der Pol he is a master of Road and dirt with a natural Talent we can only dream of but it's clear that he must also do some utterly Savage training we've got hold of one of his toughest sessions an absolute Mainstay of his training to try and replicate [Music] okay now technically I've only got four hours to do which should be fine except that in the middle I've got four sets of grizzly VO2 max intervals look have a look at this right so it starts off 30 seconds at 140 percent of FTP then straight in to two minutes at 105 of FTP then I get 30 seconds at just 60 of FTP and then I have to repeat now in and of itself I can do that but that is just one set and I have to do four remember so we will see how it goes at least I get to start with some gentle spinning so I can definitely survive the warm-up can say that for certain right I better crack on I bought some snacks by the way I think I might need them exactly what training Matsu does is a closely guarded secret you can see that his Strava flat lines in January of 2023 just as he was building up for his gazillionth world elite soccer cross title however we have managed to get access his team alpacinda kerning are sponsored by Shimano which is just as well really because they need gears brakes and wheels for about 400 bikes a year 100. more specific to this video though Vanderpool and his teammates use Shimano power meters so that they and their coaches can accurately monitor their every pedal stroke and then afterwards assess their form and fitness when to push on in training and crucially when to back off now how power meters work it's really clever actually I'll quickly run you through it so strain gauges on each crank measure how much force mature is putting to the pedals and additional Keynes into here measures the speed at which that force is being applied from that the parameter can then work out how much power you're putting out and display it in real time on your head unit it's no secret that power meters have revolutionized cycling but tech there was once reserved for pros only is now accessible to all of us however what isn't accessible not usually anyway are the pros training Secrets however Shimano have very kindly managed to leverage of some access to that all important data not only that also access to one of the team's coaches oh yeah to hopefully reveal some absolute gold this is Tom verhagen he is one of a few coaches at alpsinder kernick he looks after Rogers from all disciplines but mostly from the men's World Tour team including Matthew Vanderpool Tom you're one of their performance coaches absent Viking and Matthew's personal coach as well I've asked you for a classic Vanderpool session talk me through what you've given me so we choose one of his high intensity intervals trading is he's performing a lot during throughout the season there's a wide variety of trainings there we chose for 30 second acceleration standing at about 150 percent of the FTP and then going on for two more minutes at 110 of his FTP after this first two minutes 30 seconds there is 30 seconds of easy recovery in between and then we repeat the first part so you go on for 30 seconds acceleration outside to settle at 150 FTP and then two more minutes at 110 FTP and then of course the last part will really kick in yeah and then you get a longer recovery period of about five to ten minutes ten minutes before going on to the next set so there are actually two goals on this session first of all it's about achieving the best physiological adaptation we can achieve so there it's the main goal is to be as much as time above 90 of his fear to Max so if that is achieved the the main goal of this the session is there but also when we talk about high intensity interval trading or Vietnam X training we still want to gather the very specific components or aspects so which means that's why we choose for this variant because then it goes on for 30 seconds acceleration is quite specific now on paper it doesn't look that hard I totally underestimated it I guess you'll uh underestimate a bit like the first two minutes 30 seconds you will feel like an exertion let's say a 15 or 16 out of 20 on a borg scale but the second part of the set the fatigue will really kick in [Music] back on my old training roads and with a specific session to do again as much as I love just cruising around on my bike there is nothing quite like having a structured training session hitting it really hard and then ticking off all the numbers as you go absolutely brilliant that's worth remembering when you're doing intervals like these on the open road you've got to find the right roads for them so away from the influence of traffic and also downhills crucially Tom did also say that there's a difference between doing these on the flat and on climbs so you said they'll feel easier when climbing because the recovery bit feels more like recovery so that was pretty interesting now right now I'm tootling along at 200 Watts and I've got to say this is a lot easier than I would normally go on bike rides which things quite interesting although I do have some hard hard stuff to come of course and I've also got more data coming from this Shimano power meter than just current power and average power so I've got something called Force Vector analysis which tells me how I'm applying Force to the pedals it's not something I need for now but it is more data to look over at the end of my ride what is really important though which kind of took my surprise a little bit is Cadence [Music] right then that is the end of officially the easy bit next up are the primers so this is kind of like the actual warm-up after the warm-ups and I've got to do 140 of FTP for 30 seconds then back to 60 of FTP for 30 seconds and I've got to repeat that four times so I'm looking at about 500 watts then about 210 Watts which I mean I always overestimate my abilities it doesn't sound that bad right now but I'll find out in about I don't know two and a half minutes time I guess oh I'm out of breath already and that that was the first activation okay don't panic don't panic so good four more seconds to recovery two one go right I'm feeling primed now super Prime it's time for the main course so 30 seconds at 500 watts followed by two minutes at 370 Watts 30 seconds easy then repeat sort of thought this might be easy but now having done some and realize that it's not three two one go two minutes then 370. there we go one set done maybe three moves again [Music] oh the nice thing about structured training session when someone's specified the intensities and you're training to power is it often it actually feels good as opposed to going too hard then hanging on Till The Bitter End he says with three more to go right stick in the big dog and three two one go ten more seconds and I get sit down [Music] cover recovery three two one [Music] thank you right then that was the second one [Music] ah still not feeling too bad just feels good actually it's like like controlled which is exactly what you want from a session I'm not dreading the third one which is a win I'm just trying to work out how I'm going to win the land sunrina after just these four intervals the bad news is that I'm only halfway through the good news is that there's only two more to go I have a feeling this one's gonna sting a bit my legs are feeling a little bit wibbly which is a technical term just in case you're wondering another few seconds left three three two one boom I say boom it's a mild explosion like a Christmas cracker as opposed to a missile [Music] foreign here we go then last one I haven't even got a coffee to look forward to at the end of this coach says I'm not allowed to stop for coffee you're allowed to stop for coffee after training I'm pretty sure Tom was taking the mick out of me I'm sure Matthew would stop for a coffee but anyway here we go my legs are soar now come on I got this one more to go it's fine ready and three two one go oh [Applause] intervals ticked off which is a relief I've got through them now gotta say it's so satisfying to tick off intervals when you hit the right power for the right time it was getting a little bit squeaky by the end but I got through him I'm a simple man that makes me feel happy I've now got two hours and 40 minutes of riding at 200 Watts at 100 RPM which feels an awful lot harder than it did about an hour ago but I think I'll be able to get through coach Tom said that actually you could do this session in just two hours this next bit is all about just time on the bike which is so important for a pro but the real training stimulus comes from those intervals I find it quite incredible that one of the most important training sessions for one of the best cyclists on the planet isn't actually any harder than that I survived it or at least I think I will I'll be very interested to know what happens if you give it a go as well of course matcha is doing power way in excess of what I was doing I did try and find out what he does but they wouldn't tell me it's also sobering though as well isn't it that actually the training session wasn't hard I think all too often those of us who train are looking for a magic training session that will Elevate us to the next level and often we end up falling into that trap of thinking that we need to train harder and harder and harder when clearly in reality for the pros that's not absolutely the case I and I think probably many other people out there often look to the top Riders see what training they're doing and think you know that's what I should do as well but to the GCM viewers out there what element of this particular session could they replicate and would it be beneficial yes so in my opinion training your vehicle Max is always useful but when starting comparing with another athlete or another person or your neighbor or your friend it doesn't matter you're different in the end you have a different physiology and you have a different lifestyle and lifestyle also has a big influence from their own it's about balancing three main components and that's training recovery nutrition training with power like you couldn't do this session accurately without it you know how important is having a power meter for your guys first of all it's really useful for Real Time data so if your work if you write it 150 FTP and you cannot sustain it you can lower it to 140 percent FTP or even 135 percent of the FTP you will still have a good session what is important about this session the goal is to still maintain during the two minutes a level higher than the threshold so during the two minutes it's really recommended to stay between 105 110 of the FTP so your view to Max stay high it's a combination of objective and subjective data a really useful tool for those who don't get a power meter is just the rpe score is the rate of perceived exertion it's a scale from 6 out of 20 or for one out of ten and you just say a hard the efforts belt and if you feel like you're between 8 or 9 out of 10 or let's say 17 18 out of 20 they are in the right uh in the right zone of perceived exertions so that's a really useful tool and it's a tool which is even more useful when combined to objective data like the power meter or just asking how did it feel like yeah yeah 18 out of 20. that's quite High isn't it yes it's quite hard and you will feel actually you need to uh take the measurement if I would ask what's your rate of perceived exertion you want to ask it at the end of the rep of course okay because the first 30 seconds you won't be at 18 or the intensity will be wrong I'm quite true to know how this is going to go I have actually completed it I'm not just defied coach Tom and snuck in for cheeky Brew on the way home so okay um now I think the lesson to take from this is that training sessions to be effective don't have to absolutely Crush you and take you to your knees far better to train in a measured in a scientific way carrying out the sessions with Precision measuring them as you go reflecting on it and then changing I mean that old adage trained smarter not harder is absolutely true so even though this session is something that most of us could probably repeat it's still a critical part of vanderpool's training should also bear in mind as well though that in isolation this session isn't going to do all that much what's really critical for a full-time athlete in particular is how it complements the session that came before it and the session that will come after it incorporated in to an overall training load I mean my week will probably be eight hours of riding training week for a pro will be 20 a training week for a pro could be 28 hours of riding so that puts it into context as well I mean there's that very very famous phrase Milan San Remo wasn't one in a day nor was Perry Bay actually nor two tours of Flanders or five sucked across World Championships anyway you get the picture I would like to say a huge thank you firstly for Shimano for providing me with a cracking power meter and also leveraging this amazing access thank you very much to Albertson to kernick and to coach Tom verhagen for his time and his insights as well I'm going to send him my uh my file here from my Wahoo see what he thinks whether I still got it takes I've never had it unfortunately anyway if you've enjoyed this video please give it a big thumbs up let me know how you get on in the comments section when you tackle this training session because I know you will and make sure you subscribe to gcn as well see on the next one

Channel: Global Cycling Network

Views: 62,938

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Id: YI8-4wfBAGE

Length: 19min 59sec (1199 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 09 2023