The comprehensive Agreement will see 2XU’s highly acclaimed Compression apparel worn by all GreenEDGE Team members for training and recovery to enjoy an array of critical physiological benefits including improved circulation and heightened agility through to reduced muscle fatigue and damage.

Shayne Bannan, GreenEDGE Cycling General Manager, said the Team has been very specific in which equipment suppliers it has aimed to work with, and as the brand that has set the benchmark in compression apparel, 2XU is the ideal partner.

“Because of the quality of their garments, 2XU has played a major role in creating the compression market and we’re delighted to be working with them,” Bannan said.

“The key to our riders maximising the benefits of their training is how quickly they recover and 2XU Compression will play an important role in that.

“When we’re putting our riders like Matt Goss, Stuart O’Grady and Cameron Meyer on the road to go head-to-head with the world’s best, we have to send them out there knowing we’ve given them the world’s best equipment on and off the bike. With 2XU Compression we know we’re doing that.”

2XU Director of Sales and Marketing, Aidan Clarke, is equally thrilled with the new partnership.

“Working with the world’s finest athletes and sporting institutes is integral to 2XU’s high performance formula,” said Clarke.

“We’re delighted to add GreenEDGE to our enviable list of respected sporting partners. With its underlying passion for elite performance and clear goal of seeing Australia perform on the world-class ProTour platform, GreenEDGE shares much common ground with 2XU.

As the existing official supplier of Compression to the Australian Institute of Sport, Rowing Australia, Triathlon New Zealand, international triathlon powerhouse teamTBB and UnitedHealthcare Pro Cycling Team amongst many others, formal alliance with Australia’s highly anticipated GreenEDGE marks a logical next step for 2XU.

With a relentless commitment to engineering world-class garments from fabrics delivering tangible benefits to the wearer, 2XU sets the benchmark in high performance compression. Ongoing testing, research and consultation with professional sporting bodies of such caliber as GreenEDGE are integral to the brand’s winning formula.

While cycling we are both less efficient and probably do not have the correct muscle groups developed enough to allow us to push our hearts to the limit.

Simply put, the legs give up through lack of strength before the heart does.

At 10km race pace for each stride you take it is suggested that you only use about 20% of your maximum muscle power, this explains why runners do not need large muscles and why Mary and I can get a high heart rate while running. However, cycling in a 40km time trial we can use up to 60% of our muscle power to turn the pedals, which means we need more powerful muscles to cycle. It is this lack of muscle power that is stopping us getting our heart rates higher, and leading to us to under achieve. We will both need to spend more time developing our maximum power-output to improve our efficiency on the bike.

One way to do this is the inclined leg press. Research suggests that if you have a weak leg press, in relation to your body weight, you will not be able to cycle fast. Being strong on the leg press does not guarantee that you will be a good cyclist, but weak performance will ensure you remain a poor cyclist!

Weight Training:

1. Aim to build up to 3 sets, start with lighter weights and only one set !

2. Do weights for 6 to 12 weeks

3. Do this twice a week as part of a strength programme

4. Pick a weight you could do about 20 lifts before reaching exhaustion

1. Leg curls 12 x 3 sets

2. Leg extensions 12 x 3 sets

Note: Your quads will always be stronger than your hamstrings.  should be 8:5 ratio. i.e. if you do extensions at 80 kg you should be at 50 kg for the curls.

3. Calf raisers 12 x 3 sets

Note: this will ache at about the 8th, last 4 should be tough.

4. Leg press 15 x 4 sets

Note: the aim to press about 65% of your one lift max.

In summary a lower than expected heart rate in one sport, compared to another, suggests a weakness that needs to be overcome in that sport. Although heart rate may help to highlight a weakness, don’t get too hung up on heart rates, as everyone is different.

On the bike it is more beneficial to monitor your average power output. While running, see what average times you can hold during interval training.

If you can maintain your target race pace, it does not really matter what your heart rate monitor is saying.

Mary was a top class runner with a 2.42 marathon and after that, 15 years as a successful rower. She will turn 50 this year.

“…running 3 x week similar my heart rate goes up to 160 maximum but on the bike even busting a gut my maximum heart rate is only 140. Usually hard intervals are 136 and a steady ride with a cadence of 90, the heart rate is only 110! – am I missing something – or is this because I am such a novice cyclist!  I am doing turbo sessions 3 x week and get out to ride for 2 hours if the weather is good – I have been cycling for one year.

Question – Do I go on perceived intensity (not very accurate) or do I need a maximum cycle test and then work off those heart rates for the bike? Do I just stick with this and hope the muscles will eventually respond?”

Talking about heart rates, introduces a very complex subject and I will quote my wife and I as an example to show, why we cannot just look up the answer in a book. My resting heart rate is 27.

Now I accept this is incredibly low, but is highlights a problem with training by heart rate alone.

If I double my resting heart rate, it is 54. If I double it again it is 108. Amazingly this is about the maximum pace that I do my easy runs at. It is also a heart rate that I currently find very tough to cycle at. My easy cycling is nearer 90 beats per minute. So, my easy running heart rate is the same as my interval training heart rate on the bike!

Let me take my wife Rieko, as another example. Her resting HR is around 50. If we double it, it is 100, double it again that is 200. This is in fact her maximum heart rate.  Where as I can double my resting heart rate twice and still be doing an easy run, if Rieko doubles her resting heart rate twice she is running all out.

At 27 beats, per minute my body is able to pump enough blood around itself for me to function adequately at rest, while Rieko needs 50 beats.  But for my easy run I must raise my heart rate 4 times my resting pulse, while Rieko must only raise her resting heart race two and half times. So a heart rate of 90 on the bike, although an easy ride for me, is in fact 3 times my resting heart rate. For my wife working at 3 times her resting heart rate, this would give her about 150 beats per minute, which is somewhere near her anaerobic threshold, or her triathlon race pace.

I hope I am starting to show that all our heart rates and bodies are different, and listening to our own body is much more effective than blindly following what the monitor or text book says we should do. Although HRM’s may have some good points they are just a tool, that would be better understood by using them less frequently, and by listening to our bodies more often.

In terms of fitness, the use of one leg at a time allows a greater volume of blood flow through the leg per minute (or unit of time) than happens with both legs working together. There is a great mass of muscle in both legs put together and together they can use more blood each minute than the heart can physically supply. When one leg works alone there is plenty of reserve capacity in the heart and a lot of blood can flood into the leg.

Read the full article here and learn how to integrate single leg cycling into your training – single leg cycling.

However, as I started blogging to inform you all, of my struggle to get race fit, it is important I analyse my training along the way.

I am currently out in Lanzarote for 2 weeks over Christmas. This is my annual vacation and although the weather is unseasonably wet, it is a vast improvement on the snow in the UK.  As is typical over here there is always someone famous to bump into. Last week it was Mark Cavendish and Team Columbia, and the Rabobank Cycle Teams. Unfortunately they were a little too fast for me on the bike!

This week I met Harry Wiltshire (www.driventotri.com) and Robin Brew, (www.robinbrewsports.com) one of Britain’s top swim and triathlon coaches. Harry is here to avoid the British weather and to get fit, while Robin is here coaching the Kelley College swimmers. Robin was an Olympic swimmer, but I first met him when we raced for the GB elite Triathlon Team back in the late 80’s.  He is still very fit   and was happy to tow me round the island to kick start my cycle training.

The great thing with riding with someone with so much experience, is that neither of us felt the need to be competitive (if we had been, I think Robin would have pulled away from me at will). We just settled down into a long slow conditioning ride.  Although we both try to limit our easy running because of the muscle damage it causes, we both agree that the bike is the place to do long slow conditioning work. Whereas some of my friends go the Starbucks and chill out over a coffee, we were quite happy to chat and put the world to right, while pedalling. If we were unable to talk the pace would have been too high!

An interesting note is that quite a few age groupers out here commented that they had over taken a bunch of Columbia riders, while cycling. It made me wonder who was going too fast at this time of year!

Unfortunately, I am just one week into my bike training, after many years off, and my legs are very weak.  Robin reminded me that at our peak when we trained together, we would regularly lift over 175Kg leg press, sadly I would struggle to lift 100Kg at present.

While chatting, Robin reinforced my views that apart from this easy conditioning work, cycling is a power game, and I have lost most of my power. In the 80s and 90s there were no power meters so we used speedometers and heart rate monitors to try and judge our perfect pace, now I can monitor my improvement much easier as I have set up my bikes to measure my wattage output. I can visibly watch my power output increase over the next few months.

It will take a combination of steady conditioning riding, some big gear work (either hill reps or on the indoor trainer) and after talking with Robin, I think that regular visits to the local gym will need to be built into my training programme.

It is well documented that although pushing a heavy weight on the leg press does not guarantee a fast bike time, an inability to perform well at leg pressing, will ensure that you are not able to cycle fast!

Today’s take away lesson for me; is an need to get back in to the gym and start pushing some leg weights if I want to cycle well next summer.

And even though I am targeting a drafting race, never underestimate the bike leg, because if you are weak   on the bike, you may still be able to hang on to a fast bunch, but you will suffer on the run afterwards…

I hope the snow eases in the UK and you can all get in some steady rides over the festive period.