Serge Storms: Training Log

Maybe 3.5%. Always just a spray-tan away from walking straight into a physique contest with no prep.

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Friday - Group ride on Zwift.

The group rides are offered across a wide variety of categories. This one was right at my current level. Average power output was about 230 W, average heart rate about 158. That puts it right below the suffering threshold, but still hard enough to provide some training adaptations.

The time flies by in these group rides because you have to stay focused on staying in the draft. If you get dropped from the group, you lose the draft and it takes way more power output to hit the speed of the group and catch up with them again.

I burned 600 calories, which is great for only 45 minutes. Calories burned is calculated from your power output, not heart rate. So it’s about the most conservative and accurate way of measuring calorie burn. If I do a fairly intense workout off the bike where the calories burned is calculated from my heart rate monitor, the numbers are always inflated. It’s counting all of those heart beats between sets while resting. On the bike, I’m earning every calorie burned because it’s calculated from the force I’m putting into the pedals.

This is why I can drop fat so quickly and stay lean and light so easily with high volumes of bike work. It’s just simply a ton of hard work.

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New PR!

20-minute sustained power of 280 Watts.

This was a quick but painful bike session. Suffered pretty much the entire 20 minutes.

Also did a 30-minute session at the gym this morning.

Kicking ass lately.

184 lbs this morning.

Started back up on the Biotest staples. I feel like I’m back in the Boot Camp 2 days…mixing up Mag-10 all day, throwing Metabolic Drive into my oatmeal, shoveling down 6 indigo caps, choking down Superfood. I think I swallowed 12 total capsules in one shot last night.

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Awesome! Those group rides look fun.

Sunday - OFF
Monday AM: 60 minute studio session

Acro yoga hand balancing
Handstands and one-handed hand spins
Breakdance moves - floor work and windmills
Abs
Pushups
Dumbbells for shoulders and chest
Jump rope

500 calories burned. AVG HR 128. Max 158.

Muscles felt significantly tighter and the pump was noticeable. Likely the combination of Biotest staples that I’ve been shoveling down. I just do 1 scoop of Mag-10 before my workout, so the pump effects aren’t necessarily just from what I do pre or intra. It’s more from just flooding my system throughout the week with Mag-10, Metabolic Drive, Indigo 3G, and Carbolin-19. This approach seems to keep the muscles in a primed state for the pump. Seems to keep the water in all the right places.

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Lunch Bike Session

I did a Peloton Spin Class workout using the Peloton One app and my own bike and smart trainer.

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Good workout, went by super quick.

AM Virtual Spin Class

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Wednesday - Hotel Gym Easy Lift and Stretch
Thursday - OFF

Friday AM: 60 minute bike session. The pic above is what I did after a 15 minute warmup. This 45-minute session is the opposite of a Spinning workout or any kind of interval session. I did the entire ride in ERG mode, which means the flywheel resistance gets set at a fixed power output. 230 W for this ride. I also fixed my cadence at 90 RPM by sticking to a 90 BPM playlist.
This type of ride is not something commonly used for training, but I like it because it gives a good check-in on cardiac drift and decoupling.
For this ride, my HR stayed steady and did not start drifting towards the end. A goal would be to produce a similar result at higher power outputs over time.

Friday PM: 2nd Bike Session - 45 minutes

Saturday AM 1: Acro Yoga, Dumbbells, Abs, Jump Rope. 60 minutes, 500 calories burned.

Saturday AM 2:

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Big effort this morning.

This was done on the Zwift App. I was looking to throw down 30 miles today, which would take me to 100 miles for the week.

This ride was the perfect distance, starting at the perfect time. Not a race, but I finished 56th out of about 145 riders.

For the first 15 minutes, I just went at my own pace. Eventually, I settled in with a group and adjusted my output and gearing as needed to stay with the group…doing my turn to lead every once in a while. That’s why the average speed for the ride was so high compared to the power output. Usually, 230W is not enough to hold that kind of speed. But in a group, drafting lets you go way faster with less effort.
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Despite the high activity level and tons of what some would call “cardio” (I call it cycling training), I’ve really started to tighten up and kind of blow up a little bit. I’m up to about 192 and just pumped and crazy vascular all day. It’s a combination of Indigo plus carbs plus Mag-10 with a topping of Carbolin-19. I think it all works well when intake is high AND output is high. Extra activity to allow for extra energy intake to better support high activity but also allow for more carbs and protein.

The other big difference is that I was not focused on protein intake for many months. This week, I’ve drastically increased it with at least two scoops of Metabolic Drive/day and just more protein from everywhere.

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Monday AM: 40 minute bike trainer session on Zwift. This is my basic ride of 14.3 miles. (14.3 x 7 days = 100 miles).

I started at a recovery pace and gradually ramped up my cadence and power to about “threshold” level of 270 Watts. Easy ride, the time went by fast.

Every pedal stroke is always synched up to the beat of the music when I ride, so I generally just construct intervals that last the length of the song I’m choosing based on a target cadence. I range from 80-100 RPM, so I have playlists for music all along that range.

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Thursday AM - 14.3 Miles on Indoor Trainer

This was a ride done in “ERG” mode where I started at around 190 Watts and then did some intervals for the second half. Ramped up to a decent long interval at 290 Watts…just starting to approach the entrance to Suffer Land, but then…it was all over. Pretty easy ride.

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Post-Holiday Eating Plan

2600 calories/day
50% carbs
25% protein
25% fat

Adjust calories up when sub-q layer is thin enough.

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Decent effort on the bike this morning.

I ramped up gradually to a heart rate of 175. Then I did intervals where I would recover and ramp back up to a heart rate of 170. I used a variety of cadences from 80-110.

778 Calories burned in an hour is not bad. The higher intensity will give me an after burn effect from this one. If I’m smart about my food intake, I can slingshot off of this effort and yesterday’s day of good eating to quickly drop whatever small layer was added from the cookie binges over the last week.

I did a gym session and a bike session yesterday. The bike was a recovery-level ride…very easy to help set me up for a harder effort today.

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192 is relatively high for what you typically carry. How does that extra weight work for the gymnastic/acrobat moves? I like your current mix of bike/gym. I could see myself settling into something like that. It’s cool to see you excited about it all again.

Hey thanks for poppin’ in.

The gymnastics stuff is noticeably harder at 192. I have to be extra careful, or the joints can easily get overloaded.

The excitement has never waned…that is something I’m very thankful for. I’ve come and gone from my log, though. Logging is always beneficial…it’s good to be back into it.

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Big effort this morning.

I only planned on doing a quick recovery ride, since I was only 3 miles from hitting my weekly mileage goal of 100 miles.

I felt good so I went bigger. I did an interval training session from one of the Zwift training plans. It was brutal. I almost quit a few times, but decided to push through the suffering just to prove it to myself that I could.

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Monday

60 minutes Acro yoga, gymnastics, breakdance, dumbbell work.

45 minutes on the bike. High-intensity Intervals.

The graph above is from Strava. It tracks fitness and fatigue based on a bunch of factors. I am ending the year at a peak fitness level, from a cycling standpoint. Strava doesn’t know that I’m also doing 3-4 of my gym sessions/week in addition to the riding, so there is much more to my total fitness equation than just the bike miles.

It’s been a good year from a fitness standpoint. I stayed nice and lean all year, I discovered a passion for cycling, and I didn’t spend much mental energy micromanaging my diet. I did have a few unfortunate knee injuries, but nothing too serious. I still can’t do pistol squats on either leg, and I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to unless my knees just keep gradually getting better over time. No big deal.

You complete me.

PW - Happy New Year, hope all is great.