3LC Sprinting – Train With the Manx

Three Legs Cycling (“3LC”) is an Isle of Man based enterprise comprising a collective of the Island’s cycling elite – the extended Kennaugh family; new An Post Sean Kelly rider Jonny Bellis; current world road race champion, green jersey winner, and Tour rest day procreator Mark Cavendish, and many others.  3LC has released a series of five DVDs – each focusing on discrete areas of cyclecraft:  road racing, time trialling, climbing, ladies road racing and sprinting.  These workouts are (to state the obvious) designed to be undertaken on an indoor trainer and are ideally suited for livening things up over the winter when boredom and unstructured training are the enemy.  What isn’t to like about spending an evening listening to dulcet Manx tones and bike banter?

I was asked to give the 3LC Sprinting workout a whirl and, as I think of myself as a closet sprinter (more by a process of elimination: not being a climber, stage racer, classics specialist, time trailer, breaks specialist, etc.), I was pleased by this prospect. Cavendish boldly states that “[s]printing is not about sitting in and doing 200 meters – it takes a lot of consistent efforts to get there.  It’s about being able to sprint when you’re in the red and that’s what this session helps.”   I was about to turn my sprint over to the Manx mafia for some remedial work.

As I generally tend to train indoors by reference to heart rate or, when my PowerTap works, power, I was intrigued by the 3LC approach – primarily cadence-based.  This makes the workout more accessible to a wider section of cyclists as not everybody has determined their maximum heart rate and heart rate/power training zones.  At times I have found heart rate based training to be misleading and counterproductive so welcomed a change of approach. 3LC head coach Peter Kennaugh Snr says “[the] sessions are based on cadence and Rate of Perceived Exertion… [T]he difficulty is in your hands.  If the session is too hard, knock it down a gear – too easy, get that gearing up!”  The theory behind the cadence approach is that the fitter you get, the easier it will be to do the same workout albeit in a harder gear.

The 3LC Sprint session is just under sixty minutes long – long enough to get a decent workout without going stir crazy and is designed to keep things very uncomplicated for the rider.  The DVD interface is minimalistic but effective and contains various bits of information about the current workout and what exercises are coming up next, in addition to a couple of timers and countdowns.  The DVD is narrated by a couple of Manxmen and between the workouts the assembled cyclists (including Cav, perspiring freely and rockin’ Dura Ace Di2 on his bike) trade barbs and motivational nuggets.

The sprint workout itself is varied and challenging, with a focus on short sharp sprints and also some longer high cadence work (working up to over 130rpm at times).  Used in conjunction (and appropriately rotated) with the other DVDs in this series, an aspiring cyclist will have a good varied indoor training programme without the need to engage a coach.

As everybody has their own turbo routine and modus operandi, from my perspective a couple of things would make the workout even better: (i) the DVD could contain a multimedia video format of the workout for transferring directly onto iPad/phone etc. as not everybody works out in front of a laptop or DVD player (hello shed…); and (ii) some motivational or high-tempo music might be included on the soundtrack – not necessarily to the exclusion of the narrative/banter, as this is part of the value added of the 3LC offering – but perhaps in the background or turned up during the most intense sections where there is nothing but silence.

In years to come, I hope that the Islanders will look back at this series of DVDs and realise what a rare collection of coaching and racing talent they possessed back in the day.

3LC Sprinting is available to purchase at www.3lc.tv and other online retailers.  Collect all five DVDs in the series and the good folks at 3LC will send you a special collectors edition DVD – Cycling Warm Down with Peta Todd*

*Terms and conditions apply.  Offer only available to current male world road race champion.