Amy Dombroski is a professional cyclist who grew up on a dirt road in Jericho, VT and raced alpine skis through high school. From there, she followed her brother to Colorado and stole his cyclocross bike. She now resides in Boulder and Belgium and owns her own bikes, which she uses when she races for Crank Brothers/The Race Club 11. As Amy tells us on her website: “I race these bicycles all year long because I’d rather not discriminate between cyclocross, mountain bikes, road bikes, and cruiser bikes.” We’re thrilled to have her as a contributor to Cyclismas. You can follow Amy on Twitter @amydombroski, and like her Facebook page here.
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I hope bad karma does not ensue from sharing a complaint first, but here goes: not enough trash talking. The chicklets in the Three Legs Cycling Ladies Road Race DVD are far too nice – to one another, to the camera crew filming up their nose and to the men demanding them to sweat and breathe harder.
I took on this turbo DVD with sniffles, the black lung, and a Doctor’s order of a sub-1.5 hour workout with bits of intensity. I know when I mount the turbo my heart rate immediately spikes and my body anticipates pain. With many of these indoor fitness videos, the bumping bass and twirling techno makes me work it out and do the Jane Fonda. So, with a doctor’s note prescribing something more mellow than step-ups, I donned my leotard and go-go boots with hesitation but promised myself I wouldn’t let a choreographed exercise video bring my competitive spirit to a rapid boil.
In America anything you buy – be it an exercise video, medicine or food – has precautionary and instructional information in the form of a short novel. These are to save face [and avoid legal repercussions – ed.] if anyone has any “issues” with the product. For example, McDonald’s was sued by a woman who burnt herself on a hot coffee because the coffee didn’t have a warning in it. Maybe instead of latte art, she was hoping for “CAUTION: I may be warmer than warm” written in the milk froth. And the instructions would read something along the lines of “test temperature of contents, then raise mug to mouth and tip slowly.” Even peanut butter jars read “Food allergy alert: may contain peanuts.” However, with our groceries being overtaken by processed foods I suppose I am relieved to read that my peanut butter may actually be made with peanuts, as opposed to some corn-based genetically-modified creature. But I digress. How many of us actually read the multi-chaptered information novels? Most likely you won’t be licking or ingesting this DVD in any manner. Fortunately there is no heavy machinery required, aside from your turbo. And if you’re on the turbo watching this on the telly, chances are you are inside, in which case skin cancer from sunlight is unlikely. Therefore, the only thing you need to worry about now is rickets and measuring your exertion. Peter Kennaugh’s (the 3LC Head Coach) precursor is, I think enough of an instruction manual:
All 3LC Training Sessions are simple to use and based on cadence and Rate of Perceived Exertion – therefore, the difficulty is in your hands. If the session is too hard, knock it down a gear – too easy, get the gearing up!
Snark aside, my purpose of the turbo session was 1) to watch the DVD so I could get the @UCI_Overlord, @cycletard and @3LCTV to stop hassling me for a review, 2) to get on my bike after feeling too rubbish for too long to even get out of bed, and 3) to find some inkling of motivation and squeeze out bits of intensity. The session is one hour long; although much shorter than a road race, it is “to scale” with emphasis on the zones and tasks within a race: making the break, riding in the break, covering, attacking, tempo, climbing, recovering in the descent, riding in the wheels, being on the front, and finally the lead out to the final 1000km and “getting it all out.” The screen setup holds the overall countdown of the session in the upper right. The bottom of the screen holds three boxes. The first is the current zone and goal of the task at hand. The second box is the count down of the task, whether it’s one minute of “covering the move,” the thirty seconds of “getting in the break,” or the three minutes of tempo when you are “back in the bunch at a comfortable pace.” The third box is the next zone you are aiming to hit, so you can prepare yourself for an increase or decrease in intensity. There is not any of the aforementioned Ace of Base music and it all seems a bit silent at first, but valuable information can be had if you actually listen to Rob Holden and Peter Kennaugh. You may learn simple facts, such as why the warm-up, the object of the session, and how to wrap your head around the intensity (which can seem mind-numbing when you’re stationary and watching the seconds tick away). Rob and Pete become the bird on your shoulder constantly chirping “focus, drink, relax your shoulders and pedal smooth circles.”
The floor of the studio is decorated with the names, and the walls are adorned with giant photos of the legendary bike racers the United Kingdom has fostered. When an athlete reaches the top level of sport, in that athlete a champion is born through the culmination of miniscule details. Currently it seems the UK is the leader in realizing these details and making them work in their favor. I imagine the UK as a miniature shaken soda can; when you pop it open the amount of information, ideas, details, and focus would rupture, explode and cover a land far more vast than their island itself.
Because 3LC is all based on cadence or rate of perceived exertion, it is all up to you how hard you want to dig. I rode the entire session in my small chain ring and accomplished my goal of the session. Bump it up a couple gears, or even another chain ring and the session would feel very different. I think it is a common misconception for beginner cyclists to think the harder the gear the harder the workout. Not if you’re grinding away at 50rpm! Look at any professional road race and I think you will notice some rapidly spinning legs (albeit with very hard gearing). Try hitting 200 rpm – near impossible? A recent tweet from Lotto-Belisol pro Greg Henderson read “took out the World Sprint Champs today downhill in 39×21. @GeraintThomas86 hit 231rpm. What you got brother?” Cadence is important, and like anything important, it takes time, focus and form to train it.
I started this review with a complaint (which I think can be remedied with putting Cav in a blond wig for the Ladies Road Race DVD) and I’ll end with one. Women can be athletes just as well as men can. If someone is an elite athlete, that woman or man is trying to be the best she or he can be. To do that we know we need to push ourselves and suffer. Women, just as well as men, demand excellence and are screaming inside to do better. I do not know how the other 3LC DVDs (sprinting, time trial, climbing and men’s road race) are played out, but it seems evident that Rob and Peter may be more comfortable coaching men, and perhaps not quite sure how to interact, coach and motivate women. Sure, women are emotional, but we’ve all seen Cav cry.
Thank you 3LC for a DVD I will continue to train with and learn from. I look forward to the 3LC Cyclocross DVD. Though running around the cement floor speckled with names and then remounting a stationary bike could be awkward…
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