Today's "well duh!" Lesson: stretching is good.

Last night I stretched for 20-30 minutes while watching The Last Dance (Bulls documentary) and this morning I had my easiest PR ever (wasn't shooting for it). I'm 99.9% sure it's because of the stretching.

I've always had insanely tight muscles, which has always made me hate stretching. I almost always do a 5 minute stretch after rides but know I should do more. One of the nice parts of Peloton is I can see the immediate results.

I'm sure everybody knows this, but just a friendly reminder to get a good stretch!

Absolutely. Check out the beginners yoga classes with Dennis if you liked doing those stretches. I've never done yoga before but he does a great job walking you through everything and not making the poses too difficult. I have started doing some of the 10 minute yoga classes after the 5 minute post ride stretches and it makes a huge difference in the way I feel.

My wife has been saying the same thing for months

My muscles are so tight everything in yoga is uncomfortable. I'm sure I could power through for 2 weeks and be ok, but I'm not out of excuses to start doing that.

My wife was doing the prenatal yoga and I started doing those with her just because they modify the poses so much for the pregnant ladies. Get you a set of yoga blocks off Amazon and try a few of those classes out and you'll be amazed at how fast you loosen up. I am up to doing 30 minute yoga classes now and am able to hold pretty much everything the instructor calls out. I don't look good doing it but it is amazing how much more bendy I have become.

I've had a lot of fun trying out the meditation, yoga, 15 minute stretches etc. These are all things that I likely wouldn't do in a group setting, but it's made a huge difference even in the few weeks I've had the bike.

Also for those coming from CG/OT, the boot camps and strength programs are great

Booooo!

I did his recent 30 min climb at lunch today. It was great. Got a PR and didn't get close to cardiac arrest.

man that dude had us out of the saddle at high resistance then up to 100+ at that same high resistance and all i wanted to do was reach through the screen and slap the **** out of him

StringerBell said:

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I just can't keep any consistency in cadence when I'm out of the saddle. Need to get better at that.

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I just hate I can't throw the bike right and left. I need a rocker plate for our Peloton!

StringerBell said:

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man that dude had us out of the saddle at high resistance then up to 100+ at that same high resistance and all i wanted to do was reach through the screen and slap the **** out of him

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That is what I hate about alot of the instructors. When standing at high resistance, anything above about an 85 cadence is completely unrealistic and borderline dangerous. If you can do a 90+ cadence while standing under climbing levels of resistance, your resistance is too low and you aren't really climbing. No cyclist in the real world is going to climb a hill standing with a cadence over 90. It is terribly inefficient and can be dangerous to your knees on a stationary bike with a heavy flywheel and feet clipped to the pedals.

I never go above 80 out of the saddle, myself. Too inefficient and too risky, especially as your muscles tire.

It went okay. I had to lay on the floor for a few minutes afterwards, so I think I did my best.

I didn't get where I wanted to be (200+), but my FTP went up by 20 points. I probably had an FTP that was low to start (even though I took the test).

I'm looking forward to testing out my new zones and the next challenge!

txags92 said:

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StringerBell said:

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man that dude had us out of the saddle at high resistance then up to 100+ at that same high resistance and all i wanted to do was reach through the screen and slap the **** out of him

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That is what I hate about alot of the instructors. When standing at high resistance, anything above about an 85 cadence is completely unrealistic and borderline dangerous. If you can do a 90+ cadence while standing under climbing levels of resistance, your resistance is too low and you aren't really climbing. No cyclist in the real world is going to climb a hill standing with a cadence over 90. It is terribly inefficient and can be dangerous to your knees on a stationary bike with a heavy flywheel and feet clipped to the pedals.

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this is one of the many reasons i hate(d) most spin classes and am very selective with instructors on peloton.

Is there a place to see your past FTP test results? I re-tested ~1.5 months ago, and I know my number went up over my initial test, but I can't find where the initial results are to see how much it actually went up.

YellAg2004 said:

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Is there a place to see your past FTP test results? I re-tested ~1.5 months ago, and I know my number went up over my initial test, but I can't find where the initial results are to see how much it actually went up.

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Take your total output from your FTP test and subtract 5%, that's the "FTP score" your zones are based on (it's also the top boundary of zone 4).

Either mPaceLine app or powerzonepack.com show FTP comparisons. I don't know whether you have to pay to see them all on mPaceLine at this point, but PZP page will show you FTP even with a free account.

I was told there would be no math.

Thanks for the info.

yo anyone doing the 8 week powerzone challenge thing starting june 1?

Yup doing the 3 ride a week team again. For me doing the 3 ride a week challenge was plenty because I was still doing 5 a week. I would do the 3 scheduled rides and then the 30 minute accelerator PZE and another PZE on a different day to get credit for an extra ride.

The challenge was good for me I enjoyed the structure of it and not having to pick my own rides everyday. My FTP went up 10% from beginning of the last challenge to retesting yesterday.

Yup....Matt Wilpers is the most of all the instructors about technique

Olivia is growing on me

It seems to be that Robin is Peloton's favorite, but I am not a fan

Here

Olivia calls out too much 85 cadence out of the saddle for me

I'm a relative beginner at this but I can't reliably go over about 65 in the saddle.

I've also been wondering why haven't any of the Power Zone instructors posted any "Live from Home" workouts.

Any of y'all do the Power Zone Pack stuff?

https://powerzonepack.com/

Did a PZ ride with Olivia today and didn't like it.

She's too chatty. I missed a few of the zone changes because I got tired of her yapping and tuned her out. Just tell me what zone to be in and shut up. I don't care that "this track is lit!" or that she was in a ride with TD last week that was so invigorating and helped her get centered in her life and blah blah blah blah.

Good deal. Signed up for the 3 ride a week one.

On Week 3 of the PZ program and am enjoying it. Seems like anything less than a 45 min ride now doesn't feel like I have done enough. I have noticed my FTP increasing and have to change resistances to make sure I am following the cadence. I enjoy the classes from Matt/Dennis/Christine. Olivia....
Once this program is done and I retest, I plan on doing at least 1-2 PZ rides a week.

Next up I am going to do the Tabata program.

#SeaYaSoon

Once you get to the 90 minute rides the 30 will seem like warm up

Just wrapped up my FTP and my God...I'm trying to just hold breakfast down at this point. My average output (207) was higher than FTP (197). I had assumed they were the same number, but wow ... I turned off the leaderboard and just zoned out.

FTP is calculated at 95% of your average 20 min output.

Gonna do Denis's 45 minute power zone ride followed by the live 30 minute club banger one which seems like an awful idea because I'm tired as hell because my kids didn't sleep but the diem isn't gonna carpe itself folks

Social Distanced said:

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Yup....Matt Wilpers is the most of all the instructors about technique

Olivia is growing on me

It seems to be that Robin is Peloton's favorite, but I am not a fan

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90% of my rides are Wilpers.

J4MVDZ Thanks!

AggieOO said:

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Social Distanced said:

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Yup....Matt Wilpers is the most of all the instructors about technique

Olivia is growing on me

It seems to be that Robin is Peloton's favorite, but I am not a fan

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90% of my rides are Wilpers.

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Robin is in charge of onscreen talent iirc and her personal story is imo pretty fascinating and inspiring. But the hiring of Wilpers may have been the best choice ever for the platform. Spin classes traditionally attracted more females but Wilper's style and PZ classes brings in males as well (especially after Stephen left). I'd guess male riders tend toward Wilpers and the PZ classes generally, which is why they added two more PZ instructors. The fact he also handles Tread and Outdoor classes is a bonus.