Standing at low power (ERG)

Training
1

Dear Fellow Sufferlandrians,
I just recently got my Passport and am still dwelling near the Couchlandrian border.
So forgive me if this question has been addressed elsewhere, however the closest I found was

My issue: I have problems with standing at low powers near or just above threshold, especially at low cadence. It results in awkward movements that are an offense to the Elements of Style.

How do you handle this? Stay in the saddle, change to Level and go to a higher effort, or just DAYT?

Thanks
Sascha

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2

Get into a more “aggressive” position, bend more at the hip and tighten your core do control your movement. Focus on the smoothness, if the resistance isn’t a challenge then you should have the mental overhead to focus on form…
Not “offending the Elements of Style” is typically down to core stability.

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3

I have watched a couple of YouTube tutorials on standing at low cadence or having jerky pedal strokes. Not sure if this video is legit but maybe try this:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hTkrnNr39dk

4

Thanks, @Recarter, nice one!

5

Thanks, @Jon!
Got that, this is exactly the elements of style-style :slight_smile:
Let me put the question differently: Would you say that an exercise like this is the farthest away from the natural “road feel” and can be seen as just an exercise to perform better in real life?
I’ve had a trainer only shortly and usually it all feels quite realistic, but I’d never had the idea to spin standing while going downhill or the likes. So there’s no resemblance to any road (or other) cycling situation as you’d (or at least I’d) only go standing if you need the additional power output. Does that make sense to you?

6

Are the lower power numbers due to reduced targets for the workout?

My hunch is doing fast or slow cadence while standing at reduced numbers is about…

  1. keeping the body familiar with the movement even though you might not ride that way outside (so called “muscle memory”)

  2. Developing better stability and body position awareness - it is easier to bounce around at lower power/resistance than high.

The 30- day yoga core plan seemed to help me with this.

7

Thanks, that pretty much wraps it up!
The lower power numbers occur at quite a lot of vids in different categories where power in ERG mode (which I guess most of us ride, I even do in the ones with very short NM bursts in ERG mode as my trainer is pretty swift in ramping) is around or slightly above threshold.
Both 1 and 2 answer my question: Even if you wouldn’t have the idea to “spin freely” while standing, it is obviously beneficent to train that way so you have an optimized form when under load…

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8

I struggled with this as well… There are times in a workout where I’m told to stand, but would never do this at the power level or perceived load while road riding. With the resistance so low, it’s hard to keep my legs from “spinning out” and getting jerky.

The other day while riding I ran into this again and found that by tightening my core and focusing on my leg flow that this was actually a really good burn for my core. This also burned my quads quite a bit as I focused on keeping smooth pedal movements. This was very different from what I typically do when standing (high resistance or power while climbing).

Am I doing that right? Working as expected?

Brian