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anybody taken the Build Your Power Zones program yet? seems like the next logical step after completing the Discover program. 4 weeks of 3 sessions per week (45 min, 45 min, 60 min), then week 5 is 2 sessions (45 min) and wraps with an FTP warm-up and the test

I'll be a bit smarter on the start date this program, looking ahead at the workout schedule and doing a best fit to my recurring morning meeting schedules.
 
WTF, is this "Forum/Thread" ?? I thought HBT was ..... well , ABOUT BREWING BEER!
I have a Wahoo Kickr indoors for Winter, and several outdoor bikes, for "gravel" dirt, and roads
OK, back to beer talk on another thread here.....
Are any of Yinz here, on Strava? I am - Edward Bloom, Pittsburgh PA (actually about 35 minutes North, away from the city)
 
WTF, is this "Forum/Thread" ?? I thought HBT was ..... well , ABOUT BREWING BEER!
I have a Wahoo Kickr indoors for Winter, and several outdoor bikes, for "gravel" dirt, and roads
OK, back to beer talk on another thread here.....
Are any of Yinz here, on Strava? I am - Edward Bloom, Pittsburgh PA (actually about 35 minutes North, away from the city)
we are brewing beer, and this thread is about keeping healthy with use of Peloton hardware and/or the app so we can brew for more years and live to enjoy it :D

p.s. outdoors I ride a 2007 Gary Fischer 'Fat Possum' mountain bike that is about to get brought out of storage and given it's Spring tune-up. similar to this one including the color. bought it new in Fall 2008. I should say used to ride - before our move last year. it's been in storage since we started packing up, and I finally found a place locally I can pack this to for some riding.

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anybody taken the Build Your Power Zones program yet? seems like the next logical step after completing the Discover program. 4 weeks of 3 sessions per week (45 min, 45 min, 60 min), then week 5 is 2 sessions (45 min) and wraps with an FTP warm-up and the test

I'll be a bit smarter on the start date this program, looking ahead at the workout schedule and doing a best fit to my recurring morning meeting schedules.
I haven't. I also didn't take DYPZ -- I just jumped in with the FTP test and then went to it.

I so far haven't done well with programs. I had to push hard to get the gold in Crush Your Core, because of on days / off days conflicting with my schedule or golf. I'm in the process of failing to complete Beginning Yoga, partly because I hate it but also partly because I fell behind on the weekend and now (esp. with today's true rest day) I don't have much chance of catching up.

The only program I've successfully done is the 5-day strength splits with Ben. But that's easier as it's only 7 days long, and I have enough visibility into my schedule that I only start it when I know I can finish. In about 2 1/2 months I've gone through that 5 times in all, with other random strength classes worked in on the weeks that I haven't done his program due to schedule.
 
got three strength workouts in today schlepping 10ea 60# bags of redi-mix concrete up a 30 deg slope with 20 feet of elevation climb, then hand-mixing those bags one at a time to set five new 3"-4" dia vineyard support posts. hottest day of the year so far at 83F/28C, no air movement, and humid for us at about 25% humidity.

definitely not the weather I planned to do this in when requesting the afternoon off last week, and not the type of dirty work I wanted to wear my heart monitor band to capture a more accurate workout via the app, but a solid 110 minutes total to get it all done.

I done drank a LOT of water today and haven't yet had to pee this afternoon :D

those 45 minute Power zone Endurance rides every morning are really paying dividends in my ability to get work done in the afternoons/evenings!
 
got three strength workouts in today schlepping 10ea 60# bags of redi-mix concrete up a 30 deg slope with 20 feet of elevation climb, then hand-mixing those bags one at a time to set five new 3"-4" dia vineyard support posts. hottest day of the year so far at 83F/28C, no air movement, and humid for us at about 25% humidity.

definitely not the weather I planned to do this in when requesting the afternoon off last week, and not the type of dirty work I wanted to wear my heart monitor band to capture a more accurate workout via the app, but a solid 110 minutes total to get it all done.

I done drank a LOT of water today and haven't yet had to pee this afternoon :D

those 45 minute Power zone Endurance rides every morning are really paying dividends in my ability to get work done in the afternoons/evenings!
Where do you live? It is going to rain here for 7 days since yesterday....
The indoor trainer really helped me get a huge head start for the outdoor road bike rides last 2 winters.
Only downfall, is a walk-in-cooler full of top-shelf homebrews that keep crying "drink me..... drink me....."
 
Sounds like a heck of a day, @Rodent ! Glad the working out is helping prepare you for it tho.

I'm gonna hop in the Jeep with my wife, cruise down to San Clemente, and have a lunch at Pizza Port Brewing followed by some shopping at the outlets. I just got back from taking the dog for a 2 mi walk, but didn't log it in the app because we stayed in the neighborhood and he stops and sniffs at everything so I don't consider it a "workout", so I'll get a stretch in, and that'll be it for today.
 
Been off the bike a few days now. Just stretching (and walking the dog) during the weekend because I played golf Sunday, and then just two strength workouts yesterday.

So today I re-started Ben's 5-day split, did a core, and figured with fresh legs I should go for it on a 45-minute 90s Rock Ride with Jess King. Managed to beat my PR by 31 kJ, and it was the first time I've eclipsed 250 watts average for a ride >30 minutes.

Like @Rodent I can say that this is really all due to the long-duration PZE classes I frequently take. They talk in the classes about the endurance work being the foundation of the pyramid, and I have to say that it's made a huge difference for me to build the foundation.

And on the bright side, I've been somewhat plateaued on weight loss for easily a couple of months now. I started in the 275-280 range, and seemed to stall in the 260-265 range for a good long while. I think a lot of this was due to not really trying to monitor diet, but also due to adding in a bunch of strength work so I was building muscle--I could say that the strength work was showing up in my physique if not on the scale. But I had a day last week at 259.8, and today was 259.0, so maybe I'm breaking through that plateau!

Seems strange that I'm coming up on almost a year of the Peloton now. But it's already up there as one of the best decisions I've ever made.
 
Been off the bike a few days now. Just stretching (and walking the dog) during the weekend because I played golf Sunday, and then just two strength workouts yesterday.

So today I re-started Ben's 5-day split, did a core, and figured with fresh legs I should go for it on a 45-minute 90s Rock Ride with Jess King. Managed to beat my PR by 31 kJ, and it was the first time I've eclipsed 250 watts average for a ride >30 minutes.

Like @Rodent I can say that this is really all due to the long-duration PZE classes I frequently take. They talk in the classes about the endurance work being the foundation of the pyramid, and I have to say that it's made a huge difference for me to build the foundation.

And on the bright side, I've been somewhat plateaued on weight loss for easily a couple of months now. I started in the 275-280 range, and seemed to stall in the 260-265 range for a good long while. I think a lot of this was due to not really trying to monitor diet, but also due to adding in a bunch of strength work so I was building muscle--I could say that the strength work was showing up in my physique if not on the scale. But I had a day last week at 259.8, and today was 259.0, so maybe I'm breaking through that plateau!

Seems strange that I'm coming up on almost a year of the Peloton now. But it's already up there as one of the best decisions I've ever made.
Congrats on putting in the work and making a significant achievement!

Stalled is such a frustrating thing, more so if your scale only has physical weight and not an estimation for lean mass and body fat. I'm OK when my weight holds steady IF it also is when my lean mass (muscle) is increasing and my body fat decreasing. Without a scale showing those difficult to measure gems, simply seeing weight can be discouraging when the scale isn't changing

I'm 13 days away from the 6 month celebration of my first Peloton activity. I'm with you on it being one of the best decisions I've made in my years. I've eclipsed 35 pounds lost in that six months, increased my overall health (BP, weight loss, cardio, fitness, endurance, diet, etc ...) and have less back pain that I've had in years. I'm beyond grateful my SO gave the thumb's up on the purchase, and see myself continuing forward in the Cult-o-Peloton for a long time to come.
 
Yeah, and I'm not going to say I was dismayed by the weight loss stalling out. I understand weight loss, and recognize that I was NOT really addressing my diet (and of course, 'round here, maybe adding too many liquid calories). So if I was working harder, but I was eating more to compensate, I know how that calculation works.

I'm more of a "process" guy than a "goals" guy. Just keep putting in the work, and eventually the outcome will come around. I've been putting in the work, and most of the outcomes (strength, output on the bike, physical changes) have been trending the right direction, so I haven't worried about the scale. If the weight loss keeps stalling eventually I'd need to address it via "process", but if I do happen to break through the plateau then I don't need to.
 
There's a Sam Yo Star Wars ride (b/c it's May 4, of course) that dropped today.

Word is that this is a "Special Edition" ride that has a special intro and other things only available today and tomorrow. After that, apparently there will still be a Star Wars ride on demand, but with changes from this one.

So if you're at all into Star Wars, and want the special edition, I recommend making time for this in the next 37 1/2 hours.
 
thank you for the heads-up on this!

we're supposed to have lightning this afternoon, so a SW ride sounds like a nice alternative to my original plans of firing up the weed whacker and trimming along the fence
 
Sam definitely made this a fun yet still challenging ride. And great to finally share in a workout session with you @betarhoalphadelta ✋

Heck yeah. Great ride. Sneaky Sam with a definitely challenging ride, but his chatter and the theme ALMOST made me forget how hard I was working lol.

Probably the best themed ride I've ever done.

Not sure if you've ever seen the Broadway version of Moulin Rouge, but that 2-for-1 ride with Sam and Bradley is also really good. But it won't make much sense if you haven't seen it.
 
I feel incredibly silly.

It turns out my Schwinn will display rpm (which I assume is cadence), but I had turned that feature off years ago when I bought it.

Time to find out how bad I've been slacking.

Edit: It is cadence, and I have been slacking a bit.

My Schwinn has three lower display segments that can each alternate between 2 or 3 types of information.
Left: speed and ride duration. Middle: resistance, cadence, and distance. Right: heart rate and calories burned.

Today I turned off speed and distance and turned back on rpm.

I have an upper screen that also shows bar graphs of my resistance over time and something called "intensity" (in intervals of 10), which I now suspect is their word for cadence.

I'm kind of glad I didn't remember I could show cadence until today. I struggled to keep up on today's 30min ride, but that could also be because I've slacked off recently. Hopefully mini-she and I have come to a better understanding about the routine she wants and I can get back in the habit of riding in mid to late morning.
 
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cycling 'recovery' day today. took one of Matt W's 20-min recovery ride to keep the legs flushed out after several back-back endurance ride days and another weekend of digging planting holes for trees and potted table grapes, and lugging pots and soil amendments up the hill to where the new grape support system is in the back yard. was going to follow that with a 15-20 min scenic on-demand ride, but my legs barely kept up on the recovery ride so I called it a day
 
I think all of the spinning combined with the physical work outside caught up with me the beginning of the week: Sun afternoon I noticed my arms felt 'heavy' and by Mon morning I could barely lift them and had an overall lack of energy. It peaked yesterday with needing to take a mid-day nap for a couple hours as I was totally exhausted. I reduced my rides to easier, shorter activities and eliminated most all activities requiring any kind of strength.

Finally feeling like my energy is starting to return and at about 70%. Arms are still at a point where attempting an arms strength class would be pointless, but hopefully I'll be back to these by the weekend.
 
I think all of the spinning combined with the physical work outside caught up with me the beginning of the week: Sun afternoon I noticed my arms felt 'heavy' and by Mon morning I could barely lift them and had an overall lack of energy. It peaked yesterday with needing to take a mid-day nap for a couple hours as I was totally exhausted. I reduced my rides to easier, shorter activities and eliminated most all activities requiring any kind of strength.

Finally feeling like my energy is starting to return and at about 70%. Arms are still at a point where attempting an arms strength class would be pointless, but hopefully I'll be back to these by the weekend.

Yeah, gotta get rest days in there. But I've really found that having two "accountability" aspects allows me to not stress out like I need to go 100% all the time. For me it's these two:

  • Maintaining my daily streaks (60, rest day, start again): Even if all I'm doing is a full body stretch, knowing I have to do *something* helps. And what I find is that more often than not, I'm going to pick something more than that. But if I don't, then so be it! Over the weekend I didn't work as hard as it sounds like you did, but I built a raised garden bed planter for my wife, painted it, bought a bunch of soil and filled it, planted seeds, etc. I had planned to ride Sunday but after all that, I said screw it and did a stretch. Then on other days I might do 3 or more different exercises (like today, a core, an upper body, a ride, and will finish with a stretch here this afternoon). But keeping that streak makes me mentally commit every day, but I don't stress that every day has to be hard work.
  • Goal of hitting that 15K minute badge: This obviously correlates with the above where I can't just slack off and get in the habit of only doing 10 minutes a day. I know I have to average just over 40 per day, so for every day I only do 10 I need to go over 40 enough days to stay ahead. Every day I do a 45-minute PZE and 10-minute stretch, or like today where I'll end up with 70 minutes total across modalities, I'm buying myself those "active recovery" rest days.

Between the two of those, it makes me feel fine about taking the rest I need, when I need it. And with the tracking capability of Peloton challenges, it's easy to know where I stand.

I will say I was a little disappointed in myself that I didn't get gold in last month's strength challenge. But I'm making up for it with 12 strength in the last 11 days, and I'm only 3 away from gold for May.
 
looks like this is a week of Team HBT achievements!

I hit ride #250 upon completing a 45 min Power Zone endurance ride this morning. thanks to my four days away, I'm about 15 miles behind a 300 miles/month pace I set out on. should be back on pace sometime by early next week if I can peck away at it in 2-3 miles/day increments
 
looks like this is a week of Team HBT achievements!

I hit ride #250 upon completing a 45 min Power Zone endurance ride this morning. thanks to my four days away, I'm about 15 miles behind a 300 miles/month pace I set out on. should be back on pace sometime by early next week if I can peck away at it in 2-3 miles/day increments
Good stuff! 300 miles is a strong month! Good luck hitting that!
 
Taking it easy today with just a stretch.

I finally did Kendall's 45-minute Metallica ride on Saturday. I've been putting it off for a long time, out of fear lol. But I had been lighter on the bike earlier in the week due to Ben's leg day last Tues and mostly focusing on strength, so I said "let's PR this sucker!" And I did. And yes, that ride is effing hard! It definitely lives up to the 9.4 difficulty rating lol. I was really shooting to reach 700 output, but towards the end of the ride I had to back off the top of the callouts a bit and finished short at 694.

Then yesterday was again shoulders & legs on Ben's split, so I did a lot of squats and deadlifts. I followed it up with a Bradley Rose 30-minute Pop Punk ride with the sole intent of just taking it easy and flushing out the legs. He usually doesn't have super-tough resistance callouts, so it worked out nicely.

So today is an active recovery day.
 
Taking it easy today with just a stretch.

I finally did Kendall's 45-minute Metallica ride on Saturday. I've been putting it off for a long time, out of fear lol. But I had been lighter on the bike earlier in the week due to Ben's leg day last Tues and mostly focusing on strength, so I said "let's PR this sucker!" And I did. And yes, that ride is effing hard! It definitely lives up to the 9.4 difficulty rating lol. I was really shooting to reach 700 output, but towards the end of the ride I had to back off the top of the callouts a bit and finished short at 694.

Then yesterday was again shoulders & legs on Ben's split, so I did a lot of squats and deadlifts. I followed it up with a Bradley Rose 30-minute Pop Punk ride with the sole intent of just taking it easy and flushing out the legs. He usually doesn't have super-tough resistance callouts, so it worked out nicely.

So today is an active recovery day.
since you note finishing up with a Bradley Rose ride ...

"Simply amazing work, you cheeky little thing!"

I took one of Kendall's metal rides a couple months back. it's going to be some time before I get the nerve to take another. Insanely hard, and definitely requiring some downtime the day (or two!) following
 
Yeah, some of Bradley's quips, I just get the sense they're not directed at me 😂

I really enjoy Kendall classes, but she is NOT scared of high resistance callouts, often at high cadence. I don't take her metal classes (because while I had my Metallica phase, I'm not a true metalhead), but a lot of her rock classes are the same and she's had some really good artist classes, especially her Red Hot Chili Peppers and Bon Jovi rides. I liked her Gwen Stefani ride, but it's got a light weights section in it, which I don't do, so I just pedaled through that. I heard the Linkin Park ride is great but haven't taken that one yet.

And if you want to die, take any of Olivia's 20 minute rock rides. I looked at my workout history and realized that of my 20 minute rides that aren't FTP tests, she has 4 of the highest 6 outputs. And I've only taken 4 of Olivia's 20-minute rides, so it's no fluke! Her 30 minute Guns N' Roses ride was also a lot of fun.
 
a couple tenths over 53 miles left to pedal to reach my goal of 300 spinning miles this month. it's definitely within reach without overdoing it

a couple friends were in the same ride I did this morning, making for some fun interactions as we rode alongside and/or passed each other
 
Plenty of time to hit 300! I'm only at 202, so that's not happening for me. BTW that PZ ride I did today with Wilpers was no joke. Z4 blocks of 6, 6, 5, 5, 4, and 4 minutes with 3 minute Z1 recoveries between. Set up to be low cadence high resistance for the first block of each duration, and then natural cadence for the second block of each duration. So the first of each block I'm sitting there at cadence 63 and resistance 70 or so, which is about as much of a grind as it sounds lol...

One of these days we should all plan to be on a group ride... I.e. pick a ride, and all join the ride at the same time one day.
 
Plenty of time to hit 300! I'm only at 202, so that's not happening for me. BTW that PZ ride I did today with Wilpers was no joke. Z4 blocks of 6, 6, 5, 5, 4, and 4 minutes with 3 minute Z1 recoveries between. Set up to be low cadence high resistance for the first block of each duration, and then natural cadence for the second block of each duration. So the first of each block I'm sitting there at cadence 63 and resistance 70 or so, which is about as much of a grind as it sounds lol...

One of these days we should all plan to be on a group ride... I.e. pick a ride, and all join the ride at the same time one day.
Love the group ride idea! if we plan enough, we could coordinate our workout/rest days to align with the ride date

low cadence + high resistance to obtain a Zone = UGH!!

nothing zapps my legs faster than a low cadence higher resistance block. maybe it's a bike setup thing, but I have it pretty comfy for even a 60 min PZE ride

I think I've finally built a reasonably decent endurance base to where I can start venturing out on a 30 or 45 min regular PZ class once a week. not even looking at the PZ Max classes. nope
 
I'm generally a strong leg / poor cardio guy, so for me it's never my legs giving out, it's my heart rate that limits me. Although with that much Z4 in one ride, my legs ARE pretty much jelly right now lol.

I've only done one 30 min PZMax. It was repeating one thing 4 times -- 30s of all out sprint in Z7, then 2 minutes of Z1 and 2 minutes of Z2 recovery.

It sounds easy. 30s of anything can't hurt, right? Nah... By the 4th one I thought that 30s effort took about 6 minutes lol!

But don't shy away from PZ. I find in general that PZ classes are not classes where I'm going to threaten a PR. If I look at my history, my 30 and 45 minute PZ rides are WAY below my PRs for those classes. They don't push you as hard in PZ as you think they might.
 
got up early this morning so I could get out and repair my hillside access road down to the lower yard. as I was heading out I thought to myself: I'm going to be doing a lot of shovel work, I should use this time as my strength workout. Bonus points for utilizing my heartrate monitor to validate it was indeed a great workout!

almost two straight hours of digging to repair several areas where the hillside gave way a bit the past year. I need to look at the Peloton app to see what my strive score was, but I do remember I was in heartrate zone 4 for almost 10% of the time and that I burned over 1000 calories by the apps calcs. I can say that there are places where the buildup was nearly waist high and completely across the 8'-10' wide road, and I covered a length that was at least 75 yards long in one area for an overall coverage of almost 100 yards in total.

Here's about 2/3 of the main section worked

IMG_3816.JPG


why post this here? beyond the great workout, it's again a testament to the endurance that the Power Zone Endurance rides have built up in me. no way I could have done this last year, or even in Feb/March of this year

Necessity to get this done is that the weeds in the lower yard are getting up to the 6'-8' tall range in places. they were at forehead level while seated on the tractor in much of what I mowed today (that a J Deere Series 2 tractor off in the distance, and the weeds are right at the top of the ROPS bar. you can also see the road I repaired this morning as it winds up the hillside) I had to wait to mow since the spring runoff has this area marshy and pocketed with pools just two weeks ago

IMG_3815.JPG


IMG_3818.JPG


Back at it tomorrow afternoon ...
 
why post this here? beyond the great workout, it's again a testament to the endurance that the Power Zone Endurance rides have built up in me. no way I could have done this last year, or even in Feb/March of this year
Love to hear it!

I had a similar, but much less strenuous, version of this today. We were doing some simple house cleaning but started seeing things that needed to be cleaned and made it almost a spring cleaning.

Well, one of my MOST HATED chores is cleaning the horizontal blinds in our kitchen window. They're right above the sink and work area, and close enough to the stove, that they just get disgusting. And the only way that I've found to clean them is individually wiping them HARD with those disposable Clorox wipes. Each wipe gets maybe two blinds before it's just covered in crap.

Well, I was thinking as I got 90% of the way through it, "Wow, this is just like what @Rodent said about his yardwork. I'd be sweating hard, my arms would be fatigued, and I'd be hating life right now w/o all those Peloton workouts..." And then when I got done with the first pass, I ended up going over the whole thing a second time with a quick pass to clean up anything that wasn't 100% perfect, which there's NO way I'd have done that before.

Only thing I forgot to do was log it as a strength workout. Now I need to get a stretch in to get my blue dot for the day lol...
 
so great to hear B!

my SO was a professional cleaner in her younger years, running her own business and at times making more per hour than I was. she's done consulting work (cleaning industry) on multiple occasions. I'll have to ask her what she recommends to clean such atrocities
 
so great to hear B!

my SO was a professional cleaner in her younger years, running her own business and at times making more per hour than I was. she's done consulting work (cleaning industry) on multiple occasions. I'll have to ask her what she recommends to clean such atrocities

Thanks! That would be helpful! It's one of the few jobs that I won't just force my 15 year old to do, because I don't trust he'll do it well enough lol... I can have him take the shop vac to the blinds elsewhere in the house where they're not so nasty.

On the subject of PZE gains, I had an interesting ride today. I had been off the bike since Saturday (played golf yesterday), so I had big plans for a big ride... Denis has a new 60-min PZ with 5 min blocks of Z4, 3 min blocks of Z5, and 1 min blocks of Z6. But... Then the day kept dragging, and I thought "well I can do a 45 or 60 PZE instead", and the day kept dragging, and I said "I just need to get on the bike for SOMETHING." So I picked Emma's 30 minute Yeah Yeah Yeahs ride. The difficulty was only 7.6, and looking at the metrics it said the top of the callouts was something like 319 kJ, so lower than a 30-minute PZE for me typically.

I got on the bike, and something just caused me to ride above the top of the callouts. Generally I was hugging the top of the resistance (except for the flat road section, which I was well above), but I was tending to higher cadence than she called out the whole ride. And I'm looking at the time, and where my output is, and thinking "hey, I'll probably hit 400+!" And I did. With the final minute push I ended up at 417.

But the funny thing about it was... It just wasn't that hard! That's an output on a 30 minute ride that would have left me struggling and breathless 6 months ago. And yeah, it was *WORK*, but I just kept chugging along, and never felt like I was pushing too hard or that it was too much.

I almost feel like a different person compared to where I was a year ago, when I had just ordered the Bike+ and was waiting for it to show up. And then adding in PZ was a step change when I finally did my FTP in December. It's insane that I'm going to pass 7K minutes for the year tomorrow. I don't think that I've *ever* had that much exercise over that period of time in a year... And... I don't hate it lol!
 
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