Beginner: How to start with low cadence

General Discussion
1

Hi all,

I am very new to Zwift and cycling (beyond using a bike to get from A to B) and have not been very active in sports in the last years. However, I felt it was time to do something and got a Zwift Ride. I had some plans how to get started but got stuck now due to cadence issues.

I just did my first FTP test and got an okay result in my view but felt that I could have done slightly better, if I had not tried to reach the high cadence the test asked for. Then I tried the first workout of the “Build me up light” plan and really struggled with the requested cadence. I already felt exhausted during the warmup simply due to the cadence. I stopped the workout once I felt that it made no sense as I exhausted myself during low intensity periods.

So, obviously my cadence needs to improve but how should I best approach this? Should I just disregard the “pedal faster” messages during the workout and aim for a bit higher cadence that still feels okay (70-75rpm) with the aim to slowly increase this over time? This will still keep the required power due to ERG mode. Or is it important to get used to a high cadence as soon as possible? If it is the latter, are there any recommended workouts?

Thanks!

2

Just my unprofessionally offered advice. Get yourself aerobically fit on the bike before worrying about cadence targets. Many training modules don’t have cadence targets; look for those to start with.

3 Likes
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Cadence (ie slower) is about building strength in your legs.

Higher cadence is less about that but more on your cardio fitness.

I’m simplifying that a lot since there are other factors at play as well.

I would just focus on cardio fitness for now, get a good base then worry about the rest later.

What will do you a lot of benefit is regular riding outside building up the distances gradually to longer rides.

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If you are just starting out, the most beneficial thing you can do in the first three to four months is simply to ride your bike. Skip the FTP tests and structured workouts for now; just enjoy riding at whatever pace feels comfortable. Any effort you put in will help improve your fitness over time. Once you reach the four-month mark and have made those basic adaptations, you can start to implement structured workouts to target some specific ability. Your focus will depend on your phenotype — whether you are more of a glycolytic rider or an endurance/time trialist; and what specific areas you want to improve.

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I’m going to say that an untrained cyclist doing an FTP test and then starting training plans makes zero sense.

It’s one of the many flaws of zwift if they are still doing the intro like that.

The best way to start cycling is to cycle lots of miles at a pace where you can comfortably chat to build an aerobic base. This is what is often called ‘zone 2’ or z2 pace. It’s more effort than a recovery ride, but these rides you wouldn’t find the biggest hills in your area.

What matters here is how far you cycle and how consistently you do it (i.e cycling every day is better than once a week) rather than how fast you are going or what.

That said, I wouldn’t take it too seriously, if you want to go and ride up a hill and put in more effort because it’s fun, go for it.

As for cadence, generally prefer lower gears where you can spin the pedals comfortably. How fast you spin is mostly personal preference. The point is, cycling is, for the most part, a low impact cardio exercise - there are some exceptions to that (e.g track cyclists starting off in their fixed gear bike or big sprinting efforts) but, generally you should feel more out of breath as your efforts increase than as though you’re struggling to push the pedals around.

Sometimes IRL, of course, the gearing on our bikes and the size of hills means we have no other choice than to stand up and pedal unless we get off and push - in zwift you can limit the steepest climbs to match the gearing on your bike using the trainer difficulty setting.

When you start any exercise the fitness gains are relatively low hanging fruit and easy to get, thus there’s very little point in following strict training plans. Just cycling around in zwift or IRL enjoying the scenery will improve your fitness and the length of time you can cycle before getting fatigued will increase.

You should also find, by repeatedly riding at z2 pace your z2 pace actually gets faster, i.e you will be able to produce more watts at that pace for the same level of effort (i.e a similar heart rate) this is the sign that the training is working - and it can feel counterintuitive because cycling so you can chat feels easy some people think it isn’t giving them a good workout.

The trick is to make these rides long enough that you get fatigued - and then you will get fitter. The other advantage riding at z2 is that you recover quickly.

Eventually your fitness will plateau or the distance you have to ride at an easy pace will be longer than the time you have available. (Ultimately most people can get fit enough to ride all day at the ‘cycle so you can chat’ pace - but few people will want to spend all day cycling so there’s maybe not a lot of point training z2 until you can - if you expect to ride max an hour or 2, then make your z2 rides this length - whereas if you expect to start doing longer 3-4 hour rides then train z2 until you can ride for 4 hours)

Usually the idea is to add 30 minutes a week. Training this way it’s around 8 weeks training to do 100 mile ride which, again, you may have no interest in, but some cyclists do set as a goal.

At that point, then you can worry about measuring your ftp and things like training plans and workouts. Which would be a much longer post.

That said, if you want to do the training plans and they motivate you then go that route - the key training metric as a new cyclist is “ride the bike a lot” - however you choose to ride it, indoors, outdoors, following a plan or doing what I’ve suggested above, the main this is to ride the bike a lot.

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Many thanks for the excellent advice! I will postpone the workouts for now and focus on riding in zone 2 aiming to slowly increase cadence and duration.

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One thing I also suggest - if you feel tired then no harm taking a rest day.

Plenty of riders push themselves every ride and wonder why they don’t get faster - it’s because they aren’t letting the recovery happen when it is needed and they are always fatigued.