Form looks at your fitness and fatigue and the difference is your form. If the difference is too great you are either exhausting yourself, or not pushing enough. If the difference is within a certain difference range then you are training optimally.
During the pandemic years I stopped cycling, climbing, and more. The result is that I had an excellent walking form. I could walk for four hours without stopping without tiring, but according to Strava, Apple and other trackers I was losing form. I was losing fitness.
The paradox is that these apps don’t count walking as fitness, despite it being just that. It counts running, and cycling as fitness. You need to get out of zone one for it to count as training. If you’re within zones 2,3,4 and five then you’re fine. If you are in zones, three, four and five for too long then the fatigue shoots up, and the difference between fitness results in you over-exterting yourself. That’s when you fall sick or fade faster when you’re on a group ride.
Recently I have paid more and more attention to form. I’m trying to keep it within a healthy range because by doing this it allows me to do more group rides, runs and more.
Proof of Concept with La Baudichonne
Today I went for a demanding ride. It’s a steep climb where you’re pushing for almost the entire time, with orange and red gradients. In other words it’s steep. You need to be fit to do this climb. You need solid endurance.
I heard several people say “it’s not the cardio that is the problem, it’s that the legs don’t have the strength to push any harder”. The gradient is steep, and the climb is long. This means that you need to put out plenty of watts from the start of the climb until the summit, with little to no flat bits. In effect you have a small rest three kilometres from the end, but then you have some really steep gradients, so steep it’s easy to stall. To put it in other terms, you run out of stamina and you need to stop long enough to recover. You then need to resume climbing, but that fatigue lingers.
For a week or so before this ride I had less strenuous activities, two easy runs, and one or two easy ride. As a result I went from optimal form to the grey zone where I was starting to lose fitness. Ironically that’s when fatigue diminishes and form should increase.
The Fatigue Reservoir
If you push hard for several hours, for days in a row your fatigue explodes and you get exhausted. If you decide to make an effort, but that is moderate then the fatigue, and fitness stay within a certain range and you can keep working out to a certain level more often, without blowing up.
If you’re precise about keeping within the limits, then you can go for group rides and runs, without becoming exhausted.
The Sustainable Habit
If you get proper rest, and don’t overdo it, then you can be active, without exhausting yourself. You don’t need to miss a ride due to exhaustion. Today’s ride benefited from me being fresh.