I saw one of my buddies on the trainer the other week doing what I thought was an FTP test (Functional Threshold Performance)

I was thinking... geeze bro give it all you got, but he just seemed to be cruising along, so the nosy parker Wayno had a peek over his shoulder and it was this new thing called a MAT test (yet to find out what this means)

I spoke with Jianni Koutsos (Coach and owner Vbike) he said this was the begining of a new revolution, right away i thought... yeah im a bit rebellious (or have been) so I need to be involved and certainly need to know more.

Now here is the disclaimer... I know Jack about heart rates apart from the fact mine works, im an average ride with an FTP of 215, but what I do know is I need to improve both my endurance and my strength. Jianni told me I'm strong and have good technique, but I think he was being kind.

Im pretty proud of my acheivements so far in cycling having only picked up my new bike in September 2013 before setting off on an epic fundraiser ride of some 840km from Geelong to Adelaide in January 2014. (done it every year since)

January this year I set a goal for next year that I will go back to this ride 10kg lighter and 18% body fat ( pretty stoked so far as this morning weighed in at 98.5kg so thats a drop of 7.1kg and my fat sitting around 23%

Now before you go all gangbusters and buy a bike and think your going to lose weight, its not actually the riding that done it, It'smy nutrition, I've gotten smarter on how I use my Herbalife Nutrition products, I've cleaned up my whole food eating and I've become dedicated to being strict and honest with MyFitnessPal. My weight loss is all based around my phylosophy of 20% exersise 80% nutrition and 100% Mindset.

IF IT'S TO BE IT'S UP TO ME.

Ok so while I wait for my MAT next week, I thought I'd have a play with the theroy of lower heart rate higher cadence and see what happens, after all when I was much younger my running coach.. Yes I was a runner loooong distance too I might ad, Marathon boy that was me. My coach at the time Mike Ryan  (won Bronze in the Marathon at the Mexico Olympics 1968) he would have me jogging with a high step rate whilst keeping heart rate down.

I attacked a ride in at VBike on Thursday morning based on 20% strength and 80% endurance. I made a huge effort on this ride to concentrate on my breathing so I could keep heart rate down, I found that I completed the ride with a higher than normal average speed for this ride I've done previously but I also maintained my normal average wattage out put all while having a lower average heart rate.

Now here's the kicker. I did the same ride this morning and I just went and did the normal attack and just see how it goes, I have to say to try and keep the same average speed my average heart rate was much higher - 123 average Controlled and 130 average uncontrolled my average speed was slightly up from 30.4 kph to 30.7 kph my average power was up from 150kw to 156kw but really 6 watts for all that extra work just to have similar speed.

Now lets put this in perspective, this is just 2 rides clearly we need some testing and will update you on that, but at this point I'd say if your whipping down to the shop to grab a loaf of bread then go hard, if your'e fit you'll recover quick enough, but if your'e looking at doing some distance then I'd say check out this new revolution in training with high cadence and low heart rate.

I'm excited... can ya tell?