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by PhilBixby Mon Nov 17, 2008 5:59 pm
Ahhh, Mr Stern. As you say, can't beat a radical view, but much nicer if there's some evidence! And does vO2max training (which you can do for, say 25mins at a go) increase capillary density more than steady distance riding (which you can do for, say 4hrs at a go, on consecutive days)? But then again - if you've got limited time, and want some variety...

by Guest Mon Nov 17, 2008 8:11 pm
Right - after extensive research (aka abusing my employer's internet connexion) I've come to a conclusion of sorts about the hard sessions in winter:

1. Against Ric Stern, there is a sound reason to adopt a distance-heavy programme in the off-season. Club athletes have restricted time and typically have not been able to get the training volumes to develop their full aerobic potential, and it's the aerobic system that has the most to offer cyclists. So winter is a good time to really push the aerobic side while you don't need to worry about competition speed. Hard race-pace sessions will (a) take precious time (b) impose a big stress and (c) partly disrupt aerobic adaptations. Since anaerobic adaptation happens quite quickly, you can leave this work until later.

2. But against the LSD gospel (Friel?), there are lots of good neuromuscular effects of speed work that are not specifically anaerobic and take a long time to develop. These relate to increased pedalling efficiency at high cadences and powers.

So a winter programme that includes *short* reps of speed work with generous recovery makes sense: keeping your race-pace efficiency without imposing a heavy stress or impairing the aerobic side.

When I looked at programmes and advice around the web, I actually found quite a few recommending 'fast spinning' and short sprint sessions in winter, so I don't think I'm too far out of line with this.

So: the race-pace intervals are postponed until Spring, and I'm broadening the 'sprint' session instead. I'll put that and a few other changes into v0.2 shortly.

Tom

by Arthur Tue Nov 25, 2008 10:29 am
Dr. Drave; The basic plan seems to have survived ;) I'll pop it up on the website. Would you mind making one change? I think it'll be much clearer if you spell out explicitly a typical winter/easy week v a summer/hard week.

We could also spell out the levels a bit more. I'm happy to put some % FTP power levels on it, but we should also have more detailed 'feel' descriptions e.g.

Tempo: hard but not all out. You should be able to hold a conversation, but not comfortably

by tomf Tue Nov 25, 2008 2:53 pm
Arthur wrote:...
We could also spell out the levels a bit more. I'm happy to put some % FTP power levels on it, but we should also have more detailed 'feel' descriptions e.g.
Tempo: hard but not all out. You should be able to hold a conversation, but not comfortably

UnDr Tom here - you're just ahead of me! Nearly finished revised plan, it has more detail on perceived effort, and I was just going to add a 'typical week' especially to show how you could fit in with club rides in Summer...
Prob. tomorrow.

by tomf Wed Nov 26, 2008 12:35 am
Here's version 2 of the plan for review:

Enhancements and faults fixed in this release
1. More detail on perceived effort
2. More variety in Medium sessions
3. Hard intervals in winter removed
4. More detail and progression for Easing In
5. HR version modified to use threshold rates, derived from trial TT
6. Section on Hills added
7. Personal crusade on Self-awareness added
8. Club rides incorporated
9. Injury section added (Will!)
10. Example weeks added

Known limitations and bugs
1. Generalism - [justsweat] - there's nothing on tailoring, event selection or setting targets. I hope we can address this in a later addition.
2. No explanation of training mechanisms behind the different sessions. Necessary to remain brief; but it would be nice to add a short physiology guide and hyperlink it into this plan to avoid bloat.
3. No citations - see previous
4. No power levels - Arthur?
5. No detail on strength/resistance work. Again, for a later addition.
6. It got longer than the promised "page (and a half)". I hope it's still clear and accessible enough.


Arthur - the formatting is limited by what phpBB offers, but it shouldn't be hard for me/you to tart it up with a little more HTML (tables?) for inclusion on the main site.

Thanks to everyone for contributions and improvements - please give this one the same treatment.

tom

by tomf Wed Nov 26, 2008 12:39 am
6/3 Nutshell Plan
* 7 days in a week, 1 day off = 6 daily sessions
* Winter: 3 long sessions, 2 medium sessions, 1 hard session per week
* When clocks go forward, or six weeks before your first race: 2 of each per week
* Hard sessions must be followed by rest day or long session.

* Long = 2hrs+ steady pace, sweating but chatty, stop to eat as needed. Should finish tired and hungry but able to do another hour if required.
* Medium = 15m steady then either 2*20min, with 5m easy between; or 40-60m, at fast but sustainable pace - not chatty, but able to talk, and not 'hanging on'. Should finish the session out-of-breath, with your legs hard-pushed, but able to carry on for 10-15m without really suffering. Emphasis on very consistent effort+cadence. For the longer workout, the pace will be slightly slower but the effort will feel the same towards the end.
* Hard = 10-15m steady with a couple of fast bursts; then 8-20 * (15-40s very fast sprint, 2-6 min easy) focusing on a high cadence and smooth action; no more than 5m total sprint time. In summer also use same warmup plus 6*(3m 'race', 5m easy). Race is highest sustainable pace: should be hard to complete the last two but not the first few.

More details
* Not enough time: If you can't commit the time, drop a long session; then a medium; then alternate a hard with a medium each week (winter) or drop it (summer). If you're tight for time one week, you can shorten the medium/hard sessions but don't shorten the longs - better to drop one and do the rest properly.

*If you have to miss or abandon a session: it's gone! Never try to squeeze it back in, just do the next one properly. Rest is part of the program – if you pack everything in, you aren’t doing it properly any more.

*Riding form: a good cadence (pedal rotations per minute) is around 85-95. Most beginners (and me!) tend to ride lower. Get used to lower gearing and build the cadence, trying to keep a 'light' feeling even when the work is on. On every ride, try to keep a steady, relaxed posture, don't rock or wobble around.

*Easing in: the winter program assumes you are already fit, with plenty of miles and some speed work or TTs under your belt.
But if you've just got the mileage, and not the speed, leave the hard sessions for a month or so until you are happy with the Medium level.
If you haven't got the basic fitness, just do steady sessions ("long" pace, building up the distance) with days off between until you are comfortable with 2hrs+; then bring in the Medium, and finally the Hard sessions a few weeks later.

*Progression: in the winter, you should feel fresher after long rides by end of month 1. Increase distances steadily if you can. In the summer season, you can increase the number or duration of hard repetitions by ~10% every 2 weeks if you are completing the sessions consistently. The pace of the medium sessions should rise as you gain fitness, but the duration remains the same.

*Competition month: imagine an important event is at end of week 3. To produce a performance peak for it:
Week 1: overload. Stick in extra reps in hard sessions, 3rd rep in medium. Only do this if you feel up to it, or you risk getting sick.
Week 2: normal.
Week 3: all sessions half duration, keep sprints near start of week.
Week 4 (after event): winter pattern with first session as a half-length easy recovery ride (a little easier than Long), or other form of light exercise.

*HR version: calculate your 'threshold' heart rate (HR) by doing a 10mile flat time trial and taking your heart rate after 10m and again at the end. This is easiest if you have a Heart Rate Monitor (see...). Your 'threshold' (which relates to the maximum effort you can sustain for more than a few minutes) is the average of the two rates. You may have to repeat this if you feel you paced it wrong (failed to maintain hard+even pace).
Then HR guides for the different sessions are:
Long - 85-95% of threshold for most of the ride after warming up.
(So if your threshold is 170bpm, you should aim to be between 144 and 162 for the majority of a long ride. Generally, your HR creeps up even during steady work, so you should be happy to stay near the lower end of your range for the first half.)
Medium - 95-100% of threshold for most of the ride after warming up.
Hard - 105% of threshold; for sprints, not relevant. Rate may take a while to climb during first few hard intervals.

*Hills: Hills add excitement to rides; and you need to get used to them if you're going to race over them. So use them - but be careful, because hills tend to push up the intensity.
- A long club run with some big climbs in it almost combines a Medium and a Long session. Consider a day off or an easier Long session the next day.
- An hour+ ride with some rolling hills in it makes a great Hard "race" session. Attack each hill and keep pushing right over the summit; aim to put in 15-20m hard climbing in total. Keep nice and steady on the way back.
- Include hills in a Medium session but don't attack them - stick to the HR/effort guides.

*Nutrition: You need to eat and drink enough to fuel your work, and go heavy on the carbs. Always take a bottle; on any long ride you need food (starchy, sugary stuff like bananas, cereal bars, etc) or sports drink too. Always eat something sweet and starchy within 15m of finishing a session; it helps recovery. If you manage to train each day you will be continually hungry and you need to eat often to keep your strength. Sugar is good during exercise but go easy on it otherwise.

*Self-regulation: Take waking pulse rate each morning + record. If rate rises >=3 beats 3 days in a row, ease off or rest. If you feel rubbish, don't go riding. If you can't stick to the work, just ride home; do the next session properly. If it happens again, take a couple of days rest, and come back at a lower intensity until you feel stronger. Always try to give yourself time and sleep to recover; if you're under pressure elsewhere, you have to moderate your training.

*Develop awareness: One of the most useful things for any athlete training or racing is a good sense of how you feel - both before and during exercise. Use HR etc as a guide, but think how tired/fresh you feel before a session and adjust the work if required. Also, pay attention to how you feel during the session, and try to pace yourself properly. As you get more experience in linking how you feel to the work you manage to do, you will develop a better sense of pace, which will help you train and race more effectively by working as hard as you need to, but no harder. Pay attention to what's happening around you as you train as well; for your safety and to build general "road sense".

*Don't train alone: Use the club's rides in your training. It's good for company, advice and your group-riding skills. The Tuesday Chain Gang in Summer is a great Hard session; the Thursday Spoco a tough Medium; and the weekend rides are good Longs. Details are all on this website.

*Assessment: If you want to check your progress, once per month, replace a Medium with a ~10 mile time trial (=30m at roughly medium pace, sprinting at the end). Choose a flat circuit with clear start/finish markings. Pick a calm dry day if you can, record time and HR. Use the HR to update your threshold figure. Don’t panic if it doesn’t improve much the second time…

*Illness and Injury: don't train when you're ill AT ALL - it can be dangerous, especially if you have any fever symptoms (see pulse guide above). You can train with a head cold if you feel up to it. Never train the first day you feel better, give it at least an extra day or you'll relapse...
For injuries: if a pain or niggle starts to worry you, see a doctor and/or sports physiotherapist. Optimism is expensive in the long run, so get help early. Listen to their advice, and make sure you stay away long enough to recover properly; then start back gradually. You may be surprised how little fitness you lose during a lay-off, especially if you've been training hard.

Example Weekly Plans
*Example week - Winter:

    Sunday - Long: 3-4hr club run.
    Monday - Off
    Tuesday - Hard: Sprints 20*15s/2m Easy.
    Wednesday - Long: 2hr solo ride
    Thursday - Medium: 45m fast sustainable pace
    Friday - Long: 2hr30
    Saturday - Medium: 2*20m fast sustainable pace
    [Total 10.5-11.5hrs including warmups]
That plan makes sense physiologically by spacing out the work; but for most people, keeping longer rides at the weekend is useful - so move Saturday's Medium to Tuesday and shuffle Tue-Fri forward one day.

*Example weeks - Summer: In summer it's more of a challenge to space the sessions correctly to allow recovery.

1. Standard Week

    Sunday - Long: 3-4hr club run.
    Monday - Medium: 2*20m
    Tuesday - Hard: Intervals 6*3m Race/5m Easy
    Wednesday - Off
    Thursday - Medium: 45m
    Friday - Hard: Sprints 10*30s/4m Easy.
    Saturday - Long: 2-3hrs
    [Total 9-11hrs including warmups]
2. Sociable/Hard week

    Sunday - Long+Medium: 4-6hr club run with hard climbs.
    Monday - [Recovery: 75m/Off/Medium 3*20m]
    Tuesday - Hard: Chain Gang
    Wednesday - Off
    Thursday - Medium: Spoco time trial
    Friday - Long: 2-3hrs
    Saturday - Hard: Sprints 8*40s/6m Easy.
    [Total 10-14hrs]
Tries to incorporate as many club rides as possible. Unfortunately it's difficult to keep both Long rides at the weekend if you want to ride the Spoco, because following a flat-out TT with a Hard session on Friday is not sensible. I would not recommend this scheme week after week unless you have built up a serious training capacity, and are able to get plenty of rest and sleep.
Normally you would take an extra day off or recovery ride on the Monday after a long hilly Sunday ride; but in an Overload week (week 1 of competition month) you can put in the Medium session and keep going.

Enjoy it, focus on what you want from it, and go out and race when you're ready.

by Arthur Wed Nov 26, 2008 10:47 am
Looks good. I'll tart it up over the weekend and put it up on the main website. If there's any comments between now and then we can work those in as well. I'll add in power levels to fit your definitions.

by like my bike Wed Nov 26, 2008 1:33 pm
Looks pretty good my points would be

1. Do you need to ride for longer than your longest event/race? I would stick to 3.5 hours as a maximum - back to back long rides will give you the endurance .

2. How about a typical summer week including a weekend event/race and a midweek event/race, you should be looking at 5 hours riding + event duration.

3.

A J

by Dr Dave Thu Nov 27, 2008 6:44 pm
One point I would raise is that the dentists are getting increasingly aware of the trend for sports drinks to be used for carbs during exercise. If/where posible you can try and rinse your mouth with water after swigging your carb drink.

by tomf Fri Nov 28, 2008 10:42 am
like my bike wrote:1. Do you need to ride for longer than your longest event/race? I would stick to 3.5 hours as a maximum - back to back long rides will give you the endurance .

2. How about a typical summer week including a weekend event/race and a midweek event/race, you should be looking at 5 hours riding + event duration.


1. I think you may well need to train longer than you compete - if you focus on 10/25mile Time Trials, you still want to ride for well over an hour in training. Long rides (like 100m+ club runs) have their uses; I suggested 2hrs+ and in practice I'm using the same upper limit as you, but I don't think there needs to be a definite maximum, because people have constraints on their time anyway.

2. Good idea, but I feel that's a bit beyond my experience and probably the target for this programme - aspiring racers. Once you're racing twice a week you're past aspiring (perspiring?)! I did think we might eventually pull together some further details into an 'Intermediate' plan, including some extra drills that Dr Dave and others have mentioned, and also stuff on event selection and more about progression. I reckon what you suggest would fit best in there, but please post any examples you have up here to get the process going...

thanks
tom

by justsweat Wed Dec 17, 2008 5:18 pm
I think the plan is good, as a winter plan for a rider who is not sure what he/she will be racing and if they just use it to get fit generally.

However I think the large range worked from the threshold percentages would certainly not do it for me - 95% of my threshold (measured by doing a lactate test) would be 150 bpm whereas 85% would be 134bpm.

At 150bpm I would be making 3.1 mml whereas at 134 I would be making 1.7mml. When making 1.7 mml I am barely breathing, whilst at 150 I'm only about 17 watts below threshold. Think maybe the banding needs to be tighter, as you are working different systems. I would be surprised if someone starting at 144 as in the example, would have an 18 beat rise in HR if you where keeping effort level the same, unless they where very dehydrated.

Can I also suggest, that if you are road racing then the hard sessions are perfect for the systems you need, as they are lactate buffering sessions (although it might be to early to be worrying about this system), whilst the medium sessions seem to made for time trialists as lactate tolerance sessions.

I feel for most time trialists they would be better doing the medium sessions between 3 - 5 beats higher than threshold (once they can hold threshold for them) as this seems to be the quickest way to increase lactate threshold.

If I was doing the hard sessions, there is no way my heart rate would only go up the 7 beats (to 105%), I would move it 20 beats at least which would be around 113% of threshold. Although as you say, you would not see it until you where in your rest period.

Hope I don't sound negative about your plan, because I'm not, I just think some bits need tightened up.

Cheers

Brian

by tomf Wed Jan 07, 2009 12:31 am
Hi Brian - thanks for the comments; I only noticed them a couple of days ago. I think I agree about the heart rates, they aren't quite right; but I'm not so sure about the division between TT and RR training.

Heart rates. These started as % of max and then I converted them to % of threshold on Phil's suggestion, but I think something may be lost in translation. I'm also not sure why I gave the Hard figure as a point not a range, while the others are broad ranges.

I agree that the Long range seems very broad, but it does take into account two sources of variation: the change that's bound to occur even during a steady trip; but also the differences between people and (if the training works) between the same person at different stages of fitness. If you have good endurance character already, you would expect to be able to train at a higher percentage of your threshold output than someone without the same degree of fitness.

I remember you made an earlier criticism that the program is 'general' and this is where it bites: I can't be too specific about the figures. That's why I'm keen on the 'perceived effort' approach as well (although different people probably perceive effort differently too...). I think what Long endurance training aims at, relates to the idea of the 'MLSS' (maximal lactate steady state) - the highest constant level of effort you can sustain for the whole duration without your lactate or HR 'blowing up'. A good use of an HR monitor without lactate testing is to get to know the best effort you can sustain for 2-3hrs without HR running away. If you can develop a strong sense of what that work level *feels like* it can really help - and you find you need to look a the monitor less! There's some support for this approach here.

For hard intervals (3m*6) range should be 105-110%. That's close to maximum for most people, but these are not meant to be max intervals - again, sustainability is the key, so the advice 'only the last couple should be really tough' makes sense.

Time Trial vs Road Race. I really don't think the training for these disciplines would be so different until final preparation. Getting fit for a TT I would want to do some hard intervals, and there's a reference knocking about this thread to Stuart Dangerfield doing just that. Preparing for road racing I would still want to do the threshold work to improve my cruising endurance.

But as you say, if you're tuning up specific events you want to be more - specific! Then the racers need more sprint/pace change work and the testers do well with the 'harder' medium work you described. There would still be a mix. This kind of detail needs to go in a second program.

When I get the time I will definitely tighten up the HR section. Still hoping for some power figures from Arthur...

cheers
tom

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