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by tomf Thu Nov 13, 2008 8:52 pm
when young potential really good riders ask us oldies for advice we should keep it simple


It's a fair challenge: come up with a plan that fits on less than a side (and a half?) of A4, needs no specialist knowledge or equipment, and outperforms 'ride lots, enjoy it, stop when tired' without making unreasonable demands on time...

Since I was sat on a train, I stuck out my neck and had a go. At the risk of ridicule, the next post is a plan based on stuff I've used as a cyclist or as a rowing coach. It's about 1/3 common sense, 1/3 basic sport science and 1/3 my personal preferences. And I suspect it's a bit speed-heavy by accepted standards, and it only pays lip-service to the idea of ‘technique’. It's not optimised to any event, but I think it's pretty 'general purpose' to anything below ultra-distance.

The target audience would be anyone who’s cycling regularly already, and is keen to get fitter so they can start competing at some level, but doesn’t have much idea what to do. It’s not meant to replace Phil’s useful pages but to provide a simple programme that you can just get started on. It takes about 11-12hr/week to do fully, which is more than I managed last winter but not ridiculous for someone with no childcare responsibilities...

Two key questions: What are my credentials? Why should you believe this stuff works? The answers are: thin, and you shouldn’t – yet. I know a bit of physiology but I’m not qualified and I’m not even an experienced racer. I’m a reasonably experienced rowing coach. So the point of posting the program here now, is to get it ‘peer-reviewed’: exploit the collective wisdom of the Clifton crowd to improve it. Then it might become a useful starting point for the aspiring racer.

To that end, please post critical feedback here on any aspect of the programme: is it clear? Practical? Intelligible? Sensible? Sound physiologically? What have I left out? What could I leave out? Bear in mind the aim was to make it concise, so there will always be extra details, extra types of session that *could* be included, but I’ve tried to stick to essentials. If this works, we could always conjure up an Intermediate plan with more bells and whistles for someone who has done the first one for a year and wants more…

I’d be particularly interested to hear from Will whether he thinks it would help him at all.

Tom (feeling pretty scared)

by tomf Thu Nov 13, 2008 9:00 pm
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: 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
* Medium = 15m steady then 2*20min brisk, 5m easy between. not chatty but not 'hanging on' even at the end, emphasis on very consistent effort+cadence.
* Hard = 10-15m steady then 10* (30s flat out, 4 min easy) or 6*(3m 'race', 6m 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 program assumes you are already quite fit and can do, say, 2hr rides on successive days without really suffering. If not, just do steady sessions ("long" pace, building up the distance) with days off between until you can; then bring in the Medium, and finally the Hard sessions a couple of 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.

*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.
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 maximum heart rate by doing 20m at a medium pace on fixed bike or running, then sprint till you drop and record final rate (time over 15s to avoid drop-off).
Then HR guides are:
Long - 75-80% of max for most of the ride after warming up
Medium - 85% ”
Hard - over 85%, for sprints doesn't matter.

*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.

*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. Don’t panic if it doesn’t improve much the second time…

*Illness: 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...

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

by PhilBixby Fri Nov 14, 2008 3:14 pm
Hi Tom

I'm no expert, but it looks pretty good as a starting point. Would be good to get some feedback from the target audience - Will? ArthurM?

A few thoughts, just based on my experience and reading (this is not "shared wisdom...)

- You've got no recovery weeks. On basis of Friel's stuff maybe one week in four should be just a long ride and an assessment session?
- Medium stuff looks a bit neither one nor t'other as far as Tempo/Threshold stuff concerned - what about either 30-60mins "brisk" (Tempo) or 2*20mins TT pace (Threshold)?
- Am all for doing threshold stuff in winter but not so sure about the "Hard" intervals; would they be better just added for, say, 2 months prior to competition month?
- HR version - Would suggest working on basis of threshold HR (ie go and do a 10mile TT, note average for last 20mins) rather than max - which will be different for running and cycling anyway.

Once it gets finalised, can we get Arthur to add it to the "Training" pages on the website? Good stuff, Tom.

by Arthur Fri Nov 14, 2008 3:59 pm
I'll be glad to add this to the website. Looks good.

Phil: Recovery weeks? Why? Use power to build slowly (CTL/TSS) and rely on 'stuff happening' for recovery.

tomf: intensity. You suggest adding extra reps when you feel good. I've always thought that if I was doing, say, 5 x 5 min reps, then if I feel I can do 6, I wasn't doing the first 5 hard enough, so have looked to increase power not reps. Is this better? I've no idea.

by PhilBixby Fri Nov 14, 2008 4:39 pm
"Phil: Recovery weeks? Why? Use power to build slowly (CTL/TSS) and rely on 'stuff happening' for recovery."

I'm working on basis of building maybe a bit quicker, but using rest weeks for the body to recover from the overload. So, by the third week of four I'm knackered (and TSS for the week will have been high) but I use the fourth week to recover, and start the next batch of four a bit higher - more TSS, but more fitness. Straight out of Friel, but seems to work - could be because I'm an old bloke and hence need the recovery more....

by Dr Dave Fri Nov 14, 2008 5:03 pm
I think the bit about older people needing the recovery is right - certainly tallies c gospel according to Friel. Any role for specific strength work - eg weights or low cadence hills??

by PhilBixby Fri Nov 14, 2008 5:16 pm
Friel bangs on about strength training a lot. There's an interesting piece by Ric Stern at http://www.cyclingnews.com/fitness/?id=strengthstern - which basically rubbishes this and says that strength is never a limiting factor. Discuss!

by tomf Fri Nov 14, 2008 5:24 pm
Thanks very much for the feedback - when I posted it last night, I was afraid of ridicule, but by lunchtime, I was more worried nobody would respond!

To tackle the points as best I can:

Phil1. No recovery weeks. Actually there is one - week 4 of competition. But apart from that, I'm with Arthur - the aim is continual steady overload and partial recovery, not 'hellish' overload and full recovery (ie spike and taper). I did have to follow a 4-week Light, Medium, Medium, Heavy, back to Light program once and it really didn't work; everyone was alternately getting sick or bored. I also think the overall volume in the 6/3 plan doesn't justify it. I suppose I could offer up the 'self-regulation' section as my way of dealing with too much cumulative stress. You're probably right that different people respond to overload in different ways tho.

Phil2. You're right - it's meant to be threshold. I changed 'brisk' to 'fast' and back again before posting. I think it's a cycling conventional term I've misplaced. But I have to avoid jargon (eg 'TT pace') , so I think my description of the pacing is OK, I can put Fast back in again. AFAIK it's quite important to be conservative with threshhold work - ie it's better to be a little under than over, or you rapidly lose the benefit. I'd be happy adding 40/60 at the lower Brisk as a Medium session if I can think of a good way to distinguish the perceived effort ("a bit more comfy than Fast/could continue for 50% longer/..."?

Phil3. Hard in Winter - that's a point where I know I'm unorthodox but I think I can defend my line. Mainly about specificity of neuro-muscular training response to speed and force. You posted a link to an article by one of Stuart Dangerfield's coaches a while back which had a fair bit about this. Also some psychology: getting used to the 'hard' discomfort + learning not to fear it is important for me. Again as a concession, I did say to hold off on these if you're not pretty fit already; so someone starting now might not start them until say February.

Phil4. Threshold HR- good idea. I thought *max* would be same for run and bike? Only drawback is, it's harder to do without an HRM. Will ty to write it in...

Arthur1. Progression - I confess I'm really not sure either! Something has to change to keep the overload - frequency, intensity, duration. We don't have enough time to add frequency. For Long sessions, fairly clearly you want to add duration, the intensity has to stay pretty low to get the effect. For flat out sprints, it has to be Duration (reps) because you can't go harder than flat out! For the intervals, it's hard to say. I suspect there is room for both; you may feel you are working hard enough, but you can grind out anoher without going red; or you may feel you should have set out harder. I guess it depends a bit if you're adapting to speed or speed-endurance. There has to be *something* to training volume or pros wouldn't do so much, but I can't say.

I've come up with a couple more things:

* Don't train alone: Use clubruns for Long sessions; In summer use the Chaingang as a Hard or the Spoco as a Medium/Hard (when it's hilly!)
(for PaulM...)

When/if more comments come in I'll post up a v0.2.

tom

by tomf Fri Nov 14, 2008 5:34 pm
Dr Dave wrote:Any role for specific strength work - eg weights or low cadence hills??


I can't keep up now!

Here's the story from rowing on weight training: in the 70s/80s, everbody did lots, proper heavy stuff, along with their long steady in winter. There was an idea you built strength in winter and converted it to speed in spring/summer. I think the physiology behind that has been completely demolished by the Specificity Police - but weight training didn't go away. When I was last doing it seriously, 'speed weights' were the trend and I still use this in coaching now. The idea was to use weights but work at the same contraction speed as a rowing stroke - roughly do all your exercises at 30-40 reps/min, lighter weights, many reps. There's also a trend for 'power training' which is resistance training in the boat by eg. getting four our of an eight to row full pressure at low cadence. That *seems* to work and is widely used.

For cycling, I just can't see the weights being specifc enough, but resistance training still could makes sense - using a big gear whether on a hill or the flat. But I'm asking people to keep the cadence up - it'd be confusing to bring it down again.

Are there any specific Hills Drills you use, Dr D?

by tomf Fri Nov 14, 2008 8:55 pm
I replied in a bit of a hurry earlier and tied myself in some knots. Having had a little time to think, I've got (I hope) clearer responses:

Phil: concerning recovery weeks, it didn't help that I said week 4 of competition was 'recovery' when I should have said week 3. The idea of the competition month is to put a spike in the training load, wait a week, and then surf the wave of overcompensation into the event... and mop up some of the damage done, in the week after. It's based on the (unreferenced!) idea that it takes 2-3 weeks for most adaptation effects to filter through. So: if someone was using this and competing every 4 weeks, I think their program would sort of resemble yours - ie building up to a week off/assessment each month and then starting again. I believe that makes sense in the competitive season but a key feature of winter training is that because you *don't* need to produce peaks you can use continual overload which is (allegedly) more efficient in the long run.

For the unorthodox use of intervals in winter: I think it matters what your form is going into the program. If it's October and you're 'race fit', you have a lot of speed conditioning; and the aim of the weekly Hard session is to maintain that condition instead of abandoning it. Intensity rather than duration is the key to that. But if you're coming off a summer of club runs and audaxes, then it's a bit different. There's nothing to maintain, so you could argue that the hard session is 'too little, too early'. I sort of cover this in the "Easing in" part but not very well, so I'll try to sharpen that up.

Dr Dave: There's a general question - do weights have any role in cycling training? I simply don't know, but I'm sceptical, beyond 'corrective' use eg. for postural discomfort, recovery from injury, etc. Luckily I don't need to answer that question, because for me the relevant one is: is weight-training a good use of the 10h/week athlete's time? On that I'm much more confident that the answer is no; bike-specific training time is too precious.

Applying the 'specificity' logic in a completely speculative way, a resistance drill which would make sense would be: normal cadence, higher force. In a way this just means 'ride fast in high gear' but think of this: I normally sprint by spinning up, changing up, spinning up, changing up etc so the cadence is pretty high all the way. But imagine you did it the other way round: say you're rolling along at 20mph cadence 90 in the 17T; now change to the 16, force the cadence back up to 90; then the 15; repeat until you're maxed out. That tries to stress the force you can produce at your 'natural' cadence, which ought to be useful. Could be nonsense, or maybe you guys do this twice a week already...

Hills are a good point though, because if you want to race a hilly course you need to get used to them. Not sure what to advise beyong 'include some hills'. Problem is, they can turn a Long session into a Hard one in a few minutes...

tom

by Arthur Fri Nov 14, 2008 9:03 pm
Include hills in the tempo sessions, or (better imo) just do your 3-6 minute intervals uphill. I'd love to suggest doing the 20 min tempo intervals uphill, but there's nothing big enough near enough to York to work.

by PhilBixby Sat Nov 15, 2008 2:14 pm
Hard sessions in winter:- "You posted a link to an article by one of Stuart Dangerfield's coaches a while back which had a fair bit about this".

Indeedy. But what he also said was that using high-intensity sessions to improve TT power brought results fairly quickly and was only required for, say, a four week programme leading to a race peak (and also if done at the right intensity was very draining).

by tomf Sun Nov 16, 2008 11:17 pm
high-intensity sessions to improve TT power brought results fairly quickly and was only required for, say, a four week programme leading to a race peak

Yup, I'd heard six weeks was all you needed to get full 'anaerobic condition' with intervals but that obviously depends on the volumes involved.

I thought about this while cycling over the weekend, and things got complicated so this will have to do for now: there are [at least] two training effects from race-pace intervals: first the anaerobic condition (acid buffering etc) which seems to need only weeks to saturate; and second, the neuro-muscular gains from reinforcing efficient recruitment patterns of fibres to generate the fast strong pedalling involved.

It's the latter effect I want, and this is allegedly responsible for continuing gains in cycling power+endurance in elite athletes after the ~2 years it takes for all the aerobic training effects to top out; so it seems worthwhile trying to maintain it!

However, the intervals I've included will be quite heavy on the former 'lactic' effects so they may be unsuitable in winter. I remember that one good rowing programme I followed had so-called 'Alactic' sessions through winter - eg 15s v fast cadence followed by 1m easy paddling repeated 10 times. That may be more suitable to the task of maintaining the neuro side of hard-earned summer speed than good old intervals. But I'm going to try to dig up more information to see if this makes sense in cycling...

by PhilBixby Mon Nov 17, 2008 9:04 am
Yep, there's been some stuff in the vet racers magazine about the neuromuscular side of things and benefits of developing the ability to pedal at high cadence. It's one of the things I'm working on during those long rides - average 105rpm and increasing!

by tomf Mon Nov 17, 2008 3:29 pm
PhilBixby wrote:Friel bangs on about strength training a lot. There's an interesting piece by Ric Stern at http://www.cyclingnews.com/fitness/?id=strengthstern - which basically rubbishes this and says that strength is never a limiting factor. Discuss!

Your mate Mr Stern seems to be a bit heterodox all round - here he is giving me a little backing over hard winter training, unfortunately without any supporting detail (it's easy to say "there's no evidence" without listing any!):

From http://www.cyclingnews.com/fitness/?id=2006/letters10-23:

The Estimable Mr Stern wrote:Previously, people have suggested that off-season training should consist of low intensity, high volume work, because high intensity may either make you peak (in winter) or have an adverse physiological reaction (e.g., a few people have suggested "bursting capillaries"). However, there is no evidence to support this, and in fact the evidence would run counter to that (i.e., high intensity training at ~ zone 5/VO2max levels) actually helps increase capillary density.

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