By Winston Endall

To get the most from your time spent on the bike you need to follow a plan.  Like any journey it’s hard to get where you want to go without a map.  The issue is what should your plan contain. Training for cycling can seem very confusing as the demands are so varying and the workouts to improve a specific skill can be at odds with another energy system.

To go fast you need to train hard and to go long you need to improve the processes in the body that are responsible for aerobic energy turn-over. They aren’t mutually exclusive. You The goal is to end up being able to go the distance of your event as fast as possible. If you an ironman then you need to be fast at a different distance than a mountain biker going 30km. The basis of fitness is the same but the focused event specific work will vary as you get closer to the event.

The following principles will help you refine your plan and help you attain your training goals.

You need to go fast to be fast

While I won’t get into specifically how to use intensity but you get faster from going harder than you do from going longer. As with anything, you don’t want to do it all the time but most of your progress is going to come from the hard workouts, not the medium or long ones. The right type of interval can improve both top aerobic and anaerobic conditioning in the same workout. We only have so much time to train so workouts that hit more than one system are key to getting the most out of each season.

Periodization

We are creatures of habit so without a training plan we tend to do the same thing all the time. If you have 2 hours to ride many people do a similiar course at the same intensity day after day, week after week. At different times in the year you should target and build different energy systems and skills to build your fitness to new highs.

As you can’t work on all skills at the same time we break up the year into periods with specific goals and targets. By building from general fitness to specific race fitness we maximize the gains over the course of the season. Even if you just had two programs you alternated every three to four weeks, you would make better progress as your body wouldn’t adapt to the training as easily thus continue to improve.

Another reason for mixing up the types of training is mental burnout. Doing the same thing all the time will get boring after a while. Some times a change will bring about big improvements not because of the workout itself, but the extra enthusiasm that comes from doing something new will usually have you push a little harder.

Progressive Overload

You need to force your body to get stronger so you need to do a little more next week than you did this week. Really simple concept that most people don’t actually follow. And it doesn’t alway have to mean longer training. I regularly have my athletes just do more in a set amount of time. More intervals, higher wattage or less recovery between efforts are all useful tools to increase your workload without incurring extra time on the bike that many of us don’t have.

Training = Work + Recovery

This is a really important one. You don’t get stronger on the bike. It’s in the days after a hard workout when your body recovers from the stress you put on it that you get stronger. Too much work without recovery is just as bad too much recovery without the work, AKA lazy ass syndrome.

Here are some tips to improve recovery.

• In a given week, you should have at least one day completely off
• During a workout if your legs feel sluggish and your heartrate won’t go up like usual, then back off and just do an easy zone 1 ride. Training hard when your body isn’t ready won’t get you progress, only more tired and potentially sick.
• After each 2-3 week build block, take 4-7 days with reduced workload to let your body adapt to the overload you put on it. You get faster when the fatigue goes away.
• Learn to relax. If you want the most from your training, learn to destress. Your body doesn’t know if stress comes from training or work or homelife. Stress is stress and it will wear you down. If you want to succeed as an athlete find a way to reduce the other stresses in your life.

Work in the chassis as well as the engine

Here, Legs and lungs are the engine and your core, lowerback and upper body are the chassis.  Lack of muscular endurance or flexibility, are often the limiter on finishing strong.

You don’t want to have a ton of power but not make it two hours because your lower back gave out.  Strength at the end of a race or ride is down to equal parts chassis, nutrition and conditioning.  Neglect one area and you will fall apart on the longer events.

You should do core and upper body work year round.  Simple, bodyweight circuits are the most efficient way to improve this problem area.

Muscle tightness is another problem that only gets worst with more time on the bike. Make sure to stretch after every workout and if your ever sitting around watching tv, get your butt off the couch and stretch during commercials.

What will make you faster?

A lot of people think you need to ride a lot to get to a very high level of fitness. For many this equates with 6 days per week with 2-4 hour a day to be competitive in the local group rides and races. Most people who have careers and families don’t have this kind of time so they don’t think they can get to a high level.

Well, I’ve got good news and bad news. The good news is that you can get in the shape to compete on the provincial level with only 6-10 hours per week. The bad news is that if you want these improvements from minimal training time you have to go hard in just the right doses.

Having looked at many studies and seen the results in my athletes, high intensity improves both speed and endurance if applied in the right way. Two of the main metrics in predicting race performance are VO2 max and Functional Threshold Power(FT).

Both of these are best increased with bouts of varying length and intensity intervals at or above your FT power.  The higher your FT the faster you’ll be able to go at aerobic powers below this level and when you do hard efforts they won’t be as far above the threshold so you recover quicker and have more matches to burn.