A lot of the information about planning your training is designed to make it feel like it's a complex process that demands a high level of knowledge.
A couple of weekends ago I was tutoring on a coaching course (again). The very last module of the day was an introduction to “components of fitness”.
Once more I saw just how complex this appears to be, driven no doubt by those who want you to believe that planning training is indeed very complex for whatever reason they need you to believe this.
Is this flexibility or mobility? Is it the ability to attain and maintain a position on your bike? Or do you need the ability to move continually into & out of the end range of your flexibility?
Is strength expressed in less than 15 seconds or more? What about power? Is aerobic endurance developed in a 20-minute ride/run, or do you need to be out there for 5 hours? Exactly how long should the intervals be? And what about the recovery periods?
On and on go the questions, debate and arguments about terminology and specifics!
When planning your training, do you need strength, or power, or flexibility, or speed? And what exactly are these things? Does it matter?
The truth is that you can implement a process for planning training that will simplify this completely. In a nutshell, you need simply ask yourself this question:
If you need to be able to ride a bike at a set effort level for 5 hours, then guess what, you need to figure out a way to do so.
If you can already ride at that level for a shorter period, then a series of even shorter intervals at that effort level will make a world of difference. Play around with the length of the intervals and the length of the recoveries & voila! No matter what many coaches want to tell you, there is no magic number!
What about racing criterium races? Again, what does it look like?
Criteriums (or circuit races, similar but different) are characterised by short hard accelerations followed by short periods of high speed “cruising”. This is repeated over & over again. What could you do to train for it? You could do exactly that, sprint hard, recover for a similar period while still pedalling and maintaining speed and then repeat.
Do this for a bit, take a longer rest so that you recover as completely as possible and then do it again. You’re successful if the last one is similar to the first one. The length of the intervals only matters inasmuch as they closely mirror what would happen in a race.
The same principles apply to everything to do with planning training: Bike position, cadence, hand position, looking around, position in a bunch and the list really does go on.
When planning your training is made to look very complicated, with graphs containing acute loads, chronic loads, recoveries, stress scores and a myriad of other mathematical models, you can be sure that someone is trying to sell you something.
What's more, most of these models don't actually work for an amateur athlete who lives in the real world. They miss a number of lifestyle stress factors that have a significant impact on your ability to train and recover from that training. They're simply expensive guesswork.
Make your training look like your event and you're most of the way there.
Related Posts
Introduction This Italian-style Meatloaf recipe results in a meal that’s high in protein with the concentrated flavour you’d find in many Italian dishes. We’ve long made a very simple meatloaf with turkey mince, but I’ve always found it a little bland and dry. The fact that it’s quick and easy to make has kept it on
Read MoreIntroduction This Katsu Chicken recipe is my take on this dish, inspired by reading the horrid ingredients list on a store-bought ready-meal. This Katsu Chicken recipe came about when my wife brought home a Katsu ready-meal for herself one evening (I refuse to eat “processed food slop”, so I wouldn’t even be offered a mouthful
Read MoreIntroduction Doing a good warm-up can make a huge difference to your workout as well as competition results. It’s not just something to do halfheartedly. I’m a coach and an athlete. As much as I like to know WHY something works, the fact THAT IT DOES WORK is all I really care about. This sometimes puts
Read MoreIntroduction Every swimmer should swim all four strokes. It’s a bold claim and one which strikes fear into the hearts of most triathlete freestylers. If there is one word uttered on the pool deck that strikes fear into the hearts of triathletes the world over, it’s this…”BUTTERFLY” Of all the ways there are to imitate someone drowning,
Read MoreIntroduction Many people make the mistake of resorting to lifting straps long before they should need them. These grip training drills will help. At it’s most basic, training your grip means heavier lifts. But it goes a little deeper than that because there’s a correlation between grip strength and longevity, albeit it’s only a correlation
Read MoreIntroductionLadder workouts are a way to structure volume in your workouts to balance the load you’re moving with a degree of strength endurance. We’re all familiar with the standard way of structuring workouts that look a bit like this… 3 sets of 10 reps with 1 minute rest (3 x 10) OR 5 sets of 5 reps with 3
Read More