Well it’s been odd weather as of late, glorious days intermixed with some real crappy ones, but so far we have missed the really sleety snowy days, are they all behind us? Has global warming changed our weather patterns? Should we be doing our training indoors or outside? What? Training, what’s that? Even a basic training platform will increase your ability to ride or compete.
Training is separated into five key phases;
Aerobic base training
Strength training
Power training
Tactical
Race/recovery
This system long been developed, is spread out over one year! So before any training program is started, you need to know what race you are training for. When the date for the race is selected you work backwards from that date isolating the training phases.
Currently you can race nearly every weekend in some form or another. When all you do is race, there is a huge tendency to miss out on one or more of the crucial stages of the training phase, eg. you might be racing in May which possibly will conflict with the strength phase, so you miss out completely and end up going straight onto the power phase – potentially causing injury. You finish the training stages to the best of your ability but have a feeling of inadequacy on the start line.
I will give you fair warning, following the racing circuit all year long will have a detrimental effect upon not only your physical performance but also your mental state, so stick to one crucial race or racing period that you want to do your best in and work backwards from that date.
Each of the phases are designed to build upon the previous one which in turn readies the body for the next one. They cannot be skipped or mixed around.
Aerobic training is where those long hours on the bike fit in, an easy pace day after day working up to longer and longer rides. This helps condition your body for what is about to happen later on, it helps to recruit muscle fibres and organise you, your heart and your lungs to the fact that they need to start working effectively and efficiently together. Most importantly get your body on the bike; simply put it’s time in the saddle.
Strength training is where the intensity of training starts to increase, slightly shorter distances with your heart rate (HR) elevated, on the bike this relates to shorter rides at a higher intensity with a longer ride every now and again at a slower rate to maintain your endurance capability from phase one. Find a long gentle hill and pedal hard up it. My athletes join a gym in this phase and start pushing weights, multiple sets, with repetitions well over the standard 12 to 15 per set, we are after strength and this is built up maxing out the amount of reps the body can handle.
In this phase of training feel free (actually its critical for you to do this) to burst through and train your anaerobic (oxygen deficient) system (your HR way up). This prepares and gets your body used to operating in this zone and will develop processes to quickly recover so that you can attack the next hill and so on You really need to train this zone as it is a sure bet that on race day you will go anaerobic. However if you stay in this zone for too long your body will simply grind to a stop. The idea here is to pop into the zone, get the HR right up there, holding it up for a minute or two then recovering – on the bike this relates to hard pedalling elevating the HR for perhaps a minute or two and an easy pedal to get the HR back down, then do it all again. Huge gains will be developed here as these systems are developed and tested.
When the power session starts, intensity rockets up but…. please, please remember its short distance, ultra high intensity. When you go fully anaerobic in this training phase it is all over rover, time to pack up and go home to recover. This may never happen in a real time situation eg. if you are powering up Dyers Pass Road, you are hardly going to turn around are you? But you may have heard of some people out on a ride that go hard out losing all energy making it a hard ride home. We are training the AT-CTP system in this phase training anaerobic with the associated damage occurring anaerobic will compromise the body’s ability to recover efficiently and quality of training is reduced.
This area my athletes are well used to the gym and are doing what is commonly known as power lifting, big weights low reps. Each set of reps need to be completed within 9-10 seconds, as a guide you get about six reps per set. Now as a guide if you can do the sixth rep okay, you don’t have enough weight on the machine! The sixth rep should be at failure stage. DO NOT exercise past this point as if you do you will start to utilise the anaerobic energy system which will inhibit your ability to complete more worthwhile sets.
Tactical is where you bring in all the hard work. Go out and find races, use them to assist you in blending the energy systems together. You get on the bike, learn to ride again, start sorting out strategies to position yourself in the groups, how to pass, boning up on drafting etc and explore your new form on the bike.
Lets Race! About here is where it all comes together and you race, you have your food preparation ready – (wait for the next article on food and how to eat). I don’t think you need help on how to race – the philosophy is simple, if there is someone in front of you go harder and pass them until there is no one to pass, then hold that position till the end!
As important and normally ignored is your recovery session, sort this out before your race. An effective recovery stage after a race will accelerate the repair and recovery phase enabling you to enter the next race (often the following weekend) in a better physical state than your competitor. All too often I hear of people that race, have a great day but blow the following weekends race by turning up all sore and stiff. Here I will be quite blunt, the previous phases will provide you with a body capable of performance relative to your input, if you screw up a race due to lack of food preparation, not having a recovery program, getting drunk etc, it isn’t your coaches fault, it’s your own dam silly problem, so get it sorted get a program and follow it.
The riders I coach, race, then the following day go out for a gentle relaxing ride, this serves several purposes, to get blood flowing back into the legs and get nutrients in to repair the damaged muscles, to remove any build-up of toxins and to gently reorganise and bring down the athlete from the fever of racing, allows them to smell the roses. They then have a day off in which they start to increase their food intake then start their build up for the next weekend’s race.
Personal Notes
Well enjoy!! I know it has been unsettled weather lately, in these conditions if it’s a good day we train outside, if it’s raining or simply too cold we train indoors, yup on the dreaded wind trainer. However there are tools to help you train indoors very effectively. Currently the Bikeshack riders use the Cyclops wind trainers, at the moment these trainers come complete with a training DVD. It’s simple -set your bike up in front of the telly, put the DVD on and follow Michael Carmichael (Lance Armstrong’s coach), for an hour of spot on training. If you have a wind trainer already the DVD’s are available separately and are a good winter alternative training session.
Snippets
Quality is better than quantity.
You are what you eat.
If you race every month, by about month 10 you will be cranky, upset and loosing enjoyment so don’t do it. Pick a race or season and stick to it!
The most common injuries are from ineffective training.
Injuries from racing accidents are seldom allowed, injuries from training are never allowed.
If in doubt seek help.
At the Bikeshack we have Dave Comerford, BSC Sports Science and Shane Griffith BSC Sport Management who for a small fee are able to help you out with correct bike set up and training. We have just relocated the Hornby store to larger premises where we will be holding specific training and nutritional evenings for the public. We are also affiliated with the Lincoln University Sports Science Facility, who can provide athletes with excellent performance data utilising their Veletron bike sensor setup. So don’t hesitate to drop by and see us at Hornby.
Shane Griffith
Manager Bikeshack
BSC Sport Management
