Guide to Road Biking / Racing: Training programs

Many cyclists train without any specific structure or plan. This haphazard approach severely limits their potential for optimal performance and in many cases leads to overtraining. Too many cyclists train at thresh old every time they train, always ride the same distance, or train randomly. To gain your desired level of performance, it is important to have a structured and well-developed training plan.

A large number of "boxed," or standardized, training plans are available. If followed, they will likely increase your performance, but because they are one size fits all, they don’t allow the majority of cyclists to reach their full potential. The best training plans take into account the individual's goals and physiology.

Some cyclists recover more quickly than others; some can handle higher volume, and some higher intensity.

Although more expensive than boxed plans, a good trainer or coach is probably the best source of a well-crafted training plan. A coach monitors how your body is adapting to training, decides when you have built a strong enough base to start interval training, helps you peak for specific events, gives advice on equipment, and recognizes overtraining. A coach also pro vides feedback on your performance, advice on bicycle handling, and tactics that you might not get anywhere else.

DEVELOPING YOUR OWN TRAINING PROGRAM

Using a set of general guidelines, cyclists can also develop their own structured training program, or customize a boxed program to their own goals and abilities. This procedure is similar to how coaches approach the task.

Set Goals

First you must determine your long-term goals.

Then you will break those down into short-term goals that are more readily achievable.

Long-term goals define the big picture of what you want to do with your cycling. Do you want to race? Participate in a charity ride? Complete your first century? Perhaps you want to ride for fitness, in which case you should define a specific fitness goal. Or maybe you ride purely for enjoyment but feel that riding faster would be more fun; in that case, how fast do you want to get? These questions will help you focus your training and make the selection of short-term goals logical.

Let's say your long-term goal is to complete your first century, and your longest ride to date has been 30 miles. That's a huge jump to handle all at once, but if you extend your range in 10-mile increments-so your short-term goals are to reach 40 miles, then 50 miles, and so on-no single step will be terribly daunting.

What if you want to drop your 10-mile time-trial time by 2 minutes? Again, this is a big challenge, so break it down into short-term goals of 10-, 15-, or 30-second increments.

Goals must be realistic and achievable. If your longest ride has been 30 miles, it would be unrealistic to target a century ride scheduled less than a month away; the chances of failure and disappointment are too great. A better goal would be a century later in the year or the following year.

This would allow you to finish the ride without hurting yourself, and to enjoy it.

On the other hand, your goals should be challenging or you will never reach your full potential.

The trick is to shoot for the stars with a well developed plan.

Do not be afraid to change both short- and long-term goals. You may find that your short-term goals are too easy to achieve and feel that you can progress more quickly, or that they are too hard and need to be broken into smaller pieces. If your long-term goal changes, change your short-term strategy to suit.

Determine Current Fitness Level

To develop a sound training plan, it is important to determine your current fitness level. If your goal is to increase your fitness level or become a faster rider during the course of the year, it is important to know where you stand currently. Otherwise, how will you know if you have improved? One of the most effective ways to determine Cycling fitness is to measure your VO2 max. It is the maximum volume of oxygen that can be transported to and utilized by the working muscles. It is commonly used by elite athletes to monitor progress throughout the season, but the test requires expensive gear and trained technicians and is therefore impractical for most cyclists. Another method used by professionals is marker sets-a measurement of time over a known distance. Many cyclists use this method without even realizing it.

Select a fixed distance that is close to the length you plan to race. Common choices are 10, 20, and 40 km, but choose a longer one if you wish. Select a course that is flat and relatively free of traffic and has as few intersections as possible.

Choose a day that is not too windy or too hot and not plagued with other adverse conditions. Make sure you are well rested and well hydrated and have not had anything to eat for at least two hours before you begin.

Warm up for 10 to 20 minutes, then ride the course as fast as you can and record the time. As you train during the season, complete this marker set periodically, keeping conditions as similar as possible to accurately measure your progress.

Compare your current times to your previous times to determine improvement.

If your main concern is distance rather than speed, use distance to determine fitness level.

Simply keep track of your long ride for the week and attempt to go a little farther each week.

Keep a Training Log

A training log is one of the most valuable training tools you can have; it enables you to keep track of your training, your marker sets, and any accomplishments or setbacks. Because adaptations occur gradually, they may be hard to recognize unless you keep a log to track changes. A log acts as a training assistant, helping ensure that you follow your training program as prescribed, and it allows you to look back over the season and identify what did and did not work.

The log should record the following:

__Date and day of week.

__Body weight.

This will allow you to monitor changes that occur with training, especially if one of your goals is to lose weight. If you have a sudden weight loss, you may be dehydrated. If you have an unexplained, continuous loss, you may be overtraining.

__Resting heart rate.

With endurance training your resting heart rate should drop. A resting heart rate that becomes elevated and stays there may indicate overtraining. See "Monitoring Training" for details on measuring resting heart rate.

__Sleep. Record the amount you sleep as well as its quality. Record any naps. This will help you ensure that you're getting the quality of rest an athlete needs. Sleep disturbances can be a sign of overtraining.

__Type of training. Record whether your workout was long slow distance (LSD), interval, tempo, hill, or recovery.

__Distance. Keep track of the distance you ride each day, and summarize for the week and the month.

__Ride time. Record the time spent riding.

A 50-mile ride in the mountains will take longer than a 50-mile ride on flat ground.

__Course details. Was the course hilly or flat, familiar or new?

__Weather conditions. Record whether it was hot, cold, windy, rainy, or sunny.

__How you felt on the ride. Were you tired or did you feel strong? Did you have any particular aches or pains?

__General comments. Write down anything else of importance. Did you ride in a group or alone? Did you have a mechanical? Take a wrong turn? Beat a previous time on a marker set? You can work these categories into a program on your computer and print them as you need them.

Making your own log allows you to adapt it to your specific needs. If you do not want to make your own log, look for commercially available training logs for cyclists; a few companies make them. Or make copies of the log provided at the end of this Section.

Determine Frequency

Professional cyclists spend from three to seven hours on their bicycle every day of the week. Cycling is their full-time job and, other than family, their main obligation. The rest of us have to work around our job and family obligations. You should train a minimum of three days a week and up to seven, depending on your abilities and goals. The more days you train, the stronger your Cycling will be, as long as you don’t over-train.

You may have to train early in the morning, before work or school, and schedule your long rides on week ends. Consistency is important, so develop a weekly schedule and maintain it. Increase frequency gradually, and do not try to do too much at once. Keep in mind that your body needs time to recover from training and you can’t train hard seven days a week.

Determine Duration The "25 percent rule" for determining duration states that your longest training rides should be at least 25 percent longer than your longest race. Your long rides will be on your LSD days; your hard days and recovery days will be shorter. For example, if your longest race is 50 miles, your longest ride should be at least 65 miles. Your threshold day when you are riding tempo should be 30 to 50 miles; your interval training may cover only 20 to 26 miles; and a recovery ride may be 20 to 30 miles of easy spinning.

Determine Intensity Next you want to establish the intensity for each training ride. Here are a few terms you should be familiar with before proceeding:

__Base. This is considered your basic fitness foundation and is built through long, slow distance.

__Intensity. This is the "how hard" of your training. You can train only at three intensity levels: below threshold (recovery and long slow distance), at threshold (race pace), and above threshold (interval).

__Interval. This consists of a warm-up, followed by a series of hard pedaling above threshold followed by soft pedaling for recovery, and ending with a cooldown.

__Long slow distance (LSD). This is how you establish your base miles. You will ride long distances below threshold. The "long" varies from individual to individual.

__Recovery ride. This short ride is designed for active recovery. You pedal at a slow easy pace that does not tax the body.

__Tempo. Riding at tempo requires that you ride at your race pace for a given distance.

__Threshold. Also known as anaerobic threshold, this is the level of exercise intensity at which the production of lactic acid exceeds your ability to remove it.

If you are just starting out, do not worry about "hard days" where intensity is at or above thresh old. Instead, work on building a base by increasing your distance. Distance should be increased by no more than 10 percent of total volume each week.

Once the base is established, throw in one day a week of tempo training to increase your speed.

The next step is to incorporate interval training, but the speed will do you no good until you can complete the desired distance.

If you have a strong base already, you want to start working on your speed by increasing intensity. Unless you are on a specific periodization plan, do not do more than two hard days a week.

The rest should be long slow distance and recovery. Here's an example:

Sample Weekly Training Plan DAY 1. LSD DAY 2. Intervals DAY 3. LSD DAY 4.

Recovery ride or day off DAY 5. Tempo DAY 6. LSD DAY 7.

Recovery ride or day off

Once you've designed your program, stick to it, keeping your intensity at the desired level every day. Riding with a group can be hazardous to your training because rides that are supposed to be easy often turn into impromptu races. If it's your easy day, swallow your pride and let the group go.

Your body needs time to recover.

Peaking

You can’t perform optimally at every race during a season, so before the season begins, choose the races where you want to be at your best, then tailor your training to suit. You'll have to sacrifice performance at other races, but in the end you'll be better off.

You will probably be able to peak only two or three times in a season. This does not necessarily mean just two or three races, however. If there is a series of races two or three weeks in a row, you can develop your program to peak for that period.

The type of event will also determine how often you peak. Track cyclists can peak more than three times a year because of the short distances involved.

The Tour de France represents the opposite extreme, and any cyclist who hopes to be a true contender in le Tour will plan to peak just that once in the year.

Choosing just a few races for your peak performance does not mean that you should not compete in other races. You should, but with the understanding that you may not be in top form. Competition is a good way to increase performance, and only a race can give you practice in true racing conditions. You must also be careful not to race too often because this will keep you from peaking properly.

To accomplish this goal, you will need to use periodization when developing your program.

Periodization

Once you've decided when to peak, you can develop your training plan for the year. You will do this on three time scales, known as the macrocycle (covering the full year), the mesocycle (covering a few weeks or months at a time), and the microcycle (the details of the weekly schedule and the daily workout). Known collectively as periodization, this process requires careful consideration to maximize your fitness and to peak at the right times, especially if qualifying races and championships are close together. You need about eight weeks between peaks if you wish to peak more than once in a season.

Macrocycle

The macrocycle, which defines your training plan for the year, consists of four phases:

__Off-season. You can’t train at full throttle year-round. The off-season promotes mental and physical recovery from the grueling race season and provides a chance to build leg strength.

__Preparation. This phase builds a base for the upcoming race season-a necessity before you can work on developing speed over the distances that you will race.

__Competition. Individuals who train hard year-round often finish near the top in early races, but their performance does not improve as the season progresses. Those who practice sound periodization, on the other hand, improve throughout the season.

Use early races as training events, and keep your sights on the races at which you want to excel. As the season progresses, this becomes a maintenance phase.

__Transition. As the hard racing season winds down, this phase allows you to recover and get ready for off-season training.

Mesocycle During the mesocycle period of a few months or several weeks, you will prepare for and peak at specific races or events as follows:

__Preparation. To build a strong base, concentrate on increasing mileage and do not worry much about intensity.

__Building. Work on increasing speed by increasing intensity. Spend at least a month building for the next race.

__Tapering. For one to two weeks prior to the race in which you want to excel, allow your body to recover by refraining from hard training sessions. Training hard right up to a race will not improve your performance and in many cases will actually hurt it.

__Race. Now you are ready to race. There may be more than one race before you move into the recovery stage, but do not try to peak for more than two to three weeks at a time before moving to recovery.

__Recovery. Begin active recovery after your peak period. This will last one to two weeks before you begin to prepare for your next peak.

This process can usually be repeated two or three times during the race season, depending on the distance of the races and your own ability to recover.

Microcycle

The microcycle is the details of your daily and weekly training, targeted at your specific short term goals. A common saying is "Train your weak nesses and race your strengths." In other words, spend your training time improving your weakest areas. You may spend a week on hill training or a day on tactics--whatever you need to turn your weak points into strengths.

Developing a comprehensive periodization plan can be difficult, but the results are rewarding, and it is far better to have a merely acceptable plan than none at all. No matter how well structured your plan, you need to remain flexible to accommodate unpredictable family or work obligations and your own injuries and sickness. Do not let these throw you off your training entirely; just make the necessary changes to your program and continue on. And avoid falling into the trap of rationalizing every outside event into continuous changes to your program. Stick to it to the greatest extent practical.

Put Your Plan in Writing

One of the most important things you can do while developing your training plan is to put it in writing. Research has shown that people are more likely to follow through and succeed if their goals and their plans for how to achieve them are writ ten down. Putting your training plan in writing is making a contract with yourself.

Designate a specific calendar for your training and race schedule. To break your upcoming year into the phases of the macrocycle, start by identifying the competition phase-when your season begins and ends. Then you can determine the preparation, transition, and off-season phases.

Mark these on your calendar.

Next, identify your key races, and develop your mesocycles to allow yourself to peak for them. Keep in mind that you can peak only two or three times per season.

Now work on your microcycles, establishing your weekly goals and choosing your daily work outs. Have your daily workouts planned at least a month in advance. You do not have to determine the daily plan for the entire year as long as you have your monthly and weekly goals planned. On the other hand, do not make them up day by day.

MONITORING TRAINING

It is important to monitor your training to deter mine what does and doesn't work for you. Your training log is an important tool here. Your log re cords time, speed, and heart rate for each workout (and power production if you have a power meter; see…). By comparing data from one marker set to another, you'll be able to determine whether your performance and fitness are improving.

Monitoring resting heart rate is the most practical method for most people to track improvements in cardiovascular endurance. (Monitoring changes in VO2 max, as discussed in Section 10, is another excellent method, but testing on a regular basis can be problematic.) Reductions in the resting heart rate and the submaximal heart rate (any heart rate that is below the maximum heart rate) are good markers for improved cardiovascular fitness.

The best time to monitor your resting heart rate is in the morning before you get out of bed.

When the alarm goes off, it startles you, so hit the snooze button and lie back down. Once you're completely relaxed and on the verge of falling asleep again, measure your heart rate by counting your pulse or using a heart-rate monitor. As your training progresses and your fitness increases, your resting heart rate will gradually drop.

It is not uncommon to see a two- to three beat-per-minute (bpm) variation in resting heart rate from day to day, but an excessive or prolonged increase is a sign that something is not right. Just one or two days of increased heart rate may mean that you're not fully recovered from previous training. A prolonged increase may be an indication of overtraining or illness. Resting heart rate is a better tool for determining recovery than it is for assessing your current fitness level. If you're not fully recovered, your resting heart rate will remain elevated over a few days.

Bradycardia is a clinical condition characterized by a slow heart rate, usually defined as a resting heart rate less than 60 bpm. This can be a sign of serious cardiovascular disease, or the result of successful adaptation to a training program aimed at improving cardiovascular fitness. Many trained endurance athletes have a resting heart rate be low 60 bpm, and some elite ones measure in the thirties and forties. If in doubt about your situation, contact your physician.

With improvements in fitness, you will have a lower heart rate at any given speed or level of power output, as long as it's below your maximum level of effort. For example, a cyclist who rides a 30-mile flat route on a regular basis averages 17 mph with an average heart rate of 160 bpm on a calm day. Three months after starting a structured training program, he rides the same route at 17 mph, but his average heart rate is now 145 bpm. He is doing less work to maintain the same speed. If the rider rode the same route the following day and maintained an average heart rate of 160 bpm, his average speed would increase to 18 to 19 mph. Now he is traveling faster for the same amount of effort as before training began.

Both scenarios demonstrate that the program is working.

When measuring heart rate versus speed, the same conditions must exist between rides for accurate comparisons; differences in wind speed and direction and traffic can create erroneous measurements. Measuring heart rate versus power is more reliable. If your goal is to complete 30 miles at an average power output of 160 watts, speed is irrelevant. Traveling into a headwind at 160 watts will be slower than traveling with a tailwind at 160 watts, but you'll be doing the same amount of work in both situations, so a comparison of heart rates between the two is valid.

For example, a cyclist rides a 30-mile flat route averaging 160 watts at a heart rate of 155 bpm. Three months after starting a structured training program, he rides the same route, again averaging 160 watts but with an average heart rate of 140 bpm. This demonstrates that his fitness has improved and his training program is working. Keep in mind that heart rate fluctuates slightly from day to day.

Marker sets are useful for determining how well your performance is improving in relation to training. If your times are becoming faster, you're seeing benefits from your training program. If they' re-unchanged or slower, you need to take a close look at your training. You may be doing too little to stimulate a response, or too much and overtraining.

COACHING

Although it's possible to advance on your own, few cyclists possess the knowledge necessary to fine tune a boxed or self-developed training program for optimal gains. If you want to reach your full potential, you need a good coach.

Coaches offer more than just a training program.

A coach assesses your current fitness level and abilities to determine where to start your program and gear it to help you achieve your goals. He or she continually evaluates your performance throughout training and racing, determining what does and doesn't work and adjusting your training accordingly. The coach identifies weaknesses in race strategy, tactics, and riding skills and offers suggestions for improvements. And a good coach motivates you in your training and racing with a pat on the back, a pep talk, or a kick in the rump when necessary.

Anyone can claim to be a coach, so you have to look into their qualifications. Here are the most important ones:

__Education. A degree in the field of exercise science indicates fairly thorough knowledge of human performance.

__Certification. Not all coaches are certified.

The most respected certifying bodies are the United States Cycling Federation (USCF) and the Carmichael Training Systems (CTS).

__Racing experience. Giving advice from book learning without experience in the peloton is highly suspect. But racing success doesn't necessarily make a good coach either.

__Coaching experience. How long and who have they been coaching? Get a reference list of clients and contact them all, probing for how much the coach has helped them improve. You're looking for a coach who gets results consistently.

Your local bicycle shop and bicycle club can probably recommend local coaches. Many larger clubs have their own coach to whom you gain access with membership. The USCF website lists coaches by state and certification level. Some coaches require a year's contract, which can amount to a lot of money if you choose the wrong coach. Avoid signing a long contract until you've had a chance to determine whether the coach is right for you.

Several companies offer coaching over the Internet; the quality and level of service can equal or even exceed what might be available to you locally (although face-to-face contact with a local coach can be invaluable). Two companies we recommend looking into are CTS and Peaksware LLC.