Time crunched training

[tinchy]

Hi all,

Quick background.... Currently entering my fourth and final year at university, workload is intense and hence cycling is suffering.

Over Christmas I read Chris Carmichaels time crunched cyclist book and to be honest, it appealed to me considering the limited hours for cycling I will have over the coming semester.

Now, the training plan set out by Carmichael lasts about 11 weeks, with best results seem around the 8 week mark apparently,

My main/major target for the season using this plan is the university championships sometime in later April/may (date tbc). Obviously, if following the plan correctly then I should start it 8weeks from this time, so early March.

My question is, what should it be doing from now until March time, considering I am still limited on time. So far I've just been trying to keep things ticking over, doing about 5hrs a week with a long ride on the weekend and shorter tempo efforts on the turbo in the week.

Specifically, I'm quite keen to keep the weekend ride going just to maintain my sanity, but is there anything else I should aim to do on my 2/3 a week turbo sessions other than just riding tempo for an hour (Boring, trying to replicate endurance miles)?


Hope this makes sense and appreciate any advice.


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[devinci]

you may want to make 2 of your week session harder then tempo and the other one just a light spin in Z1-Z2.

That way you would get the most out of your limited time. Try including some higher intensity efforts during those 2 days. Things like micro-intervals and some 3-5 minutes hard stuff. Then ride the rest of your week and week end rides at endurance pace.

[tinchy]

Ok so realistically il have max 3 turbo sessions a week.
Make one of these a steady hour at tempo.
Make another same length but with some longer efforts (5mins) and rest.
Then final turbo session shorter but shorter, sharper intervals
Then top off with a steady ride at weekend?

[devinci]

I'd proceed more like this:

day 1: short sharp stuff, modulate intensity so you get something like 4-6 min of total work if you nail it at supra max intensities or 15-20min total work volume if you go more toward high intensities (110-130% FTP).

idealy get a rest day or easy day

day 2: 3-4-5 minutes stuff at high intensity, same length rest

day 3: whatever, tempo, Z2

then week end ride

[sanrensho]

I use that book as well. I think it's worthwhile to start doing one or two of the prescribed workouts, if only to develop a feel for them and have a baseline.

[mjduct]

Greetings,

I've had some health issues that put me on the sideline and have been getting back into riding recently, I started recovery using the beach body T25 workouts which are basically 25 minutes of high intensity workouts, focusing on core strength,cardio, and speed. I've worn those out pretty well. I've been doing my normal 40-50 miles Sunday-Roubaix with the guys, and not up to where I was compared to them in 2013.

Now that the fitness is recovering, I have a good time slot where I can get in a good workout, but its hard to find training programs based on that short of a time period. I have access to a trainer at home, and a stationary bike at work. The stationary bike is all digital, so going from small to large chainring takes about 10 seconds of button pushing, but there are some decent interval preset programs on there.

I've done TABATA in the past on my trainer, and had great results, are there any other decent short programs I should be looking at? I've looked at time crunched cyclist, but I don't have that time typically, 30 minutes mon-fir and maybe one long ride ONI the weekend.

My goals at this point: I would really like to lose 5-10 lbs (I'm back at my previous weight already so this would be additional weight loss) and continue to increase fitness. With 2 kids under 3 and a 60 hour a week job, I have no visions on grandeur soloing to local crit wins or anything, just looking to be better/ healthier.

Thanks!


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[mentok]

not sure if this is what you want to do, but the shortest workout i do is a vo2max session:

10min warmup
4 sets of (3min on / 3min off)
extra cool down as required

that's 34 minutes including ~12minutes @ 120% of FTP.

[spartacus]

I could use some advice if anyone would be kind and knowledgeable enough to offer it. I am working 6am to 4pm m-f and 6am to 2:30 on Saturday. I want to get as fast as possible for this years racing season. I think I would benefit from a balanced training plan versus specializing in specific improvements. I am waiting for a crank arm then I can use a power meter, but I've never trained with one or really trained at all for that matter. Just riding up hills and riding with other people or racing occasionally. Obviously I'm working too much to spend a lot of time training and at the moment riding outside is not an option I'm willing to entertain. So for now I've been doing random gcn indoor training videos (intervals) for the last 4-5 weeks at the rate of 1-2 in a row, 30 minute to an hour workouts, 1-2 days of rest between those depending on how fatigued I feel. Soon however I will have a power meter and I want to do an ftp test (never done one) as a baseline then start a more structured training plan that will transition into road rides within the next couple of months. I have mostly given up drinking and eating poorly so my recovery time isn't bad although maybe I should mention that a few years ago I weighed 150lbs and was riding upwards of 200 miles per week much of the year. Now I weigh 175lbs and am probably stronger but could lose 10-15 pounds to get reasonably lean. I'm looking for advice on what you think an effective mostly indoor training program would look like for me given my time constraints. Other input on training while working a lot (physically active job) is welcome.

[moonoi]

I could use some advice if anyone would be kind and knowledgeable enough to offer it. I am working 6am to 4pm m-f and 6am to 2:30 on Saturday. I want to get as fast as possible for this years racing season. I think I would benefit from a balanced training plan versus specializing in specific improvements. I am waiting for a crank arm then I can use a power meter, but I've never trained with one or really trained at all for that matter. Just riding up hills and riding with other people or racing occasionally. Obviously I'm working too much to spend a lot of time training and at the moment riding outside is not an option I'm willing to entertain. So for now I've been doing random gcn indoor training videos (intervals) for the last 4-5 weeks at the rate of 1-2 in a row, 30 minute to an hour workouts, 1-2 days of rest between those depending on how fatigued I feel. Soon however I will have a power meter and I want to do an ftp test (never done one) as a baseline then start a more structured training plan that will transition into road rides within the next couple of months. I have mostly given up drinking and eating poorly so my recovery time isn't bad although maybe I should mention that a few years ago I weighed 150lbs and was riding upwards of 200 miles per week much of the year. Now I weigh 175lbs and am probably stronger but could lose 10-15 pounds to get reasonably lean. I'm looking for advice on what you think an effective mostly indoor training program would look like for me given my time constraints. Other input on training while working a lot (physically active job) is welcome.

I found using the Sufferfest structured training plans to be quite effective when time constrained. They do call for some outdoor riding, but I just used Zwift for those occasions.

[AJS914]

I've been reading up on base and LSD. I've been riding for 35 years but I never understood why LSD worked.

So the reason it works, is that in Z1/2 you are working the slow twitch muscle fibers. If you work them to exhaustion in Z1/2 you are making training adaptions that you can't fully make at higher levels of intensity. The physiology studies show that 0-2hrs in z1/2 show little or no adapation. 6 hour rides showed the maximum adaption. Ok, that is why the pros do those long z1/2 rides in their "base" season.

I've also been following the Velonews Fasttalk podcast which I highly recommend. The latest episode was about winter training. Trevor Connor said that if you can't get the 3-4-5 hour rides in because it's too cold, try a 2 hour ride and then come back home and do a sweet spot 2x20 on the trainer. He called that poor man's base.

They were also saying that if you are time crunched try to get the longer ride in once every 7-10 days to maintain the adaptations as that will maintain that type of aerobic endurance fitness.

[lukaskupasz]

Running mate of mine sent me a good article that said you should always complete the intended duration even if you back off a bit. Knocking around on the TT forum I've seen comments about failing to hit required wattage numbers for the 3rd interval so sacked the whole session off. I think this is one area where power meters cause some negative motivation. if you can't finish your planned interval at 250w then why not throttle back to 230w but still do the same duration of session ? It's still a good workout.

On Monday evening I embarked on my usual tempo session, but I had had a much harder weekend. For the last 20 mins I reduced the resistance by one notch as I was really starting to struggle. I still did the required duration of 2hrs, but wasn't working quite as hard for the last 20 mins. My HR was still in the tempo zone so this was still a valid workout and I saw the end of the dvd I was watching.

[Nefarious86]

This also goes into the HR decoupling side of fatigue.

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[mrgray]

when you say decoupling do you mean a HR which won't rise, despite one feeling like they are well and truly on the ragged edge?

[istigatrice]

if you can't finish your planned interval at 250w then why not throttle back to 230w but still do the same duration of session ? It's still a good workout.

Depends what you're trying to get out of the session. If the session is meant to be a maximal session then if you can't hit your max (likely due to fatigue) you're better of canning the session and getting some extra rest. Likewise this also applies to skills/cadence drills. If you can't hit the target speed/cadence for the drill then there's no point doing the session. You don't need a good coach to tell you when to keep going. You need a good coach to tell you when to stop.

Of course if you're just building up fitness, HTFU and keep going (provided you're not sick)

[Nefarious86]

when you say decoupling do you mean a HR which won't rise, despite one feeling like they are well and truly on the ragged edge?

Yeah I'll dig up the podcastthat explains it properly later.

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