Non training plan training plans

[iheartbianchi]

Very interesting.

Can you comment on the physiology/training theory of the beginner? The fit individual that maybe wants to get fast (ruling out overweight types that may require a different focus).

Can you also discuss more on the topic and physiology of peaking. Lets think short term first. Say preparing for an event.

Now what about peaking as an individual? I mean reaching your max potential. I suspect that this is where small improvements become hard to obtain, and require focused training since we are really pushing our physiology beyond the 95% intended. The caveman was never designed to run away from sebertooth tigers in such a manner, so it takes a tight balance to maintain, or improve upon such performance.

My armchair logic would be that early on, for a fit beginner, there are lots of low hanging fruit gains. But as you get stronger, and closer to your maximum potential physiology, structured/purposeful training becomes more important.

First, I think we should start by disassociating "structured" and "purposeful" training. These should not be equated to mean the same thing. A structured program these days typically refers to some adapation of Arthur Lydiard's training principles of periodization and modulation of training intensities (i.e., base miles + intervals). But let's say you don't do a periodized training program, and you don't do intervals. Is your training then no longer "purposeful?" Perhaps, but not necessarily so. You could establish a highly effective non-periodized training with zero intervals and achieve great success, and this would be just as "purposeful" as a "structured" program. Lydiard-based training has a purpose for each period and each workout. Likewise, in a non-structured program, you could also have a similar purpose for each ride.

Let's take a casual cyclist who rides 6 days a week. His 6 days are the same 365 days of the year:
Day 1 - 90 minutes at 60-70% of maxHR (purpose is aerobic conditioning and ST muscle fiber development and fat efficiency)
Day 2 - 90 minutes at 60-70% of maxHR (purpose is aerobic conditioning and ST muscle fiber development and fat efficiency)
Day 3 - 45 minutes at 85% of maxHR with 15 minutes easy before and after (purpose is aerobic conditioning, FT muscle fiber development, glycogen efficiency and lacate threshold efficiency)
Day 4 - 120 minutes at 60-70% of maxHR (purpose is aerobic conditioning and ST muscle fiber development and fat efficiency)
Day 5 - 60 minutes at 60-70% of maxHR (purpose is aerobic conditioning and ST muscle fiber development and fat efficiency, but shorter to get some recovery)
Day 6 - 2-5 repetitions on a 2km or so hill at 85-95% of maxHR with 30 minutes easy before and after (purpose is aerobic conditioning, FT muscle fiber development, glycogen efficiency and lacate threshold efficiency)

*side note: before anyone says, "oh but he's not increasing his distances he'll plateau", note that the rides above are expressed in terms of "time in zone." So 90 minutes at 60% of MaxHr may be performed at 25km/hr (excuse my math) on Day 1, but on Day 365, 90 minutes at 60% of MaxHr may be performed at 30km/hr, so you are effectively going faster and covering more mileage for the same time, so you are actually doing more work which is what we care about.

The above cyclist spent maybe 8 hours or so riding in a week. I guarantee most recreational cyclists will improve dramatically over the course of 5 years if they maintained something similar to the above schedule consistently. Would they have been better off in a "structured" program? Maybe very marginally so. In fact, maybe not at all. Maybe they would be worse off.

And just so we are clear on terminology, "peaking" can have two meanings - one, peaking during a season and two, achieving lifetime peak.

"Peaking" for an event is pretty simple and well understood. For a short period building up to a target event, you overload your body with high intensity workouts which result in unsustainable gains in muscular strength, Vo2max and lactate threshold. You basically overload a bunch of stimulus, but in effect "delay" the adapation process by maintaining a high intensity of exercise during this short period. Once you begin the "tapering" process and dramatically pull back on the volume and intensity of training, your body begins a very rapid process of adaptation and recovery and rapid refuelling of your body. You get a temporary boost in performance and this is how you time a "peak" to coincide with your target event. But after this peak, since you had tapered, you end up at a state of lower fitness than if you had simply maintained a more consistent effort level. A prime example of this is Lance Armstrong, Chris Froome and Geraint Thomas who train consistently for the Tour de France, as opposed to guys like Alaphillipe, Pinot, etc. who are trying to peak multiple times to be competitive both in the spring and in the Tour de France. Which works better?

A lifetime peak is usually achieved at the point where your body lacks the ability to respond any further to an ever-increasing work load. In other words, the point at which your body either breaks down and becomes injured or simply stops responding to additional training. Some source material below:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17037090

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3993978/

It takes years of consistent training to get anywhere close to this point. In my very anecdotal experience, I would say very very few recreational athletes who have adopted a structured training program are anywhere near their natural peak ability. On the other hand, for competitive athletes who have been training seriously since they were teenagers and are now in the early to mid 20s, they are all very close to their peak and we struggle mightily to get them to improve even 1% over the course of an entire year of hard training.

Depending on your genetic profile, there is a limit to how much we can increase your lung capacity and oxygen uptake, your heart's stroke volume, your max HR, the literal number of muscle fibers (although we can play around with the proportion of fast/slow somewhat), your overall Vo2Max, height and bone structure, the strength of your joints and connective tissue, etc. It takes quite some time to hit these limits and just because you hit the limit for one doens't mean you can't improve on other areas. Like if you are no longer developing your muscle fibers, you could continue to improve by increasing the number of capillaries and mitochondria in your legs. And once that is capped out, you can continue to improve by maybe losing some weight. Once that is capped out, maybe you can improve your lactate threshold. I keep repeating this, but it takes years and years of consistent training to hit your natural limits. Most recreational athletes are no where near their natural limits.

[robertbb]

Absolutely fabulous post. Unfortunately the quality of posts on WW seems to have diminished somewhat, but this is good stuff.

In particular:

First, I think we should start by disassociating "structured" and "purposeful" training.

Fitness modelling is getting to the point where some type of pre-determined "structure" takes a back seat to hitting the right targets (dose/response relationship) when you do ride, and those targets change frequently based on your recent training history - in particular the zones (i.e. energy systems) you've been training most.

Basing *any* training above MLSS (i.e. FTP) purely on a percentage of that FTP is stabbing in the dark. Below FTP the "bell curve" is pretty much the same for everyone, but above FTP we humans are significantly varied.

Training in the 2020's is going to be all about feeding your model with ride data and getting personalised and very detailed feedback/understanding of your phenotype and how to train to stimulate particular improvements.

[RocketRacing]

Thanks for all these thoughtful replies.

I started with marginal gains in gear, moved to aero and crr, and now i am also looking at training.

I think to another local rider. I do about 170kms a week afterage this season. He does almost double that. I am 61kg now (up as i am stronger), and he about 65kg. I am a bit younger too. Our ftp is about identical. He does mostly longer rides, and seems to go for average ride speeds. My rides are obviously about half the length, and i do very high intensity mixed with lower to moderate intensity. I sometimes just do sweet spot rides. But mostly mixed intensity.

I am sure he could make me suffer on a century (i have never done one), but i blow his doors off on timed segments, short (3-5 min)and long (20-50min). We did the same 120k ride also, and my average speed was higher.

I wonder if a bit more structure in his training would benefit him. Mind you, i think we have difference performance goals. His training could be quite purposeful.

[AJS914]

Your friend's mistake is trying to attain certain average speeds. His training ignores physiology. I imagine that he's in a constant state of being tired. He's doing exactly what Seiler's research says not to do.

[RocketRacing]

I keep thinking about the concept of “wasted miles.”

[RocketRacing]

Your friend's mistake is trying to attain certain average speeds. His training ignores physiology. I imagine that he's in a constant state of being tired. He's doing exactly what Seiler's research says not to do.

Or maybe he is not improving average speed, but is building endurance, to allow for longer efforts each week.

In reality, i suspect he is falling into what causes many to stop progression... which is to stop pushing. He could simply be riding for riding sake, and happy with his current level. Vs me that is making a concious effort to get stronger/faster.

[AJS914]

Or maybe he is not improving average speed, but is building endurance

Maybe? What intensity is he riding at? The idea of polarized training is that you will get the same benefit at 60% of max HR as you will if you smash yourself with every ride at 80% of max. 60% feels like nothing. You can do it for hours and hours. 80% feels like you are doing something. You are tired after a couple of hours but you didn't accomplish anything extra except fatiguing yourself. Your buddy would probably be crushing you after a month of throttling back the long slow to 60% and doing one session of intervals at threshold.

What are "wasted miles"?

[RocketRacing]

Or maybe he is not improving average speed, but is building endurance

Maybe? What intensity is he riding at?

What are "wasted miles"?

Not sure on the intensity, but strava would suggest 60-75% ftp.

Not sure what everyone’s definition of wasted miles is, but i would say that they are miles that are ridden when they do not benefit further progression in the direction you wish to progress (i.e. meeting your training goals). In reality, i think it all helps something, in some way... but “wasted” may be doing miles that do less for your training goals vs another form or Training (improving your power when your goal was endurance).

An obvious example would be riding too hard to the point of injury. Those final miles that did you in would be wasted in my mind.

A more subtle form of wasted miles might be training for endurance, but doing so with too much intensity. You might improve your endurance, but not as much as with more focused endurance training.

based on the example you noted above, wasted miles might be that one extra low intensity ride a week that should have been swapped for hard intervals.

Some people get too focused on hitting a weekly benchmark of miles (myself included), where maybe less miles and more rest would allow for you to become stronger. So a wasted mile could be defined by any mile that would have been better spent resting. It all depends of course.

[iheartbianchi]

Thanks for all these thoughtful replies.

I started with marginal gains in gear, moved to aero and crr, and now i am also looking at training.

I think to another local rider. I do about 170kms a week afterage this season. He does almost double that. I am 61kg now (up as i am stronger), and he about 65kg. I am a bit younger too. Our ftp is about identical. He does mostly longer rides, and seems to go for average ride speeds. My rides are obviously about half the length, and i do very high intensity mixed with lower to moderate intensity. I sometimes just do sweet spot rides. But mostly mixed intensity.

I am sure he could make me suffer on a century (i have never done one), but i blow his doors off on timed segments, short (3-5 min)and long (20-50min). We did the same 120k ride also, and my average speed was higher.

I wonder if a bit more structure in his training would benefit him. Mind you, i think we have difference performance goals. His training could be quite purposeful.

Let's get the easy one out of the way - you just may be more naturally talented than your friend.

Some questions
-does he do all of his rides at the same pace?
-what are his effort levels on those timed segments (3-5 min, 20-50 min and the 120k ride) compared to yours?

There is a pretty big contradiction in your post. You state that your FTPs are identical, yet you blow him away in both short and long segments. That cannot be. Either your FTPs are not identical, or you worked much harder on those segments.

In theory, if your FTPs are indeed identical (which seems highly doubtful), you would be better in the 3-5 minute segment because of your intensity training, you would be even on the long segment, and he would blow you away on the 120k ride. So something you wrote is either incomplete or incorrect.

By the way, if you want to be good at a 20-50 minute long segment, you obviously need to have intensity in your training. A hard 20-50 minute exertion will be recruiting your fast twitch muscles and will end up being an anaerobic, lactate threshold effort. If you have not done any hard riding, you won't have the right muscles or the lactate recycling ability to put in a good effort.

The 120km ride on the other hand will be almost entirely slow twitch endurance and again, it makes no sense for you to be faster (given the same level of effort and eliminating variables like illness, bad weather, poor nutrition, fatigue etc.) than another rider with the same FTP who has done double your mileage. Something is missing here.

[RocketRacing]

Thanks for all these thoughtful replies.

I started with marginal gains in gear, moved to aero and crr, and now i am also looking at training.

I think to another local rider. I do about 170kms a week afterage this season. He does almost double that. I am 61kg now (up as i am stronger), and he about 65kg. I am a bit younger too. Our ftp is about identical. He does mostly longer rides, and seems to go for average ride speeds. My rides are obviously about half the length, and i do very high intensity mixed with lower to moderate intensity. I sometimes just do sweet spot rides. But mostly mixed intensity.

I am sure he could make me suffer on a century (i have never done one), but i blow his doors off on timed segments, short (3-5 min)and long (20-50min). We did the same 120k ride also, and my average speed was higher.

I wonder if a bit more structure in his training would benefit him. Mind you, i think we have difference performance goals. His training could be quite purposeful.

Let's get the easy one out of the way - you just may be more naturally talented than your friend.

Some questions
-does he do all of his rides at the same pace?
-what are his effort levels on those timed segments (3-5 min, 20-50 min and the 120k ride) compared to yours?

There is a pretty big contradiction in your post. You state that your FTPs are identical, yet you blow him away in both short and long segments. That cannot be. Either your FTPs are not identical, or you worked much harder on those segments.

In theory, if your FTPs are indeed identical (which seems highly doubtful), you would be better in the 3-5 minute segment because of your intensity training, you would be even on the long segment, and he would blow you away on the 120k ride. So something you wrote is either incomplete or incorrect.

By the way, if you want to be good at a 20-50 minute long segment, you obviously need to have intensity in your training. A hard 20-50 minute exertion will be recruiting your fast twitch muscles and will end up being an anaerobic, lactate threshold effort. If you have not done any hard riding, you won't have the right muscles or the lactate recycling ability to put in a good effort.

The 120km ride on the other hand will be almost entirely slow twitch endurance and again, it makes no sense for you to be faster (given the same level of effort and eliminating variables like illness, bad weather, poor nutrition, fatigue etc.) than another rider with the same FTP who has done double your mileage. Something is missing here.

Some questions i can not answer here, but i think he was trying pretty hard. I just seem to crank out higher watts. And i am 4kg lighter. Our differential is greater on climbs than flats, because w/kg.

And i have aero wheels, and a very aero position for all of my hard efforts (arms bent on drops). Aero helmet, aero bottles.

But i know that when i decide to go, i suffer, and max my heart rate out, no question. 1hr efforts i try stay within 10bpm of my typical max hr. That being said, i base my ftp on a tacx neo 2, which is known to be stingy. In reality i may have a higher ftp.

So i think i am faster because i have a higher ftp than advertised, i have a better power to weight, and because i am marginal gains the hell out of my bike and position.

[AJS914]

If your buddy has aero nothing then he's leaving a lot of watts on the table.

[RocketRacing]

Let's get the easy one out of the way - you just may be more naturally talented than your friend.

Some questions
-does he do all of his rides at the same pace?
-what are his effort levels on those timed segments (3-5 min, 20-50 min and the 120k ride) compared to yours?

There is a pretty big contradiction in your post. You state that your FTPs are identical, yet you blow him away in both short and long segments. That cannot be. Either your FTPs are not identical, or you worked much harder on those segments.

In theory, if your FTPs are indeed identical (which seems highly doubtful), you would be better in the 3-5 minute segment because of your intensity training, you would be even on the long segment, and he would blow you away on the 120k ride. So something you wrote is either incomplete or incorrect.

By the way, if you want to be good at a 20-50 minute long segment, you obviously need to have intensity in your training. A hard 20-50 minute exertion will be recruiting your fast twitch muscles and will end up being an anaerobic, lactate threshold effort. If you have not done any hard riding, you won't have the right muscles or the lactate recycling ability to put in a good effort.

The 120km ride on the other hand will be almost entirely slow twitch endurance and again, it makes no sense for you to be faster (given the same level of effort and eliminating variables like illness, bad weather, poor nutrition, fatigue etc.) than another rider with the same FTP who has done double your mileage. Something is missing here.

Some questions i can not answer here, but i think he was trying pretty hard. His hr was withing 5bpm of mine. I just seem to crank out higher watts. And i am 4kg lighter. And i have a 13lbs bike. Our differential is greater on climbs than flats, because w/kg.

And i have aero wheels, and a very aero position for all of my hard efforts (arms bent on drops). Aero helmet, aero bottles.

But i know that when i decide to go, i suffer, and max my heart rate out, no question. 1hr efforts i try stay within 10bpm of my typical max hr. That being said, i base my ftp on a tacx neo 2, which is known to be stingy. In reality i may have a higher ftp.

So i think i am faster because i have a higher ftp than advertised, i have a better power to weight, and because i am marginal gainsing the hell out of my bike and position.

But what is interesting is that i do half the weekly miles. And i really only have been healthy enough to train consistently since maybe february. This guy has been at it for a few years or more. Maybe he also overtrains? Or maybe there are some wasted miles.

I am not at all trying to flex, just trying to make sense of it all.

Another good buddy is my opposite. He is a tall powerful guy that does crossfit. He has a good 15kg on me. He has a lot of upper body power, and has been doing a combo of leg strength training, long road rides (mixed intensity like me), and intervals. He rests one day a week and admits he overtrains. He probably does less miles than me on average, but he is more likely to do a long ride. His ftp via tacx neo 2 is a solid 10% over mine. On zwift and real life, i crush him on the long climbs, but on the short stuff 3-4min or less he leaves me dead. He can sprint 1200w (vs my 700w on a good day). But he has a lot of upper body power that is dead weight on a bike. He is very aero, but with broad shoulders is no doubt generating more drag than me.

So i am now beating him on the 5-10minute + climbs (as i swapped my training goals from 1hr power to 5-10min power) but if he wants, he can still get me on the flats. It is the classic raw watts winning on the flats/rollers, and power/weight winning on the climbs. On a 120k ride we did together, he dropped me in the first 60k, and we were pretty equal on the last 60k (after i refuled, something i am still working on perfecting).

I am just not sure how to classify myself as a rider. I am not a sprinter. Maybe a breakaway specialist as i can do those intermediate length high efforts. My vo2 max/lactate threshold are pretty solid i suspect. I am built like a true climber, but we just dont have the long real world climbs locally to bother training like a true climber.

[ichobi]

I don't think an amateur can really classify themselves since we are far away from genetic potential. I am sure if you train for sprint and bag up solid core, legs, arms muscle you can put up a good sprint - may be not pure sprinter power but a decent one that can win over many people. Sprinting has a lot to do with technique which is not easy to learn to do right.

One can probably spot their good riding traits like may be if you are light you can climb well, or if you love putting out threshold power over long period, you might think you gear towards being a time trialist but these are likely misleading.

May be because you haven't tried or trained for other discipline seriously, or you are used to the type of riding you are good at you do more of it because you like it and that's why you guage this specific riding style better.

I think you don't need to worry about the type of rider you are just yet. You might surprise yourself. I am 5'5" 64kg and thought of myself as a time trialist and shit sprinter until I start doing sprint and found out I can dish out 1100 watts without too much trouble while my heavier and stronger mate find 800watts sprint unthinkable, that I learned labelling is misleading most of the time. Being able to put up good wattage also doesn't mean I am a good sprinter either.


In short it's better to enjoy getting stronger and explore your ability in variety of way. As an amateur road cyclist it's probably better to be able to do all sort of ride well than piegeon hole yourself as a particular specialist. We are not leading any team anytime soon.
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[iheartbianchi]

Some questions i can not answer here, but i think he was trying pretty hard. His hr was withing 5bpm of mine. I just seem to crank out higher watts. And i am 4kg lighter. And i have a 13lbs bike. Our differential is greater on climbs than flats, because w/kg.

And i have aero wheels, and a very aero position for all of my hard efforts (arms bent on drops). Aero helmet, aero bottles.

But i know that when i decide to go, i suffer, and max my heart rate out, no question. 1hr efforts i try stay within 10bpm of my typical max hr. That being said, i base my ftp on a tacx neo 2, which is known to be stingy. In reality i may have a higher ftp.

So i think i am faster because i have a higher ftp than advertised, i have a better power to weight, and because i am marginal gainsing the hell out of my bike and position.

But what is interesting is that i do half the weekly miles. And i really only have been healthy enough to train consistently since maybe february. This guy has been at it for a few years or more. Maybe he also overtrains? Or maybe there are some wasted miles.

I am not at all trying to flex, just trying to make sense of it all.

Another good buddy is my opposite. He is a tall powerful guy that does crossfit. He has a good 15kg on me. He has a lot of upper body power, and has been doing a combo of leg strength training, long road rides (mixed intensity like me), and intervals. He rests one day a week and admits he overtrains. He probably does less miles than me on average, but he is more likely to do a long ride. His ftp via tacx neo 2 is a solid 10% over mine. On zwift and real life, i crush him on the long climbs, but on the short stuff 3-4min or less he leaves me dead. He can sprint 1200w (vs my 700w on a good day). But he has a lot of upper body power that is dead weight on a bike. He is very aero, but with broad shoulders is no doubt generating more drag than me.

So i am now beating him on the 5-10minute + climbs (as i swapped my training goals from 1hr power to 5-10min power) but if he wants, he can still get me on the flats. It is the classic raw watts winning on the flats/rollers, and power/weight winning on the climbs. On a 120k ride we did together, he dropped me in the first 60k, and we were pretty equal on the last 60k (after i refuled, something i am still working on perfecting).

I am just not sure how to classify myself as a rider. I am not a sprinter. Maybe a breakaway specialist as i can do those intermediate length high efforts. My vo2 max/lactate threshold are pretty solid i suspect. I am built like a true climber, but we just dont have the long real world climbs locally to bother training like a true climber.

I don't think anyone thinks riding in Zone 1/2 (out of 5 Zones) for 100% of your rides is a good idea. But the fundamental question is, what are you training to be good at? Look at whatever event you are training for, and then identify what Zones will be used for that event. Train accordingly. Anything under 1 hour will be Zone 4/5 so you need Zone 4/5 work. Anything under 2 hours will probably be Zone 3-5, so you need those. Anything beyond 3+ hours will be Zone 1-3, so adjust appropriately. I love repeating this statistic, but Chris Froome back in 2016 or so when he won Mont Ventoux had an average heart rate of like 128 or something for the stage, and averaged 158bpm or so on Ventoux, with a max of 175 or so. In other words, he was in Zone 1/2 and using predominately his slow twitch fibers for most of the stage.

The harder question is, is it possible to train effectively on 3 days a week (7 hours or less)? Well yeah you can gain fitness quickly on 3 days a week, but you'll plateau quickly as well. You really need a minimum of 5 days, ideally 6 or 7, to produce enough stimulus to drive consistent physiological adapations over a period of years. Comparing a guy who rides slow 3 days a week vs. someone who rides relaly hard 3 days a week will become an exercise in who is less slow after a few months. Both will stop improving eventually and both will be equally mediocore. In other words, if you have only 3 days to train a week, I don't think it's worth stressing over training plans because you've already set yourself up to severe limitations so you should just look to training in terms of enjoyment, stress release and overall fitness, as opposed to some training objective. Now once you're in the 5-7 day / week territory, with 7 or more hours of training, then I think that's when polarized training really starts having a benefit for most cyclists.

Speaking of "muscle-bound" cyclists, we've all seen them. Guys who can hammer out solid 60-90 minute rides, but they're usually near their limits, they are sweating a lot and their HRs are really high. They have developed very strong fast twitch mucles that can withstand this effort and have relatively good lactate threshold. This is your typically "good" club rider. They won't be improving much beyond this point because they have become too reliant on fast twitch msucles which are at their genetic limit and there's only so much you can do to improve your lactate threshold. They've capped out. Their only way forward is to do a serious polarized training by going slow most of the time. Develop their aerobic engine and slow twitch muscle fibers so they're not hitting their lactate threshold. Bring that HR down on those rides by increasing your body's efficiency.

[RocketRacing]

Yeah, my strava says i am averaging about 7h/week, and 179kms. So i may not be a lost cause, but i dont expect to be more than a medium fish in a small pond.

My goal is reducing times in segments in the 5-10minute range, and rides under 2hrs. I also set a goal to hit a true hour ftp of 250w (i am 218w now. 170w in the mid winter). Most interest is in climbs but i just ordered a felt ia to take a stab at some of the flatter areas where the top guys are on tri bikes. They have been out of my league to date, but i am nipping at their heels so it is time to use a rocket ship.

Based on my time to train, and goals, it seems like i should be targeting fast twich and lactate threshold (which i think i am). I may never be a grand fondo hero, but who has time for that?