Ride Strong

by Jo McRae

  I personally like to physically write and sketch my programmes by hand, but if you prefer to work on a spreadsheet, then take the time to draw something up that you can come back to time and again. If you have never kept a journal or diary of any kind before, it might seem elaborate to detail what you are thinking in relation to your exercise in this way, but once you get the hang of it, a simple plan won’t even take you very long, and you can always change it later as your understanding of how to use the information in this book evolves and develops.

  Sticking to the plan

  There is only one thing that will mess up a good plan, and that’s not actually doing it. Changing a plan before you’ve given it a chance to work its magic is another common pitfall.

  In my experience, the most common reason for this is lack of confidence combined with a lack of discipline. Even the best training plan in the world will take some time to adapt to, and in the early stages of training things may get a little worse before they start to get better. Remember that the first stage in Seyle’s stress adaption model is ‘1st alarm’. In practical terms, when you start on a new training plan you are going to feel it, and there will be a stress response in new-found areas of your body that have been unexplored for some time. You won’t immediately adapt to what you are doing, and it may feel difficult, both physically and mentally, for the first couple of weeks.

  You should expect to feel some discomfort, both with the exercises themselves and with the habit of doing them. When you feel this discomfort, stick to your plan. If you have written down your plan, you can refer back to it time and time again, to remind yourself what you are trying to achieve and how you are going to do it.

  Apart from finding it uncomfortable and the discipline needed to develop a new habit, another common reason for falling off a plan is that you find yourself drawn into someone else’s. At the same time as you are losing confidence and struggling with self-discipline, if one of your peers seems to be doing something more exciting and interesting you may find yourself hopping onto their plan, which of course is not designed for you, and may be completely inappropriate at worst and distracting at the very least. In almost all circumstances there is no point in re-evaluating your essential conditioning plan until you have spent a full three months working through the exercises. Take the time to choose those that you feel are right for you, based on what you have learned so far, and execute them.

  Spend a little quality time evaluating your goals and making a plan. Then stick to it.

  Making a yearly plan

  The first and most important consideration in making an effective conditioning plan is a proper assessment of how much time you have to exercise and how you are going to slice it up. As a cyclist, most of your training time needs to be spent on the bike, but a quarter to a third of the time you are exercising needs to be spent on your essential conditioning (to include appropriate cross-training where applicable). Don’t fall into the trap of filling every spare minute with bike riding, leaving no time for any conditioning work. Quality training time is what you are after, and that means prioritizing the conditioning time too.

  Being realistic about the time you can consistently put into your training is really important at this stage, and the first time that the macrocycle in your periodization becomes relevant. Remember that your macrocycle places your current year of training in relation to the past year and the year ahead. This more global look is important because it will flag up any obviously overambitious goals that will trip you up at the first hurdle.

  The basic variables of time and intensity

  Let’s say, for example, that you want to complete a 150km mountainous sportive this summer, and that to be confident you can achieve that goal you intend to train for 12 hours a week (nine hours on the bike) in the three months preceding your goal event. You want to make sure your back is strong for the climbing (since it sometimes aches on steeper hills) so you’re going to include some stretching and core work regularly as part of your preparation.

  If you then reflect on how many hours on average you rode in the summer last year, or what the furthest you’ve ever ridden is, you can consider the time elements of your cycling goal. If you have no experience of mountainous riding at all, another dimension has been thrown into the mix. Next you can review your conditioning status, and note any time you spent consistently on any conditioning, which together will allow you to see whether your cycling performance goal and training process goals are realistic and achievable this current season, or whether you should set an intermediate goal to succeed in the longer term.

  Even if you have no experience of coaching or sport at this stage, you can get a simple common-sense grasp of the two main variables you are evaluating here – time or ‘volume’ of training and ‘intensity’ or difficulty of the challenge. This same simple evaluation can be applied to your conditioning status too, from a yearly (macrocycle) perspective first, to help shape your seasonal plan thereafter.

  Prioritizing conditioning time

  Time (volume) and intensity are two important variables when reviewing your conditioning status. Time is fairly obvious and straightforward (though it should be interconnected with your cycling training time). Simple questions you can ask yourself in relation to your conditioning status in this regard are:

  •Did you do any off-the-bike conditioning consistently last year?

  •How did this balance with the essential conditioning equation of a quarter to a third of total exercise time being an appropriate amount?

  These two questions give you an idea of where you are starting from and whether you spent enough time conditioning to balance the amount of time you spent on the bike.

  A seasonal evaluation of how much time you are spending on the bike across the seasons will give you some clear direction as to the amount of time you need to spend on your essential conditioning programme. For some riders with no real pain issues or problems, off-the-bike conditioning may be absent during the ‘in season’, but only if a structured conditioning plan is in place for the remaining nine months of the year. Even for experienced riders in good overall condition, appropriate off-the-bike exercise during the in season will aid recovery and enhance performance.

  Intensity in relation to conditioning

  To begin to evaluate the intensity – or perhaps more accurately in relation to conditioning exercise, the quality – of the conditioning that you put in, you can ask yourself the following questions:

  •What type of conditioning did you include and where does it sit across the ‘success formula’ spectrum? (flexibility, strength or core)

  •Did you experience any issues, injuries or difficulties in response to or incidental to any conditioning exercise?

  •Did the type of conditioning change throughout the year to complement your cycling training and to allow you to progress?

  Some of you will have no consistent conditioning off the bike at this stage, and effectively have a clean slate to make a start this year. Others may have explicitly been working on core exercises or strength exercises, but perhaps only in the ‘off season’.

  Reviewing your yearly plan

  Review your goals for your current macrocycle, or yearly plan, and put them in context of last year, and next year.

  Last year …

  In the table below, start first by jotting down the following:

  •How much riding you were doing in each of the seasons last year

  •What type or intensity of riding you did

  •How much conditioning of any kind you were doing in each of the seasons last year

  •What type of conditioning it was (can you classify it broadly into stretching, strength and core?)

  •Add any notes of injuries or issues you experienced through the year

  This coming year …

  Then you can outline what you expect you might need to do to reach your goals this coming year, broadly separating your notes into cycling time and intensity, and conditioning t
ime and quality.

  Next year …

  It may be a stretch too far to think further ahead than the coming season, so don’t worry if you can’t add any detail to this part of the table for now. Even keeping it in mind will help you to begin to think bigger in your periodization.

  If you have experienced injuries or issues with your off-the-bike conditioning in the past, the chances are that you pitched your approach at the wrong level for your conditioning status. For example, if you are very stiff and have a weak core, strength training is likely to cause problems. Alternatively, it may be that the exercises you selected or the way you executed them were not ideal for cyclists.

  Both these barriers to progress should be eliminated by the approach taken in this book. However, the more deconditioned you are, the slower you may have to go, and it may take you more than one year to confidently tackle your goals. Often if you have a challenging goal that is outside of your current level of training, making a two- or even three-year plan allows your body to adapt optimally, without overreaching in any way that might cause injury. If you make a plan and keep it, you will know you are moving in the right direction because you will be able to do more of the exercises in this book more easily.

  Making a seasonal plan

  Remembering that your macrocycle view places your current year of conditioning in relation to the past year and the year ahead, adding some detail to your plan throughout the seasons can help it to start to take shape in a more meaningful way. This is where we will start to look at your training in three-monthly blocks.

  A breakdown of the time you are likely to spend on the bike and the intensity of your cycling training in any given season (your ‘mesocycle’) will give shape to your conditioning plan. The time you spend on your conditioning will remain relatively stable at one-third to one-half of the time you spend on the bike. But the nature of the conditioning will change to dovetail with the changing emphasis of your cycling training.

  I’ve started my discussion of my seasonal (three-monthly) plans in the autumn, which for most British and European riders is the time of year when your main cycling activities will be coming to a close. If you are involved in racing or riding sportives, late summer is the time when you should be enjoying the best weather, but when the weather changes and with less events on the calendar, there tends to be a natural pause for you to evaluate your successes and failures, and begin to consider what you might want to do better next year.

  If you have been stretching yourself with some new challenges and a full schedule through the summer months, chances are your performance will be starting to decline too, as fatigue sets in and your body begins to need a change or a rest.

  In this section I describe each mesocycle in terms of its relationship to your cycling first, so the period which I am referring to as ‘in season’ will fall in a British calendar summer when your riding will most likely be at its peak. In a way your conditioning plan will have the opposite structure, with the most important season for conditioning being in the ‘off season’ or winter months, when there can be more intensity in your conditioning programme because it’s not there in your cycling training.

  Autumn (post-season)

  The autumn ‘post-season’ period is the best time to start to make a training plan, since it allows you a full nine months before the main summer season comes back around, or in view of your conditioning exercises, three months of preparation work before you hit the winter period during which you will want to maximize your off-the-bike gains.

  Some cyclists have some time off the bike completely at this time of year, but most will drop the intensity and volume of what they are doing to allow for recovery from the in-season challenges.

  It’s a good time of year to review your cycling drills and skills, and go back to basics with some fluid, relaxed pedalling, or work on your bike fit and posture so that you have plenty of time to settle into any changes through the winter months.

  Even if motivation is low and you are feeling tired, an introduction of conditioning elements as appropriate can give you a welcome change of focus and set you up for the more challenging conditioning work to come later. The post-season is a good time to emphasize flexibility and mobility exercises from Chapter 2 of this book, together with some core exercises from Chapter 3 if appropriate. It can also establish the important habit of putting in the quality time that you will need to see improvements in the long term.

  If you are considering including some classes as part of your cross-training in the winter phase, this autumn period is a good time to try out a few of the options too, to find a class that suits you and an instructor or coach that you like.

  Winter (off season)

  The winter months are the ideal time to make significant headway in terms of your physical condition off the bike, to give you a more robust and adaptable body when you come to the more intense cycling training you will likely want to include in your preseason phase.

  Depending on the weather, most cyclists will use this time to develop the aerobic ‘base’ that underpins any higher-intensity fitness work that will come later. This generally means putting in as much time as is feasible outside, but also using indoor turbo trainers for some heart-rate-based steady-state sessions.

  In some instances, when the weather is really bad, the number of hours on the bike simply has to drop, and so the proportionate amount of conditioning time can drift up towards the half rather than the more typical third of the time spent on the bike. Although most cyclists would rather ride outside, this period can be extremely effective for both cycling fitness and conditioning progress. With only 6 or 7 hours on the bike, and 2–2½ hours off it, strength gains in particular can be achieved.

  I have found that it’s possible to integrate some sport-specific on-the-bike strengthening together with the steady-state aerobic work that predominates for most cyclists during this period. Integrating some ‘over-gearing’ or seated hill simulations as part of steady-state heart-rate-based sessions can help your brain and body develop muscular strength and endurance at the same time as that all important aerobic fitness.

  When on-the-bike strengthening is supported by off-the-bike strength exercises, gains during this period can be significant. Even if your conditioning programme leaves you with some muscle soreness, it’s unlikely that this will have any negative impact on the moderate intensity riding that will most likely be the focus on the bike at this time.

  If your body is well balanced enough and you have been working on some off-the-bike conditioning for some time, this will be the time of year to focus on the strength essentials outlined in Chapter 3 of this book. Focusing on technique at first but then adding load as soon as you can, you should expect to see significant improvements in the amount of weight you can lift throughout this period.

  You may choose to include some key core exercises as you see fit for your personal needs too, but the winter period is the one where you should be working on the exercises as far right on the success formula continuum as your body will allow.

  Spring (preseason)

  The preseason, or ‘early season’ as it might be called for some riders who target a full six months throughout the summer, is the time when you want to start to see measurable improvements on the bike. During this period your sport-specific cycling training takes priority again, but that does not mean that your conditioning programme should stop altogether.

  Your cycling training at this time will be shaped by your goals for the summer, and may focus on speed and accelerations if you are racing, or threshold fitness and strength endurance if you are looking towards some hilly sportives. The duration and intensity of the efforts will likely be quite specific, but will need more energy and focus as well as needing adequate recovery between sessions.

  In terms of strength and power on the bike, drills and skills can be included as part of the more challenging intervals. In my opinion, any out-of-the-saddle work has to be done on the road, such as with stan
ding climbing or sprints and accelerations, which could be a focus here. The higher-intensity seated efforts, whether indoors or outdoors, will need more muscular effort than the more moderate ‘tempo’ type work too, so it’s important that your conditioning work at this time does not leave you with any muscle soreness that detracts from these quality sessions.

  For most riders, this will mean taking the strength work out of the programme during the preseason and having more emphasis on the core exercises in Chapter 4 of this book. For some riders, a ‘neuro-tonic’ approach to the strength work can allow you to maintain a certain amount of the programme a little bit longer. Where a combination of neuro-tonic strength work and core exercises are included during this period, it will be easier to pick up your conditioning programme at a higher level at the end of the season.

  A neuro-tonic approach to strength work is one where you include enough of an exercise to stimulate the nervous system without causing significant fatigue in the muscles. There are several ways to use this approach effectively. You can maintain the intensity or ‘load’ of the exercise, but reduce the number of repetitions or sets so that you stop before fatigue sets in. For some riders, it might be best to work for 6–8 reps of your 10–12 rep load. For others, one full set (instead of 2–3) might work better.

  If you are familiar with the strength components of your programme and confident about your form, you can work with a lighter load and higher repetition range in a continuous circuit, maintaining the movement patterns in the minimum time and with the minimum muscular fatigue.

  Summer (in season)

  The in season is what you have been waiting for and the time you should expect to see your best performances on the bike and the fruits of your labours for the previous nine months. If you have dovetailed your cycling training with your conditioning effectively, everything should come together during the summer so that you are feeling strong and fast on the bike, without any injuries or issues, even with your hardest, most challenging riding.