Training books for real life

ogre

Can anyone advise a training book? I've looked at a few but these all seemed abit hardcore - aimed a full bore training as opposed to wife,kids,job,extension,shifts etc.

Is there a mellow roadbike training book? I liked the relaxed approach of Bike racing 101 but it was aimed at someone else.

Help me Obi-wan your my only hope.......

SteveR_100Milers

Why not try searching on Amazon and read the reviewers comments - most are very helpful

Ric_Stern/RST

ogre wrote:

Can anyone advise a training book? I've looked at a few but these all seemed abit hardcore - aimed a full bore training as opposed to wife,kids,job,extension,shifts etc.

Is there a mellow roadbike training book? I liked the relaxed approach of Bike racing 101 but it was aimed at someone else.

Help me Obi-wan your my only hope.......

If you have limited time for training (as most do) then one suggestion, especially at this time of year (presuming you're in the northern hemisphere) is reverse periodisation. essentially, as the name suggests, this is opposite way of training to normal, that is, while you're time limited you should do short(ish) hard/intense sessions and when you have more time to do longer sessions.

For e.g., mid-week, you may end up doing a block of TTing or VO2max intervals, and maybe on the weekend some longer rides.

Not sure of any books on the topic
ric

PhilBixby

What's the aim of your training? If it's road racing (or TTing) then Joe Friel's very good. Yes, it's pretty serious, but then it's aimed at people with limited time, who want to make the most effective use of it. I'm self-employed, with partner, daughter, etc and found it transformed my training this year - just make sure that you're realistic about how many hours per week you can put in without inviting conflict or guilt!

Phil B
Clifton CC York

SteveR_100Milers

Phil, how many hours a week do you manage to get on average, and worst case and best case? I am aiming fior minimum 6 per week up to the end of the year, then 8 per week in 2008. Worts case is I end up doing about an hour because of work commitments and travel, other weeks I can manage 10-12 hours. I therefore find it very hard to follow a rigid plan, so thus far have had little structure to any of my training.

PhilBixby

When I did my training plan I worked on an overall average of 8hrs per week. With Friel's approach this means anything between 5hrs (on a "rest" week) up to about 12hrs at the absolute most. Being self-employed means I can often be flexible. For the year ahead I'm working on an average of 7hrs, as I've started doing some rock climbing and want to fit that in too. I'm happy that will be enough for me to be at least as competitive as this year, given lessons learned about what worked best last year.

To be honest the odd week getting trashed probably makes little difference; make a plan and just keep as near to it as you can given the other pressures on your time. Don't go mad with compensating if you miss a few sessions. I think having a structure is really helpful tho - mind you, I'm kinda nerdy so maybe it just suits my way of doing things!

Phil B
Clifton CC York

Cajun

http://www.velonews.com/train/

http://www.sports-coach.net/gad/cpc/cyc ... ggod_EDHXw

mackdaddy

Ogre. I have same issues, limited training time, job, family etc. I found Joe Friels ccylists training bible spot on. Practical advice. I've only just started putting into practice though so no reults to report.

rendo

i been thro this exercise too, of trying to work out a plan on limited time. ended up going to a coach and asking them to prepare one for me.
if chosen carefully they can be very sympathetic to those with limited time to train. Mine also appreciates that not everyone wants to set pb at the local TT. in my case i was only training for sportives, but i wanted to give them a good shot.
Have a place in next years etape, and plan to use the coach for this too.

oh, and it isn't that expensive

Mike Willcox1

Ogre

Any cycling training publication will inevitably harp on about Heart rate zones , Lactate Threshold, VO2Max, and Power output etc. because that's what physical adaption is all about in scientific terms.

As far as meaningful language to a newbie is concerned it's a turn off. You won't go far wrong if you read the articles on health and fitness on this web site and weekly/monthly cycling magazines, or you could join a club and just do it.