Coaching schedules for racing cyclists

Mike Willcox

I'm currently studying for a coaching qualification and am intrigued by how a training schedule (I imagine jointly arrived at), can cater for the checks and balances of weather conditions and health matters.

I am in training and have set myself two monthly periodisation slots to build endurance and speed. If I miss a day's training fro weather or am not feeling too good I'm not going to beat myself up about it as for me it's the 2 months periodisation that I'm focusing on.

The trouble with a layed down schedule as I see it, is that at this time of the year you could schedule a rider for a 3 hours moderate endurance ride (or whatever HR/Power zone equivalent) and on the day it is snowing a blizzard making it impossble.Even in normal cold (max 6 degrees C) temperatures you can sometimes get bitterly cold after two hours or so in the saddle.

If it was me I would cut the ride early if I was cold or substitute the endurance session with a ride on the turbo/rollers or leave it altogther. But I have read on other forums that riders stick to their schedules irrespective of events. This could mean riding in bad weather on one day and having a rest day when it's perfect outside. Where's the sense in that?

iainf72

It's down to communication - If you provided someone with a training schedule weekly then it can be tweaked based on their feedback during the week. But honesty is required or it could go horribly wrong.

BlackHelmet

I would've thought any good training schedule will be based on repeating blocks of time, say 7 or 10-day periods. In each block there would be a number of key training sessions and other non-key or recovery sessions. As long as you complete the key sessions in each block then you're doing fine. So within each block you have some flexibility on moving sessions around to match weather, social and work interruptions. At least that's my general approach to life...

bahzob

This is my second year training to a plan. First year went to pot for a couple of reasons, one being the lack of flexibity you mention (other was that I felt I was wasting time doing "endurance" work: another subject I know and being debated elsewhere).

So this year I am being more flexible. I have periods but rather than adopt a rigid approach I have a menu of workouts for the period that I pick and choose from according to conditions (which include weather but also how I feel). So far this is working well.

I have to say (and I know this is a contentious issue) that I am assisted in this by having a power meter and WKO. I had neither last year so tried measuring my training load/progression using the Advanced TRIMP method (a la Joe Friel). This was better than nothing but this year I can use the performance manager feature of WKO which has been a revelation. (I posted earlier on about it here http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=12551361&highlight=

What it gives me when you cut through all the hokum is a dead easy way to measure training load and ensure it progressing, upwards and smoothly.

Coming back to the original question what this means in terms of my workload planning is that if its snowing I dont worry about the effect of not doing the ride outside. I do an indoor session instead, upload into WKO and it pretty much tells me if/how this affects my training.

Since I know this is contentious for some, for the record I dont sell power meters, coaching or get any benefit from pushing powermeters or WKO. I am though passionate in my belief that if you can afford them they should be used for serious cycle training. One of the key reasons for this belief is precisely the one raised in this thread. They make it very easy to keep up a training plan if you live in the real world.

Alex_Simmons/RST

bahzob wrote:

What it gives me when you cut through all the hokum is a dead easy way to measure training load and ensure it progressing, upwards and smoothly.

Coming back to the original question what this means in terms of my workload planning is that if its snowing I dont worry about the effect of not doing the ride outside. I do an indoor session instead, upload into WKO and it pretty much tells me if/how this affects my training.

This is another good example of what I meant by "training with power". It is a tremendous enabler, not a slave driver.

BeaconRuth

bahzob wrote:

Since I know this is contentious for some......................... I am though passionate in my belief that if you can afford them they should be used for serious cycle training. ........................ They make it very easy to keep up a training plan if you live in the real world.

One of the reasons that questions like this become contentious is because evangelists for powermeters make statements like "if you can afford them they should be used for serious cycle training". Even when you have no strong feelings for or against something, when people preach at you about what you should or should not do, it's bound to get up your nose a bit.

I'm passionate in my belief that the vast majority of non-elite cyclists can make massive performance improvements without a powermeter. I work with riders who use powermeters and riders who don't use them but I have no reason to believe that the powermeter-users' training is superior to the non-powermeter-users' training. Some prefer using a powermeter, which is fine. Others, including me, don't. Which is also fine.

Ruth

kant314

but I have no reason to believe that the powermeter-users' training is superior to the non-powermeter-users' training.

It's not the training that's superior per se, but the feedback from the training that's superior.

J2R2

I have a coach who sends me a weekly programme.

He reckons the most important thing is that I get the training done - if the weather is lousy, I can swap sessions, e.g. normally I do a long steady ride on Saturday and something shorter and brisker on Sunday, but if Saturday's weather is rotten I do it the other way round.

Generally I will go out in all weathers, I don't mind getting cold or wet. The only thing I don't like is riding in extremely windy conditions (e.g. more than 25mph wind) as I feel this can be quite dangerous. If the worst comes to the worst there is always the turbo although using it for base mileage is pretty grim - I normally only use it for intervals.

ut_och_cykla

Tho' not a coach nor elite cyclist I have a plan loosely based around seasons of the year and broken into 4-6 week blocks which are fairly firmly set. Within each week tho' I am fairly flexible about when & what I train which allows for my work situation (freelance work), family commitments, and at this time of year colds and horrid weather. I keep track of hours trained RPE/ave HRM etc and feel this gives me a good enough guide to measure my efforts.

Clear goals and a flexible approach works ok for me, but I can see that someone who wants 'coaching' in the sense of everything on a platter might find themselves feeling they're not getting value for money.

Alex_Simmons/RST

Typically coaches provide various levels of service, with one of the distinctions being the amount of flexibility provided to modify things on the run. Some athletes are comfortable in making short term rearrangements of training, others aren't.

For example, I wouldn't typically provide any more than two weeks worth of training at a time so that appropriate mods to the overall plan can be made depending on how the rider is going.

If anyone wanted a "13-week off the shelf" or something similar programme, it can be done (and is quite popular for many dipping their toes into the more structured training approach) but one has to recognise the limited flexibility such a programme provides the rider, especially if changes in their circumstances arise, or they are not responding to training well. And often they are using such a programme since they are not sure how to structure training in the first place, so can be a catch 22. Some then make the mistake of trying to "make up" missed workouts by doing extra the next day, or adding an hour or two to their weekend ride etc, when that might just end up trashing them for a few days and they miss more training cause they're tired.

In early phases of the training cycle, there is little issue with swapping workouts around in the day to day schedule but as race preparation comes along and intensity is lifted, then the daily scheduling becomes more important (e.g. if block training, or in a race phase, or ensuring sufficient and appropriate recovery to maintain quality of training).

bahzob

BeaconRuth wrote:

bahzob wrote:

Since I know this is contentious for some......................... I am though passionate in my belief that if you can afford them they should be used for serious cycle training. ........................ They make it very easy to keep up a training plan if you live in the real world.

One of the reasons that questions like this become contentious is because evangelists for powermeters make statements like "if you can afford them they should be used for serious cycle training". Even when you have no strong feelings for or against something, when people preach at you about what you should or should not do, it's bound to get up your nose a bit.
Ruth

Sorry and and I stand corrected :oops: . I should :? I think have said that it is worth trying out a powermeter to see if works for you. (it may do, it may not)." Because I do believe in training as in many things its different strokes for different folks.

This thread topic case in point. Some people will find creating a training plan and sticking to rewarding and motivating. For others thats a vision of hell.

Mike Willcox

kant314 wrote:

but I have no reason to believe that the powermeter-users' training is superior to the non-powermeter-users' training.

It's not the training that's superior per se, but the feedback from the training that's superior.

Assuming that you want the feedback in the first place, how do you then use it?

e.g. You finish a turbo session and your SRM show an average of 350 watts for 2 x 20 minutes. Now I don't know whether that is good or bad or so so

Now what?

What are you going to do with this information in respect of how you intend training for the next day or the day after, or next week. You see I really can't see how knowing this information makes any difference whatsoever to your training schedule.

Alex_Simmons/RST

Mike Willcox wrote:

You see I really can't see how knowing this information makes any difference whatsoever to your training schedule.

Well it will tell you some things but generally only in context of the rest of one's training.

One training session (or power file) does not a season make.

Will that particular example affect training the following day(s)? Unlikely but taken in context with other info and power data, it may well spark some modifications. Perhaps it was a PB. Perhaps the rider did well (relative to recent form) but felt crap (it happens regularly). Perhaps power was significantly down on target or recent efforts.

That's when you ask why and make a sensible judgement as to what, if any, action is required.

It sure is better for a coach to get regular power data along with qualitative fedback to be certain of how a rider is going, rather than just "I did my 2x20s last night and it felt a lot harder than normal".

Mike Willcox

Alex_Simmons/RST wrote:

Mike Willcox wrote:

You see I really can't see how knowing this information makes any difference whatsoever to your training schedule.

Well it will tell you some things but generally only in context of the rest of one's training.

One training session (or power file) does not a season make.

Will that particular example affect training the following day(s)? Unlikely but taken in context with other info and power data, it may well spark some modifications. Perhaps it was a PB. Perhaps the rider did well (relative to recent form) but felt crap (it happens regularly). Perhaps power was significantly down on target or recent efforts.

That's when you ask why and make a sensible judgement as to what, if any, action is required.

It sure is better for a coach to get regular power data along with qualitative fedback to be certain of how a rider is going, rather than just "I did my 2x20s last night and it felt a lot harder than normal".

Thanks for a straight answer.

Effective training is progressive but from day to day the power that you would be able to sustain over a given period of time will vary because of many factors, not least the prevailing training load.

The read outs would have to be placed in this context. If you get too hung up on the figures I can see that for some riders there would be an inability to remain motivated if there was no improvement or the figures were going down. Yet when you rely on how you feel and PE it's much easier to rationalise a bad day at the office.

Mike Willcox

You know I can't help but question the value of keeping tabs on your power output during the phase of building of an aerobic base.

At this time of the year Jan-Mar I was always on the edge of overtraining, with the focus on hours or miles in the saddle. I know that you should (and I do) put in some threshold work but you're never going to be able to produce the same power during an endurance periodisation than you can in a race at peak form during the summer.

Bearing in mind that you want to peak during May/June/July/August do you really want to reach peak power in February. Where are you going to go from there?

Surely it makes more sense to build a large base of endurance; including work on the turbo (2 x 20 etc.) when the weather conditions are bad; but keep in proportion the amount of power you are generating.

In the context of building an aerobic base it is unimportant.

Toks

Mike Willcox wrote:

You know I can't help but question the value of keeping tabs on your power output during the phase of building of an aerobic base.

At this time of the year Jan-Mar I was always on the edge of overtraining, with the focus on hours or miles in the saddle. I know that you should (and I do) put in some threshold work but you're never going to be able to produce the same power during an endurance periodisation than you can in a race at peak form during the summer.

Bearing in mind that you want to peak during May/June/July/August do you really want to reach peak power in February. Where are you going to go from there?

Surely it makes more sense to build a large base of endurance; including work on the turbo (2 x 20 etc.) when the weather conditions are bad; but keep in proportion the amount of power you are generating.

In the context of building an aerobic base it is unimportant.

My approach is this Mike. Can i raise my lactate threshold, TT Power, fitness levels whatever you want to call it with a balanced approach of tempo rides and threshold session (30-60mins efforts) such that I arrive in March fitter than the same time last year but without any over training symptoms. This mean monitoring fatigue levels closely but not allowing fitness levels to drop below 5-10% of peak summer values.

In fact in 10 weeks of winter training I haven't finished one session absolutely knackered. i always felt I could give some more. My repeatability is good (hence I can usually repeat the effort the next day and the following one if necessary. I didn't have power feedback last summer but I feel just as strong and I haven't really put in any real heavy training blocks yet. Personally on only 7-9hours training per week and not too demanding a job physically I fail to see how I could overtrain since I always I take 2 full days off.

Mike Willcox

Toks wrote:

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In fact in 10 weeks of winter training I haven't finished one session absolutely knackered. i always felt I could give some more. My repeatability is good (hence I can usually repeat the effort the next day and the following one if necessary. I didn't have power feedback last summer but I feel just as strong and I haven't really put in any real heavy training blocks yet. Personally on only 7-9hours training per week and not too demanding a job physically I fail to see how I could overtrain since I always I take 2 full days off.

I lack your discipline and I can't recover as quickly as I used to. Each time I've done a session on the turbo it's knocked me out for the next day while I recover. I also did a tempo ride on Saturday and on Saturday evening and all day Sunday I was wasted. The mind is willing these days but the body is not.