definition of BASE training

Team Banana Spokesman

Hiya

I just went out on a club ride and they said they are gonna start doing base training in a few weeks. They said they will be doing 5 hours at a very slow pace without stopping. :shock:

Is this really what base training is??

Is it about getting youur body used to being on the bike for so long? cos i've done loads of that already. i can gpo for hours...

its annoying because i just wanna get fit asap and the people in the club are lecturing me about how its not the right part of "the season" to be going hard. I dont care about seasons. i wanna get riding with others though for the motivation and to learn about how things work but I get the feeling that they dont have a clue. one person even came out with the "slow=BEST for fat burning" thing and I didnt want to get into a argument so I just left it.

I wanna do TTs maybe in 2011 once i get fit enough so feel like I should be riding harder to improve but everyone is going easy.

am I being ignorant? should I do this slow riding for a bit?

thinking of getting a turbo too. can you do 3 hour "steady" rides on them? or is it too mind numbing? :shock:

jim one

Check the thread in pro race called "quick question".

Your club needs modernising!!!!!!!!!

nolf

If you're new you do need a bit of a base, bt 5 hours going slow sounds really dull!

My "base" mileage just consists of going solo for 3/4 hours and trying to average more than 18mph. Means staying below the lactate threshold, and no stops. I enjoy that kind of ride more than anything tbh.

I've always thought that unless going fast, solo training is generally better quality as you can't hide and have to keep pushing.

nasahapley

nolf wrote:

If you're new you do need a bit of a base, bt 5 hours going slow sounds really dull!

My "base" mileage just consists of going solo for 3/4 hours and trying to average more than 18mph. Means staying below the lactate threshold, and no stops. I enjoy that kind of ride more than anything tbh.

I've always thought that unless going fast, solo training is generally better quality as you can't hide and have to keep pushing.

I agree with every word of this. I might go out for 5 hour rides in winter if the weather's not too bad, but I'll still try to do them more or less as quickly as I can (and not stop). This obviously means going at a more conservative pace than if I were out for a 20-mile blast, but I'd quickly get sick of purposely going slowly for hours on end - boring and pointless IMO. Should the weather be not so good then I'll just do something shorter and more intense.

Bronzie

Team Banana Spokesman wrote:

thinking of getting a turbo too. can you do 3 hour "steady" rides on them? or is it too mind numbing? :shock:

Possible, but only if your BT is very high. Better to keep the turbo sessions short and sweet and get out on the road for longer rides (unless it's covered in ice).

shockedsoshocked

In my eyes, base training is a building up of your endurance + threshold without over doing it, leaving something in the tank for the forthcoming racing season.

oldwelshman

I guess it depends on how fast you are.
I dont see why you target 2011 to do TT? Thats seems silly to me, if your that good not you dont need base miles do tt next year.
Maybe the guys you spoke to go faster doing base miles than you can, they probably do 5 hour rides run off at min 18mph.
I also agree with slower riding for fat burning as lower HR approx 60% is most efficient for fat burning, not I do not say burns off more fat though!

Kléber

All this "base training" isn't going to harm you but certainly if you said to a coach "I want to get as fast as possible as quickly as possible" then you wouldn't follow the "club method" described above. Doing long slow rides can make you quicker, only because there will be moments when you ride fast, generally long slow rides make you good at long slow rides.

But even if you want to specialise in short time trials like 10s and 25s then there's no harm in doing 3-5 hour rides, especially as they can be fun with club mates, a social moment. Personally I'd get bored trying to do intervals and short, structured rides at this time of year, it's the time to ride out to a good cake stop.

Pokerface

Am I the only one who thinks 4 hours rides at this time of year SUCK? I prefer short rides this time of year and the longer ones when the weather isn't as wet and cold! Probably not ideal for training, but a lot more ideal for keeping warm and dry!

shockedsoshocked

Pokerface wrote:

Am I the only one who thinks 4 hours rides at this time of year SUCK? I prefer short rides this time of year and the longer ones when the weather isn't as wet and cold! Probably not ideal for training, but a lot more ideal for keeping warm and dry!

I don't particularly enjoy them, but I need to drop some weight before crimbo and I want to take my training up another notch from last winter. Plus I've got a coach this year so can't let the guy down, especially as he's using me as a case study for this Masters!

sheffsimon

Team Banana Spokesman wrote:

Hiya

I just went out on a club ride and they said they are gonna start doing base training in a few weeks. They said they will be doing 5 hours at a very slow pace without stopping. :shock:

Is this really what base training is??

Is it about getting youur body used to being on the bike for so long? cos i've done loads of that already. i can gpo for hours...

its annoying because i just wanna get fit asap and the people in the club are lecturing me about how its not the right part of "the season" to be going hard. I dont care about seasons. i wanna get riding with others though for the motivation and to learn about how things work but I get the feeling that they dont have a clue. one person even came out with the "slow=BEST for fat burning" thing and I didnt want to get into a argument so I just left it.

I wanna do TTs maybe in 2011 once i get fit enough so feel like I should be riding harder to improve but everyone is going easy.

am I being ignorant? should I do this slow riding for a bit?

thinking of getting a turbo too. can you do 3 hour "steady" rides on them? or is it too mind numbing? :shock:

If you want to lose weight, fair enough. Otherwise, pointless and dull. I wouldnt do more than 3 hours at a time in winter, but at a decent pace, no stops (usually)

3 hours on turbo??? No thanks.

vorsprung

Team Banana Spokesman wrote:

Hiya

I just went out on a club ride and they said they are gonna start doing base training in a few weeks. They said they will be doing 5 hours at a very slow pace without stopping. :shock:

Is this really what base training is??

This is another one of those "funny" troll posts?

Alex_Simmons/RST

It's a reasonable question and "base" means many things to many people.

For me, it's just a period of general riding to prepare you for some more specific work to follow. Allows the body to adapt to the bike, before doing anything particularly hard.

It doesn't need to be long and/or slow. In fact going long before you are ready for it might be a bad idea and create problems you don't really want.

It might only be a week or two, it might be 6 weeks. It really depends on the rider and their individual circumstances. Good for a return from illness, injury or other lengthy breaks from the bike (more than a couple of weeks).

To some extent, one can also consider the development of the aerobic capability as "base" as well and in that sense "base" can takes many months (but doesn't need to include extra long rides).

RICHARDIIII

.... for me, base training is a mixture of long rides (5.5 hours @ 75% max HR), long intervles of 5-10 mins on the turbo of 80% in Oct -end Nov and Dec-Feb @ 85%, and a 2 hr ride at around 80-82% Max HR.


Main thing I'd say is to keep it under 85% of you max HR, Also, think of it as a pyramid, the more base at the bottom, the higher you can eventualy go.

However, if you just want to bet fit asap - get a turbo, and try this:

Warm up - 10 mins
then: 1min MAX effort, then 1 min easy spin. The fisrt time you do this, you'll only manage 3 or maybe 4, you'll stagger into the shower, shaking, and legs wobbling and feeling ill- that how hard you have to push.
Eventualy get up to 8-10. In 6 weeks you'll feel much stronger and fitter, but you'll plato, so no point starting this till March really.

Jeff Jones

My base training is pretty similar to my in-season training, but without the high intensity race efforts. I just try to build up intensity and volume from week to week. When I nail it (not always possible), it works.

mclarent

I calc'd my LTHR this week, so had a go at riding a proper "zone 2" ride today, rather than the "I reckon zone 2 is about here". Was suprised by how easy the pace was, esp. how much I had to back off on hills - I'd been way overestimating the intensity I should ride at. That's the idea though, lots of volume at lowish intensity to build aerobic fitness.

Alex_Simmons/RST

mclarent wrote:

I calc'd my LTHR this week, so had a go at riding a proper "zone 2" ride today, rather than the "I reckon zone 2 is about here". Was suprised by how easy the pace was, esp. how much I had to back off on hills

You don't back off on the hills though. They are still ridden solidly, just not all out. Even then the occasional hit out is fine.

mclarent wrote:

I'd been way overestimating the intensity I should ride at. That's the idea though, lots of volume at lowish intensity to build aerobic fitness.

That might depend on how you calculated LTHR, and base isn't about low intensity at all. It's about building your aerobic capabilities.

Pokerface

RICHARDIIII wrote:

Eventualy get up to 8-10. In 6 weeks you'll feel much stronger and fitter, but you'll plato, so no point starting this till March really.

Is that when you turn into a Greek philosopher?

mclarent

Alex_Simmons/RST wrote:

mclarent wrote:

I calc'd my LTHR this week, so had a go at riding a proper "zone 2" ride today, rather than the "I reckon zone 2 is about here". Was suprised by how easy the pace was, esp. how much I had to back off on hills

You don't back off on the hills though. They are still ridden solidly, just not all out. Even then the occasional hit out is fine.

mclarent wrote:

I'd been way overestimating the intensity I should ride at. That's the idea though, lots of volume at lowish intensity to build aerobic fitness.

That might depend on how you calculated LTHR, and base isn't about low intensity at all. It's about building your aerobic capabilities.

Semantics What I was trying to say is low intensity and backing off on hills (for me) is based on my prior patterns, i.e. not pushing myself so hard / attacking hills, but setting a steady aerobic pace to build aerobic fitness.

Anyway, take your points. FWIW, I calc'd LTHR based on a 30 minute time trial, averaging my heart rate over the last 20 minutes. I set my Garmin to zones based off that, with 100% being LTHR, was suprised how the HR %'s tied up with what I was feeling - sub "100%" I could tell I could hold it, pushed over 100% a couple of times towards the end of my ride (on purpose ) and I could tie up the physical feeling with the displayed %.

binlinus

I like this definition of "base" http://www.biketechreview.com/performance/base.htm pointed out to me by members of this forum a few years' back. Much more economical and pleasant than 4 or 5 hour rides, especially in the winter.

In practice for me it's getting out and doing four or five laps of Regent's Park -- one as a warm up, two or three as fast as possible (jumping the traffic lights!) and one to warm down again.

Alternatively, in bad weather, I walk to the gym, sit on the turbo, do 5 mins warm up, then 20 mins hard as I can (with the last 10 mins being the hardest) then 5 mins warm down.

I do that a few days a week; then a 2 hour brisk tempo ride, maybe with a group, once a week with a few sprints thrown in.

That's my base.

Bin