What are your thoughts on this TT training plan???

Gav888

I got chatting to a mate the other day about what training he did when he was starting out in cycling, he competes in 10, 25 and 50 mile TT's and has won events at each distance, so he showed me some of his old plans and his current training plan and to be honest I was shocked at how simple it was......

Basically they look like this all year round:

Mon - Rest
Tue - Threshold session, such as 3 x 15 or 2 x 20, this is a 1hr session
Wed - Rest
Thur - SST interval session, lower intensity and increase to 1.5hrs
Fri - Rest,
Sat - Tempo session, again slight lower intensity and increase to 2hrs
Sun - Long easy ride, usually 4 hours

This seems a little too simple to me, and a good way of overtraining!

When I questioned him why he didn't use the traditional periodization methods he said he didn't agree with doing shorter zone 2 rides in the off season and focusing on speed during spring etc. When you are limited on training time (which he is during the week) you need to make the most of each session regardless of the time of year, if you spend all winter doing zone 2 rides for an hour or 2 your not getting any quicker, more than likely you will get slower as your not getting the intensity or the duration to make any gains, so intensity must replace duration when you cannot get the hours in and that is why traditional training plans go out the window, for him.

So instead he focus's on speed / tempo during the week and long easy rides at the weekend with an easy week each month, simple as that!!

What are you thoughts on this, can you do this sort of training year round, wouldn't this lead to overtraining?

chrisw12

Why would it lead to over training? He's having 3 days off per week.

and I bet you money that if he was winning things, his 4 hour ride wasn't 'easy'.

Bronzie

chrisw12 wrote:

Why would it lead to over training? He's having 3 days off per week.

+1 - that looks like an easy week to me at the minute

Gav888

At present it looks like a normal week, or even a easy week (if your name is bronzie ) for this time of year, but I was thinking more along the lines of doing this year round, such as when your supposed to be taking it easier and recovering over winter before the season starts again and intensity increases.

Maybe the 3 days of recovery make this sort of plan work year round???

BigDarbs

With a slightly higher intensity than he is doing, that is almost exactly what I do each week. Mine is based on the 'experienced competitor' programme in the time crunched cyclist - Carmichaels book. His comments about not doing many level 2 rides make me think thats where he's got it from.

I don't ever feel overtrained, and I also do some core excercises on my rest days.

I can generally cut it in a 3rd cat road race and can keep up with the faster guys in my club (up to about 50 miles, then they leave me!!)

Bronzie

Gav888 wrote:

I was thinking more along the lines of doing this year round, such as when your supposed to be taking it easier and recovering over winter before the season starts again and intensity increases

What would be the point of doing the same thing year round?

The body responds well to sustainable progressive overload (ie doing just a bit more / faster each week). Doing the exact same thing week after week would not cause much in the way of adaptation. In other words, plateau.

12 weeks ago, that same week would have looked like a hard week to me!

Bronzie

By way of illustration, here are a couple of weeks from my diary:

End of Nov (estimated 480TSS):
Mon - Rest
Tue - Turbo 2x15 L4
Wed - Rest
Thu - Turbo 2x15 L4
Fri - 1.5 hrs L2/3 road
Sat - 3.5 hrs L2/3 club run
Sun - 2 hrs easy (L1/2?) MTB

Last week (764TSS):
Mon - Turbo 1x60 L3
Tue - Rest
Wed - 1.5 hrs inc 1hr L3/4/5 hilly circuit
Thu - Turbo 1x60 L3
Fri - Turbo 1x20 L4+
Sat - 1h15m road race
Sun - 3.5hr inc 1hr TT

chrisw12

Gav888 wrote:

At present it looks like a normal week, or even a easy week (if your name is bronzie ) for this time of year, but I was thinking more along the lines of doing this year round, such as when your supposed to be taking it easier and recovering over winter before the season starts again and intensity increases.

Maybe the 3 days of recovery make this sort of plan work year round???

Again, what's wrong with doing that year round (apart from what Bronzie says about changing things)

Why would you want to take it easy during winter, recovering from what? It's not like any of us are doing the tour.

On any level, I don't think the plan you've outlined is particularly hard, but it obviously works for this guy, so who am I/we to comment.

Out of interest, have a look at the two commuting threads on here at the moment, there's two guys (the op's) who are probably doing a lot more by the look of it all year round.

chrisw12

Bronzie wrote:

By way of illustration, here are a couple of weeks from my diary:

End of Nov (estimated 480TSS):
Mon - Rest
Tue - Turbo 2x15 L4
Wed - Rest
Thu - Turbo 2x15 L4
Fri - 1.5 hrs L2/3 road
Sat - 3.5 hrs L2/3 club run
Sun - 2 hrs easy (L1/2?) MTB

Last week (764TSS):
Mon - Turbo 1x60 L3
Tue - Rest
Wed - 1.5 hrs inc 1hr L3/4/5 hilly circuit
Thu - Turbo 1x60 L3
Fri - Turbo 1x20 L4+
Sat - 1h15m road race
Sun - 3.5hr inc 1hr TT

No vo2 max or shorter intervals there.

Any reason/thoughts?

I only ask because I hate doing vo2 intervals, just wondering if anyone else goes out of their way to avoid them. :twisted:

shockedsoshocked

chrisw12 wrote:

Bronzie wrote:

By way of illustration, here are a couple of weeks from my diary:

End of Nov (estimated 480TSS):
Mon - Rest
Tue - Turbo 2x15 L4
Wed - Rest
Thu - Turbo 2x15 L4
Fri - 1.5 hrs L2/3 road
Sat - 3.5 hrs L2/3 club run
Sun - 2 hrs easy (L1/2?) MTB

Last week (764TSS):
Mon - Turbo 1x60 L3
Tue - Rest
Wed - 1.5 hrs inc 1hr L3/4/5 hilly circuit
Thu - Turbo 1x60 L3
Fri - Turbo 1x20 L4+
Sat - 1h15m road race
Sun - 3.5hr inc 1hr TT

No vo2 max or shorter intervals there.

Any reason/thoughts?

I only ask because I hate doing vo2 intervals, just wondering if anyone else goes out of their way to avoid them. :twisted:

Fortunately since the racing has started I got to give these up (racing is pretty much a 3 hour session of the hardest possible intervals anyway). They were the one session I despise.

Gav888

chrisw12 wrote:

Gav888 wrote:

At present it looks like a normal week, or even a easy week (if your name is bronzie ) for this time of year, but I was thinking more along the lines of doing this year round, such as when your supposed to be taking it easier and recovering over winter before the season starts again and intensity increases.

Maybe the 3 days of recovery make this sort of plan work year round???

Again, what's wrong with doing that year round (apart from what Bronzie says about changing things)

Why would you want to take it easy during winter, recovering from what? It's not like any of us are doing the tour.

On any level, I don't think the plan you've outlined is particularly hard, but it obviously works for this guy, so who am I/we to comment.

Out of interest, have a look at the two commuting threads on here at the moment, there's two guys (the op's) who are probably doing a lot more by the look of it all year round.

Im not saying there is anything wrong with this, I was just thinking this sort of routine would lead to overtraining, then again gauging the responses and that we are not training like the pro's clearly im wrong on that front.

He may well make the intervals longer or harder as the season progress's, mix things up a bit, but the above is just a highlight of his annual plan that I remembered LOL.

Jeff Jones

Uncanny. The main difference between that and my training program is that I do easy rides on the rest days. And usually 4min intervals as one of the weekly sessions.

Overtraining only happens when you bite off more than you can chew. So if he's been doing this consistently, then he shouldn't have any problems because he hasn't ramped up too fast, or tried to hit a huge training load.

Bronzie

chrisw12 wrote:

No vo2 max or shorter intervals there.

Any reason/thoughts?

I only ask because I hate doing vo2 intervals, just wondering if anyone else goes out of their way to avoid them. :twisted:

I was doing 2 sets of 3x5 mid L5 on the turbo through Feb, but I think the weekly races I'm doing at the minute (handicap races so not much sitting in a bunch) take care of the L5/6 intervals quite well at the minute.

That said, the Weds ride (8 laps of a 2.5 mile circuit with a 35m climb in it ridden as a continuous effort) includes 2 mins of L5 power on the climb itself each lap and replicates quite well the sort of efforts needed in road races.

The plan is to get back to doing another 3 week block incorporating 2 days/wk 5x5 L5 @ 120% FTP in the lead-up to my target race(s)..................starting soon!

MatthewBulmer

Jeff Jones wrote:

Uncanny. The main difference between that and my training program is that I do easy rides on the rest days. And usually 4min intervals as one of the weekly sessions.

Overtraining only happens when you bite off more than you can chew. So if he's been doing this consistently, then he shouldn't have any problems because he hasn't ramped up too fast, or tried to hit a huge training load.

+1. A lot of the fast guys on the timetrialling.co.uk forum are doing something very similar on 6-8 hours per week.

EPSHeaven

just over 8 hours a week ... where in this could you ever achieve over training ... that's at minimum my weekly commuting hours, plus whatever i can squeeze in at weekends!

its sensible IMHO to have a steady decent program which you follow over the winter months, i'll ave about 11-13hours winter time, steady and slow, totally 270-320k weather permitting ... springtime is sustaining the good base i achieved with longer weekend rides, faster and shorter midweek rides to build top end sustainability.

but each to their own.

what weekly time/mileage you achieving Gav?

Gav888

Not much at present due to cold / cough but 8hrs normally.