Its no secret I am an a fan of this blog about fitness. Check out this great article about rest and recovery.
You will notice that this posting is tagged under “workout” This is because rest is just as important as a workout and should be treated as such!
P.S. The topics I promised are coming!
Those days happen, the days that something suddenly comes up and your workout is toast. I had one of these days on thursday. I suddenly realized we were moving and needed to do it that day. So my planned ride was to do 2 hours with some hill repeats.
So I improvised, I knew I would be having to climb stairs over and over again (two flights to be exact). So my improvised workout was to bound up the stairs as a form of plyometrics. Every time I went up the stairs, I leaped up the stairs. Though my fiancee and soon to be father in law thought I was a bit nuts, it did work. The next day left my legs pretty fatigued.
While this wasn’t as specific of a workout to cycling as I would liked it to have been, it was an acceptable substitute given the circumstance.
So in short, the next time your workout plans suddenly get crushed, think of an alternative, chances are you’ll be able to at least come up with something.
I would like to just give a quick preview on some upcoming topics. If you feel you would like to see other things, let me know! Also if I start taking to long to post, start bugging me about it…
If you are a runner or triathlete, feel free to read between the lines, though I use cycling as a heavy tool for examples, often times simply replacing biking or cycling with your sport has about the same effect. Us endurance athletes all have the same principles to work off of.
-My take on nutrition and how I am managing a diet for cycling performance
-Supplementation for everyone
-What to do when your not sure about what to do for a workout.
-Cycling specific drills for everyone (from novices to even long time riders)
-Are you having fun while training?
So these are some things to come, I am going to try and get these topics covered in the next 2 to 3 weeks. (to help make up for half a month of not posting!!)
Sorry about that little intermission, back to the regular schedule program…
The rest of the testing is as follows:
20min power = 355 up from 340! (4.4%)
Aerobic test = 240W @ 1st 45min HR = 164, 2nd 45min HR = 167 /// % difference = 1.7
Repeatability = 4 times, last year = 4 times.
So overall I saw gains across the board or had acceptable scores in the testing. This is even more significant because the test numbers I am comparing against were at the end of a moderate season of summer riding. These recent round of numbers are from a base season coming from winter.
So what did I do to create this success? I focused on three things. 1) building aerobic capacity aka. base training. I focused on getting a proper base and consistent days on the bike. 2) building muscle strength and endurance. This was accomplished by trying to get into the weight room on at least a once a week basis. 3) to build my ability to have a stronger threshold wattage. This goal was accomplished in two ways. One I used some higher end work once a week to maintain a higher VO2 through out the winter season. Two, I also used more steady state intervals once a week. Recent research has shown these intervals to be effective like threshold work, but with out the damaging effects of a full threshold workout.
But There is something still a miss. While there isn’t a true test for this one thing I know I am lacking, I do know it from riding season after season. The other day I was out on a 4 hour ride. I did well during the ride with some 15-20min hard efforts, but was a little week on the final hill climb. I know my stamina is down to other years to be able to still burst hard after even 4 hours on the bike. The reason it is down is because my training volume was about 7-9 hours a week in the winter as compared to my 11-14 hour in my peak season. So while testing provided me some great feedback, these is always a subjective measure that everyone just knows about them selves.
So what to work on? I would like to see my repeatability and 5min power go up another notch or two. For this it is time for hill repeats and repeatable hard efforts!
As always, ride hard
Coach Jordan
Coachjordan's Blog 