Let's discuss winter training

chakattack

Not sure if here or the training logs section is best but this isn't specific to me and I won't be logging anything.

I'm working on my 2011 training plan and want to make sure I have a "good winter". I want to develop strength, flexibility and general condition so it'll include weight training, core work, stretching, swimming and running.

I'm very confused as to the correct approach (if there is one) and how to achieve balance?

General goal is to have a successful season of A4 (maybe A3) road racing.

My main concern is about intensity and rest:

Joe Friel has led me to believe that my heart rate shouldn't go out of zone 2 until well after christmas yet I see people are doing intervals and hill repeat session tues and thursdays and other people are murdering themselves on the turbo watching sufferfest videos.

Should I do weight training on a rest day or combine it with a cycling/running/swimming workout and when do my legs get to recover after lifting weights?

Should I cycle 6 days a week easy or do 3 short hard spins and long easy spin? Are LSD miles on lots of short spins (commuting) equivalent to the same distance over 2 weekend club spins?

What has worked for you over the years? What has not worked? What are you confused about?

Let's talk it over.....

marcofan

what ever you do dont do intervals at this time of year. if you see people doing them at this time of year note down there names then look for them in the results in april............you wont see them

paddymacsporran

I call them winter warriors. Races are won in-season and to do that you need to build a solid base in the winter. You do not win races by half-wheeling on club spins in November!

niceonetom

Can anyone explain the physiology of avoiding zones <2 in the winter? What exactly is the harm that higher BPMs inflict on the organism?

paddymacsporran

Doesn't inflict harm, how I interpret it is building a solid base for the harder and more specific training as the season approaches.

morana

I think its impossible to stay below zone 2 -when you climb any hill your power/HR will mostly likely creep up to the threshold level. There is no harm in a bit of intensity at this time of year! I think when people use the term intervals everybody assumes its eyeballs out. I know 1 emminent (international) coach who advises doing 10secs efforts for max strength.

The only problem I encountered when I went hard early (like last year) that my motivation took a nose dive after the snow.......

What has worked?
Breaking a collarbone eating less because I couldnt train and doing 20 min ints on the turbo every 2nd day with raised wheel to take pressure off CB.

What has not worked?
doing too little, not bothering to do strength work, using little ring all winter!!

What am I confused about?
Lots

niceonetom

Right, we're only 5 posts in and the basic contentious point of wtf to do between October and February is out:

marcofan wrote: »

what ever you do dont do intervals at this time of year. if you see people doing them at this time of year note down there names then look for them in the results in april............you wont see them

paddymacsporran wrote: »

Doesn't inflict harm, how I interpret it is building a solid base for the harder and more specific training as the season approaches.

What's a n00b to do? Some older (or at least more experienced) riders get disproportionately upset at the mention of intervals. Their reaction is like they've heard a rider's pans for a little midweek intensity but instead of "spinning class" they've heard "mainlining heroine". Their reaction is certainly strong enough to imply that they don't see intensity as pointless, they see it as really really dangerous.

Then others come along and say, nah, It's not dangerous, but it is pointless. Base, base, base.

Then some smartarse comes along expounding the virtues of intensity all year round, or at least 11 months of the year if you really need a break. Tabata. Spinning. No being with a soul can really do LSD on a turbo. Sure shouldn't we all be racing 'cross anyway. Belgians don't do LSD, they do LFD, right?

Joe Friel has cast a long shadow for a long time... but is he right? Add to his own dogma the many misunderstood versions espoused by people who half-read the book 10 years ago and the people who think that training tips get better with age (cow's blood ftw) and it's a goddam mess. Between the bunk and the debunking and the debunked debunking, every bit of advice I can find has someone else saying it's dead wrong.

Basically, what's the science of LSD? What does it actually do?

morana

lovin it!!!

I remmeber I was ridiculed because I had a 55 12 . Asking the ridiculer(?) what he had on he indicated a 53 11 ....... I laughed...

I think a lot of people have their own beliefs and until you find what works for you you wont deviate from these beliefs...

Ah Tabata!!! but thats not hard is it???

Lumen

I think a way forward may be to think about what you can't do during the racing season, and do lots of that.

For instance, if you can't do loads of LSD and cross training in the summer because you need to focus on regaining freshness between races, do LSD and cross training during the winter.

There is no right answer because everyone is different.

There is some merit in being the fastest in your category in March, because that will win you races. Better to be fast once a year than average all season. But that's only one plan.

morana

Lumen wrote: »

There is some merit in being the fastest in your category in March, because that will win you races. Better to be fast once a year than average all season. But that's only one plan.

Spot on! I know lads who would give their right speedplay to win a hamper race....and I dont see a whole lot wrong with that tbh!!

spokeydokey

I've a feeling this thread could be fun:D

I didn't know who Joe Friel was until I googled him.
I suspected that he lived somewhere with a moderate winter (Scottsdale, Arizona) . Zone 2! easy for him to say.
I wouldn't get to the end of my driveway some winter mornings here without hitting zone 3.

levitronix

I dont believe in LSD training if you have a really good base already endurance doesnt leave your legs .. A bit differnet if your a runner you ll keep away injuries with it but if you have a few years on the bike why slow down to a crawl ? .. Winter you just dont have the same time for training so intervals on the turbo will have benifit , you see on the club spins everyone is the small ring but still holding steady speeds

paddymacsporran

I was speaking to a coach last night, and he asked me to plan my objectives and aims for 2011. We are meeting up for a spin, he will assess where I am and will then work back from there and develop a programme to get me where I want to be. This will involve diet, gym work, weights, running, turbo sessions and steady spins on the bike. To me that is training - Either making your own plan or following a programme with an objective and a timescale.

No need for a coach if you can plan it out yourself. However there are plenty of guys who just ride to improve fitness and don't race, it's a large majority of road cyclists. Nothing wrong in that, I was one for years, I thought I was training but didn't know how to train properly or what I was 'training' for. No clear aims.

Training is more involved and specific than half wheeling yer mate on a Sunday spin and thinking you look good in lycra.....

Idleater

I'm feeling way out of my depth already.


Then to be fair, my first and probably only attainable goal for next year is "to start one race" I'll be relying on reading a lot of what people are doing, and learning from what happens when I don't do that.

chakattack

Good responses - thanks.

I'm glad i'm not the only one who is confused.

Tom - it sounds like you had a good season last year and are in favour of some higher intensity stuff at this time of year. Is this what worked for you last winter?

I didn't race a full season last year so I don't think I need much of a mental/physical break to avoid burnout and I already have a pretty good base but I do fear losing any bit of edge I might have by spending 2-3 months plodding along and doing some light cross training.

My intuition tells me to get strong with weights and have 1-2 hard sessions/week on the bike (maybe hill repeats for force and cruise intervals for leg speed) and prioritise rest to stay fresh.

But Friel's 10 commandments state that I shouldn't deviate from the plan......still confused......

How do the A1/A+ guys train at this of year?

shaungil

My 2 cents, We started interval training last winter as I don't get to put in a lot of hours. We slowly built it up and then brought in hills too. Of course you can't do 10 hours high intensity a week for the year round but if you're doing low hours then a 1 &1/2 hours didn't harm me.

Myresults last year were way more than I expected and placed got first A4 and upgraded off this winter training. I was able to hold my own in the scratch group of our club league with A1's and a2's and this came from putting in a good winter with some intensity and yes intervls. Yes I was ridicled for doing it but it worked for me and was really the only way I could train with time and the fact I'd go mad with out a few speedfests (inevitable with ten lads out on the road every Tuesday and Thurs).

Plenty of debate between all of us about how much intensity but not one of the lads that put in winter last year burnt out during year. All A3's and 4's.

So everyone different I know what works for me know and am already (shock horro) doing some high intensity stuff including spinning.

Beasty

shaungil wrote: »

My 2 cents, We started interval training last winter as I don't get to put in a lot of hours. We slowly built it up and then brought in hills too. Of course you can't do 10 hours high intensity a week for the year round but if you're doing low hours then a 1 &1/2 hours didn't harm me.

Myresults last year were way more than I expected and placed got first A4 and upgraded off this winter training. I was able to hold my own in the scratch group of our club league with A1's and a2's and this came from putting in a good winter with some intensity and yes intervls. Yes I was ridicled for doing it but it worked for me and was really the only way I could train with time and the fact I'd go mad with out a few speedfests (inevitable with ten lads out on the road every Tuesday and Thurs).

Plenty of debate between all of us about how much intensity but not one of the lads that put in winter last year burnt out during year. All A3's and 4's.(plus a couple of old gits)

So everyone different I know what works for me know and am already (shock horro) doing some high intensity stuff including spinning.

FYP

And one of those partaking last winter won the Club league this year, so it doesn't seem to have done him much harm

I have not done much "formal" training, but I did feel the benefit of maintaining the effort through last winter

In addition, the track season is just starting for some of us;)

niceonetom

chakattack wrote: »

Tom - it sounds like you had a good season last year and are in favour of some higher intensity stuff at this time of year. Is this what worked for you last winter?

It did work I suppose but it's a sample-of-one so I don't know how much I draw from it.

I had a reasonable début year I suppose. I started racing but that was confined mostly to the Orwell/Lucan/IRC/St. Tirenan's/UCD league. I felt I did well and won a couple of races and finished (I think) 6th overall. I found that I was a lot better at TTs than I expected but have no sprint to speak of. I didn't get to many open races as the weekends were more geared towards endurance/climbing training for Marmotte which was the A priority goal. I did an OK Marmotte (gold!) but I'm never going to be a really great climber and I didn't get the weight down as low as I had wanted. Then there was the RAI at the end of the season which took a tremendous toll on the body.

Racing (in Ireland at A4 level anyway) and big mountain sportives riding are somewhat incompatible - that's what I learned anyway. I had to avoid the kind of anaerobic sprint training that would have been good in the final km of a race because I knew it would just mean more lactic-producing luggage to carry up the Alpe. In the end I did ok at both but excelled at neither.

This time last year I would still have been very much a leisure rider, and I suppose that is LSD of a type. I think a lot of people coming new to racing are in this position so the whole "build your base" thing seems strange to people who have nothing but base and clock up mileages that exceed many racers albeit at a much lower exertion level and with more frequent stops for cake.

I'm pagophobic so I did spend much of January indoors doing the sufferfest, and it didn't do me any harm. If anything I probably did more specific interval type stuff in the winter than I did in the season because, with racing and mountain spins, adding in an intense interval session every week was just too much to recover from.

I'm only coming back from an achilles injury that's had me off the bike for the best part of 2 months so the temptation is to absolutely murder myself on the bike to get back the lost fitness as soon as possible but I know that would be foolish and I know that the risk of re-injury is there too.

I did some weights yesterday and I'm going spinning tomorrow so we'll see how that goes... perhaps a plan will emerge.

paddymacsporran

Good info lads, nice to hear some success stories instead of the usual miles, miles amd some miles on top. My job won't let me put the hours in either, so mixed trainig for me it seems.

The coach I was speaking to was mentioning the sufferfest for Jan/Feb....Lookin forward to it already!!!

Lusk Doyle

paddymacsporran wrote: »

Good info lads, nice to hear some success stories instead of the usual miles, miles amd some miles on top. My job won't let me put the hours in either, so mixed trainig for me it seems.

The coach I was speaking to was mentioning the sufferfest for Jan/Feb....Lookin forward to it already!!!

My job is fairly flexible in terms of actual "office hours" which means that I can get out during the afternoon for a spin either alone or with work buddies that cycle. The boss also cycles so that helps too as he goes sometimes too - can't get in trouble that way!

A really good idea I find is to get into work a bit earlier once or twice a week a get out for a few hours during the day then. If your company would agree to that then I'm sure you would benefit as you can get out to do either intense or just a spin workout while it's still daylight. This also means that you don't have to wait until the weekend to cycle if you are doing weight, etc during the evenings.

As a new club cyclist I don't know how good that advice is but it works for me and is nice to get out during the day especially during winter with the short days limiting time.

Check it out - into work early and off for an hour or two at lunch...

ROK ON

I am finding this thread fascinating.
I have recently subscribed to the Friel bible methodology. I have diligently put together a training plan starting with a 12wk base to bring me up to mid Jan.
However I think Tom has hit the nail on the head when he says that many sportif cyclists have a good base.

I have about 14km done this year, this has mostly been at LSD. As a result I have what I would consider an excellent base but little or no strength speed or intensity. By excellent base I mean that it is pretty trivial for me to ride for 3hours up to four times a week in zone 2.
Thus I am questioning wtf I am doing base training for. My goals are simple. Do a little racing and finish races, preferably in the pack.

I have done 1 spinning class, 1 intense turbo session and a few medium turbo sessions.
Loved them.
The only reason I find now to continue with my Friel base building is to lose weight that I put on since mid Sept.
But I am interested in increasing my intensity.

As someone who has never raced but has modest plans to race next year, should I start adding a bit more intensity now or wait.
Presently doing 6-7hrs LSD type and 1-2 hrs spinning or turbo.

Much as I hate the hills, 3 Rock hill repeats are more interesting than gliding around the outskirts of Dublin at Z2 type effort.

levitronix

Everyone knows best training for racing is racing, high intensity intervals wil have you ready for the ups and down when racing in the pack, that said and out and track rider strong as a horse doesnt win bike races you still need your endurance base

shaungil

2 other things to take into account.

1) distance of races last year the max race I did was 100 km which took about 2 and 1/2 hours so does it make sense to do 6 hour rides to train for these. mostly 60-80 km

"0 When does your season start and whe do you want to peak. First bike races are in Feb with a lot through to Apr/May then a month or two off and more in Summer. So it's 3 months to season start and 5 months or so to Gorey. not that far off.

giannip

As shaungil mentioned, you should base it on the racing in your racing category. A4 def won't need to do 4:30 + training spins.

Re: intervals, it seems many people assume this means short efforts like VO2 workouts but intervals can be 10,15,20min efforts which target threshold and can most definitely be done any time of the year.

Well...except if your taking a break at the end of the year

The best form of training is training. Racing actually erodes fitness and as you won't be training as hard during the racing season, your form slips.

One way to counteract this would be to build in a backing off period where you specifically cut back on racing and train for a specific period before racing again.

leftism

Hey guys! Lovin this thread and i'm gonna add my 2c to some of the comments mentioned above so bear with me.... Just to point out at the start, that any thoughts and opinions i have on training prescription or periodisation are just that; my opinions. Just to explain my background; i spent 10 years competing in international kayaking with varying degrees of success (was junior world champion in 2001 and U23 European bronze medalist in 2005 but unfortunately never managed to qualify for the Olympics). I'm currently a postgrad in TCD studying exercise physiology. I've been lucky enough to train with several Olympic champions from several sports and i can testify that there are MANY ways to skin a cat when it comes to training. I would say though that there are several basic physiological principals that most successful training programmes will adhere to.

Just to synopsise some of the basic questions that have popped up on this thread so far:

1) Is interval training useless/dangerous to do in the winter. And if not, why do so many riders avoid it like the plague?

2) Are high volume LSD rides (6 hour+) a waste of time especially if you're racing distances are much shorter in the Summer season.

3)Is it worth untertaking a Strength and Conditioning programme (weight training)?

giannip

MY thoughts on the above 3 questions..

1) No. Again it depends what intervals we're talking about. I believe there is a need to have threshold intervals throughout the year.

2) Quality over quantity. Going out on a Sunday and riding 6 hrs and having a good chat will not help during the season. Garbage miles and all that...

3) Debatable. There is mounting research that it's effects are lost quickly.

leftism

With regards to point 1: Interval training

Its worth defining exactly what we mean by interval training. Interval training as opposed to steady state continual training involves fixed bouts of higher intensity exercise interspersed with periods of rest in between bouts. The most important defining factors in an interval session are a)duration of work b)work to rest ratio c)Intensity of work d)number of repeats. Obviously with this in mind, it is possible to think up an interval training session which stresses any of the energy systems, depending on the intensity, duration and work to rest ratio prescribed and number of repeats.

On a side note, most people would not regard interval work as aerobic work, however longer duration aerobic intervals can be hugely beneficial in the winter as part of your endurance training. The cardiovascular benefits can be much greater than a basic steady ride, since there is a significant afterload placed on the ventricles of the heart during each rest period which can stretch the chambers and increase ventricular stroke volume. In laymans terms: work hard, get the blood rushing around the body, then stop, all the blood rushes back to the heart, stretches your heart, repeat over and over in the session and the heart chambers will slowly get bigger. A steady session doesn't accomplish this as effectively. In addition, aerobic interval training can be performed closer to ones aerobic threshold which is without question the most critical intensity in any sport lasting longer than 2 minutes. Speed or power at aerobic threshold is the rate determining factor in virtually all aerobic type races.

With regards to training planning, obviously any programme over the course of a full season should stress all energy systems however at certain times of the year it is necessary to focus more on one specific system. Winter training (October to February) is usually earmarked for a high volume of aerobic endarance training. However in my opinion it is never advisable to completely neglect any energy system for more than a week.

For example, a winter training programme should focus heavily on aerobic adaptation and endurance but should still include one speed interval session and one higher intensity lactate tolerance (speed endurance) session per week. My reasoning is that the neuromuscular system must be stimulated regularly in order to maintain muscle memory for fast, explosive execution and high power production. Otherwise, when you start this type of training every Spring, your starting from zero again. Year in year out you want to be building on the previous season and speed maintainance training (once a week) is an effective way of achieving this. You're not trying to adapt and reach a new high level, just maintain some of the adaptations you made during the summer when you were stimulating the anaerobic system much more regularly. The goal is to get to March with some level of speed still in the legs....

Conversely, in the Summer season when the training focusses more on the anaerobic energy system and speed development, it is vital to include 1 or 2 aerobic maintainance sessions per week for the same reason. The cardiovascular and metabolic adaptations of aerobic endurance training done in the winter will slowly be lost if one does not include aerobic maintainance work in the summer programme. (I would not consider a long distance race as aerobic maintanance since the intensity is too high).

I'll throw my 2c out there tomorrow on some of the other points raised...

niceonetom

Great post, Leftism.