How Hard is Hard

Author’s note:This article was originally written in the early 2000s. While it’s been edited and updated for accuracy since then, much of the original text has been kept, in order to capture some of the prescient nature and things that have come to pass that were just ideas at the time. Of course, the human body hasn’t changed since then, but some of our understanding has.—Over the past few years we've seen the introduction of a number of on-the-bike power measuring devices. The use of these devices has lead many riders, coaches, and physiologists to rethink and reexamine their basic training philosophies and principles. Above all, zone-based training for endurance sports seeks to find ...

How Long, How Hard, and How Often?

When a new client signs up for coaching with Cycle-Smart it almost never fails that they're shocked and concerned with the lack of anaerobic and other high-intensity intervals in their training program. Other than sprint workouts, for the first 4-12 weeks of the season the hardest interval they're asked to do is just below threshold. It takes a large amount of trust as it seems counter-intuitive; if you want to get faster, you have to train as long, hard, and often as possible, right? Trying to get them to take a new approach can be difficult.Many of my articles revolve around the importance of base training, rest, and recovery. These are the foundations and framework of deep, solid ...

A Case for Base

"Base training" is a phrase that gets tossed around quite a bit, but it's important to pinpoint and understand what base training actually is, and what your goals and intentions are with it. The old school says lots of long, easy miles in the winter. "Ride lots," as Merckx is often credited as saying. But what good is being able to finish a 6-hour ride if you get dropped on the first climb of your first race, or if your longest race is only 3 hours, and most are an hour or less? Some riders will take the opposite approach. In their haste to be race-ready, and perhaps limited to the trainer in winter weather and limited daylight, they will flog themselves with high-intensity interval ...

The Cycles of Cycling

Athletic training of any kind is a process of stressing a system, letting it recover and adapt to the stress, and then stressing it again at a higher level. This cycle of training exists at every level; from intervals and recovery in a single workout to a hard season of racing followed by a rest in the fall or winter. Even on the largest scale, you often see riders who miss a season due to injury and come back the following year stronger than they were before they stopped. Can you imagine taking a rest season?Seeing your training in this pattern of repetitive components can help you plan from top to bottom and find a rhythm as you execute it. It's no different than those fractal art ...

Surviving the Trainer

For most of us, the enjoyment in cycling isn't just the essence of training. It's about being outside, seeing different roads and landscapes, and the actual racing. For those who prefer playing sports to "working out," riding the trainer in the winter can be the pinnacle of drudgery. It may be more fun to ride outside in 33 degrees and rain than strap yourself to a machine indoors.At the same time, if you work long hours or live in a winter climate with cold, short days and dangerous, difficult road conditions, riding the trainer is a necessary part of your early season preparation, and one you'll need to make the best of. It doesn't have to be all pain and misery, though, if you take ...

Sprinting for Success

Sprint training is an aspect that can and should be part of your program year-round, and is an aspect that many riders either neglect or do incorrectly if they do include them. Making a well-designed sprint workout part of your weekly routine is crucial for any cyclist who not only wants to improve not just their final sprint, but also their ability to make speed changes in almost any kind of mass-start bike race.A sprint, like most efforts, consists of two aspects: cardiovascular and muscular. It's important to consider each aspect separately, and then see how to combine them for maximum effectiveness. From the cardiovascular standpoint, any interval that begins with a maximal effort ...

Opening Up: Fine Tuning for Race Day

A recurring choice riders are faced with is whether to train through a week when there are races on the weekend, or pull up on training early to be better rested for the weekend's events. How to make those choices, and how to structure your training based on your choice, is based on a lot of variables. How important are the races? How important is the long-term fitness you're trying to build? What kind of training are you doing, or what kind of phase are you in? And if you do rest, how do you make sure you feel your best on race day?A typical weekly schedule might include a recovery day on Monday, sprints on Tuesday, threshold intervals on Wednesday, a longer endurance day with some ...

Why Do You Race?

A few years ago a client came to me with a difficult but common question. She was having some challenges in her life outside of cycling, and it was making it difficult for her to maintain her focus and motivation for another season of racing. At the same time, her racing goals were important to her and she did not want to give them up. The advice she sought had nothing to do with how to train or what intervals to do because her problems were existential, not physiological. So, she asked me, why do I race? What is it that keeps me in the sport year after year? And what could she do to keep that spark? It's not an easy thing to explain. Much like being in love with a person, you ...

Addressing Asymmetry: Improving Movement On and Off the Bike

Addressing Asymmetry: Improving Movement On and Off the BikeNick Lemke, Cycle-Smart Associate CoachMany of us have experienced the sensation of being imbalanced, pedaling more with one leg, or feeling delayed onset muscle soreness more on one side than the other. Nearly all of us have experienced niggling knee, back, or neck pains, tight iliotibial (IT) bands or hip flexors. Worse yet, some of us find ourselves lopsided on the bike - a cocked shoulder, feet or knees jutting to one side while pedaling, or hips askew on the saddle. On-the-bike asymmetry, specifically muscular imbalance, limited range of motion, and/or pelvic asymmetry can lead to a cascade of other problems like joint ...

Evaluating your Year

The Roman god Janus was often depicted with two faces because he could look forward and backward at the same time. His role in Roman society was as a household deity who presided over gates, openings, and doorways, was able to see the future and the past, and has lived on in our culture as a symbol of new beginnings. The month of January is thought to be named in his honor.Janus is an important image here because many of us are about to embark or perhaps have just started our training for the upcoming season. I've written articles here before about how to periodize and plan for the new year. What Janus reminds us is that while we're looking ahead and making a new start, we also have to ...