Here are the test results from Thomas Davis who started on the Power Meter Project last week. Due to vacation he starts a couple of weeks later than the rest of the participants.

Critical Power Tests	5sec	1min	5min	20min	Body Weight
Week 1 (Watt)	875W	362W	232W	174W	55.3kg/122lbs
Week 1 (Watt/kg)	15.8W/kg	6.6W/kg	4.20W/kg	3,15W/kg

Comments from Jesper Therkildsen: Thomas is a very light rider and that explains why his performance seems low compared to some of the other riders in the project. But when you look at the watts per kilogram, you will realize that he is a strong and powerful rider. His training program for the next month will be 13 to 17 hours weekly training with focus on building a large aerobic engine. Thomas has an impressive sprint power compared to his low body weight, but I guess that the absolute power is too low to win bunch sprints but strong enough to have a chance in smaller groups or steep climb sprints. Thus, he will have to improve his VO2 max and threshold power to make him able to make winning moves (or to reduce the size of the group) before he gets to the final sprint.

Comments

1. Tyler Hamilton: “I have a twin that was never born. That’s why my blood contains a different blood type than my own”

2. Floyd Landis: “I had some beers and whiskeys last night. I have a very high natural level of testosterone. I am innocent.”

3. Raimondas Rumsas: “My wife was bringing a car full of medical substances for her sick mother. I am innocent.”

4. Frank Vandenbroucke: “The drugs were for my little dog. I am innocent.”

5. Dario Frigo: “It’s just a bad habit I have to wear illegal drugs. I don’t use them. I am innocent.”

Comments (3)

This program is an example of how you can plan the final 12 weeks before the race season begins. If you have been lazy during the winter, starting on this program might be a good chance to catch up. If you are able to do12 hours per week training now without problems, there should be a good chance that this program will suit you.

The pre-season program has a very common design with building of aerobic endurance for the first part, then an increasing workload with more training sessions and longer rides and finally the intensive part with more anaerobic intervals and sprints and also a couple of races that should be performed as a part of the pre-season preparation.

Have a look at the complete training program

Comments (5)

I have often been asked how beginners should train if they want to improve fast. I must admit that most of the cycling programs here on Cycling Training Tips are not made for pure beginners, but they are not made for experienced riders either. These training programs are made to show some of the basic elements I use in my training programs.

Structure and Planning
One of the best ways to improve fast as a beginner cyclist is to get structure into your cycling. I have often been told by my riders that they feel much stronger when they’ve started on one of my programs. In the beginning they believe that it is because of the special combination of intervals but I keep telling them that the single best explanation for their progress is that they now have a structure on their training program. If you are a hard working cyclist, you deserve to achieve good results with the work you do. You don’t (necessarily) have to train more or harder to achieve better results. If you get the right structure with proper amounts of interval training on the right days, there is a good chance that you will improve fast and continue doing so.

The principle of super compensation
When you’ve performed a hard training ride, your body will have to recover before it get’s stronger. How much time you need for recovery depends on the type of training, your overall fitness and nutritional status. There are also some other factors that influence on your recovery time, but for a beginning it is important to know that hard training takes more time to recover from than light training. When you have trained for a while you will start to experience that your legs might feel sore the day after a hard interval workout and feel fresh the day after a light training session. Thus, you are about to get the idea about super compensation. To get the best progress you will need to find the perfect combination of training sessions and recovery.

Frequency, intensity and duration
There are mainly three ways to change the total workload in a training week: Frequency, intensity and duration. E.g. if you train more frequent, ride with a higher intensity (more races, more intervals) or simply just ride more, you will force your body to adapt to these challenges. This way you can reach a higher level of fitness, but your body will not allow you to increase the total workload too fast. Good cyclists make use these buttons to turn up and down the workload all the time. Remember that it is the consistency that makes you a strong cyclist, not just one hard week of biking. With small adjustments over time, you can configure a more challenging training program that will make you a better cyclist.

Comments (2)

I’m busy at the moment so the posting frequency here at Cycling Training Tips will be lower than normal until Tuesday. But that doesn’t mean there is no interesting articles for you. A good place to find articles you haven’t read yet is the sitemap which is a site with the headlines of all posts on the blog.

Comments

My longest ride on a stationary bike is 5 hours. I did back in 2001 and none of the riders from my club have attempted to break that record. I’m a bit proud of it, but take a look at this article. It is about a man who attempts to ride more than 82hours on a stationary bike (5 minutes break per hour)…!

What is your longest indoor ride?

Comments (1)