Basic Principles of Cycling Training

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.