Training4cyclists

Cycling Training Tips

Cycling Training Tips from Jesper Bondo Medhus

Tapering for an Important Cycling Race

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If you have a major season goal in front of you, a reasonable tapering protocol can supercharge your cycling performance. Even though this is not breaking news, many cyclists don’t benefit (enough) from tapering.

In most cases people train hard and have a big training volume until one week before their season goal. After one week of reduced training volume, your performance will increase and you may believe that you’ve done everything right.

Advanced tapering protocol for a cycling race

However, if you’ve trained structured for months before a single prioritised race, you’ll probably benefit from a longer period of gradually reduced training volume. You have accumulated stress (progressive overload) that takes longer to recover from than just seven days.

Actually, some riders can benefit from up to 4 weeks of tapering and still reach better performance levels.

Have a look at the illustration below:

cycling-race-tapering-advanced


As you can see on the illustration, performance goes up for each week of tapering. And you’ll reach a higher level of performance than with only one week of recovery.

Please don’t focus too much on the numbers, they are only to illustrate my points: Two weeks of tapering is most often better than just one week of tapering and adding another two weeks with slightly reduced training volume may further improve your performance. As I said: you can reduce training volume for a month without compromising your performance.

Nevertheless, it’s important to remember that we are all different. What works for one athlete may not have the same effects on another. So if you already have a tapering protocol that works, there is no need to make significant changes. However, if you prefer to use only one week of recovery before major season goals, you may find inspiration in this article. Maybe you should try to add one week of extra tapering before your next important race.

I have used the principles discussed above in my e-book ‘Time Effective Cycling Training’ where you’ll find a complete 16-week training program with a tapering protocol for a major season goal.

In the next article, I’ll discuss some of the principles I recommend for interval training during tapering. Stay tuned!

The Forgotten Power of Training Volume

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I’ve competed in cycling races as an athlete for just one season, which was back in 1998. My best friend and I were almost at the same level and did most of our training together. In the spring, my friend began to add 5 to 10km at the end of each ride to add more distance to his training volume.

I remember how I thought ‘what a waste of time’ riding additional relatively low intensity kilometers at the end of a long training session.

What I didn’t realise was that he was doing that little extra to achieve better results.

And it worked!

He performed – consistently – just a little better than me during the entire spring season.

This experience taught me how small tweaks to your current training can make significant improvements over time. And also, it illustrates a valuable point: small changes are easier to consume than major ones.

Sometimes you should take that extra kilometer.

It’s more than just a mental shift.

Even small steps add up over the long term. If you train for five days per week and add 5km to each ride, you’ll end up with 100km extra per month.

That’s more comfortable to consume than adding an extra 100km ride on one of your recovery days.

Also, it gives a mental boost to know that you are pushing just a little harder. If you increase your training volume now, there is a good chance that your performance goes up within 6 weeks.

How much should your training volume increase?

I suggest you add about 2 hours to your current training volume. For most riders, that is probably 20% +/- of their current training volume. If you only train 5-6 hours per week, it might sound like a lot to add an additional two hours to your training volume.

However, it is possible to go up to a training volume of 7-8 hours and still have at least a few days without training per week. Therefore, if you just use a reasonable structure of your training, you can easily increase your training volume without overtraining.

If you are already training more than 20hours per week, you should consider whether there are other areas in your training that need more attention. Adding more volume might not be the answer for you.

One of the most important tips I give to riders is structure.

It’s probably the single most valuable change I make to training plans. If you have a solid structure on your training – with a perfect mix of hard days and recovery – you’ll get stronger.

If you want to increase your training volume and just find it difficult to find enough time for training, I suggest you analyze where you spend your time at the moment. You’d be surprised to see how much time you spend on non-training tasks.

Many riders spend enormous amounts of time on activities where they don’t train.

They chat with each other before and after each training session, they repair and optimize bikes, they watch cycling races on the television and read cycling magazines.

I understand that cycling is a hobby and most of these actions are part of it.

However, if you want to find more time for cycling because you desperately want to increase performance, then you need to eliminate the time consumers.

It sounds reasonable to limit chatting before and after training to a minimum and hold all the discussions on the roads instead. If you add 10 minutes here and there, you’ll soon ride much more than you are used to.

Also, it’s not unlikely you can squeeze an extra hour or two for training if you decide to ride on your bike instead of watching a professional cycling race on the television. Perhaps you have your own time consumer that can be limited or totally eliminated.

Remember that if you overall goal is important enough for you, it is also easier to find the solutions to make your goals realistic (hint: always have a goal with your training). Anytime, you can always ask yourself whether a specific action takes you closer to your goal or not.

Training Volume Does Matter

Interval training is important, but additional volume (at endurance intensity) has proven to improve performance for many athletes. It has been seen so many times that people with large training volumes achieve fantastic results.

You can argue that these riders could achieve the same results with less training. Personally I’m a strong believer of time effective training, but I also agree that volume training is a safe and valuable component in endurance training.

However, it is worth noting that endurance training in itself can achieve extremely good results without any organised interval training. Doing a heavy amount of long distance endurance training combined with a few races has been a winning training formula for many professional riders over the last 50 years.

I can think of many arguments as to why adding VO2 max training or other sophisticated intervals might be better than sole endurance training. However, it is remarkable how well riders that rely on endurance training only perform in races.

I won’t go into a discussion whether these riders should change their training methods or how much you can gain with a different approach.

Instead, I use these riders to illustrate how strong results you can achieve with endurance training and use that as an example on how an increased training volume can make you better.

If you ask a professional rider from the world tour, I’ll be surprised if he hasn’t at least the magically 10.000+ hrs under his belt. Training volume definitively plays a major role for professional riders as well as other race cyclists.

How to Become Stronger Without Adding Muscle Mass

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Weight Lifting Experiment #1

Here is the story about how I have spend 6 months testing and optimizing a training program helping athletes to become stronger without adding muscle mass. So far, it has been a success, but it is clear to me that I’m a much better coach than athlete…

Why is this weight lifting experiment important?

Many road cyclists enter the local gym to use weight lifting as a compensation for less training time on the road. Weight lifting is a great way to keep you fit during the winter and that is also why I have used weight lifting in the majority of winter training programs I have made.

Though, it is important to emphasize that there is no scientific proof that weight lifting during the off-season is better than cycling training only.
No matter if you decide to ride 2 hours more per week or choose to add two weekly sessions at the local gym, you’ll probably end up with better performance in both situations.

Confused? Well, ask anyone else and you’ll get a much clearer answer…

Nevertheless, there are some trends that I would like to share with you. I believe weight lifting may play a bigger role in the future for some of the best performing road cyclists.

First of all, it’s important to understand that the training techniques mentioned here might work for professional or semi-professional cyclists. If you ride at a lower level, and I guess that is what most readers do, you would probably benefit more from increased training amount on your bike (in a strict time effective point of view). Yes, you’ll get more value for additional time on your bike than spending one hour lifting weights.

Muscle physiology

Larger muscle cells (that will say larger square diameter) can generate more power.
That is the most commonly known way to increase power.

Though it is not desirable for most road cyclists.

The problem is that a large muscle mass is heavy to carry and there is a dilution of mitochondrias. Thus, an increment of maximal strength made through hypertrophy will probably not result in a better overall cycling performance.

Instead, cyclists should mainly be concerned about increasing their neural strength. I know that many training programs take a different approach, but I disagree in most situations.As a rule of thumb, road cyclists should never aim for hypertrophy.

It is very unlikely that hypertrophy in itself will help normal riders. Yes, there are a few selective riders where extra muscle mass will give them extra punch in mass sprints etc., but for the majority of riders hypertrophy should be avoided.

Nervous regulation of force

Basically there are two ways to control a muscle’s force.
One way is to recruit more motor unit, which will activate more motor units. You can think of this as your brain tells your muscle to use a larger percentile of your muscle’s fibres to generate power. Motor units are recruited to in order of size. Small motor units are recruited before large motor units. This is called the size principle of recruitment.

The second way to regulate force production is through rate coding. It is an increment of the frequency of impulse signals to the motor unit. When a motor unit is stimulated more frequently, the twitches begin to overlap each other, which will generate a larger force.

This is the basic physiology behind the mechanisms used to increase the force.

So if you want to generate more power, you have three options:
1) It is either to build larger muscle mass, 2) make a better recruitment of motor units or 3) fire a higher frequency of stimuli to the motor neurons.

Because you have to carry your own body weight on your bike, I believe, it is much more interesting to train your neural system. If you’re be able to activate your muscles in a smarter and more efficient way, you can develop a more powerful stroke and increase your endurance.

So there is – at least theoretically – a potential to increase performance.

Even professionals might benefit from this.

In fact, if it is possible to increase strength (without getting injured or decreasing performance in other training sessions), why shouldn’t a professional cyclist take advantage of it?

Weight lifting experiment – #1 (home experiment)

Since the beginning of May 2013, I have practiced weight lifting with the aim to increase strength without adding muscle mass. I wanted to test specific training sessions that were time effective and did not affect performance the following day.

These training sessions should be difficult enough to increase my strength, but so demanding that they stimulate my muscles to grow. Also, it should be possible to recover without suffering from delayed onset muscle soreness the following day.

Normally, I use test pilots for new training ideas (it’s much, much easier for me…), but this time I wanted to get some hands-on experience to get a better feeling of the training philosophy.

To be honest, I find it very difficult to follow a strict training without a specific goal. It’s no problem to get your training done when you feel good and everything is going your way, but it is much more difficult to get through a difficult training session when you’re tired, stressed up or time crunched.

Fact is, I the same challenges like readers here on training4cyclists.com do: I have a full time job as medical doctor, I have a wife and three small kids (age 1, 4 and 6), an old house to repair and a growing website that has the potential to become a full-time job.

So during the first four months my training sessions were very infrequent (weight lifting 0 to 3 times per week, avg. 1.5 training session per week) and very time effective. Most sessions were shorter than 30 minutes.

Following two performance tests in July and September, I realized, I needed a short term goal to be more committed for my training. To put a little pressure on myself, I submitted for a power lifting competition and, suddenly, began to train a harder and more frequent as I got closer to ‘race day’.

This reminds me what I always teach riders: You MUST have a goal with your training. I’ve seen so many riders perform much better when there is a specific goal with their training.

Since my training volume has been very low it has actually been possible to reduce body weight a bit. In november 2013, I entered my first power lifting competition ever (RAW power lifting: no bench press shirts, wraps or lifting suits of any kind). I took a 13th place: Squat 150kg, bench press 102,5kg and dead lift 200kg. I was far behind the best athletes, but I was very happy with my results.

How to Become Stronger without Adding Muscle Mass

So far this little experiment with very little amount of training has taken me to ‘above average’ performance 1RM lifts in squat, bench press and deadlift. And my body weight hasn’t increase at all. Actually I’ve lost a few pounds.

I know there is room for improvements (technique), but there is not much left for hypertrophy (weighed in on 82,7kg in the 83Kg class…) My fat percentage is low – probably around 9 – so my main focus towards next competition in April 2014, is to become stronger without adding muscle mass.

I plan to continue this experiment a couple of months to see what’s possible with this training method. I think it is very interesting, because if this concept works just as well as I hope, this training method can be applied to many different sports.

So what is the secret?

I’ll go closer into detail in a later post, but here are some of the cornerstones in this training program:

Limit total number of repetitions in working sets
– 10 to 15 reps per exercise (e.g. squats)

Limit repetitions per set
– Five reps or less. Three reps are fine for bench press and squats. Single lifts are great for dead lifts.

No failure training or forced reps
– Forget about ‘No pain, no gain’ attitude.

Long recovery between sets
– at least 3min, 5+ min if possible.

Set a goal
– always have a goal with your training (both short and long term goals).

As mentioned before, this is not a scientific study, but a home experiment. I apply the best advice from books and articles I have read, personal experience from previous training programs and athletes I have coached, and most importantly listen to feedback from many of my readers that have tested training ideas presented here on the website.

I look forward to keep you posted about my training. If you want to keep me motivated, please leave a comment and/or share this post on Facebook, Twitter etc.

Marginal Gains (Using Tiny Improvements to Increase Cycling Performance)

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Dave Brailsford introduced us to a new way of thinking when he entered the cycling scene with Team Sky and the principle of ‘marginal gains.’ The British cycling coach and manager has won seven out of the last eight editions of Tour de France. Difficult not to consider if there is something we can learn from him. 

I believe it is a philosophy that you can easily use to achieve better results. In this blog post, I will try to explain how you can implement and use marginal gains to your advantage. 

What is the concept of marginal gains?

The beauty of adding small incremental improvements in any process so they can make a significant improvement when they are all added together.

When race cyclists, cycling coaches, and cycling experts evaluate cycling races, there is a strong tendency to look straight at the top of the podium. There is a mantra called ‘the winner is always right.’ It is tempting to find inspiration from the best rider, and there is also a valid reason to pay attention: the winner crossed the line before everyone else. Brailford has had several victories on Champ.

However, ‘the winner is always right’ mentality may limit your creative process of developing improvements to your race performance. It is clear that the 1st place probably did many things pretty well. It is the sum of all his training, race-specific preparation, nutritional strategy, tactical moves, and technical performance that made him cross the finish line before the peloton.

But if you split all the elements that are related to your race performance up in atoms, you will find places for improvements. Guaranteed.

From a scientific perspective, you will have to accept that many of these minor tweaks can not be proved statistically. Even if there is a gain, let’s say 0.5%, it is impossible to prove that there is an actual advantage, but the sum of all these small gains will, hopefully, make a competitive advantage.

First of all, you should focus long term – Rome wasn’t built in a day. Looking for many marginal gains is a philosophy that will not make huge improvements in the short run. There are normally no quick wins. It is no miracle cure. Instead, this behavioral approach will secure you significant and incremental improvements in the long term.

And it should be an ongoing process. You will have to adapt to a routine where you always aim to make things better. As  you get started to implement small gains, they will begin to accumulate, and over time, you will give yourself a clear advantage. 

Actually, I had such a challenge back in 2015 where I got the opportunity to coach Mads Würtz Schmidt who had won the U23 world championship just two months before. I guess this is probably the most difficult time you can ever begin a relationship with a new rider. Seriously, what can possibly be improved next season? 

Though, it is no secret that coaching the world champion is a challenge, but not so easy task. All basic and advanced training advice are redundant and have been implemented for several years. Nearly all professional riders know and how to use solid principles for training, nutrition, and recovery.

Building on all the great principles used from previous seasons makes perfect sense when you wear the rainbow-colored jersey. Just imagine what people and the press expect from a rider who has just won the World championship. There are really no good reasons to make major changes. And lots of reasons to be blamed if the following season is no success. 

So it is tempting to just hit the ‘repeat’ button and let him do the same over again.

In such a situation, it makes sense to consider the concept of marginal gains. Actually, very small changes are not as scary to implement as larger ones. If you make harmless small adjustments, who can say they have significant negative influence?

So I decided to look for tiny improvements that could help him improve further. And set a clear goal for the first season: a pro contract on the world tour. 

Looking for marginal gains using extensive analysis of cycling races and training sessions

Through my data analysis, it was clear that it was still possible to add more training volume and total workload, which is not surprising for a 21-year old rider. There is a logic, natural progress in training volume, training intensity, and total race volume for the most talented riders. Even though you are among the best in your age group, you are not maxed out in training volume. Therefore, the most reasonable way to plan training is to make progress in training volume and add slightly more races (also more difficult races) to his calendar. 

Secondly, there were all those small improvements that made sense from a theoretical point of view. These changes can be considered as ‘marginal gains.’ 

For example: 

  • extended recovery time between sets during weight lifting
  • adding sessions with pace behind scooter as race preparation
  • lowering bodyweight for specific races
  • adding race-specific intervals according to the race calendar
  • heat acclimatization for certain events
  • altitude camps for better performance in altitude
  • aerodynamics in road bike and TT setup

And also several small, technical changes in race setup that could have a positive influence on performance (bike fitting tweaks, ceramic bearings, etc.) Again, it is a question of finding meaningful improvements that you believe will give you an advantage. 

Marginal gains at amateur level

It is clear that a 360-degree analysis of every single process associated with Tour de France makes sense when you are Dave Brailsford. And it makes sense when I coach a 21-year danish rider who has just recently won the U23 world championships. 

But what is the take-home message for you? Marginal gains can be used at the amateur level as well, but it is very important to remember that all the basics should be implemented before you begin to look for marginal gains.

It sounds tempting (and quite easy), but please remember that everything else should be close to perfect (training volume, intensity, frequency, recovery, etc.) 

If you think longer cycling socks will do the trick and make you MUCH faster, you will probably be disappointed using the marginal gains philosophy. 

So get the basics right. 

Then keep an eye for areas where you can add tiny improvements to your cycling performance. If you believe in what you do, there is also a better chance you will succeed.

7 Things I Would Do If I Were Starting From Scratch

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Even though I believe in intelligent training methods, there is no doubt that hard work is mandatory to reach the stars. The saying is “no pain, no gain” and there’s no doubt a bit of suffering can go a long way if you want to beat the opposition.
The first rider I made a training program for did not receive the best training methods available.

I started as a cycling coach in November 2000 training an average junior rider from the local club. He had commitment to his training and we were both 100% dedicated to make this project a great success. We tried to do everything the best possible way. He trained more time than he was used to, he performed scheduled interval training, there was some kind of periodization and I gave him feedback and offered 1 to 1 coaching.

Still, 13 years later it is obvious for me that I could have done several things much, much better. Actually, if I was to attempt the same today, I would make the training program completely different. There was a sensible overall structure, but most interval training was out of the blue.

So what would I have done today?

1) I would use a different combination of intervals with a long-term focus
2) I would use different performance tests
3) I would use anaerobic endurance intervals strategically in pre-season
4) I would use a more aggressive tapering protocol
5) I would pick fewer races for peaking
6) I would forget about perfectionism and use the 80/20 principle as much as possible
7) I would give more freedom to the rider to make his own decisions

But what happened?

This rider really succeeded with this training program because he had the right attitude to take his training to a new level. He was not afraid to suffer during training and mentally he was extremely focused on getting the job done.

Being very dedicated and believing in the training program led to impressive improvements. He completed the training program as scheduled and achieved great results the following season. He went from being a completely unknown rider to being competitive at national level and participating in several international races.

That story illustrates that attitude plays a big role. Even the best training program will not take you anywhere if you don’t do the hard work. There are no legal ways to reach great improvements without suffering.

So the real secret to succeeding with e.g. the 12-week winter training program is to actually get the work done. There might be things you would like to do differently and there might be things I would suggest differently in the future.

BUT they are just mere details.

The overall success ratio is still mostly influenced by how YOU attack the training sessions.

Question to the readers:

What would you change in your training if you could turn back time? (please leave a comment)