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anaerobic

How to Optimize Your Pre-Season Cycling Training

February 19, 2013 by Jesper Bondo Medhus 4 Comments

The road cycling race season is just about to begin and in some countries they have already started. Today I will show you some highly effective techniques that will help you to perform better from the very first race.

One of the most common arguments against interval training during the winter is the risk of peaking too early.

I disagree. If you are not competing at a professional level, your risk of peaking too early is extremely low. Remember that your current fitness leaves significant room for improvement and that’s why it makes sense to train longer, faster and more frequently. You are far from peaking.

Lack of Race Speed

Finishing a solid base training leaves you with a strong aerobic engine. Your threshold power is now close to maximum and you are getting lean and ready to enter the cycling races. Still, you might have the feeling that your legs are not ready for the big races.

There is something missing…

Have you ever completed a solid base training left with the feeling that you still lack race speed to perform optimally? Have you (or some of your cycling buddies) ever used ‘lack of race speed’ as an excuse for not performing as well as you were hoping for?

The case is that a solid aerobic engine alone is not enough to win cycling races.

Even though threshold power is often referred as the single most important physiological parameter, having a decent power output at threshold power is not enough. Most often you will need both anaerobic endurance/sprint skills and also a highly trained VO2 max to be competitive in cycling races.

Why? Because in most cycling races winds play an important role. When you ride behind other riders in the bunch you may save up to 40% of power output to maintain the pace.

Thus, if you just sit in the front of the peloton and work around your threshold power, all other riders can easily follow your pace as long as you ride in the flat or slightly uphills.

So if you want to make a breakaway or drop some of your worst opponents then a steady pace at threshold power might not be enough.

Instead, you need to use your anaerobic and tactical skills to establish a breakaway.

And then afterwards return to a steady pace slightly below threshold power in your new group of riders.

To be able to make these breakaways you’ll need to have at least some anaerobic power to accelerate away from the peloton. It’s clear that the more aware your opponents are, the harder you will have to work to get away. Also, as you get closer to the finish line you should expect more riders to react when you make your attempts.

You could see their awareness as a problem or you can see it as your opportunity to strategical alternatives. By leveraging from other riders impatience, you can actually make tactical moves that are far more likely to succeed than with most solo attacks. Also if you stay away from the front and simply let the attacking rider protect you from the wind, you can relatively easy join the attack. That way you have a chance to join a new breakaway while saving your anaerobic power for later.

Structure is the key to successful cycling training

Even experienced and ambitious riders get surprised when they enter the first couple of races in the season. Some of them may have increased their total training load significantly during the winter and therefore – reasonable – expect to perform better.

However, many of these talented riders don’t get the results and honour they have worked so hard for. Because they struggle so hard to increase the total training time and intervals, they forget to remind themselves of the importance of having a good overall structure on their training plans.

If there is no structure on your intervals, distance training and cycling races then all else is meaningless. Forget about exotic recovery drinks, aero wheels, carbon saddles etc.

If there is no structure on when you train hard and when you don’t then this is the first place to improve your performance in the long run.

Simply put: structure is the best and most effective way to increase your performance. And you don’t have train harder.

It’s important to notice that high intensity intervals are not just high intensity intervals. Since road cycling is mainly an aerobic activity, it is also clear that most of your training should target the aerobic engine.

It takes more time to build a solid aerobic engine, but once it is built it will remain at a reasonable level with the minimum of training.

Why are the first cycling races in the season so difficult?

One of the most common excuses is ‘lack of race speed’. I agree with this cause, but I don’t think it’s very precise.

Switching from group rides at 30km/hr to cycling races at 40+ km/hr is not only a question of speed. It’s a paradigm shift from riding friendly group rides to entering a war on bikes.

Let me explain: If you haven’t included high intensity intervals and riding in your training yet, you will very likely experience ”˜lack of race speed’. And you will experience it the hard way. To make it clear: If you are not prepared, you will be punished.

Those riders who dominate and win these first races are typically well prepared.

They have followed their training programs for months and they have been doing some kind of high intensity (anaerobic) training in the past. And that gives them what is commonly referred as ‘race speed’.

So yes, in races you ride 10km/hr faster, but that is only a part of the explanation. The physiological and technical demands are quite different when you enter a cycling race.

So if you want to be one of those riders who are well prepared when the race season opens, then you have to use some of the pre-season training techniques mentioned below. Otherwise, you will be one of those riders whining about ‘lack of race speed’.

Though, the good news for lazy riders: If you haven’t done your anaerobic training, you will catch up within 6 to 8 weeks. That’s what many cyclists experience season after season when they have entered the first ten races or so.

Simply, because their anaerobic capacity gets a boost from participating in the cycling races.

That also means, that if you plan to peak later in the season, you don’t have to push too hard with anaerobic intervals and sprints before the season opens. But it will make your life in the peloton a bit easier and maybe your winning chances are also better in early part of the season.

How to Ride Faster in the Early Part of the Race Season

1) Friendly races (Fartlek)
Making your training more similar to races is a logic step that helps you prepare for the cycling races waiting for you.

Instead of riding steady pace group rides, you should include two or three short races with a predefined distance of 5km or up. These friendly races give you a nice combination of aerobic and anaerobic intervals while riding your bike at higher speeds. You will also get a sense of race tactics if you include a finish line for your friendly race.

Though, this training approach is an unorganized way to train compared to most of the other advice I give, it’s a very effective and inspiring way to optimize your aerobic and anaerobic systems. Well performed, these Fartlek sessions are both highly effective and motivating as pre-season workouts.

Sometimes you simply have to dig a little deeper into your reserves when you train. This may help you to go from good to great. But, more importantly, it is a great mental relief to just follow the pack as they begin to race.

So remember the positive attitude and enjoy the chance to have some extra training and fun at the same time.

Remember that most cycling races are not organized in 15-minute sub-threshold intervals. Cycling races are extremely unpredictable and you will need a wide repertoire of skills to master them. So spontaneous cycling races or sprints are an excellent supplement to your regular, scheduled intervals.

If you never do anything that is not scheduled in the training plan, then do at least one off-diary interval/race/sprint this week.

2) Anaerobic intervals and sprints
The secure way to boost your anaerobic performance is through specific intervals designed for anaerobic performance. These intervals are typically shorter efforts of less than 60 seconds. The intensity is so high and the duration so short that using a heart rate monitor for pacing makes no sense.

Even without any pacing tool, it is relatively easy to get a great boost of your anaerobic power and endurance.

Simply by doing anaerobic intervals once or twice per week, your anaerobic capacity will increase significantly within a few weeks. It is much faster than building aerobic power, so even if you are a bit late, you have a good chance to catch up quickly.

One important thing that most riders are not aware of is the need for recovery between hard anaerobic intervals.

Why? If your recovery periods are too short, you will not be able to generate sufficient high power outputs in the work periods and more work will be performed through aerobic metabolism. Thus, you will not get a sufficient stimulus for your anaerobic enzymes.

3) Tapering
The most overlooked secret of winning riders is their use of tapering. If you want to make a really great ride, you should make at least some kind of tapering protocol before the races you prioritize. That will make your legs and mind fresh, and help you to perform much better than most of your opponents.

Especially in the early part of the season many riders have been through a heavy amount of training. With reference to the overload principle, these riders need a few weeks of tapering before they are able to perform at peak performance.

It’s not all about boosting your anaerobic system

Winter training is often considered as the most important part of your preparation for next season. Why not also use your best weapon to improve aerobic performance?

As I mentioned previously in this article, you might choose to prioritize differently. If you spend less energy on optimizing your anaerobic system now, you will be able to build an even stronger aerobic engine. And because of that you can be even stronger later in the season. That is always a question of priority.

Even though my 12-week winter training program forces you to tackle scheduled intervals three times per week and also perform an increasing amount of training, there may still be opportunities to ride more.

Don’t be afraid to add an extra interval or a spontaneous friendly cycling race.

Yet, it’s my gut feeling that many riders don’t prepare optimally for the season opening. And just a little tweak to your current training can make a nice improvement in your opening races.

Thus, I conclude that intelligent riders get an easy advantage in the first few weeks simply by optimizing their training.

4 Pre-season Bike Training Sessions That Will Boost Your Race Performance

VO2 Max intensity refer to your avg. power output (Watts) in 5min test.

Pre-season Training Program 1 (50 min)
15 min warm-up
1 x 5 min – 80 % VO2 max
1 x 5 min – 50 % VO2 max
3 x (3+3 min) 100 / 50 % – VO2 max
7 min cool down

Pre-season Training Program 2 (50 min)
15 min warm-up
3 x (40s + 9.20min) maximum sprint efforts
5 min cool down

Pre-season Training Program 3
15 min warm-up
16+ x (30+30s) VO2 max
10 min cool down

The Ultimate VO2 Max Training Session
(read more about the ultimate VO2 max workout here.)
10+ min warm-up
2+8 min VO2 Max / Threshold intensity
10 min recovery
2+8 min VO2 Max / Threshold intensity
10 min cool down

PS. I can guarantee these intervals don’t work if you don’t try…

Bronze Medal at 3K Pursuit World Championships With Only 10 Hours Training Per Week

June 17, 2011 by Jesper Bondo Medhus 7 Comments

Case Story: Peter Ettles, 3K Pursuit.
Last year I received an email from Peter Ettles from Scotland asking me for help towards the World Track Championships. Peter had 3K pursuit as his main discipline and scratch race and points race as secondary events.

That email had the perfect timing because I at the same time was working intensively testing and optimizing the principles for my e-book, Time Effective Cycling Training.

After a few emails I understood that Peter was a very busy person who was very limited in training time and also limited in training time on the track.

So it was not an easy job, but I thought it could be a really good way to see if my high intensity training principles would work on ”˜older’ cyclists. And just to emphasize the power of this test, Peter was actually preparing for the World Championships in his age group. So it couldn’t be a better scene to show how my training concept worked.

Since Peter had the 3K pursuit as his primary goal, I decided to make his 3,5min maximum power output the value we would track his performance progress with.

Getting started with the training towards 3K pursuit

In the first week of the training program he performed 396W with a body weight of only 76,0kg. Riders who have experience with power meter training will know that these numbers are highly respectable. And please remember that this guy was competing in age group 45 to 49.

So it was clear that Peter was already performing really well, but nevertheless, he wanted to do even better.

That was some kind of a challenge for me!

I decided to make a full training plan of 13 weeks with an average training time of 10hours per week (range: 6 to 15hours per week). His training was targeted the physiological skills required for an optimal performance at the track events he was participating in. Though, there was a primary focus on the 3K pursuit, because that was his personal favorite.

When it comes to track cycling, specificity of the training sessions becomes extremely important. So, Peter did a lot of anaerobic and VO2 max intervals in different combinations because it was both time effective training and also very specific towards the challenges he was preparing for.

I would have wished Peter had more time on the velodrome in Manchester, but with a travelling time of app. 6hours it was clear that we had to accept that he wouldn’t get the most optimal training for track cycling.

Here is a snapshot from the training program:

MonTueWedThuFriSatSun
21⁄2hrs

8x(35+25s)

400/200W

2 1/2hrs

3K time trial

+ 1x20min 260W, high cadence. rpm>100

2hrs

5x1000m, ~95%

10min recovery between 1K’s

2hrs

10x
(20s+4.40m )

600/120W

After 12 weeks Peter entered the velodrome in Portugal shortly after performing his best 3,5min test ever. Peter won the bronze final in World Championships 3K Pursuit, Age Group 45 to 49.

Here is the testimonial from Peter Ettles:

“In 2010 I decided to try to get in shape for the world masters track champs. The pursuit was going to be my main aim. It was not going to be a easy task  as I also work full time running my own forestry business. I got a 13 week training programme from training4cyclists.com. First I did  a 3.5 min max test to see what sort of power I was producing. I did 396W.
.
The bulk of the programme consisted of very high intensity intervals varying from 10second sprints up to 5min repeats. The intervals, although being very hard, were a great challenge and really made to look forward to the training as you could actually feel yourself getting better and stronger with every session. At the end of my 13 weeks including a proper taper, I was amazed to find my power over 3.5 mins was now up to 424W. That’s 28W increase! I had also lost a couple of kilos which was an added bonus.
.
I must say that almost all my training was done on the road or on the turbo as I dont live anywhere near a track,so you can imagine my delight when I went to the Worlds and won bronze. I’m going to give it another go this year (2011) and will be sticking with what I have learnt from Jesper’s interval training. With a few tweaks, maybe I can get gold!!”

So this was a success story of how time effective training principles can be used to compete at international level. Peter did a really great job and I was very glad when he won his bronze medal. That result gave me the final confidence to launch my e-book one month later.

If you want to use some of the principles mentioned above, please make sure to get your own copy of Time Effective Cycling Training.

3 Reasons Why Your Attacks Are Unsuccessful

December 22, 2009 by Jesper Bondo Medhus 1 Comment

Attack from Kim Kirchen in a local criterium. Nicki Sorensen struggling to close the gap.Ever thought about why your attacks are unsuccessful? There are 3 main reasons why your attempts to win races don’t work out as you wish:

1) Insufficient VO2 max/ Threshold power

When you ride with the fastest riders it may be difficult for you to just stay with the group. In this case there will not be any opportunity for you to make early, serious attacks unless you increase your VO2max and threshold.

When you get a larger aerobic engine you will realize whether your problems were due to insufficient VO2max/threshold or insufficient anaerobic power. VO2max also plays a major role in the minutes where the attacks start.  It may also be the factor which ensures a successful break. Read more about why VO2 max is Crucial in Road Cycling.

2) Insufficient anaerobic power/sprint

If you feel comfortable during the race, just waiting for the moment to attack, then unsuccessful attacks might be caused by insufficient anaerobic power/sprint. What happens is that the whole bunch reacts when you start to jump and catch you quickly because there is not enough punch in your jump. Also the other riders may be extraordinary aware of your attacks since you have showed that it’s not a problem for you to stay in the group. Read about how to increase anaerobic endurance.

3) Tactical mistakes

Separating yourself from a group is difficult, because you are competing with riders at your own level and they all dream of winning the race. Thus, they are not going to just let you make a solo ride without hunting you to the finish line.

If you are not significantly stronger than your opponents (that is actually quite normal) then you will have to use your mind to make a clever move. Instead of making power-attacks you can make a slow attack to which the other riders will not pay attention. The other riders will probably think “he looks tired and if that is the best he can come up with, he will be back in a few minutes. I do not have to pull him back, he will come by himself. I will save my energy for serious attacks”¦”

And that is exactly the point: You get a gap for free and the bunch doesn’t react (in time) because you did not frighten them with a scary power attack. An extra benefit is that you do not have to make an anaerobic burst to make the gap which will give you a better chance to find a decent pacing strategy. Read about 5 successful tecniques used by winning cyclists.

How to train for anaerobic endurance

February 23, 2008 by Jesper Bondo Medhus 8 Comments


I guess all of you have tried this kind of activity on your bike. We are talking about biking at intensities that can only be maintained for a very few minutes or maybe just seconds. These jumps require anaerobic power which can be trained separately in your training program. There are made several tests to measure maximum oxygen uptake in the lab, but unfortunately there are no similar possibility to measure anaerobic power. Thus, we have to develop indirect methods to evaluate anaerobic power. I think that testing with a power meter will be the best evaluation of anaerobic power for most riders. Find your average power output in a 60sec. all-out test.

Lactate is not responsible for fatigue

One of the biggest myths about anaerobic power is that lactate is responsible for the fatigue. Lactate is just a piece of sliced sugar and a couple of studies have shown that lactate itself does not produce fatigue, in fact one of the studies I will present in the future claims that lactate actually protects the muscles from fatigue. There are probably many reasons why we determine exercise at severe intensity.

Road cyclists don´t train enough anaerobic power

Road cycling is an aerobic discipline with more than 98% of the work covered by aerobic metabolism. Thus, most cyclists don’t offer much attention to training of anaerobic processes. They train for aerobic power and focus on lifting up their anaerobic threshold. Having a high VO2 max and a high anaerobic threshold are the two most important physiological factors with impact on your performance. Nevertheless, many races have breaking points were anaerobic power is essential. If you don’t have enough anaerobic power, you will not be able to drop the riders behind you. What you need is anaerobic power that gives you extra punch in your attacks.

Strong riders don’t win if they lack anaerobic power
If you feel comfortable during the race, just waiting for the moment to attack, then unsuccessful attacks might be caused by insufficient anaerobic power/sprint. What happens is that the whole bunch reacts when you start to jump and catch you quickly because there is not enough punch in your jump. Also the other riders may be extraordinary aware of your attacks since you have showed that it’s not a problem for you to stay in the group.

So how can we solve this problem?
Focused anaerobic training with a power meter! Anaerobic training has never been easier than now. Power meters make it so much easier to produce the correct workload during the intervals (pacing control during a 40second interval is really difficult without a power meter). If you have been riding on track, you will know how much influence pacing control has on performance. I guess that we all have tried to start out too fast on time trials on the roads, but what I try to say, is that hurts so much more when it happens in short events like a 1000m or just in a short interval. If you are not able to maintain watts in the end of a interval, I’m pretty sure that a power meter will help your pacing and after a couple of months you will see that your training is more effective and gives better results.

Anaerobic endurance program

I have made a program for anaerobic training that could be used to develop a higher level of anaerobic endurance. This program is a part of the indoor training programs.

15 minutes – warm up (increasing intensity)
5 x (60sec. maximum intensity + 6 min. recovery)

This program is designed to increase your anaerobic capacity. During the intervals the body is exposed to enormous amounts of anaerobic metabolites. After only a few of these sessions your body will be better to work at an anaerobic environment. This skill is primarily used in competitions, where jumps and sprints demand anaerobic efforts. This art of training is very exhausting and therefore it should primary be used for competition preparation.

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Case studies and experiments

Bronze Medal at 3K Pursuit World Championships with Only 10 Hrs/Week

The Story Behind the 12-Week Winter Training Program

How to Become Stronger Without Adding Muscle Mass

How Much Does Extra Weight Cost on Alpe d’Huez?