My Training
In honor of full disclosure, here are my trainingpeaks power workouts. www.trainingpeaks.com/criteriumcoach. If you dig around you can see how I am suffering and improving.
Training and fitness are only part of being able to race criteriums, but without the right types of fitness you will not do well in criteriums. In order to improve the physical systems involved with Criterium racing, you will have to suffer and suffer a lot. Doing a lot of long steady workouts can be tiring but they are not painful. When you have a hard day it needs to be balls out hard, the lactic acid needs to be filling up in your arms (if you have done hard intervals you know what I mean), and your body wants to puke to make you stop. You can not do this for more than three days in a row, and then you need to let your body recover.
I personally use the following training plan: 3 days on with 2 days off for 4 cycles and then 5 days recovery. This type of training plan allows you to push your body hard and then let if recover, but this cycle does not fit well into the conventional 7 day week. It does not always work well for weekend rides with the team/club. Your body systems don’t know what a week is but it knows what it will do when subjected to physical stress and rest. I find that the first day of the hard workouts is okay but painful, the second day is always easier to hit higher power numbers but feels worse, and the third day hurts and is really hard to high the power numbers that you hit on second day. The third day is the key to this type of schedule because you have pushed your physical systems hard but you need to take them past comfortable, and it will be hard. Your mind will tell you to stop, but you need to tell your legs to go harder! As you hit the 4th cycle of 3 days on/2 day off, you will feel tired but will be able to hit some high power numbers during your intervals. When you come off of the 5 day rest cycle, your body will have recovered and will be able hit higher power numbers and handle more or longer intervals. This is why we train hard to get faster!
My workouts are focused around hitting VO2max efforts, shorter Lactic acid, and sprints. I like my VO2max intervals to be shorter 3 to 5 mins with an equal amount of rest. I always start with 3 to 6 intervals so that my legs are nice and warmed up. These efforts are always as hard as you can go for the intervals. The effort should consistent so you need to pace yourself on these efforts, but these should be well above your LT level. These are not easy but they are necessary to build fitness to handle breakaway efforts. Typically, the first minute is easy but as the body starts to use up the energy provided by the Anaerobic Glycolysis system and the aerobic system kicks in, you will start to suffer to hold the power levels and you will be breathing heavy. The long the interval the more the VO2 max effect.
Now, the pain. The Anaerobic Glycolysis system is the energy system mainly used during efforts of 30 to 90 seconds of hard efforts, and this is the energy system that produces lactic acid, i.e. what you think is pain. I like to start off with 60 second intervals. When you go all for about 30 seconds the lactic acid builds up quickly, but you have to push through. I typically will do 4 to 6 intervals with 4 to 5 mins of rest. I like to hit it hard and then settle into a high power output and then try to hold it for the rest of the interval. These are the efforts that will allow you to create separation from the pack during a race.
Sprinting efforts help develop the Creatine Phosphate system and build muscles and coordination for sprinting. The Creatine Phosphate system is the energy system used for short and high power 8-10 seconds of all out sprinting effort. The CP system is not as painful as the Anaerobic Glcolysis system but requires all out efforts with long recovers between intervals. Long recover is critical because the CP system takes longer to replenish the energy system. I will do 3 to 6 intervals of 8-10 seconds with 5 to 10 minutes of rest. I save these for the last part of the workout. The body is fatigued from VO2 and lactic acid intervals but you still can go hard.
Here is a chart that I use to monitor my progress from WKO+
The last week few workouts have been great progression on my power output. I have been concentrating on intensity and sprinting during the last few training blocks. I have been riding inside for the last few months and finally I have been able to get some warm rides. It is hard to work on sprinting the trainer. You can see the jump in March where I was able to start riding outside. Results so far as of 3/28:
- Max: 1464
- 5 sec: 1391
- 30 sec: 799
- 60 sec: 650
- 3 min: 424
- 8 min: 360
I love to have some targets for my workouts and to reach new max outputs.
The results are are interesting, but it is also interesting to look at the WKO+ performance management chart during the same time period. There has been one major rest periods where I did no riding while I was in Europe from 3/7 to 3/12. Since the 7 day rest period, I have been doing 3on/2off plus my rides have been outside and longer. The spread between the ATL (Purplish) and the TSB (Yellow) and the rasing CTL indicate a training stress. I felt this on 3/24 when I was able to do a new best 3 min of 424 but I could not sprint well or hit high number on the rest of the 3 mins or the 60 second intervals. The two days off helped me recover for my workouts on the last two days. I will ride hard tommorrow but will rest for 5 days after this ride. Looking at the power output performance during the three cycles of 3on/2off there was good progression, but there was a step function when you compare the first three to the next three after the 7 days rest. I am exicted to see if I can bring the same increase after the next 5 day rest period.
Here is the WKO+ performance management chart for the same time period:
Here is a great article about the benefits of hard intervals: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/03/100311123639.htm and http://jp.physoc.org/content/588/6/1011
Ride hard (I do)
Steve
