Steel City Endurance Racing

Women's & Men's Cycling Team

Understanding Training Stress – Part 2

Posted by Coach Suzanne on 12/31/09 • Categorized as Training

Understanding Training Stress Part 2 – Build Yourself a Kick Ass Off-Season Plan
The last email I sent out discussed the principal of progressive overload and the three ways you can go about changing your training routine to create progressive overload.
• Frequency
• Intensity
• Time (or Duration)
Most people during the winter training months keep the intensity variable the same and change mostly the time variable…working up to progressively longer rides, especially on the weekends. Depending on your fitness levels, your weekend ride schedule may by a 2 hr ride on Sat and Sunday, a 3 hr ride Sat and a 2 hour ride on Sunday, a 4 hour ride Sat and a 3 hour ride on Sunday etc.   Riding time during the week is typically restricted due to work and daylight, so most people are on the trainer or doing some other ‘cross’ training during the week .
This is a fairly ‘traditional’ approach to what is otherwise known as Base Training but it is only one approach.   In this email I want to talk about what is actually happening during base training rides.
Coaches talk about spending the winter months building your “aerobic engine”.  Aerobic means ‘with oxygen’, and is the metabolic pathway that is most efficient in terms of how fuel is used in your body.  Oxygen and fat can burn completely to create ATP (energy) with waste products of carbon dioxide and water, a ‘clean’ burn with no leftover products to recycle.
Creating ATP in this manner is somewhat slow, but it’s a very efficient fuel source and there is a nearly unlimited supply of fuel (fat).  Even the thinnest people you can think of have days to weeks worth of fat based fuel stored in their body.
When you start to exercise at an intensity where the supplied ATP from fat oxidation can no longer keep up with your muscles need for energy, your body starts to use glucose (sugar) or fuel. Glucose is stored in the muscle cells and the liver in a limited supply of about 2000 calories or so.
When you run out of glucose, you “bonk” and your body has to rely on only fat oxidation for energy, which slows you way down.
In reality, your body is constantly burning both fat and sugar for fuel at all times, but the ratio of primarily fat burning to primarily carb burning changes with the intensity of your exericise.  More intensity burns relatively more carbohydrates and less fat.  Exercise hard enough, and for long enough and you’ll eventually run out of steam.
Hopefully you can see from a practical viewpoint, that the longer you can delay your use of carbohydrates for fuel, the longer you’ll last in a race or a ride.
But here’s the key…you can ride at 10 mph and last all day.  What you really want to be able to do is ride at 20, 22, 24 mph or faster and STILL have carbs left to burn for breaks, chases, surges, lead-outs and sprints.  Or if you’re a triathlon, be able to run after your bike leg.
So lets bring this back to winter base training, or “building your aerobic engine”.
What are the physiologic changes that need to take place in order to build your aerobic engine?
Factors Improving Delivery of Oxygen to the Working Muscles:
Increased Stroke Volume (amount of blood pumped per heartbeat)
Density of capillaries in the muscle bed?Increase in Hemoglobin (amount of oxygen carried per unit of blood)
Factors Improving the Utilization of Oxygen When it Arrives at the Muscle:
Training of Type 2 Fibers to act more like Type 1
Increased Cross sectional area of slow twitch (type 1) muscle fibers?Increased Number of mitochondria in individual muscle cells?Oxidative enzymes that are at work in the mitochondria helping to
Million Dollar Question:  If these are the changes that need to happen, what kind of work should we be doing during the base training season (and beyond) to induce these changes?
Million Dollar Answer:  Training in ALL aerobic zones with an emphasis towards higher intensity.  Aerobic Training Zones include the classic “endurance” zone, but also intensities up to and including threshold and VO2 max.
Traditional base training utilizes the “Endurance” training zone almost exclusively.  While there are benefits to riding in the endurance zone (it’s enjoyable, you can have a conversation, look at the scenery and do it over and over every day), there are drawbacks as well (It can be boring especially if you are stuck indoors, and it takes a long time to see benefits from it..you need to be able to put in the time and the miles)
This is called ‘over-distance’ training or training well over the distances that you are racing at an easy pace. It’s been well known for a long time that this type of training creates many of the changes I listed above…increases the size of slow twitch muscles, tricks type 2 fibers into working like type 1 fibers, increases the stroke volume of the heart, etc.
However, in the past decade or more, there have been innumerable studies that show training at higher intensities, including tempo, sweet spot, threshold and Vo 2 max all induce those aerobic adaptations, only faster!  This means that you can train for less time, and still see the same benefits of LSD type training.   The drawbacks?  It’s harder, it’s less fun, you can’t chit chat during workouts and there is a (slight) risk of injury and a (real) risk of overtraining if you overdo it.
So why don’t more people do this? Why do coaches still prescribe a long cold winter of doing nothing but “Zone 2” training?   A few basic reasons I think.  First, their ideas are rooted in tradition.  Long easy base training is a practice that was first documented in the Soviet Union by a social scientist studying the Russian Track and Field team. His observations were published, translated into English, and carried on by  great coaches like Tudor Bompa who was a mentor to Joe Friel, the author of the “Training Bible” series.
Since the “Training Bible” is probably the biggest selling self-coaching guide for cyclists and triathletes, the majority of cyclists are familiar with this approach. Magazine authors perpetuate these training ideas as do successful athletes who have followed them and go on to coach others (triathlete’s Mark Allen, Gordo Byrn, etc).  Those coach/athletes then go on to write their own books and the information is passed on and on and on.
However, there is a huge, huge flaw in the majority of these popular press books.  Many of these coaches and athletes believe that training at higher intensities will harm you, harm your muscles, harm your metabolic system, ruin your capillaries, result in injury, overtraining and burnout.
Nothing could be further from the truth.  If you arm yourself with sound knowledge and implement it in your training in a progressive periodized fashion, you have the potential to be light years ahead of your competition come the first spring  training races, AND you will have built a strong aerobic foundation on which to start working on those high end efforst…sprints, hill climbs, chases, breaks and whatever other pain you want to throw at your competition.
By adding some of this higher intensity work to your winter training rides, you’ll also enjoy your long easy rides more.  You’ll be fitter, stronger and more comfortable enabling you to stay within your limits while keeping up with your training buddies (unless their also following a kick ass plan).
More coming soon!!!

6827_1068322407706_1815463661_140500_1564398_nBuild Yourself a Kick Ass Off-Season Plan

The last article I wrote discussed the principal of progressive overload and the three ways you can go about changing your training routine to create progressive overload.

• Frequency

• Intensity

• Time (or Duration)

Most people during the winter training months keep the intensity variable the same and change mostly the time variable…working up to progressively longer rides, especially on the weekends. Depending on your fitness levels, your weekend ride schedule may by a 2 hr ride on Sat and Sunday, a 3 hr ride Sat and a 2 hr ride on Sunday, a 4 hr ride Sat and a 3 hr ride on Sunday etc.   Riding time during the week is typically restricted due to work and daylight, so most people are on the trainer or doing some other ‘cross’ training during the week .

This is a fairly ‘traditional’ approach to what is otherwise known as Base Training but it is only one approach.   In this email I want to talk about what is actually happening during base training rides.

Coaches talk about spending the winter months building your “aerobic engine.”  Aerobic means “with oxygen,” and is the metabolic pathway that is most efficient in terms of how fuel is used in your body.  Oxygen and fat can burn completely to create ATP (energy) with waste products of carbon dioxide and water, a “clean” burn with no leftover products to recycle.

Creating ATP in this manner is somewhat slow, but it’s a very efficient fuel source and there is a nearly unlimited supply of fuel (fat).  Even the thinnest people you can think of have days to weeks worth of fat based fuel stored in their body.

When you start to exercise at an intensity where the supplied ATP from fat oxidation can no longer keep up with your muscles need for energy, your body starts to use glucose (sugar) or fuel. Glucose is stored in the muscle cells and the liver in a limited supply of about 2000 calories or so.

When you run out of glucose, you “bonk” and your body has to rely on only fat oxidation for energy, which slows you way down.

In reality, your body is constantly burning both fat and sugar for fuel at all times, but the ratio of primarily fat burning to primarily carb burning changes with the intensity of your exericise.  More intensity burns relatively more carbohydrates and less fat.  Exercise hard enough, and for long enough and you’ll eventually run out of steam.

Hopefully you can see from a practical viewpoint, that the longer you can delay your use of carbohydrates for fuel, the longer you’ll last in a race or a ride.

But here’s the key… you can ride at 10 mph and last all day.  What you really want to be able to do is ride at 20, 22, 24 mph or faster and STILL have carbs left to burn for breaks, chases, surges, lead-outs and sprints.  Or if you’re in a triathlon, be able to run after your bike leg.

So lets bring this back to winter base training, or “building your aerobic engine”.

What are the physiologic changes that need to take place in order to build your aerobic engine?

Factors Improving Delivery of Oxygen to the Working Muscles:

  • Increased Stroke Volume (amount of blood pumped per heartbeat)
  • Density of capillaries in the muscle bed
  • Increase in hemoglobin (amount of oxygen carried per unit of blood)

Factors Improving the Utilization of Oxygen When it Arrives at the Muscle:

  • Training of Type 2 Fibers to act more like Type 1
  • Increased Cross sectional area of slow twitch (type 1) muscle fibers
  • Increased Number of mitochondria in individual muscle cells
  • Oxidative enzymes that are at work in the mitochondria

Million Dollar Question:  If these are the changes that need to happen, what kind of work should we be doing during the base training season (and beyond) to induce these changes?

Million Dollar Answer:  Training in ALL aerobic zones with an emphasis towards higher intensity.  Aerobic Training Zones include the classic “endurance” zone, but also intensities up to and including threshold and VO2 max.

Traditional base training utilizes the “Endurance” training zone almost exclusively.  While there are benefits to riding in the endurance zone (it’s enjoyable, you can have a conversation, look at the scenery and do it over and over everyday), there are drawbacks as well (It can be boring especially if you are stuck indoors, and it takes a long time to see benefits from it. You also need to be able to put in the time and the miles.)

This is called ‘over-distance’ training or training well over the distances that you are racing at an easy pace. It has been well known for a long time that this type of training creates many of the changes I listed above… increases the size of slow twitch muscles, tricks type 2 fibers into working like type 1 fibers, increases the stroke volume of the heart, etc.

However, in the past decade or more, there have been innumerable studies that show training at higher intensities, including tempo, sweet spot, threshold and Vo 2 max all induce those aerobic adaptations, only faster!  This means that you can train for less time, and still see the same benefits of LSD type training.   The drawbacks?  It’s harder, it’s less fun, you can’t chit chat during workouts and there is a (slight) risk of injury and a (real) risk of overtraining if you overdo it.

So why don’t more people do this? Why do coaches still prescribe a long cold winter of doing nothing but “Zone 2” training?   A few basic reasons I think.  First, their ideas are rooted in tradition.  Long easy base training is a practice that was first documented in the Soviet Union by a social scientist studying the Russian Track and Field team. His observations were published, translated into English, and carried on by  great coaches like Tudor Bompa who was a mentor to Joe Friel, the author of the “Training Bible” series.

Since the “Training Bible” is probably the biggest selling self-coaching guide for cyclists and triathletes, the majority of cyclists are familiar with this approach. Magazine authors perpetuate these training ideas as do successful athletes who have followed them and go on to coach others (triathlete’s Mark Allen, Gordo Byrn, etc).  Those coach/athletes then go on to write their own books and the information is passed on and on and on.

However, there is a huge, huge flaw in the majority of these popular press books.  Many of these coaches and athletes believe that training at higher intensities will harm you, harm your muscles, harm your metabolic system, ruin your capillaries, result in injury, overtraining and burnout.

Nothing could be further from the truth.  If you arm yourself with sound knowledge and implement it in your training in a progressive periodized fashion, you have the potential to be light years ahead of your competition come the first spring training races, AND you will have built a strong aerobic foundation on which to start working on those high end efforts…sprints, hill climbs, chases, breaks and whatever other pain you want to throw at your competition.

By adding some of this higher intensity work to your winter training rides, you’ll also enjoy your long easy rides more.  You’ll be fitter, stronger and more comfortable enabling you to stay within your limits while keeping up with your training buddies (unless their also following a kick ass plan).

More coming soon!!!

Coach

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