Building Base

[toolonglegs]

I remember hearing someone talking about Wiggo after his training crash late last year... It was mentioned that with two months you can go from nothing back to pretty close to good form, although 3 month was better. Is this realistic for joe blog as much as joe rocket?.

[vander]

DD these are early days November is still a long way away, I am getting up my general fitness before focusing on the more specific efforts.

Last year I raced RAW before getting injured and I was coming second in Div 2 before getting injured despite riding 15-16 hours during most of it (which was affecting my racing). So I do know about track and how specific it is, however I did get a lot better on the track by riding a lot of hills and by riding my trainer lots, I did no track specific training and was still able to compete well.

Track state champs is my main goal however is not my only goals I plan on doing a few road races such as Goulburn to Sydney so I do need a wider variety in my training.

My current plan is to get a coach mid-june by then I should be back where I was last year or a bit above and my plan at the moment is to go with Alex's crew.

[Derny Driver]

DD these are early days November is still a long way away, I am getting up my general fitness before focusing on the more specific efforts.

Last year I raced RAW before getting injured and I was coming second in Div 2 before getting injured despite riding 15-16 hours during most of it (which was affecting my racing). So I do know about track and how specific it is, however I did get a lot better on the track by riding a lot of hills and by riding my trainer lots, I did no track specific training and was still able to compete well.

Track state champs is my main goal however is not my only goals I plan on doing a few road races such as Goulburn to Sydney so I do need a wider variety in my training.

My current plan is to get a coach mid-june by then I should be back where I was last year or a bit above and my plan at the moment is to go with Alex's crew.

Alex's crew are the second best track crew in the State haha

Goulburn to Sydney is one heck of a race, super fast and very hectic. Its like the B2B ramped up to a new level DDJnr said they averaged 50kph for the first hour last year. Lots of crashes and close calls. The guys from my club who do it do a solid 5 hour training ride with plenty of mountains in it every weekend as well as the normal weekly stuff. Some motorpacing might help too. After Goulburn you can pare it back and start doing the track drills.

Good stuff. I hope your training continues on its upward trend.

PS I actually wasn't joking about Bicisport

[Solirossi]

My 2c is that a base period is very important in any training program. The level or intensity of everyones base period will vary, however the idea is that your body, like everything in nature is cyclical.

It is unreasonable to expect a constant increase in training load and performance over a year without giving the body time to rest and find a new level of base fitness.

Combine that with the fact that when training on a bike it is nearly impossible to improve two areas at the same time. A simple example is looking at what is required to increase maximal power/force for a sprint and increasing endurance. These things require two specific types of training, and each type of effort is detrimental to the other type of fitness. Allow me to elaborate, doing a base period aims to increase aerobic endurance (zone 2) when your HR is sitting in this zone for long periods (z2 or 'base' training is not necessarily slow) your body gets specific benefits: efficiency in using fat as fuel as opposed to carbs, increased capilirisation, extra recruitment of fast twitch fibres to slow twitch fibres etc...

So on the surface of it that will give you a slower sprint...less fast twitch fibres etc.... than high intensity efforts, intervals, hill repeats etc... will help increase maximal force/power but do little to keep you fresh at the end of a 100k road race.

This is where periodisation comes in, and in turn a Base phase, build phase, peak phase and race phase.

In a base period its about volume and longer rides, by building a strong aerobic fitness level you can then build on that with more intense sessions that target your other limiters. However there is always going to be aerobic maintenance rides in the build and peak phase, these tend to become recovery rides for the intense stuff.

To answer your original questions about length and time of rides, in the base period its best to make the rides as long as possible and not be multiple over the course of a day, as a lot of the benefits and gains you want to make in the base period are best achieved at the end of long rides, so in turn you will get a better benefit by doing one 2 hour ride than an hour in the morning and an hour in the afternoon.

The converse is true for the build and peak phase, doing more frequent but shorter rides is better, and doing two rides a day is even better. It allows you to be better rested prior to an effort so you can go harder for that effort and get more benefit from it.

There are many on here a lot smarter than I, however this is the plan I am currently using and it seems to be working.

A great book is 'The Cyclists Training Bible'

[Chookman]

A great book is 'The Cyclists Training Bible'

You were doing OK till you came out with this!

Friel's methods are more applicable to cyclists who have heaps of time to train 15 hours + pw. For your average cyclist training 10 or less hours per week, spending months riding around in level 2 is not very productive.

Do a search on Friel in the power training forum and you'll get an idea on what the majority think of his methods.

[trailgumby]

Can still get great results by adapting Friel's principles to less hours eg, 8-12.

I do find, though, that I need to do a minimum of 10 or so with the primary sessions being 3-4 hr on a weekend session with midweek sessions being maintenance. Trying to do less (6-8) a la Time-Crunched Cyclist doesn't work IME.

[foo on patrol]

The whole idea of these books is to, take out what can be applied to your circumstance and go from there!

Foo

[Chookman]

The whole idea of these books is to, take out what can be applied to your circumstance and go from there!

Foo

True.

Friel is over-rated - there is much better stuff out there. His whole periodisation theory is a rip-off from a book written 25 years ago by Rob Sleamaker. So many flaws in his methodology including the need to have a recovery week every 3rd or 4th week.

[foo on patrol]

Yeah things have changed a lot from then, just like when I was training in the 70s and early 80s. We used to train hard every day bar Friday where we rolled a long a bit slower because we generally raced Friday night and depending on the carnival, either both Saturday afternoon and night and Sunday or just Sunday.

The only trouble with how we did things was you hit more flat spots than a 50 cent piece has, where as now, you do hard, easy all week and the only time I took a break was generally in January after the Gold Coast 6 day and that was just rolling every day for a month with an increase in the speed towards the month, no racing at all.

Foo

[Derny Driver]

..... after the Gold Coast 6 day ...
Foo

What year was that Foo? Do you have a copy of the program?

[foo on patrol]

No sorry DD. I think they were 1979 and 1980. Shane Sutton was teamed up with my mate Evan Dawson, the Blackman Brothers where there also. I was teamed with Kevin Menz but lost him on the third or forth night in a crash. Shane and my mate won it, I can't for the life of me remember who came second but I got third with another bloke (obviously) that I was paired with the day after the crash.

I will see if my mate can remember for you DD and let you know.

Foo

[trailgumby]

The whole idea of these books is to, take out what can be applied to your circumstance and go from there!

Foo

True.

Friel is over-rated - there is much better stuff out there. His whole periodisation theory is a rip-off from a book written 25 years ago by Rob Sleamaker. So many flaws in his methodology including the need to have a recovery week every 3rd or 4th week.

Tudor Bompa, actually, which he acknowledges. And far from being a flaw, the recovery week works.

And who cares whether or not it is original, really (so long as sources are acknowledged)? All I care about is whether or not the science is sound and factual, and whether I can apply it usefully to my situation.

For example, if I was paying someone like Alex Simmons or Mark Fenner to coach me, the fact they *aren't* using original material, but instead are using solid, empirical, peer reviewed and published scientific evidence on which to base their coaching advice ("standing on the shoulders of giants" if you will) actually gives me more confidence to trust their advice than if I was using some guy with, erm, "unique" approaches to performance improvement.

[Chookman]

The whole idea of these books is to, take out what can be applied to your circumstance and go from there!

Foo

True.

Friel is over-rated - there is much better stuff out there. His whole periodisation theory is a rip-off from a book written 25 years ago by Rob Sleamaker. So many flaws in his methodology including the need to have a recovery week every 3rd or 4th week.

Tudor Bompa, actually, which he acknowledges. And far from being a flaw, the recovery week works.

And who cares whether or not it is original, really (so long as sources are acknowledged)? All I care about is whether or not the science is sound and factual, and whether I can apply it usefully to my situation.

For example, if I was paying someone like Alex Simmons or Mark Fenner to coach me, the fact they *aren't* using original material, but instead are using solid, empirical, peer reviewed and published scientific evidence on which to base their coaching advice ("standing on the shoulders of giants" if you will) actually gives me more confidence to trust their advice than if I was using some guy with, erm, "unique" approaches to performance improvement.

Recovery weeks work when you need them. Could be 6 weeks, could be 8 weeks. taking a whole 7 days recovery every 4 weeks is rarely needed; especially at lower volumes.

Friels methods are hardly mainstream. I think Friel's methods would be considered more "unique" than most and go against what most coaches are using these days.

[heymish]

I think the major misunderstanding here is that Base = easy.

Whilst Base training is generally associated with lower intensity training Z 2/3 it incorporates longer training times and therefore high overall training loads.
The problem becomes as already noted by various people is that if you aren't able to commit a large amount of time to training or the amount of time that you train per week is static then the ability to implement a block of low intensity high volume training is reduced.
Base training should form part of an overall training plan, it should be implemented for a specific reason and doesn't solely focus on building an endurance base, it should cover muscular strength, and target skills to develop you as a rider whether that be cadence or cornering.
Like all forms of training it should progress and a block of base training doesn't stay the same week by week it should move you towards your next periodisation phase and equip you with the ability to cope with the rigorous training to come.

[trailgumby]

taking a whole 7 days recovery every 4 weeks is rarely needed; especially at lower volumes.

Friels methods are hardly mainstream. I think Friel's methods would be considered more "unique" than most and go against what most coaches are using these days.

This comment seems to be based on some rather inaccurate assumptions, if I'm reading it correctly.

Friel, Fenner et al nowhere recommend taking a full 7 days off the bike. A recovery week is simply lower intensity and volume.

But yes, you're right about lower volumes, you can get away without a recovery week, but then I'd expect fitness progression to be static or slow since the training load is insufficient.

[Chookman]

taking a whole 7 days recovery every 4 weeks is rarely needed; especially at lower volumes.

Friels methods are hardly mainstream. I think Friel's methods would be considered more "unique" than most and go against what most coaches are using these days.

This comment seems to be based on some rather inaccurate assumptions, if I'm reading it correctly.

Friel, Fenner et al nowhere recommend taking a full 7 days off the bike. A recovery week is simply lower intensity and volume.

But yes, you're right about lower volumes, you can get away without a recovery week, but then I'd expect fitness progression to be static or slow since the training load is insufficient.

No you aren't reading my comments correctly: I stated that Friel recommends 7 days recovery every 4th week, not 7 days off the bike.

Many (not all) cyclists training at lower volume tend to spend a lot of time at tempo/ SST which is vastly different (and more productive) than Friels love of JRA (just riding around) in the base period(s). Again, I am talking about the average cyclist on lowish volumes.

Anyhow, whatever works for you. IMO there is a lot of really good stuff out there which is more relevant than the stuff Friel pushes. I'd take advice from from Andy Coggan, Alex Simmons, Bill Black (to name a few) any day of the week over Friel.

[Ginantonicus]

The best best base training I have found was being the Bucket Boy during grape picking. Carting buckets of grapes around for 8+ hours for three months
5 days a week and all of a sudden your fitness goes through the roof.

[anth73]

A great book is 'The Cyclists Training Bible'

You were doing OK till you came out with this!

Friel's methods are more applicable to cyclists who have heaps of time to train 15 hours + pw. For your average cyclist training 10 or less hours per week, spending months riding around in level 2 is not very productive.

Do a search on Friel in the power training forum and you'll get an idea on what the majority think of his methods.

Not quite the case. Look carefully at his recommended workouts in each of the base periods and you won't spend months riding around in HRZ2.

He do recommends a recovery week every 3rd or 4th week. This does not mean seven days of little to no riding, it's as many days as you need to feel fresh.

From personal experience the Friel approach to training helped me move up from Masters C to Masters B. it worked for me, it may or may not work for you.