It’s traditional thinking that during winter when you’re doing base training you should be doing as long of rides as you can and at a very low intensity. This is the correct intention if you have enough time to bring about the type of adaptations you want. But there’s a catch.
The majority of cyclists are time crunched and they can’t do as long of rides as they wish. That’s the big issue.
What often ends up happening during base conditioning is a cyclist will get in the habit of riding very easily and at a low intensity. But, to their detriment, they actually don’t have enough time to get the type of gains they’re chasing. To earn gains, you have to provide a stimulus that outpaces what your body can do right now.
When a cyclist rides easy for an hour or two, which they’re likely already capable of doing, they’re not creating a stimulus for change. However, when they ride for 4 or 5 hours at a relatively easy pace, that usually exceeds what they’re used to. If they don’t have those long durations to ride on a regular basis, they have to exceed their capabilities with intensity or, again, they’re not achieving a stimulus that later brings with it a change.
If you want to see gains from riding at a low intensity you have to ride a lot. This kind of volume requires a cyclist to dedicate around 12-20 hours a week to training. If you don’t have that kind of time, which most cyclists don’t, then it’s best to commit to another base-conditioning approach.
Key Takeaway
Many cyclists are doing their base training at low intensity with good intention. The trouble is, they often don’t have the circumstances in their life that allow them to ride as many hours as they need to achieve real fitness gains.
Action Item
Figure out how many hours you can realistically dedicate to training this winter, keeping how much stress your body can take in mind. Once you have your number, you can confidently decide the approach to base training you should take.
This is one section of my Winter Training Guide. Read the full guide here to discover 11 coaching tips to help you become a faster cyclist right now.
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I am a triathlete and have been doing your base training. I just started wk 5 and noticed that you now have base training for triathlons. While doing the regular base I still have been running and swimming, but I have been mindful of going at a reduced pace for longer durations.
Would you suggest stopping and switching over to the triathlon based program? The triathlon workouts (halft ironman) seem considerably shorter than what I am doing now.
Hi Joe,
No need to derail your training structure if you’re happy with your progress, workout scheduling and the workout durations you’re currently using. I think you might benefit from cutting over during your Build conditioning though since the swim & run workouts are periodized in much the same way the bike workouts are and will see to it that you race fitness comes together at the right time in all 3 disciplines.
This makes total sense. But for newbies like me it’s good to follow an established plan like TrainerRoad provides. I can easily spare 1 hour per day, but even when choosing low volume sweet spot we end up with a 3 hour ride, which I cannot do even on weekends (so I chose mid volume). How do we execute a training exchange? Do we simply match TTS? Surely some workouts will trigger different types of stress, which ones should we choose? Does this lead directly to the Build trainings then?
Hey there, Francois,
The longer rides on the weekend are basically a way to accumulate more stress but in a less punishing/damaging manner thereby allowing you to elevate your weekly training load without necessitating excess recovery time.
There’s nothing in Low Vol Sweet Spot longer than 90 minutes though, so I’m guessing you meant High Vol. In that case, with 3 high-intensity workouts already in your legs, there are few (any?) riders who need a fourth day of intensity, so the challenge shifts toward longer, higher-volume done at lower intensity rides.
If for any number of reasons you can’t do that in one block, you can break that ride into pieces by doing part in the morning & part in the evening or even spreading it out over different days, but the training effect can be a little different when a single, long endurance ride becomes multiple shorter endurance rides even thought the total stress/TSS is equal.
For most riders though, this isn’t a big concern, especially in the base phase of training. Just recognize that if you’re a long-course athlete, e.g. full- or half-distance triathlete, century/fondo rider, marathon MTB’er, etc. that it’s wise to get a sense of the challenges that come with multiple, continuous hours in the saddle.
Hi Chad. I’m new to TrainerRoad, and have done 2 x half iron distance TRIs in the last 2 seasons with a short history in Triathlon. I’m now wanting to do Century undulating and hilly races, whilst maintaining TRI fitness development. I’m an enthusiast, not a racer. I’ve completed 3 Century’s over the last 3 years, but in 2016 I’ll do 4 in the 1 season. I have a Century in 2 weeks, then 9 months till my next Century, followed by 3 in 3 months. I have have come off 7 months varied amature but structured training, and wanting to develop my cycling to become a strength in TRI, so I can enjoy them more. Q. Would I start with a TrainerRoad base, and the work through the appropriate programs, or miss the base? I’d be using a mid-volume program. Thanks, and loving TrainerRoad and the ease of understanding the sessions, etc.
Hi Dion,
If your season & events accommodate it, I rarely recommend skipping base training because even quite fit athletes can benefit in unexpected ways (e.g. form work, climbing drills, etc.) as well as some more expected ways like another lift in FTP over the course of the Sweet Spot Base I & II plans.
In your case, you have a really long stretch before your block of centuries rolls around, and time spent addressing your base fitness (starting after you’ve sufficiently recovered from your century in a couple weeks) will most definitely pay off during that long run up to those events as well as between each of the events where you can simply focus on maintenance.
Hi,
I used TrainerRoad last winter to prepare for the spring & summer and it worked amazing. I used the Sweet Spot plans as I already had some fitness.
However, I’ve been off the bike (not due to injury but other non-fitness commitments) for just over 6 months.
As expected, my FTP has taken a huge dive to an all time low and although I was ok with the 2×8 test, I could feel that I just was well away from feeling ready for intese work. Of course, the added negative is that my weight has risen too which I’d like to shift. I did notice last year that Sweet Spots where not really shifting too much weight.
Therefore, I was thinking to start off with the Traditional I and repeat weeks 2 and 3, so do Weeks 1,2,3,2,3,4. Then after this 6 weeks, move to Sweet Spot II and then III as the time commitments with Traditional II and III is just a little too much to be able to spare.
Do you think this plan would work out?
Thanks and it’s good to be back in the saddle (although my underparts don’t agree!)
Hey Craig,
First off, I feel for ya. Getting back at it, especially with some extra weight on the bones, is a tough road but one most of us have traveled – so hang in there!
Sounds like a solid plan. I’d basically refer to your Trad Base time as pre-base training and it’s a great way to go if your season accommodates it. Two key aspects of your weight loss goal though:
1 – Your diet. I’m pretty sure Jonathan is drumming up a blog post on this topic at this very moment, so look for that in the days to come. But simply, avoid sugar/carbohydrate when it’s not necessary; and with Trad Base I, it’s rarely necessary.
2 – Time in place of intensity. If burning fat is what you’re after, your volume (relative to your diet too) is of key importance. So if you only plan to train for a couple hours a week, weight loss will require a relatively low caloric intake due to the fact that low intensity + low time = low training volume. This is why we typically veer high-intensity when the weekly training hours are limited.
But if you have a good amount of weekly training time available, the time component rises and with it your volume comes up to a point where you won’t have to restrict your calories quite so much. But there’s still very much an “energy balancing act” to be performed here, something we’ll try to elaborate on in our upcoming blog post.
Again, best of luck and stay tuned, Craig!
Hey Chad – a quick question on diet and the body’s fuel preference during the base period. It’s noted on the site that “the primary goal of [the Traditional Base phase] is to develop or improve your aerobic endurance by shifting your body’s fuel preference toward fat while working at low intensities”. I’ve been coupling Traditional Base sessions with a LCHF diet to encourage this adaptation.
In light of the above article and the other information on the site, I’ve realised that I’m going to get much more bang for my training buck with a Sweet Spot plan. My questions are whether the intensity of the Sweet Spot plan will undermine current efforts to become ‘fat adapted’?
Hey Simon,
That’s a really tough balance to manage and I’ve struggled with it myself (and actually abandoned my fat-adaptation efforts for the short term since racing season is upon us, training camps in particular).
There is evidence supporting the possibility of fat-adapted athletes achieving peak fat oxidation as high as about 76% of VO2max, so maybe as high as 90% of FTP which falls within the Sweet Spot range, and this is really encouraging. But these are athletes who had already become fat-adapted and been getting most of their caloric intake from fat for at least 6 months. How they got there wasn’t discussed, but my guess is they didn’t do much or any high-intensity work during the adaptation process. But like I said, it’s a guess.
I very much wanted to become fat-adapted myself so I could see just how hard I could work (post-adaptation as well as during) and answer these questions from experience, albeit anecdotal, rather than speculation. Someday! I’m not sure how far down that road you’ve travelled, but if you’ve become fat-adapted you could see what you can get away with.
My biggest concern would probably be the VO2max work since I’m not sure just how much glycogen availability a LCHF diet really yields, especially if you’re way down at the 10% end of things. There’s always the prospect of cycling your carbohydrates relative to hard workouts and key events, but then you have to determine how sensitive you are to carbohydrate ingestion and how substantially it disrupts your state of ketosis.
All very, very interesting though, Simon! And I’m guessing you’ve done your fair share of reading, but if you haven’t yet read Dr. Volek’s FASTER study, here’s a link: http://www.metabolismjournal.com/article/S0026-0495(15)00334-0/fulltext