Answer: Riding outside generally means a higher intensity and higher TSS than a plan’s prescribed structured workout. Depending on a rider’s goals, their outside ride could hamper later workouts. It’s really a question of what you want to get out of your rides and how much time you’re willing to dedicate … If you’re looking…
Answer: For most athletes, no. Depending on the familiarity and experience with an FTP value, athletes can realistically sustain the power level of FTP in a range from about 40-70 minutes. ** Our default testing format to estimate an athlete’s FTP was changed to the TrainerRoad Ramp Test since this post was published Why Your…
Ever wonder about recovery intervals? The purpose they serve, the durations they last, even the intensities they’re prescribed at? You’re not alone… We had the same question, and so we talked about it in depth on episode of 114 of the Ask a Cycling Coach podcast. Here’s an expansion of that discussion. Furthering performance capabilities…
All Cyclocross Specialty training plans are improved to be more specific to your riding and racing goals. What’s New All Cyclocross plans include even TSS weeks to allow riders to easily integrate training races and higher-priority races into their training. To prepare riders for rapid-fire repeats seen in ‘cross racing, these plans put an emphasis…
All Criterium Specialty training plans have been improved to be more specific to your riding and racing goals. What’s New All Criterium plans include dedicated taper and race weeks. Specifically, week 7 of your plan is suited to B-priority events at any time; and the final week, week 8, is suited to A-priority events. Each…
While the focus of optimal indoor training is to control two critical variables — intensity and duration —heat is another powerful tool to develop fitness and get faster. Before you throw away your fan… Foremost, it’s important to acknowledge our stance on cooling. In almost every situation our suggestion for managing heat indoors is to…
40k TT Specialty training plans have been improved to be more specific to your riding and racing goals. What’s New All 40k TT Specialty plans have a dedicated weekly Time Trial workout. These workouts will help athletes create time trial power, in a time trial position, at roughly time trial durations. TSS has also been…
All cycling-specific Build phase training plans have been improved to fall in line with the newly revised Base plans and be more specific to a rider’s performance goals. What’s New Coach Chad has revamped all Build phase training plans (this does not include triathlon plans) for riders who have completed their Base training and are ready…
The infamous fitness plateau is a state no athlete wishes to face. We’re going to make sure you never find yourself there. Throughout this discussion, we will introduce two foundational theories to understand what happens to our bodies when we train. By doing so, we aim to illuminate why certain practices yield results, while others achieve…
Working hard will only get you so far. There comes a point when you need to strategically plan how to best use your hard work to maximize fitness gains — that’s what training smarter is all about. By exploring our training plan process, we aim to clarify the purpose of each training block you’ll work…