Pro/Elite training

Training
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Thomas de Gendt - was curious about him, checked his Strava. Couldn’t check all his rides but his 2019 looked sort of this way:

Nov/Dec 18: base, base, base (with the occasional Zwift ride which would include some intensity)
Jan: Racing, Australia, no “particular training” apart from “cruising around”
Feb: once or twice per week sessions like this

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zoom into the intensity

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these non-intermittent 10min intervals are at about 100%FTP (FTP estimated from his TT yesterday)

This is a very typical workout for him. He does not seem to do long, sustained hill climbing efforts like many other pros (even non climbers).

Another one:

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All other rides are moe cruising around with occasional pickups <10min into SST/Threshold on climbs

Starting March he’s only racing:

Paris-Nizza
Catalonia
Tour de Romandie
Giro d’Italia
(BE Nationals)
TdF

He rides all three GTs this year. Between these stages races he’s mainly just “cruising around”. No real structure, no dedicated intensity efforts as shown above.

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He’s probably on TR and keeps it off Strava. :grin:

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He’s clearly a Zwift aficionado

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and look at the way the “spiky” efforts are mixed right in with the 10min MLSS work. that’s simulating a series of attacks/pulls in a break, followed by brief recovery and then the MLSS – simulating how he would race, and instead of just doing one block like that then riding tempo all day, he does several blocks of that.

I’ve seen domestic pros do something similar, but not over such a long ride – something like 3 x 20s, but broken up into 5 x 30-30, 5min FTP, 5 x 30-30, 5min FTP, or 10 x 30-30, 10min FTP.

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At the [2018] Tour Down Under I did three days of chasing the breakaway and then one day I was in the break. That is good training for later in the season. That’s 300-350 watts for three or four hours , that’s the power you produce. In training that would be impossible – maybe you could for an hour, but then… mentally you just can’t do it.

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I think it’s probably similar to brick runs in triathlon training. Getting yourself mentally prepared for the feeling of running off the bike is half the battle.

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Thought this might be of interest to some in here - not so much the race data side (though that is interesting too), but the way they establish rider fitness. You can see a couple of screenshots with a rider profile, and what looks to be pretty subjective fitness measure - sleep quality, overall fatigue, stress, mood, soreness, and motivation. I think they must have some sort of app for the riders to rate this, but at a guess its not far off from using a whoop or something like that…

Also the training load - looks like they split it into aerobic and anaerobic load, and some more measures like that?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Quj7AiH9tA

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Q&A with Dan Lorang, coach of Jan Frodeno and Bora-Hansgrohe (one of the two teams that has impressed me the most this year). In German but I will summarize two points which are relevant for this thread (he basically works only with elite athletes).

  1. How do you choose the right training strategie for a new athlete?

(Here he refers only to triathlon … it’s a triathlon show).
He tests VO2max and VLamax. Sets this in context with race demands (short vs long distance). Considers a high vo2max absolutely essential for short distance. Hence, if a short distance athlete has a low vo2max he will focus on this

  1. How to periodize when many peaks in a year (long distance triathlon has onle 1 or 2, but how does he work with Bora).

(this fits nicely with the observation on de Gendt. Basically no real structure when race season starts after March)
This was something very new to him when he came to cycling. These days all races are sort of important. Yes, there are AAAA-races but they have to perform always when they are at the start line. Hence, they can only periodize strictly up to the start of the real race season. Then it gets muddy and they have to “navigate” through race season and structure the training accordingly. Strict periodisation models like block training are not feasible, therefore.

I must say, this has been my observation so far as well (Strava & co). I haven’t seen anyone training as strictly as described in the Velonews podcast above. Of course, someone would expect teams like Ineos have a tighter training schedule but this is not available to us unfortunately. I’ve just seen heavy training blocks by riders like Carlos Verona (Moviestar) and Sepp Kuss (Jumbo-Visma) in preparation of GTs. And those are sort of similar across the board.

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Besides Bora, Jumbo-Visma is the other team that impresses me quite a lot this season. As pointed out in the cycling podcast early this year, they’ve made a lot of changes this season. One was to hire sports scientist/physiologists and “centralize” training. As with Bora, seeing the performance of the entire team, may indicate that this approach is working. Despite not having the most expensive riders in their rooster.

What seems to be very typical for the GT riders in J-V are heavy blocks with lot’s of riding at endurance pace and doing 4-5 longer efforts during the ride. Can’t really say how intense these are but I assume the overall goal is to build fatigue resistance. And it reminds me of what Sascha Weber has said in one of the podcasts.

As an example Sepp Kuss. Seems to be in the final prep for the Vuelta (if he rides there). Typical of this high volume block

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are sessions like this:

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Emanuel Buchmann really impressed me yesterday, on par with Bernal. Great development.

EB is coached by Dan Lorang, two points that are interesting here:

  1. DL made the following comment in the interview above: a right training approach is not so relevant for highly gifted athletes. For others an individualized approach is important. However, his experience is that you can make up a lot with the proper training

  2. Ralph Denk, Team manager of Bora: EB is not a highly gifted athlete. But he’s a hard worker and he works with one of the best coaches in the world.

EB’s development has been gradual. And apparently his training has paid off. We’ve already learned a lot about the training approached by DL or Sebastian Weber. Here’s a little peek into EB’s training, there is a nice consistency with wha DL and SW are saying on various podcasts:

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This is a sample week 3 weeks before a Grand Tour. He is working on a weakness, pace changes. Usually he would do more “regular” low cadence musclular endurance work at SST. Here he includes pick-ups to simulat pace changes while climbing. He would also do cadence variations for simulation.

One similarity among pros is the importance of low cadence muscular endurance work. They do these a lot. A lot. Often something like 2-3min@50-60, 1-2min@80-90.

Physiologically this is to fatigue the fast twitch fibres and to make them more aerobic. To lower Vlamax. Hence, this is one component to work on fatigue resistance.

I find this sort of interesting because these days there is this “internet wisdom” that you shouldn’t do low cadence work anymore. Basically based on one post by Coggan which actually refers only to strength building, not lactate clearance and so. But with so many other internet truths, this differenation got lost over time.

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Of course, Pinot would be highly interesting. Unfortunately his Strava uploads exclude power. Hence, not much can be derived.

However, one of his team mates - Sebastien Reichenbach - uploads everything. And what’s interesting, the team trains a lot together. Really very often. This is slightly to different to all the other pros I’ve looke to.

Similar pattern as with the other GT pros:

  • Importance of low cadence muscular endurance work. However, it is not used as often as by Jumbo-Visma or Bora.
  • a lot of base riding in the mountains. Always in a team. A lot of recon work of the key TdF stages.
  • often you would see some intensity in the beginning of a climb (anything like 60/60s or 30/30s). Then the major part of the climb in endurance pace. I guess this also goes into the direction of fatigue resistance training.

Overall similar, no grand periodisation scheme. No sophisticated interval work. Not a whole lot intensity. Key seems really building this fatigue resistance again. I assume racing provides enough of a stimulus for intensity.

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From a couple of articles by smart guy/coach Kolie Moore (@Emprical Cycling):

4 Questions You Should Ask Before Starting Any Training Program

For instance, sprinting while fresh is the most physiologically effective way to increase maximum speed; the athlete is fresh and can make the most power, leading to the greatest adaptation. But sprinting while tired will help train the phenomenon of the “final kick” in a race. It is not the ideal way to increase overall sprint power output, but can be crucial for success.

You’re Training Too Hard for Criteriums

One of the most common problems competitive cyclists experience is being unable to produce their best performances at the end of a race. This is directly due to either a natural or trained tendency to plow those glycogen stores early in a workout; low glycogen stores decrease all power output, including sprint power (reference 1). Simply put; the more anaerobic (glycogen-fueled) power you have, the less likely you are to have your very best efforts at the end of a race.

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I own a book from Fred Grappe (Pinot trainer, only available in French for the moment :upside_down_face: )

Here’s a bit of info i got from this :
Low cadence work at Z3 to train muscle strength endurance : Basically when you are in Z3 at 60rpm, you exert about the same amount of force on the pedal that if you were at threshold with 80-90 rpm.

For intensity, one of his preferred session is the Gimenez (used alot in France) : 1 minute in Z5 (your best 5min power or map) and 4 min in sweet spot x9 (45 minutes total) The goal is to have a cardiac drift kinda like this : 27.jpg (image)
For Endurance, his hardest session is to ride at race pace for your average race duration (or even better do a race) and then add a few hours in Z2 after.

There are some pro training samples in the book (including some tour de France preparation, altho all the sample are at least 10 years old so might be slightly outdated) basically lot of long endurance ride in z1-z2-z3, some intensity and cadence work (often on the same day but separated : intensity in the morning and cadence afternoon for example), and some specificity sessions (and of course some races to get in shape).

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Had some time, went through the entire seaon of S Reichenbach.

First of all a correction: I don’t see a lot of low cadence work with him overall. This is different. He seems to adress the “lowering vlamax”/fatiguing fast twitch fibres differently. Later on this.

Nov/Dec: just riding around; training camp in Spain: mostly just riding around at endurance pace.

Jan: first few climbs at zone 3. Training camp on Mount Teide: lots of zone 3 climbing. 29 Jan was the first time he hit an intensity above threshold: 2x15 or so over-unders

Feb: First stage races: Tour Provence/UAE Tour. “Just riding around” in training.

March: more climbing at threshold intensity now. And some low cadence work.

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Or sprints before a climb which is then ridden at zone 2/3. Example:

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as said before this is a general pattern, long rides with 2 or 3 “efforts” equally spaced in. These can be sprints or short (10-15min SST/threshold efforts).

These sprints are sort of similar to wht Dan Lorang prescribes for long endurance rides. Buchman does a sprint every 20min. It’s all about hitting those fast twitch fibres. Force them to adapt, build fatigue resistance.

These sprints and low cadence work at SST are often cited as tools for this.

March-continue: stage race catalunya.

April/May: Fleche Wallone/Tour de Romandie. Early April he squeezed in a heavy training week with several sessions like this:

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And if he hits >Threshold, only with over-unders

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For itself these sessions are probably not too hard for a pro but the stress comes probably from doing several of them subsequently.

Second half of May: lots of zone 3 climbing

June: Critérium du Dauphiné; Suisse Nationals (#1) … two heavy climbing days (SST/Threshold/Zone5 OUs) in the week before the Nationals

July: TdF

  • Lots of Zone 3/SST climbing
  • almost no intensity above threshold.
  • rides a lot, a lot lot
  • stage races/race calendar do(es) not allow dedicated training blocks after Feb (with a few exceptions).
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Digging your contributions - a quick thank you so you know someone is reading!

-Mark

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Yes @sryke, super nice contribution. I am enjoying these too. Thanks :slightly_smiling_face:

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Am I missing something here, I was trying to calculate the average IF for Pinot. I am taking the training load as TSS. I then divide by 100 and divide by the hours on bike. Finally take the sqrt. This nets me an IF of 1.76…

What am I missing? Does training load also include gym workouts?

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It’s not TSS:

Each session was rated for “Session RPE” from 1-10. Internal Training Load (TL) was then calculated as this sRPE x ride duration. So a 60 min ride that was rated at 7 would have a TL of 420

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Am i reading the image right and sweet spot for this rider is only 240 watts? I take it this is not Pinot!

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