The 50% Rule: When Big Rides Hurt Your Fitness | Ask a Cycling Coach Podcast 585

Ask a Cycling Coach Podcast
61

Is it only skip one workout or skip “more than” one workout?

5w even for skipping one workout a month, every month still seems like a lot (not arguing the data, it is what it is, but just the “why” behind it). If you have three intense workouts and do a huge ride, dropping down to two workouts the next week I would think would be better for performance.

I think the right thing to do was something Alex Wild brought up in a podcast not long ago. If you are going to do a big effort do it right before a recovery week. We probably don’t need a hero effort more than every three weeks anyways and you get the week to recover after.

62

If you watch the video there are different likely wattage losses for 1 workout missed per month, 2 per month, 3 per month.

63

I did watch the video but don’t remember the data… do you remember what the numbers were?

Again, not arguing the data but seems like a lot.

64

I misheard it previously when he was talking to Keegan and then on this show. It sounds like this skipping 1 hard workout a month. So doing 11 instead of 12.

65

I’ll admit I never plan for rest days, they just happen when life demands it. Like two long work days and family events where I can’t train. But I do plan easier days.

I think Bon Jovi wrote a song about this once.

What this cast points me towatds is making those weeks/periods easy rather than empty… but the issue is not how hard the workout is, it’s whether I can get on the bike at all. IMO.

66

After listening to this podcast I can honestly say that I don’t relate to overall results of this analysis.

Specifically, after following the TR AI plan from January to my Sea Otter A event, I did not hit any power PR’s except for in my 3 events, and one 4x5 interval workout. Of those PR’s, they were all lower than previous years records. The closest PR was a 10-minute effort that was just a few watts lower. One-, five-and 20-minute power records are all lower this year by 46, 34 and 24 watts respectively. That is pretty significant. I think that the workouts were pretty safe, and I don’t think I had anything that really challenged me except one workout early in the season.

When thinking about the Big Rides theory. I like the 50% rule and it’s a good basic principle in my opinion, but I also think a lot depends on the athletes training history and rate of recovery. If you are training 4-5 hours a week and decide to do a hard fondo or 4+ hour ride on the weekend, then you are asking for trouble.

What has worked for me is starting my weekend endurance ride at around 3 hours, then adding half an hour each week at the same intensity until I hit about 4.5/5 hours. Looking back at my year, all of my big rides have been less than half of my 6 week tss average except one of my race events which was 275. Weekly tss has been high 300’s low 400’s for the year.

I look at big rides like I do hard interval days. They require proper fueling and proper recovery. They build fitness too; the problem is when they are done with too much intensity or not enough fuel. Doing a big TSS ride when you are not ready for it is kind of like being a frog in a pot of water that eventually boils. You get cooked without know it, until it’s too late.

As for athletes skipping hard sessions as a result, it seems like something an inexperienced cyclist would do, or one that isn’t yet patient enough to know that consistency in training is the foundational level that is needed to make improvements in fitness.

As the summer season is approaching, I decided to switch my focus to a few road events. I decided to drop in my own plan which is similar to polarized base and build and see how I respond to the training. Maybe I reach previous years power records or maybe I’ve peaked and this is the start of me fighting to maintain as opposed to gain. Only time will tell.

These are just my thoughts and how I am relating to the information in this analysis.

67

No worries …

1 skipped hard workout per month = theoretical drop of 4.8w in FTP at end of year

2 skipped = -9.6w

3 skipped = -14.3w

(Timestamp on spotify is 20:00 for the chart)

68

Which sounds a bit bs to me since simply gaining 5 watts in 4 weeks would be a solid month. But then saying your gains are reduced by 5 watts implies you should be gaining more than that had you followed the plan appropriately. Are we talking noob gains? Which usually only apply the first month or two of structured training.

69

I believe what they are saying is skipping 1 hard workout per month would result in an FTP that is 5w lower at the end of the year (a total of 12 skipped workouts throughout the year). I’m sure there’s lots of caveats with this data though and is likely only for showing a trend.

70

It’s interesting that the watts lost for each skipped workout is linear. 4.8 watts for 1 skip, 9.6 for 2 skip (9.6/2 =4.8) and 14.3 for 3 skip (14.3/3=4.8)

71

So, I’m probably the poster boy for “stupid long ride on the weekend”, which means I ditch sweet spot on Mondays. @Jonathan should the TR planner switch the default first ride of a three day week from sweet spot to endurance? That would make a 3 day week be endurance, sweet spot, threshold.

I’m much more likely to ride 1hr of endurance on Monday than a sweet spot session if I smashed it on Saturday.

72

You’re talking about gaining 5w in a month, but the podcast I quoted was talking about losing 5w a year.

73

Yup, I was clearly not reading the graphic that Joex posted. I listen to the podcast in my car so should have slowed my roll. Makes much more sense.

74

Pretty sure the ‘default’ is a rest day on Mondays