In one week, I will commence two weeks of mandatory holiday from work (cannot be rescheduled).
Due to lockdowns in my area, I’m not allowed to travel or do anything outside my home besides a 1 daily hour walk, which I will be doing every day. I would like to devote this time to do whatever I can training-wise to maximise any gains (unfortunately I don’t have access to gym equipment).
I’ve completed SSB1 and SSB2 HV, and feel great after a rest week. The two weeks in question will be weeks 2 and 3 of Sustained Power Build HV (week 4 of the plan is a recovery week). What should I do beyond the scheduled workouts and recovery rides? I’m doing Adaptive Training with no events on the horizon.
I’ve read on the TR blog that their recommendation is to add endurance workouts from TrainNow, but I’m inexperienced with this. If adding endurance is the way to go, is there a limit to the number of hours that I should add? Should I only add workouts to my interval days, or is it the other way round?
Very little else will be happening over this period, so I’m willing dive in and try something new with training and recovery being my only priority.
TLDR: I literally have unlimited time for traning and recovery for two weeks. How to maximise training benefit?
I’d suggest in week #01 that if you want to add volume then perhaps try the following and then review / adjust for week #02:
Add 15 minutes at the end of each scheduled workout and see how that ‘feels’, build up longer as is sensible / feels ok following recovery etc.
For Rest day workouts maybe start with something easy like Dans (30 minutes) or Lazy Mountain-2 (45 minutes).
You can then build that up a little. On your ‘rest’ days don’t over do the extra time on the bike as even at low HR and effort, depending on how fatigued you are from your proper workouts, you may find your recovery becomes compromised.
You can also look to get extra sleep and seek to optimise your nutrition (if not already on point) to help you achieve your fitness goals, as you will have more time and flexibility to focus on that area that might not be afforded you during a normal working day.
To compliment your training why not look up some YouTube yoga classes for cyclists (30 to 40 minute sessions are plenty) and maybe commit to doing that every day for the entire 2 weeks in the AM - you may be pleasantly surprised with the benefits.
If you have no gym, you could still build in body weight exercises. (Just remember to start carefully and easy if you’ve not done any resistance work in a while ). Free standing squats done steadily with good form are excellent. Build up the reps each day and concentrate on form and ‘feel’ rather than speed and repetition increases - the latter will come following the former improving.
Finally, if you’ve got two free full weeks with genuinely no other commitments then I’d recommend trying to stretch yourself mentally in different ways every day. You could still keep it cycling related if you wanted, for example:
read a bike related book / biography
cycling related movie (iTunes / Netflix / Amazon has loads)
explore future travel options and set yourself a long term goal - for example is there an iconic place / climb you’ve always promised yourself you’d visit and conquer that with some prudent saving you believe you could reasonably afford to visit - look at the fastest times on Strava for your age group / weight category and set yourself a target time that is a stretch / achievable effort then design a plan to get you to peak fitness using TR and book the trip!
Move out of Auckland (or actually thinking about the 1hr walk bit, somewhere in Aus, my two guesses anyway)
Serious note of things you can do to maximise the amount you can train with this spare time:
Clean bike, especially drivetrain. It makes pedalling feel so much nicer, and might not be something you can do all the time with a busy schedule.
Pre plan meals, so that you are eating good food and not having to stand and cook quite so much. This includes making any on the bike food like rice cakes or scones, or just spending a bit of extra time adding veggies to meals.
Use that hour walk to really relax, nice relaxing stroll with the dog or family to unwind. This is underrated I reckon.
Sleep as well. Whether it’s a nap or making sure you’re getting in enough sleep at night. Nothing is stopping you from getting adequate sleep so make sure you’re getting a good amount, whenever it is.
Eating plenty as well! Any extra training load requires addition fueling.
I obviously didn’t suggest how many extra hours you can add, as it all depends on what you can handle. Maybe try adding an hour or two every other day and see how you go, then if you can handle it add in some much bigger days, but only you can know how much load you can take and how much long rides take out of you. Rides don’t have to be in one go, maybe on in am and one in pm, or my go to in lockdown was an extended lunch break then go back on the turbo.
My first thought was ‘add z2 volume’ but if you’re anything like me then thats pure torture indoors…
so I’d suggest a 2 week block of tempo work. You’ll get great aerobic boosting benefits from workouts up to 2hrs, avoid the hours of trainer slog needed to do do z2, and if you are only doing 2 weeks then shouldn’t build up too much fatigue.
There are loads of ways to do this, with tempo blocks, over/unders at low/high z3, simple sessions with a slight change in effort every 5-10 mins etc etc. TR has a big catalogie of this stuff to stop it getting boring. You can also mix in some high z2 sessions etc to go a little easier. The other thought is that if you literally have nothing else to do and recover well then why not add a 2nd session some days and simply do 30-60 mins easy low z2 later in the day to add more volume (if you can take it ok?).
Good luck with another lockdown. At least in the UK we were able to get out and ride solo even in the worst parts of the outbreaks.
Really appreciate all the input, especially all the off-the-bike ideas that I hadn’t considered. I’m mindful of overdoing it, but I’ll look to incorporate as much of the off-the-bike stuff as I can. Time really isn’t a limiting factor for these two weeks.
Also, I really value the general positivity in (most of) the replies.
One more question around adding extra volume - is there a material difference between doing an extra hour or two of zone 2 immediately after an interval session, vs doing it as a seperate session later in the day?
You want to get faster - you may want to try become more aero, but that often requires (especially lower back) mobility, flexibility, core strength? I loved @dsirrom’s yoga for cyclists idea. Also, if you don’t have Tom Danielson’s Core Advantage yet, get it, read it, and do it. Two weeks won’t make a big difference, but they’re enough to start a habit (also, unless you’ve already been doing core/mobility exercises, you will see some difference, which is really motivating).
I’ve heard cyclists sometimes run in the winter as a way of cross training. Consider taking up running if you are able to walk outside for an hour and you’re not restricted by injury history or something. Start with run-walks (60 seconds on, 3 minutes off, etc.) if you have never trained running before. There’s plenty of material online on how to do it and how to progress. I used to hate running, but now I can’t do without it (even when not training for a triathlon but for a TT). Headphones with music/podcasts/audiobooks are essential for most people, me certainly included.
). Free standing squats done steadily with good form are excellent. Build up the reps each day and concentrate on form and ‘feel’ rather than speed and repetition increases - the latter will come following the former improving.
(or actually thinking about the 1hr walk bit, somewhere in Aus, my two guesses anyway)