What do you do after your speciality phase?

Training
1

I’m just about to finish my speciality phase going through the complete cycle of base, build and speciality wondering what the users end up doing after.

Take a break
Start back at base
Or do a re-build

Personally, I think I’m going to have minimal break between my plans but start of back at SSBI just for the lower intensity workouts for a mental+physical break. Not sure I can psyche myself up for another round of build intensity quite yet.

I know there is a tr blog on this

just want to get a feel for how everyone else manages it.

2

Totally depends on your training volume and goals I guess.

For my n=1 I am on LV plans, I have no race/date goals and I do not stick rigidly to the schedule, therefore I am doing SSB, Build and specialty in rotation with no specific break period. I am changing up the phases though; for instance this current round I did SSB I&II, Short Power Build and Gravity Specialty. Next round I’m going to do SSB I&II, general build and maybe MTB XC specialty.

3

If you need a break before doing more build then I would suggest hitting the second half of base then going into build. This gives you a nice break but is more efficient.

Frankly - you can skip base entirely if you want to accelerate things and have the mental and physical reserves to dive right back into build, but it totally depends on your capabilities. The short, 6 week half-base would be a nice compromise

4

Asking myself those questions too and am interested how others approach it.

For now my plan is to do a compete cycle through the cold season (aiming for mid volume) when it’s easier for me to follow structure. After that as the weather gets better my (outdoor) riding will be driven more by friends/weather/fun/events than by structure - so I was thinkig of one of the following options for that following warm season next year:

  • let a new cycle with low volume run besides (to have a coarse orientation) and see if something fits in or which outdoor rides could roughly match
  • take the warmer season as a chance to test the polarized training approach
  • just put aside strucure alltogether and just ride by feel (and a look at the TSS chart every now and then) in the warmer season

So for me indoor/structured training also depends on or is driven by the season (weather/friends/fun factor).

To me it sounds like you are more into structure but I thought I might give another perspective :slight_smile: