To get back into the swing of things, I thought I would throw out some ideas of Threshold Training. This year for me, working on improving my threshold level has been some of the most effective training I have done. When I say working on threshold, do I mean do endless interval work in level 4? No! In fact, a lot of the work I have done thus far this off-season was designed to get my ready for those types of intervals, not doing those intervals themselves.
To start with, I break my early off-season into the typical base1, base2, base3. Each base period is three weeks of increasing durations (e.g., week1 = 12hrs, week2 = 14hrs, week3 = 16hrs). After I complete my third week, I do a Recovery week, which is usually about .5 * week3's duration. Less important to me than hours or miles during the recovery week is making sure I get about 2 days off the bike, a couple days with light recovery ride (1-2.5hrs) so I keep some fluidity in my legs, and being ready for a weekly Function Threshold Power (FTP) test, which is preceded by a leg opener work-out the day before. (The point of this entry is not about rest weeks, God bless them, so I wont discuss them too much. It should just be said that by the time Saturday's test rolls around, I am itching to get back into training and my legs feel great. If I have the cash, I try to get a deep tissue massage at the beginning of this week also.)
So we have discussed my basic structure (and probably a little too much on recovery weeks). But what do I put into those weeks to try to make them effective? The answer is it depends. Each period is different from the others and each week within the period are different from one another. If there is one general rule I follow when I am trying to design my plan and workouts, it is when looking at the big picture, it is important to progressively build intensity. For me, this was done as follows:
Base1 was all about getting some miles back in my legs. I did a lot of gym work to try to improve my force and speed skill work on the bike (after all, Power [Watts] = Force * Velocity). My bike work-outs, although fairly long, were almost totally in level2 or Endurance level. Sometimes in climbing I would creep higher to level3-4, but never for more than a few minutes and I always tried to bring it down directly after climbing. The key here for me was spending as much time consistently in level2 as I could. If I had too much time in level3, for example, I would not be able to ride in level2 for as long.
Base2 is when I started to have a bit more fun. I spent less time in the gym, but started working incorporating force reps into my weekly routine to transfer my gains from the gym into on the bike strength. In addition to introducing force reps, I started doing tempo intervals (level3). Although it does not seem like much (during the race season last year there were races where I spent almost the entire race at level3), doing these interval this early is certainly something you will feel. For me, I tried to make these long. I start with 3x20minx5min, then progressed to 2x30minx5min, then 2x45minx5min. I was certainly cooked by the end of these, but because of how long they were, it is not like doing the tradition 5x5x5-make-me-want-to-puke intervals. I tried to be steady through-out and add duration each week.
Base3, the time when things get really fun. For Base3, I moved out of the gym (with the exception of 1 day a week of light maintenance and a couple days of core) and stopped the force reps, and I started introducing actual threshold work. Like my tempo intervals, I would try to keep them longer with less intervals. 2x20minx5min at the lower end of level4 was my goal for these. In addition to the longer intervals, I would also do some shorter threshold intervals, 5x6minx2min, on a climb later in the week so I didn't lose my climbing legs. Again, I never felt like I was pinning it during these intervals. There was a steady increase in pain, but I could do these intervals, then put down some big miles the next day without too much discomfort. The overall goal of these intervals in my mind was A.) to push my threshold level up from the bottom and B.) get my body ready for the stress of the higher intensity interval that start next week (Build Periods). Some of the intervals I will be starting next week, are designed to pull my threshold level from the top up; hence, the distinction lower or sub-threshold work versus threshold work proper.
This month's FTP test. What even prompted me to write this entry is that I saw such good gains in this month's FTP test, that I thought it was worth sharing. Before I get into some pictures, I'll say that my watts are only half of the improvement. The other half was proper pacing, increasing my cadence (something which was previously extremely low during my TTs), and just feeling more comfortable while preforming the test.
Figure 1. shows my entire TT. The picture is compressed, but you should be able to click on it to expand the view. The yellow horizontal lines are watts, the orange horizontal line is elevation, green is cadence (rpm), blue is speed in mph, and red on top is hear rate (bpm). The red lines running vertical show the 20 min TT broken into 5 min quadrants (QI, QII, QIII, and QIV). The numbers circled in green on the side are Normalized Power on top and Average Power below that. Looking at those two number, you will see that they are within a watt of one another. What that means is that there was little undulation through-out the TT--that is, power was constant throughout the entire 20 mins as opposed to on again, off again. Exactly what you want in a TT.
A bit on the actual numbers, although these numbers are not that great (great for me, but many dudes I know could blow this out of the water), there has been steady improvement from FTP test to FTP test. A test last month showed an average power of 290 watts and a test from June, middle of the last year's race season, had me at 299 watts also. The difference between last years and this past weekend's is A.) I am almost 10 pounds lighter (Watts / Kg is what cycling is all about) and B.) that last test was in the prime of racing season. I have plenty of time to slowly build up my FTP so that I will be flying past last years marker by June. I expect gains from here on out to come much slower than this past month, but, judging by how I felt during and after this past weekend's FTP test, I think gaining another 20 watts by June is not out of the question. 20 min avg TT @ 320 w @ 138 lbs would be huge for me!
Beyond Numbers. As mentioned, the steady gains in power have been only half of the equation. The other part was how I felt through-out the test. For that, I will break each 5 min quadrant into it's own section and talk about it with accompanying graph.
Figure 2. QI. This section represents the first 5 mins of the FTP. If it can be seen, notice that the average watts are 288 w. Well shy of my final number, but I have read that starting out too high, even in a short period time trial such as a 20 min FTP test, will flood the legs with lactate acid, and the rest of the TT will be a bare before you even really get started. With that in mind, I tried to ease into it with a steady, high RPM effort.
Figure 3. QII. In the second section I start to ramp it up a bit more, but I don't go all out and I certainly don't try to make up for the lost watts in the first section . . . yet. My average watts for the second 5 mins was 295 w.
Figure 4. QIII. As you can see from the graph, in this section I come across a little elevation gain which cause me to dig (increasing my watts) followed by a little elevation loss, which forces me to spin very high to maintain my watts (remember how I said I don't have a very high cadence when I TT? ) Despite this natural disruption, there is a steady increase in intensity across the board. QIII is where I start to really feel it and put myself in whole. I still focus on efficiency, but I am really trying to crank out the watts here. My average for QIII was 298 w.
Figure 5. QIV. At 5 minutes to go, I try not to hold back anymore. Stay focused. think of motivating things, and don't hold anything back. I still try to retain some grace on the bike, but as you can see in the last minute (the initial spike was coming out of a corner), when you throw everything you have left at a TT, the effort is no longer as steady and graceful. Average watts for the last five were 308 w.
Round-up. An interesting thing to take away from this entry is that, like the proper pacing in a TT, season training should progressively build in intensity so your body is ready to handle what you throw at it in the last month leading up to a big race. Hopefully I will be able to steadily improve upon this through-out my training and as I do, I hope to share it with you. The real test is going to be whether or not I can improve my anaerobic capacity and sprint watts. Stay tuned for that, and how I went about it.
