Cuddon Cycling Marlborough has contracted Andrew Jamieson of Fitlab to provide coaching advice and to oversee our development programme.
What Is The Best Way To Train?
- Get A Coach
The best way to improve is to have a coach who can build a training plan around your goals, abilities and life. They can help to monitor your improvement and tailor things to your individual needs. This may be an experienced rider at the club, an online coach or some help from the club coach. There will be pros and cons as well as varying levels of help depending on the coach.
2. Pre Built Downloadable Plan
Downloadable Plans
Below are downloadable plans of various types, length and hours per week. While the plans are good, the part that is missing is having a coach who can adjust things to suit and monitor your progress. If you have any questions about these things feel free to contact me on the email below.
How To Use The Downloadable Plans
Choose a goal (race or a period of time you want to be on top form)
When you begin a training plan it is a good idea to look ahead. If you are new to cycling, you may not have any long term goals yet, but the trick is to work back from an event (or series of events) and plan to go through the two phases of training I have listed below.
General Preparation (This develops the base fitness that you can build on later. The bigger and better the base, the better your eventual race fitness)
Specific Preparation (This develops the specific fitness components needed for racing your target event)
Choose plans from the list below to build towards the goal
Generally around 8-16 weeks of “General Preparation” plan and 8-12 of “Specific Preparation” is required. The longer is generally better, especially with regard to the general preparation. The spreadsheet plans, linked below, adjust training times based on the available training time you enter.
There is also a “Maintenance” (or in season) training plan. This is a plan to maintain your form for a longer period of time such as several weeks of key races. Generally top form will only last a few weeks, but you could maintain most of that for a longer period with the “Maintenance” (in season) plan.
Plans are listed as amount of hours and number of training days per week, so find the one that best suits you.
Plan Download Links
Beginners Plan
I built this plan for real beginners wanting to ride the Southern Schools Tour, but it is ideal for people new to cycling of any age. Enter the start date of the plan in the first date cell and the other dates will update accordingly.Beginners Plan LinkGeneral Preparation
Plans Based Around 4 Training Days 5 Hours Per Week
General Preparation Plan 8 Weeks (4 days/5hrs per week)
General Preparation Plan 12 Weeks (4 days/5hrs per week)
Plans Based Around 6 Training Days 8 Hours Per Week
General Preparation Plan 8 Weeks (6 days/8hrs per week)
General Preparation Plan 12 Weeks (6 days/8hrs per week)
General Preparation Plan 16 Weeks (6 days/8hrs per week)
Plans Based Around 6 Training Days 9-12 Hours Per Week
General Preparation Plan 8 Weeks (6 days/9-12hrs per week)
General Preparation Plan 12 Weeks (6 days/9-12hrs per week)
General Preparation Plan 16 Weeks (6 days/9-12hrs per week)
Specific Preparation
Once you get to specific preparation you should consider a Cycling Analytics plan for it's added benefits
Plans Based Around 6 Training Days 9-12 Hours Per Week
Build Plan 8 Weeks (6 days/9-12hrs per week) -note build plans limited to 8 weeks
3. Online Cycling Analytics Web Based Plan
Cycling Analytics
Cycling Analytics is a web based training platform that you or your coach can use to build your training plan. It has many features to review training data and build plans.
Cycling Analytics Club Plans
I will create some standard plans to use as templates. If you would like to try one of these plans let me know. They will be similar to the spreadsheet plans, but with a lot more benefits.
By using one of these plans I can look over your training from time to time if you have any questions. You can also modify or create your own plans in the future too.
By providing club plans via Cycling Analytics I can also keep track of what type of training you need/desire and can adapt accordingly.
About Cycling Analytics
Cycling Analytics will email your plan to you each day, track progress and you can upload your bike computer training files to it for review and analysis. There are loads of metrics and info it provides and to find out more I suggest you check out: www.cyclinganalytics.com
You get free access to all the features for a month but after this you need to pay to upload more rides ($A10/month or $A80/year). It can still be used as a free platform to create your training plan and have it emailed to you though.
Email at coach@cyclingmarlborough.org.nz to get started.
4. The “No Plan” Plan - for those free spirits among us
The “No Plan” Plan is a guide for those who don’t like structure. If you prefer to just ride your bike, then I would suggest the following guide.
Weekly:
At least one day off a week
One other easy day
One or two intense days (maybe hard hills, a race or some intervals)
All other days should be lower intensity (at a pace you can still talk)
3-4 Week Blocks
Have an easier recovery week every 3-4 weeks (about 50% of the hours of a regular week)
Also consider a gradual increase in training hours of around 10% per week
Once you no longer want to increase your hours per week, look to change the type of intensity days you do for every block to avoid stagnation (e.g. short hills, long hills, sprints etc)
Other Training Plan Stuff - Zones, Strength, Stretching etc
Training Zones
For an explanation of the training zones and how they relate to other types of training zones, please check out the Training Zones Chart
Strength Exercises
It is a good idea to include 2-3 strength sessions per week to improve leg, core and general strength (these have big wins for your riding and are included in the plans)
Stretching
You may like to augment your riding with some stretches either daily or a few times a week to maintain flexibility (foam rolling is also effective in improving recovery and flexibility)