Training Program

Team Penta Training Based in part on Joe Friel's Training Bible Program

Periodization

Today's high performance athletes train using a system called "periodization". This means dividing the training year into periods, each with a specific physiological purpose. By doing this, the competitive athlete builds fitness in stages, much as a house is built. When a period is completed, the fitness benefits gained are maintained in the following period while new aspects of conditioning are introduced.

This manual uses five periods within a season: Base, Build, Peak, Race, and Recovery. Two to twelve weeks are generally assigned to each period, but this will vary with the individual.

The Base period will improve general fitness. You are "training to train" by emphasizing endurance, strength training, form work, and flexibility. This period lasts eight to twelve weeks depending on your experience level. Athletes who have been competing for three or more years need only stay in Base for eight weeks. Less experienced cyclists will train at this level for twelve weeks to ensure an adequate fitness level is established. This is the most important period for the novice cyclist and may even be extended beyong twelve weeks to achieve greater fitness depth. Fitness riders use this period exclusively.

During Base, the focus is on quantity with limited intensity, but there is a gradual shifting toward quality in preparation for the Build period. The increased intensity comes mostly from economy refinement. "Economy" is just another way of describing "form" - the ability to turn the cranks without wasting energy. For example, if you continue to apply force to the pedal when it is at the bottom of the stroke, all of the energy expended is wasted. At very high cadences, you'll feel this as you bounce up and down on the saddle. Learning to make effortless circles will eventually pay off as you expend less energy at higher intensities.

To allow your body to recover from the accumlated stress during this and every subsequent period, reduce the volume of training during the fourth week of every four-week block. During this week, don't do any long or intense workouts. Ride easily, work on form, and take some well-deserved time off to recover and allow your body to adapt.

The Build period is four to twelve weeks long and develops more race-specific fitness. Intensity increases steadily and carefully with emphasis on power enhancement and intervals of increasing intensities and duration. Endurance trainin g is maintained at the levels attained during Base. It is the most demanding of the five periods due to the high endurance level and the increased intensity. The initial Build period is usually on the training calendar when the weather is worst in the northern latitudes, making the CompuTrainer invaluable.

Cyclists with fewer than three years of experience who extend the Base period to twelve weeks shorten the Build period by four weeks.

The development of power is critical for the competitive cyclist. Grinding slowly up hills in a big gear builds strength, not power. Power improvement comes from improving the ability to turn progressively harder gears at a high cadence for increasingly longer periods. The first Build training block emphasizes this fitness skill.

Interval training during the Build period begins with long repetitions at an intensity just below anaerobic and progresses to higher intensity as the legs adapt to the power training. The volume of intensity attained in individual workouts is th e key to success in this period.

Just as you did in the Base period, you should reduce the volume of your training in every fourth week of Build. You'll look forward to the extra rest and grow stronger because of it.

The two- to six-week Peak period emphasizes intensity and commences once intensity has reached a high volume in the Build period. Now total weekly training volume is reduced as intensity peaks. The emphasis on speed and speed-endurance (the ability to maintain race speed). Workouts are event-specific to prepare for major competitions of the season. There may be some "tune-up" events during this period to test progress.

During Peak, training is either in a "speed-spectrum" of 90-110% of race speed, or very easy for recovery and preparation for the next high quality workout. Training efforts between these two extremes reduce the energy available for improving quality and do not bring greater fitness.

The Race period lasts up to eight weeks. It is very difficult to maintain peak fitness for any longer than eight weeks. During this time, you may be racing frequently, perhaps twice a week if you're a road racer, or simulating a race every other week if you're a triathlete. Great care must be taken to ensure recovery. If you do any training other than low-intensity recovery workouts during this period, it should be to refine strengths or prepare for a specific event such as a time trial or stage race. Working on strengths after so many months of striving to improve general fitness and addressing weaknesses is good for confidence - something we can all use more of in races.

A trend of the last few years among elite endurance athletes is to peak twice during the calendar year. The twin-peak year seems to bring the athlete's fitness along at a crisper pace, maintains great enthusiasm, and creates a higher level of fitness for the second peak. It also fits nicely into a season which has more important events early in the year and again in the fall. The training programs suggested in this manual are written to accomodate the twin-peak concept.

The Recovery period brings the season to a close and allows the athlete to rest and recover, both mentally and physically, from the stresses of training and racing for several weeks. The emphasis is on the unstructured activity in a variety of pursuits. This period generally lasts two to four weeks, but may be longer following an event such as the Ironman or a particularly grueling season.

The training programs in this Workout Manual are designed around these five periods. Each section is devoted to a different type of cyclist and incorporates all of the principles and periods discussed here. By following the recommended progression, you will be training to race as most elite athletes train.

Peaking

Peak 1

Peak 2

Power-Time-Weight Comparisons

This table compares average power in watts to 40 km time trial times on a flat course for three hypothetical riders of different combined bike and body weights (120 lbs, 150 lbs, and 180 lbs).

Training Zones Explained

A heart rate monitor is a very valuable tool for the endurance athlete.  For the new athlete, it can act as a rev limiter, placing a limit on how hard you work so that you avoid injury and overtraining.  For the more experienced athlete, it can be used to train with greater and greater refinement.

Near the start of your training, you should do some testing to determine your Lactate Threshold Heart Rate (LTHR).  You then use this LTHR to determine your training zones.  The chart and explanation below are tools to help you better understand and use these training zones.  You can use this chart as a guide until you perform your testing and can attach heart rate numbers to these training zones.  Or, if you want, you can pitch the heart rate monitor and use this chart exclusively.  However, for the longer races, training with a heart rate monitor is a necessity, in my opinion, until you become very experienced. 

Training Zone Chart

A byproduct of the exercise process is lactic acid.  At slower paces, your body is easily able to rid itself of this fatigue producing acid.  This level of intensity is commonly referred to "aerobic" or "light breathing."  As pace increases, so does your body's production of lactic acid.  Lactate levels being to increase in the blood, causing fatigue.  Breathing becomes labored and so this level of intensity is referred to "anaerobic."  Eventually a point is reached where lactic acid is produced at exactly the same rate as your body is able to dispose of it.  When measured by your heart rate at this level of exertion, this point is called your Lactate Threshold Heart Rate (LTHR).  If you continue to increase your exertion above this point, lactic acid will begin to accumulate and will eventually cause you to fatigue, slow down, or stop.  By exposing our bodies to increasing amounts of lactate, we train our ability to process this acid and to resist its fatiguing effects.  Pace at all levels of effort is increased and we get faster.  Thus LTHR provides us with a convenient measure of intensity.

Now think of your body as a car with an engine and a tachometer to measure its Rpm's.  This gauge is numbered from Zone 1 to Zone 5, with the red line beginning at 5 and extending to what we will call 5c. 

Zone 1: Recovery

This is the zone most commonly used during recovery between intervals, or on easy "recovery" days.  Intensity is well below LTHR, and your engine is basically idling.

Zone 2: Extensive Endurance

This intensity is most commonly referred to as conversational effort.  Because endurance is most effectively developed and maintained by training in this zone, most long endurance training sessions are done within Zone 2.  Exercise in Zone 2 is measured in hours.  You are now on the freeway in 5^th gear, turning 2800-3000 rpms and going about 75mph, making the long drive to Vegas.

Zone 3: Intensive Endurance

Because it is neither aerobic (Zones 1 and 2) nor anaerobic (Zones 4-5c), this intensity does not effectively train either energy system.  With the exception of early base training, if you find yourself in Zone 3, its is more efficient either move down Zone 2 or up to Zone 4-5a

Zone 4-5a: Threshold

In this zone, your body is at its maximally aerobic state.  That is, this is the fastest you can go and not be anaerobic.  Because you are still aerobic, to a degree, you can maintain this pace for several minutes, thus exposing your body to high levels of lactate and maximizing the adaptive response.  The needle on your tach is just to the left or to the right of redline.

Zone 5b: Anaerobic Endurance

Training in this zone increases the body's tolerance of high levels of lactate.  Because you can only maintain this effort for a few minutes, intervals are the most common Zone 5b workout.  During interval training, intensity is maintained for a few minutes in Zone 5b, triggering an adaptive response.  We then rest, allow the body time to flush out the lactate, and then repeat the exposure.

Zone 5c: Power 

These are extremely short, maximum effort bursts of intensity.  Their value to the multisport athlete is limited, with the exception of those severely lacking in force and power.

Heart Rate Zones

Find your AT rate (bold) in the "5 Zone" column.

Read across to left for training zones.