Seriously, I have Got to Get Training Again

Setbacks abound!

It’s been a while since my last post.  You feel abandoned.  I get it.  You’re not alone.  My running shoes, my swim gear, and my Zwift setup all feel the same.  It’s not that I don’t love you anymore.  I still feel the same.  It’s just a different feeling now.  Yes, I am talking about injury, illness, work, and cold weather.

The last three months have been a bit difficult.  After coming back from the hip flexor injury, I decided to get back in the pool.  I was out of the pool for about two months because I couldn’t really kick very well.  Ok, my kick is garbage anyway, but the injury made it actually hurt just to kick a soft two-beat kick.  Of course, as a coach I know about coming back from injury and taking it slow.  As an athlete, though, I’m an idiot.  I decided the best workout would be a 6 x 400-yard workout with paddles.  I know what you’re thinking, and yeah, it was a bad idea.  I tweaked my rotator cuff and couldn’t even do 1000 yards two days later.  Two more months out of the water.  Boom!  At least I freed up some time.

Basically, October through mid-December saw me working a lot of hours, which is not abnormal, but I don’t control my schedule right now.  Basically, work kept me limited to one workout per day plus my 15K commute on my bike.  But, it gets worse!

What is this white crap falling from the sky?

It’s been a while since I lived north of Miami.  I’m talking a decade of living in tropical weather.  Let me tell you, a man changes under those circumstances.  It does something to you.  Apparently, my body now rejects temperatures below 50 degrees F as unlivable conditions.  Seriously.  I used to run in shorts and a t-shirt down to the mid-30s with maybe a hat and gloves.  Now, I need that for 50.  Then, one day this white stuff started falling from the sky.  It accumulated on the ground and turned into this slushy, icy stuff.  The inhumanity of the scene made me think that the world was about to end.  It turns out that the white stuff is just snow and happens a couple of times per year.  I still don’t get it, but I chose not to pursue the discussion further.  That, and despite my moral objection to the cold, it won’t go away for a couple more months.  So sad.

Time to get all swole.  Do you even lift, bro?

Since I had some downtime due to injury, I decided to put some time into working on developing some strength and power that I hope will eventually transfer to faster swim, bike, and run times.  Fortunately, I have a bit of experience in strength training, having done it off and on for the past 20 years, and I found a great resource at work.  A friend of mine was the strength coach for the Washington Redskins for about ten years, so he offered to help me build an 8-week program with three strength sessions per week.

I also suckered a few of my TeamODZ teammates and a few folks at the Endurance Lab to serve as guinea pigs to test out the program.  Did I say suckered?  I meant offered them the opportunity to try out the program.  The program has a lot of exercises aimed at building raw, explosive power and strength.  That means lots of squats, deadlifts, power cleans/high-pulls, weighted pull-ups, and press exercises.  The first two weeks had most of us walking around a little funny, as we’re not used to lifting heavy weights.  It’s also important to put “heavy” in context.  Let’s face it.  Most of us cyclists aren’t known for throwing around big stacks of weights, especially for upper body exercises.

After mastering the form for the more technique-based exercises (again, loose use of the term mastering), I started seeing some huge improvements.  At the mid-point testing, I was already able to deadlift over 300 pounds and high-pull 185 pounds.  I know, it’s not a ton, but I’ll take it for a 140-pound guy. 

Getting ready for 2019

Now that we’ve closed out the year, it’s time to get back to work at my triathlon-specific training.  I don’t know my schedule after the month of June, so it’s a bit difficult to plan my season.  I do know that I will be moving sometime between late July and mid-September.  I won’t be able to race after that for the rest of the year, so I’ll have to get in as much as I can in the first part of the year.  I have set some pretty tough goals for myself, including some times I want to achieve for a 10K off of the bike and a 1500-meter swim.  So, we’ll see how that goes. 

Well, that’s it for now.  I’m on my way home from holiday travels, so expect to see more of me on Zwift in the coming months.  I’ll probably jump in the occasional race, but I will be doing a bunch of workouts.  I’m glad to be getting back into focused training, and I’m really glad my Zwift compatriots have been there over the last few months to keep me motivated to get in what I could.  Until next time, Ride On!

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Annual Training Plans: What they are and why you should have one

Let’s just admit it:

We’ve had days where we’ve gotten on the bike without knowing what we were going to do in our workout and just made it up as we went along.

Sure, you can do that for a day, but what if you do it for an entire year?

If you’ve ever felt a bit lost in your training — you just get on the bike and do whatever with no real sense of direction — then Annual Training Plans are for you.

In this post I’ll break down what they are, why you should have one (and actually use it), and how to approach building one.

Confessions of a Recovered Overtrainer

I’m an engineer turned semi-pro cyclist. Before I started Bereda Training I spent two years racing around North America against guys like Chris Horner and other ex-world tour pros.

Quick side note: I got dropped, hard.

When I first got into cycling I really fell in love with the process of planning and training as much as the sport itself. I loved to strategize about how I’d approach my training, plan it out, execute on that strategy, and see if I could get measured results. Of course, it’s an iterative process of learning, tweaking, and planning again with a new strategy if needed.

In university I started cycling as my primary sport and studied training theory like it was another course. Through self-coaching, I got good enough that when I graduated I got picked up by an elite amateur team and ended up doing my first pro races that summer.

But unfortunately, I didn’t have a plan in place and ended up doing what we call “panic training”.

I overtrained pretty heavily and while I was able to perform OK at the pro races, that training caught up with me later in the summer and I had a horrible time.

Really, I don’t wish overtraining symptoms on anyone.

It’s pretty bleak.

I was sick for a month and had no energy to ride my bike.

But, it was a huge learning experience and the next year I committed to training properly, I paced myself throughout the year and I ended up having a great season. It really showed me the importance of starting with goals in mind, and working down to your daily workouts rather than deciding week to week or even day to day what you’re going to out on the bike.

What IS an Annual Training Plan?

Basically, an Annual Training Plan is just a set of weekly targets that say how much training you’re going to do and what type of training you’re going to do each week in order to achieve some objective you’ve set for the end of the plan.

It’s a season overview, a document you can use as a reference point, and it’s what guides you when go to plan your workouts each week into your calendar.

WHY should I use an Annual Training Plan?

Annual Training Plans answer the BIG questions about your season:

1.) What are you trying to achieve with your training?

Now this can be specific race and performance goals, or they can be much more casual. If you’ve ever gone for a group ride with your friends, been disappointed in your performance and have wanted to improve, then Annual Training Plans are for you. And even these more general goals like smashing your friends on group rides in July is a very good and worthy goal to base an Annual Training Plan around.

2.) Roughly HOW are you going to achieve that goal?

So, now that we have a goal the next big question that an Annual Training Plan is going to help answer is: roughly how are you going to achieve it?

Like I mentioned before, it just comes down to how much training and what type of training are you going to do each week.

And the third BIG question that an ATP can answer is…

3.) Why am doing this training today?

Again, if you ever get on the bike with no real sense of direction and just kind of go through the motions, Annual Training Plans are going to help. They define how the training you do today fits into the bigger picture for your season and how you’re going to achieve your goals.

The Benefits of an Annual Training Plan

The benefits of having an ATP are that you never feel lost in your training, there’s always something to fall back on, a reference point, and something that shows that the training you’re doing today has a purpose and reason behind it.

Having that assurance will bring a real confidence into your training, a sense of direction which leads to increased motivation when on the bike doing the hard work.

Because, essentially, what you’re doing with your plan is simulating your entire season from start to finish and seeing success at the end. You start to believe in the process. And seeing that roadmap and envisioning that success is a very powerful motivational tool.

Top-Down Planning

With Annual Training Plans, you start by looking at the big picture, at your goals and events, possibly even for multiple years, and then break things down on a monthly basis, then weekly basis, and if you really want to sink time into planning, go to the daily workouts.

Without those targets, planning your training workout by workout is a very dangerous trap to fall into.

You shouldn’t start your season by deciding what workout to do tomorrow. You need to set the target and develop the strategy so that you a framework to guide you when planning your workouts

This is what we call a Top-Down approach, and it’s so important that it’s the main principle behind Bereda‘s entire design.

Start with Goals and Events

To start, we pick our goals and key events for the year. These can be races or much more general objectives, but the important thing is to decide what they are, and to put them on the plan.

Next, races are great, but they’re probably not the only thing even the most important things in your year that are going to affect your training…

Unique “life events” are super important to include in your planning. Things like:

• Family Vacations
• Training camps
• Exam periods for students
• Business trips
• The Holiday Season

These have a huge impact on your year, so it’s important to write them down and not to forget to include them when you go on to the next steps of planning.

Set the Scheduling

Next up is to set the scheduling of your training throughout the year. What we want to do here is break your training in to three to four week mesocycles, factoring in those life events.

When we’re doing this, we want to be strategic about where we plan our rest weeks. For example, where are your lower priority races?

Putting your ‘B’ races at the end of rest week is a great option. That way, you can show up fresh and ready to race rather than fatigued at the end of a hard training week.

Apply your Periodization

Once you know when your training blocks are going to happen, it’s time to figure out what kind of training you’re going to do inside of them, and that process is called Periodization.

The Classic style of Periodization is to have something like:

• 12 week Base period
• 8 week Build period
• ~2 week “Peak” period leading into an set of ‘A’ races

Of course, there are lots of other strategies and options when it comes to periodization, but they all work within the framework of annual planning.

Top-Down Approach to setting Training Loads

And now, we get to the part that everyone knows and loves: the Training Load: how much training are you going to do on any given week?

Now remember, we want to approach this in a Top-Down method, so the question to ask is: What Fitness or CTL value do you want to achieve leading into your ‘A’ races? From there, we work backwards to determine what Training Loads you should target throughout the year.

I can’t emphasize this enough: you really want to start by considering the end point: Where is this plan leading?

There’s no point in starting at the first week of the plan and saying, “I want to ramp this much, how much load does that require? okay let’s do that.” That’s bottom-up planning and we want to avoid it.

So, a great way to figure out what CTL you should target it to look at what you did last year.

Let’s say that last season you reached 65 CTL leading into your big race. This year, if you think you have the time to train a bit more, or think you can train a bit more intensely inside the time that you have, then you can target a CTL that’s maybe 10 points more than last year.

10 points: that’s a reasonable but substantial increase from year to year. THAT’s a nice progressive plan that won’t have you overreaching. An increase of 20 points, for example, is starting to border on the aggressive side of things.

Now, typically it’s good if during your offseason you’re maintaining about 50% of the CTL you’re hitting at the peak of the year, so, if you want to hit 100 points leading into your priority events, you should be starting the year around 50.

If we take this example and use a pretty standard training schedule that builds up over a 24-week period, you’ll notice that on average we’re only ramping up at an average of 2 points per week over the course of the whole period.

And, that can seem counterintuitive to people because we’ve all seen the recommendations that say you ramp up your CTL at 5 or even 7 points per week. But, if you look at the big picture, you might only hit those kinds of ramp rates for a short period of your plan before leveling things out more and being more moderate.

I caution people not to ramp blindly. If you’re just going week by week and not thinking long term about where you’re going then you could get to the point where your CTL flattens out because you don’t have anymore time to train, and you’ve hit your peak Fitness 8-12 weeks before your target event. That’s arguably not the best scenario.

The way to prevent this is to take Fitness (CTL) you want to hit at the end of the plan, the Fitness (CTL) you have at the start of the plan, and figure out that average ramp rate.

Now, you don’t have to increase at a constant rate from the start of your plan to the finish, you can have variation, but knowing that average number is a good reference point.

Use it as a guide a set intermediate CTL goals for the end of each mesocycle.

If you break down the entire build up and have that short term CTL goals, then you have targets to guide your weekly training load planning inside each mesocycle, which then guides your workout planning inside each week.

There’s still one problem…

At this point you have an amazing Annual Training Plan to guide you through your season and you’re totally motivated to tackle the training because you can see your success at the end of the plan.

You have your events and goals, you’ve scheduled your training around important life events, you’ve periodized your training blocks, and you’ve worked out short term Fitness (CTL) targets for each mesocycle along the way so your training loads are well paced throughout the year.

This plan is absolutely amazing, there’s only one problem…

Life Happens.

Leaving aside the fact that the process I only just briefly described is going to be quite time consuming, when you factor in the chance that something will pop up, your plan might get derailed and you might have to go back and rework it all to get something that actually makes sense, well, phew, that’s going to be a struggle.

And the thing is, things are inevitably going to change, and that’s okay. Even professional athletes whose lives revolve around training are going to have things pop up.

That doesn’t mean you should throw out the plan.

Annual Training Plans should be a living document, something that gets updated and adjusts. It should be an ongoing process.

Just because things pop up and things change, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t know WHY you’re doing the training you’re doing every day and how it fits into the bigger picture of the season.

It’s the Annual Training Plan that gives you that foundation.

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How to Lose Weight (Advice from Coaches)

Editor’s note: this is #2 in a series of articles focused on training advice for Zwifters. In each article, coaches bring their experience to the table and answer a single question. Here is this week’s…

Many cyclists are trying to lose a few pounds as they transition out of the winter holidays. What simple advice would you give to someone who is overweight and wanting to drop some of their extra baggage?

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Rob Manning, Tailwind Coaching

If weight loss is your goal, don’t get sucked into the obsession with burning calories. Focus on how you burn those calories, not how many you burn.

Mix small amounts of very high-intensity intervals into your regular training to tap into your deeper energy stores. Not only will you burn off additional calories during your workout, you’ll continue to burn calories as your body recovers from those hard efforts later in the day.

Remember too that your body will only be comfortable shedding excess fat if it’s being properly fueled. If you’re already running a calorie deficit during the day and you pile on another 500 calories of riding, you’ll be way behind. Be sure to put back *some* of those calories to prevent your body from overcompensating in the opposite direction and slowing your metabolism down.

So the take home: ride hard, fuel right, watch the weight melt off.

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Shayne Gaffney, GC Coaching

I like to tell my athletes looking to lose weight a few things…

1. Keep your eyes on your plate, not the scale. Focusing your energy on how much the scale says and performing frequent weigh-ins does nothing but set you up for failure. The athletes I work with for weight loss weigh themselves ONCE A MONTH, that’s it! Doing less frequent weight checks will allow you to see consistent improvements and set you up for success with a positive feedback loop.

2. Stay focused, everyone is given 24 hours and it is up to you to use them effectively. Successful, lean, mean athletes aren’t created, they are formed from consistently making good choices, training intelligently, resting when needed, and utilizing their 24 hours to the best of their abilities. Sometimes this means not watching television so you can squeeze in that workout after putting the kids to bed at 9 PM after working all day (people do it!). This can also mean not eating out, not falling into the trap of “fast food” and “convenience” stores, and preparing your meals ahead of time so you always have a healthy choice. Everyone has a finite amount of time, how do you want to use yours?

3. Weight loss is a century, not a criterium!  This ties #1 and #2 together; don’t expect big changes to happen and to stick overnight. Weight loss isn’t a “30 Day Challenge” or a “7 Day Cleanse,” it is a life change that is hard at the beginning to make, has frequent bumps in the road, and will get easier as time goes on (I promise!). This is why having someone in your corner, like a coach, is a great asset to have. They can give you a kick in the butt when you need one and also give you a pat on the back when things are going well.

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Philipp Diegner, Severe Coaching

Try to add 30-60min easy fasted sessions into your Zwift routine (2-3 times per week). These rides, preferably on an empty stomach before breakfast, will help you burn extra fat. Your energy system will tap into your fat stores right away as it will have very limited glycogen (carbohydrates) available to rely on.

As a nice side effect, fasted training has proven to be very effective in improving your fat metabolism – a main factor of good endurance. Even short sessions around 30min at 50 to 65% of your FTP can help and will burn a good amount of extra calories. For diversion, add a few 8-12s all-out sprints every other workout but avoid longer intense efforts that would require carbohydrates as fuel.

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Troy Delfs, Momentum Cycling

Watts per Kilogram, the elusive Holy Grail of cyclists everywhere. To improve your relative FTP score you can train hard and increase your aerobic capacity, but you can also improve your performance simply by shedding a kilogram or two. So, how do you go about leaning down and speeding up?

By achieving Caloric Deficit!

It kind of sounds nasty and something best avoided but it is what you need to do in order to achieve weight loss. Essentially to burn fat and lose weight you need to burn more calories than you consume, simple as that. What that means is you can lose weight through:

1. Increasing Caloric Expenditure through regular aerobic exercise: Ride On people!
2. Decreasing Caloric Intake: eating fewer calories on a daily basis

Caloric Expenditure

My background, education, and expertise are on the Caloric Expenditure side of the equation so let’s start there. Quite simply the best way to burn calories as a cyclist is to ride your bike, a lot. Short 45 – 75 minute rides at a moderate to high intensity (75%+ of FTP) will burn a lot of calories in a short period of time but many of those calories will be from blood glucose and muscle glycogen stores.

To burn fat best, increase your ride durations (1.5 – 3+ hours) at a zone 1 – 2 intensity (40 – 75% of FTP). The more days you ride per week the more calories you will consume. Try to ride 4-6 days per week varying between shorter, high-intensity rides and longer, low-intensity rides.

Caloric Intake

I am not a dietitian or a nutritionist and if weight loss is your principal goal then I strongly advise that you get professional nutritional counseling and guidance. That said, here are my suggestions that I have gained through 20+ years of racing and numerous years of coaching.

• Cut out the crap. Sugar, alcohol, fatty foods…. all the good stuff really….. so maybe don’t cut it out completely, but do try to cut back on these empty calorie foods
• Eat a balanced diet with plenty of veggies, fruits, complex carbs, healthy fats, and complete proteins
• Avoid ‘diets’ but rather make healthy food choices that you can realistically maintain through your lifestyle
• Be conservative with the use of gels, sports drinks and other fast simple carbs (they tend to cause dramatic changes in your blood sugar levels)
• Consider trying some Fasted Riding; low intensity rides done in the morning prior to eating anything – a proven way to train/force the body to burn fat stores

There are tons of diets, theories, and suggestions available on the Internet. Some are gimmicks, some work and others are unproven or may even be dangerous. The secret with anything whether it be nutrition or exercise is to do your research, get professional advice and find what works best for you personally.

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David Lipscomb, CIS Training Systems 

How long do you think it takes to form a new habit? A week? A month? A year? The answer is at least 2 months (or about 66 days, on average) according to research.

That said, my advice for someone who is looking to drop a few pounds, is to stop treating weight loss like a sprint, because in truth, it’s a marathon.

Let me give you an example of what I am talking about.

Do you remember the old children’s story about the Tortoise and the Hare? You know the story where the hare said, “I am the fastest animal in the whole wide world. I’m faster than a cheeky cheetah, a kicking kangaroo, and a racing rabbit.” “OK,” said the tortoise, “I’ll race you then!”

Because he had started so fast and since the tortoise was so far behind, the hare decided it was safe to take nap under a tree. Meanwhile, the tortoise ambled along slowly enjoying the sun on his shell and taking the odd nibble of grass from time to time. In time, the tortoise passed the sleeping hare and crossed the finish line first.

What is the moral of this story? Slow and steady wins the race. Take your time to make small changes that stick better because they aren’t intimidating (if you do it right, you will barely even notice the changes you have made!).

If you are looking to focus on dropping a few pounds, the last thing you need to do is reinvent the wheel overnight. Work on thinking differently as it relates to weight loss. Crash diets and excessive exercise programs do not work, let us be honest with ourselves.

Add a positive habit per week until it becomes part of what you do on a day to day basis. For example, you could start with something simple like drinking more water, or getting more rest for the first week. Then maybe the next week focus on eating 2 to 3 fruits and vegetables each day. Lastly, add additional protein to every meal. And the list goes on.

Keep at it, never give up, go the extra mile and #getafterit. Take it from someone who knows. In May of 2009, I weighed 252 lb., and thanks to CIS Training Systems, I am fit and lean at 185 lb., and have kept the weight off since 2012.

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Noel Bonk, Bonk Werx

Dropping weight is the low hanging fruit for many cyclists. I do primarily recommend that athletes work with a licensed nutritionist or dietitian, preferably someone who has knowledge on endurance sports. Whatever you do diet or weight loss wise, do it in moderation. Don’t go crazy trying to drop a lot of weight quickly, remember to be realistic and patient.

As far as advice I give my athletes, I start with having them track eating habits. Most cyclists will regularly track their ride data but don’t bother to track it when it comes to their eating “data.” You can start this pretty easily with a food log or journal. I personally like the app MyFitnessPal as it allows you to scan in or search almost any foods. It also breaks out macros and calories and can connect with several other fitness apps. Just seeing what and how much you are consuming can be an eye-opening experience. In many cases, once the athlete sees the big picture with their eating habits, it serves as a self-correcting measure to get their diet on track.

Also, just like you may regularly schedule time for bike training, get yourself on an eating schedule. This doesn’t have to be overly complicated, but set a time for each meal and a hard cut off time at night and stick to it. Track how you are or are not progressing and adjust the schedule and nutrition as needed.

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Conclusion

Here are the key themes I see expressed by our coaches above:

• Take it slow: if you want to lose weight in a healthy way and keep it off, you need to change habits in a sustainable way. This doesn’t happen in 7 or even 30 days!
• Get advice from experts: the web is full of advice, but if you can talk with a nutritionist, dietitian, or coach their guidance will multiply the effectiveness of your efforts.
• Be purposeful about your rides: fasted, longer zone 1-2 rides or high-intensity interval training are your best two ride types for weight loss. Use them!

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