Decoupling Test

So a few weeks ago I found out about Joe Friel's aerobic fitness test to assertain if you have a good 'base' fitness. The test involves a 'steady' consistent effort in the top end of your zone 2 power range. Analysing your heart rate following the test can identify your current level of fitness. This is something called 'decoupling'. 

I wanted to use his test to see if I was able to skip the base training in preparation for the Spring time trials. This would allow me to just straight into a more productive sustained power build plan with Trainerroad. I was hoping I would last in excess of 1.5 hours before decoupling began... If I was below, I would consider doing some extra base training.

The results were better than expected. By comparing the Power/HR ratios between the first and second half, you should see no more than a 5% increase. My result of a 2 hour effort was -2.9%. So in effect I actually found the second half easier. This may have been due to the fact I did no warm up. The first 30 mins would likely to have been higher as my body was warming up. Even if I ignore the first 30 mins I still end up with a negative figure... Joe Friel assumes that as a negative is less than 5%... It can only be a good thing... Sounds good to me. This was batter than I had expected. Looks like my steady commuted and long Sunday efforts have been well worth it.

Training begins next week with a 'Sustained Power Build'. 

Bring on the pain! ;)

The Beginning

The beginning to every training plan starts with the FTP test. It evaluates your current performance level so your next block of training can be accurately structured.

I've carried out a few over the last year (maybe not as many as I wish I had) and let me assure you... They are not easy!! They are designed to test you. To find out your limits. It's a great way to gauge your performance over time... It will also prove extremely useful when I approach race season as I can use this to estimate my required power output depending on the duration.

I completed my first FTP test today so I can begin my training next week. This is the first time I have used my new Vector 2S power meter so I was going in a little bit blind. Up until now I was using the virtual power that Trainnerroad estimate from your turbo trainer so I didn't really know what to expect... If they are not accurately comparable, all historical data up until this point is basically redundant. I'm going to see if I can find a way to overcome this issues as it would be really useful to know how much I have improved.

Any who... Here are the results from this test. 

My new FTP is 257 Watts (3.7W/kg). It doesn't really mean much at this point in time. What I was more amazed at was my maximum heart rate was 199 bpm!! The average for the last 5min of the 20min test was 191. Given that my Max up until today was 194 I find this remarkable. It now explains why I was in so much pain!! Lol

Long road ahead before I am anywhere near the national hill climb champs... I should imagine I need somewhere in the region of 6W/kg... At my current weight that would mean an FTP of 420W!!

Sacrifice

With every diet plan comes sacrifice... In my case it's going to be caffeine and sugar. It may not seem much to you but these are my lifelines! I'm a massive chocoholic and I'm severely addicted to caffeine. Even worse... I drink lots of sweet coffee! But a good quality diet is going to be critical for fuelling workouts, recovering and preventing illness. 

Caffeine - I need to make sure I'm able to get to sleep at about 8pm in order to get a minimum of 8 hours sleep. This means no caffeine from about 3pm. Being on holiday has made me realise how irritable I get without my constant flow of coffee! Ask LouLou! So given that I have already overcome most of the addiction (due to the lack of coffee in Thailand) I'm going to carry this on. I will have a coffee in the morning and then I will be sticking to decaf for the rest of the day... Even better still... Water!

Sugar - I need to hit my macronutrients as accurately as possible. If I'm using up 50% of my carb allowance in simple sugars like this I'm not going to be in any state for a workout! I'm unlikely to lose much weight either with sugar spikes throughout the day. Instead I plan to consume enough carbs (oats, rice, potato etc) in order to provide a steady release of energy. I will also be reverting to coffee without sugar for a while... I may even drop the evaporated milk and go black! Depends how desperate I get to shed a few extra lb's.

This new diet plan is going to require a substantial increase in carb intake which is not something I'm used to. I would normally eat high protein, low carb meals and (prob due to a sugar/energy deficit) eat lots of chocolate. I'm hoping if I can increase the carb content, I will not suffer with these sugar lows, resulting in no chocolate cravings... Fingers crossed!!

 

Once I have used My Fitness Pal for a while I should have a pretty good idea of food consumption, quantity and split in macronutrients... As soon as I do I will be sure to upload :)

Luckily for me my diet has been reasonably good over the last few years. I don't drink much alcohol and I don't eat much takeaways. We cook 95% of our meals with fresh goods and are generally very conscious about our meal plans. So I have already taken some big steps in dropping unhealthy foods from my diet... This is just the final step. You never know, in a few years time I may no longer be drinking coffee or eating chocolate through preference. My preferred choice may be herbal tea and dust... Anyone? Dust?

Sacrificing dietary luxuries is always going to be difficult. It's always easy to give up if you only think in the here and now with diets. The mind plays great tricks on you to get you to give in to temptation. Blame the rib woman and the talking snake! 

You might be having a hard day at work, you pass the vending machine and the boost bar is calling out to you... 'That will cheer me up... I will burn it off on the commute home'. Been there... Done that! I know it's easier said than done but you need to stay strong. You just have to keep thinking of the bigger picture. The bigger goal. Don't think about the here and now. 

Something body builders do when sticking to hardcore fat shredding, protein rich diets that leave little to be desired is to have a 'cheat' to look forward to. Looking forward to something helps keep you focused. A single planned relapse where you consciously feed the craving but knowing it has been both well earned and will revert back to normal following. Most people pick the same day every week so it becomes the routine. I used to do this when I went through a body building phase years ago... Pizza Friday's!!! It certainly helped keep me focused during the week. The rule that often gets discussed on forums (and the one LouLou an I will be trialing) is 10% of your weekly calorie intake in one meal... Whilst ensuring your total weekly intake stays below the target.

So for me, my daily calorie intake will be approx 3200. So I could save 10% of these calories each day and accumulate them for a single cheat meal of 2,240 calories. That would be one mahoosive meal!

I might see how that goes. Cutting 320 calories from each day (whilst already being 500 lower in order to loose weight) may prove detrimental to performance/power output. Also, a sudden surge of calories like that is just going to end up being stored as fat... Especially if it ends up being a Friday/Saturday evening takeaway... Let alone the sheer logistics of consuming that on top of the 2,880 daily calorie intake... 5,120 calories is a lot of food in one day! Maybe 4 or 5% would be more reasonable!

Training Progress Test

I have just listened to an interesting podcast with 'Training Bible' coach Rob Kelley. The podcast itself was about VO2 Max intervals however Rob briefly described the format of their training programs which are based on Joe Friel's book 'The Training Bible'. The training bible recommend building on each zone independently. Moving from one zone to another (not too dissimilar to Trainerroad). However, it seems as though they use a method of monitoring progress from tests by comparing HR & power. When 'decoupling' occurs at a pre determined set point you are ready to go into the next stage.

For example - base training phase:

You will want to optimise your zone 2 aerobic threshold during base training. Therefore, if you hold your power output at the top of your zone 2 (based on a % of your FTP) your HR should remain stable for as long as your aerobic fitness allows you too... The longer the duration, the higher your aerobic fitness. As soon as your HR begins to increase (becomes decoupled) you can get a measure of your base level training (aerobic fitness). Initially you may be able to last 50 mins in zone 2 before decoupling occurs. The training program of base training should increase this to 2 hours. At this stage you can move onto zone 3.

Personally I find this really interesting and useful. Before I begin my 28 week hill climb training plan in April, I am going to be completing a condensed training plan in preparation for the WTTA Hardrider series in March (starting 1st Dec). I was planning to miss the base phase and go straight into the build phase. I was anticipating that I will have a reasonable level of aerobic fitness already as I have not done a large amount of high intensity workouts over the last month or two. Instead I spent about 5-6 hours each week at zone 2 commuting (in effect - a very poorly structured base level training). Following this, I have been doing a 4 hour chaingang ride on Sunday's with the 'Pain Train' which has been developing FTP & endurance. Therefore, before I begin this condensed training plan, I am going to complete this 'aerobic test' to see where I am at. It may not change the plan as I am already short on time, but it should help me understand my current situation.

I'm hoping to last approx 1 hour 45 mins. If I last longer that would be great... If I am under 1 hour 30 min, I may be a little low on aerobic fitness to withstand the full Build & Speciality phase's without including some additional Base level work. 

I look forward to finding out and seeing if this test works :)

Weight Training

Is it a benefit for cycling? Or a waste of time?

Depends who you talk to, what you read or what you choose to believe. For me, it was more of the latter. I quite like working out down the gym... There is just something about it that is uplifting and motivational. I was therefore quite keen on slipping a few sessions in each week... Not only that, it would have been something different to have done instead of vomiting over my bike in the 'Pain Cave' whilst staring at the same old screen of numbers and targets! So I'm a little bit gutted to say the least, that I am no longer going to be incorporating it into my training. 

The decision came after being advised by a (very successful) club member after releasing my 2015/16 training plan. It was something I knew deep down but was looking for every bit of information on the Internet to help in my favour. 

So to put it simply (because I don't understand it much further than this), you have different muscle fibres that make up your muscles. Fast twitch & slow twitch. Slow twitch is what you use in cycling 98% of the time. Fast twitch is what you use for short duration sprinting. This is also what gets developed in the gym during strength training. Therefore, going down the gym is going to develop muscle fibres (and increase mass) in areas that will not be used during cycling... Why would I want to carry around muscles I will not use?

That's not to say it is completely useless... The pro's do it so it must be advantageous...right?

It has some benefits:

Develops more muscle mass and can target certain/specific areas to prevent injury

Marginal gains. It will still have a very small amount of advantage in certain disciplines (racing requiring some form of sprinting). Also, if you have already maximised your training on the bike or have no real weakness, the gym could be more beneficial as a form of cross training

If you are injured, it could allow you to work out without compromising the recovery of the injury.

Develop core strength.

Now I know I have big weaknesses in sustained power and VO2 Max that I need to address as a priority. I also struggle to hold a time trial position for an entire time trial. Therefore, I am going to gain more by utilising the core of my time doing intervals and remaining time working on core strength and flexibility. For this reason I will be cutting the gym from the training program. I will update the training and daily time plan to reflect this soon :)

2015/16 Training Plan

So working off the back of my review of last years training I came to the conclusion that it was far from optimum. It lacked knowledge, planning and purpose... Not this year!

My plan this year will be based on the structured plans offered by Trainerroad and will be predominantly based on an indoor trainer. Trainerroad use a traditional phased approach to training with the use of a pyramid based plan. 3 phases... Base, Build and Speciality. The theory is simple... You build the foundation with low intensity, long duration... You build on the foundations with an increase in intensity and reduction in duration... Finishing with a phase specifically tailored for your discipline.

The phases take a total of 28 weeks. 12 base weeks, 8 build weeks and 8 speciality weeks.

Now this is where the conundrum occurs... Where to peak the fitness/finish the plan?

March/April for the WTTA Hardrider Time Trial Series?

The summer for the main time trial season?

September/October for the hill climb season?

All of which I want to compete in.

I've decided I will prioritise the hill climbs as this is what I enjoy the most and where I would like to specialise my cycling ambitions.

Therefore training will not properly begin until the end of March. This sort of works really well as I will be able to complete a 'mini' training plan between now and then to maximise my potential in the Hardrider Series :) It should also give me an opportunity to understand my limits and training loads before committing to the main plan. This mini plan will consist of the final 8 weeks of 'Sustained Power' build phase followed by '40km TT' speciality phase. I feel like the last few months have not been very intense so already have a basic 'base' to build on.

Trainerroad offer various versions of each plan depending on the number of hours you can handle... Or TSS (training stress score) your body can handle. I will be hitting it hard and monitoring my body's response to see if it is too much or not. I'm going to begin taking daily resting heart rate readings to see if I am recovering properly. If your HR begins to go up, it can be a sign of overtraining... Will see how that goes :)

On top of this... One area I know I am weak on is peak power. Basically, my girly pins and buns just don't have enough meat on them! Now I'm going to go against most of the recommendations out there and increase this with weight lifting. I have access to a gym through work and it is easy to fit into my routine. At this point in time, there is no research out there to suggest weight training helps increase functional threshold power (FTP). I don't understand why not... If you can squat more weight, surely it allows you to develop a higher FTP? We will see... :) I will be completing 2 leg sessions a week durning the base and build phases and reducing to 1 session a week during the final phase (something Trainerroad advise in one of their blogs). One thing I am going to be keeping close tabs in is my body weight... As much as I want more power, I need to carry that up hills. Power to weight ratio is going to be very important!

Note: On the back of some advise from a successful club timetrialist I have decided to remove the above strength training from my training plan.

To keeps an eye on the progress I will carry out a weekly review on how the training went and any subsequent issues I had to overcome...

Hopefully I will be getting a power meter next week and starting the first weeks training week commencing 30th Dec.... Watch this space :) 

A busy time ahead...

I wanted to make sure I could fit all my goals in during the day so wrote out the timeline for a busy day.

4:00 - Alarm

4:05 - Record heart rate

4:10 - Make shake & coffee

4:30 - Begin workout & drink coffee

5:30 - Finish workout

5:35 - Drink shake/breakfast

5:45 - Get ready & changed for commute

6:00 - Commute

Work

16:00 - Finish work

16:05 - Get changed for the commute

16:15 - Cycle home

17:15 - Arrive home

17:20 - Drink shake and shower

17:30 - Make dinner & lunch

18:30 - Wash-up & prepare everything for tomorrow

18:45 - Shake

18:50 - Yoga, core & flexibility exercises

20:00 - Sleep

In order to be as efficient as possible in the morning I will be getting everything prepared in the evening. My energy drink will be made and on the bike. Shoes will be ready, bibs ready, laptop & software loaded and ready. Breakfast and coffee maker will be prepared and ready to go... All I should need to do is turn the coffee maker on, mix water with the breakfast mix and get changed/on the bike.

Will be interesting to see how this goes as it doesn't leave much room for error. Hopefully it should get more efficient as time goes on which should make it easier. I also have a few ideas in the back of my mind for making it more manageable although these would mean making greater changes to areas I would rather leave unchanged. Things like moving the Trainerroad plan around to fit in better with my Friday afternoons off or changing working hours etc.

... we will see how it goes first.

2015/16 Diet Plan

Generally speaking, my diet has been pretty good this year. I have only been ill once and my weight has remained reasonably stable all year. However, I still feel like I am about 5-7lb over an optimum 'race weight' (and maybe more if I have put on some holiday weight - will find out in a few days) so finding and testing this will be key this year. This is going to require a close calorie counted diet plan and constant monitoring of my % body fat... Something I hope to trail on some decent bathroom scales :)

I thought I knew quite a lot about nutrition and diets at the end of last year but LouLou has been getting into weight lifting and has done some additional research... This has opened up the door to something called 'macros'. Basically it's the correct % of Carb, Fat and Protein you should be consuming each day. This varies depending on level of exercise, weight gaining, weight maintaining or weight loss... Other factors will come into this like sex and body type etc but to cut a long story short, I'm going to be trailing mine at the following:

20% Protein

40% Carbs

40% Fats

Should I feel low on energy I may substitute less fat for more carbs.

Given that a normal daily calorie consumption should be 2500 cal and I will be using an additional 1200 cal through exercise I need to cosume 3700 cal a day to maintain a constant body weight. Given that I want to loose weight (approx 1lb a week) to get down and trail a 'race weight', I need to cut approx 500 cal a day bringing my total intake to 3200 cal.

This means I need to consume the following 'macronutrients':

155g Protein

325g Carbs

142g Fat

Now this may seem like a lot of effort or even difficult to manage but there is a great app out there that does all the counting for you... My Fitness Pal. LouLou has been using it and it works great... More on that once I have put it to the test :)

This should be roughly covered with the following diet plan:

Breakfast

Coffee (milk & sugar)

80g Oats

1 tbsp Peanut butter

Milk

Protein shake

Banana

Post workout

Protein shake

Homemade oat bar

Lunch

120g rice

chicken breast or tuna

1 cup kidney beans

2 tbsp Mayo

1 tbsp sweet chilli sauce

Pre-workout

Protein shake

Homemade oat bar

Post workout

Protein shake

Dinner

Potion of fish/chicken

Salad 

Mayo

Portion of carbs (depending if there is a high intensity interval session in the morning)

Pudding

Yogurt (Greek) mixed with protein powder & some fruit

Wish me luck! :)

End of Season

So this year has gone really well... Finished off the WTTA Hardrider Hill Climb Series in a respectable 10th overall with most races finishing in the top 15. I wasn't too sure what to expect so it was more a case of setting the times ready for next season. I met some great athletes during the series and turned out to be great fun! Somehow it didn't even rain!

The training this year wasn't exactly great... There were a few half hearted attempts at some structured training plans earlier in the year where I was introduced to power (albeit virtual) and really got into researching proper training. 

I will use the excuse that my career at work with promotions and diy at home prevented that from continuing throughout the year but it was basically down to bad time management. Something I will learn for next year for sure.

Given the benefits of power measurement for both training and racing, I am finally going to be biting the bullet and getting a power meter in preparation for the winter training. More on that another time. 

I finished the hill climb season at the end of October and shortly after went on holiday (where I am currently). It's been a great oppertunity to review this years training, research next years and really begin to motivate myself. Just having these two weeks off is fuelling my need to get back on the bike. 

I have been writing down plans for next year and really feel like they are going to make a massive impact. It's going to be difficult to manage the time and I'm being very optimistic with training loads but it was never going to be easy.

Without going into detail, I am going to be focusing on a few areas:

Improve raw strength (gym)

Improve core strength and flexibility

Complete a base and speciality training phase in preparation for March WTTA series. 

Complete a full Trainerroad training package (Sweetspot Base, Short Power Build, VO2 Max speciality) in preparation for the Hill climb season.

In order to achieve this (along with work, diy and other life commitments) I'm going to have to sacrifice my mornings and weekend group rides. Weekends are going to be for DIY with intervals beginning at 5:00am. This will give me just enough time to wake, train, cycle to work, work, gym after (on selected days), cycle home, eat, yoga & core work, sleep & repeat. More specific details will follow once I get chance to load it all up :) 

Optimistic I know... And may be too much... But I will be monitoring my reaction to training (resting heart rate, power-heart rate comparison etc) so should get a pretty good idea of my ability to handle this level of training load :)