When to start base training
How to Do Base Training the RIGHT Way
is traditional high volume low intensity
base training the best thing to be doing
in the winter or preseason as always
today we're going to be taking a look at
the science to answer this question and
in the second half of the video we'll be
getting into specifics by laying out an
example training plan so you can see
what your training should look like in
the base period so be sure to stick
around for that welcome back to another
video my name is Dylan I'm a cycling
coach at CTS recently some have
suggested that bass training may be dead
or at the very least not the optimal
training strategy for time crunch
cyclists sure if you're a pro and you've
got literally all day to Train it might
work but if you've got less than 10
hours a week is packing on the zone to
rides really the best use of your time
many have the K for a different approach
where high intensity is the main focus
of the winter training what does the
science have to say though the answer
actually isn't super easy to find
because there aren't many studies
tackling this exact question but let's
dig through the available research and
see what we can find this study on the
training characteristics of gold metal
endurance performance looked at the
training of olympic and world champion
endurance cross-country skiers and by
athletes and what they found was that
the training that they did that led to
these incredible performance was right
out of the base training Handbook they
had a high volume and low intensity of
training in the offseason phasing into
higher intensity lower volume right
before the race season on top of this
the frequency of high-intensity sessions
and the intensity of those sessions
increase as they got closer to racing
they stated that high training volume
has emerged as a key commonality and
successful endurance training they
conclude that a very large training load
during the general preparation period
appears to be an important precondition
for exceptional athletic performance
several months later this was echoed in
this review for the best practice for
training intensity and duration
distribution that stated that an
established endurance base built from
high volumes of training may be an
important precondition for tolerating
and responding well to a substantial
increase in training intensity over the
short term so it seems like at least
from these studies traditional base
training may be preferred and there are
a couple studies done on triathletes
that investigate the importance of doing
high volume low intensity
further for example this study on
training intensity distribution of
Ironman triathlete sound an inverse
correlation between total time spent
training as well as time spent training
in zone 1 and race time now in this
study they used a three zone model and
zone 1 would be what we typically
consider zone 2 or endurance training so
basically what they found was that a
higher volume of training and
specifically a higher volume of training
at low intensity produced better race
results they conclude that wall athletes
perform with heart rates mainly in zone
2 during competition better performances
are associated with more training time
spent in zone 1 this was echoed in this
study also on triathletes that say that
performance was only shown to improve
with usual high volume training
summarizing in order to improve running
or cycling performance high volume
training programs are highly recommended
and for what it's worth traditional
based training is still the
tried-and-true method for most of the
world's best cyclists just take a look
at Egan Bernal or most other pros Strava
data from the past couple months
Goodell would just ride he just ride his
own pace he'd go slow up the climbs let
everyone else go do their efforts
whatever whatever and he just ride and
he said well it really takes me a short
amount of time to get really fit and I
can only hold that fitness for a certain
amount of time we're not stopping there
stepping that seal
[Music]
so why exactly is this the case I mean
there's a mountain of research out there
that suggests that high-intensity
interval training produces superior
results can't I just do that all year
isn't that the best way to maximize the
training time that I do have yeah
everyone knows that to crush races in
July you need to be the fastest one and
drop everyone on the winner group ride
in January the problem is that although
high intensity will improve your fitness
very quickly you'll also see a plateau
from this kind of work relatively
quickly as well which is why you only
want to start focusing on it in the
months before racing the other reason is
that high intensity is extremely taxing
on your body and you're much more likely
to over train by doing too much
intensity as opposed to too much volume
you can do some maintenance intensity
through the offseason but if it's the
focus of your training all year long
that'll put you on the fast track to
burnout or over
I've seen this time and time again and
even experienced it myself were athletes
hit a midseason slump
there in the middle of the race season
and they should be peaking but they're
putting out worse numbers than they were
three months ago if this describes you
it may be due to cumulative fatigue
built up over months of high-intensity
training a review on high intensity
verse high volume training stated that
both high intensity and low intensity
training are important components of the
training program they went on to say
that short-term periods of
high-intensity interval training can
elicit improvements but also that
important adaptations appear to occur
with low intensity continuous training
that are not observed with mix or high
intensity training when training does
not have an appropriate blend of both
high intensity training and high volume
training inserted into the program
performance ability can stagnate these
high volume training periods may elicit
the molecular signals needed to
stimulate mitochondrial protein
synthesis without creating undue
autonomic disturbances that could lead
to overtraining an important thing to
keep in mind is that seeing results from
high volumes of low intensity training
typically done in the base period is
going to take time a lot more time than
doing high-intensity training but doing
it is still important this of course
doesn't mean that intensity isn't
important it definitely is but it needs
to be done strategically this review
sums things up nicely stating that the
available evidence suggests that
combining large volumes of low intensity
training with careful use of high
intensity interval training throughout
the annual training cycle is the best
practice model for development of
endurance performance the key word there
being careful one important concept of
glossed over here is specificity of
training as you get closer to your race
or goal you want your training to become
more specific to that goal going back to
the study on Olympic cross-country
skiers we can see that the volume of
specific work increases as they approach
racing and one of the main takeaways
from the study was the higher
specificity of training before the race
period this usually means that intensity
of training increases because racing is
generally high intensity although this
isn't always the case for example for
those that race ultra endurance events
that last hours specificity requires
that you maintain a high volume of
training I myself am an ultra endurance
racer and my approach is generally to
Bill
vol during the base period and then
maintain that volume wall increasing
intensity right before racing someone
doing shorter races would be better off
reducing training volume and increasing
intensity before racing all right
there's the research but now let's get
into specifics what should base training
actually look like over the course of a
month or a week
let's serve in the general structure of
a month and then I'll take you inside
training Peaks to show you how I build
out a training week one of the most
common structures for training month is
to do three weeks on one week off so
basically you build up training load
over three weeks and in the fourth week
you have a recovery week to rig your
body of the fatigue that you've built up
some may also choose to do four weeks on
one week off it doesn't really matter
but make sure you have that recovery
week in there that week this is
extremely important for making sure you
don't tip over the edge of overtraining
recovery week sounds like you're just
soft 'add the recovery week isn't a week
off the bike rather it's a week of
reduced volume and intensity while
maintaining ride frequency because
you'll be relatively fresh this is also
a good time to do an FTP test or a
low-priority race to get some numbers to
see how you're progressing as far as the
other three weeks of the month go you
want to make sure that you're employing
progressive overload or increasing the
training stress this is necessary to
avoid a fitness plateau give your body
the same stimulus that it's already
adapted to and it'll stop making
adaptations you can do this by
increasing volume or intensity or both
but in the base period this is usually
done by increasing volume for example in
week one you might do eight hours then
10 then 11 or 12 and then in the rest
week you might reduce that down to five
or six hours traditionally a base period
lasts about three months but it could go
longer or shorter depending on when
racing starts for you generally you want
about two months after base training to
build intensity before racing starts
with that let's get into what a training
week during the base period should look
like I'll use the example of a 10 hour
training week now this is critical many
riders with tight schedules assume that
because they have less time to Train if
they just bump up the intensity of all
of the rides that should make up for it
this is not the case for example going
back to the study on Ironman triathletes
they found that in a three zone model a
high
of cycling training in zone 2 may
contribute to poorer overall performance
and from this study on the impact of
training intensity distribution again
using a three zone model accumulating
more time at moderately high intensities
does not necessarily develop a faster
racing pace a take-home message may be
that sport training session should also
attempt to avoid making every session
the same intensity to avoid stagnation
and staleness that's the trap that many
cyclists fall into making every ride
kind of hard but never easy and
certainly not hard enough hmm what
should I do for a ride today I don't
really want to do intervals because
those really hurt but I also don't want
to do an endurance ride because I want
to feel like I'm actually getting in a
workout I've got it I'll just ride kind
of hard the whole time
unless someone passes me on the bike
path in which case I'll sprint to stay
ahead of them nailed it during the base
season you may want to start with only
zone 2 rides but as you start
incorporating intensity you still only
want to do it two or on occasionally
three times a week and that should
mostly be done at threshold or
steady-state intensity since that takes
longer to develop than higher intensity
all right let me show you how I build
out a training week we want to start by
adding in our intensity for the week at
first there won't be very much intensity
at all as your body gets used to the
higher volume of training but after a
couple weeks you want to start
incorporating steady-state or threshold
intensity intervals let's say we decide
our interval days are going to be
Tuesday and Saturday both of which are
going to be steady-state intervals done
at ninety five to a hundred percent of
threshold and we're trying to accumulate
30 minutes to an hour of intense work
depending on your ability level these
intervals don't have to be complicated
in fact it's better if they're not at
this time of year
what's important is accumulating time at
these intensities the next step is to
add in your weight training now if you
haven't seen my weight training video I
highly recommend you go watch it to
understand how important weight training
is for cycling and I'll leave it linked
in the description but basically here
the cliff notes while coaches and
athletes may argue about whether or not
we training is beneficial the research
couldn't be more clear weight training
has a huge impact on cycling performance
and should be a part of any serious
cyclist training program once you get to
the base season hopefully you've already
been doing some lifting in your office
because being a newbie in the gym while
trying to do a high-volume of training
on the bike won't mix well during the
base season you may choose to reduce the
training load of gym work to account for
the increased training load of on the
bike work you want to do this not by
decreasing the weight but by decreasing
the volume of lifting so the total
number of reps you do when you go into
the gym this study on the comparison of
recovery from resistance training tested
high intensity versus high volume
resistance training and found that high
volume resistance exercise results in
greater performance deficits and a
greater extent of muscle damage than
about of high intensity resistance
exercise so how do we put this into
practice basically you want to be doing
the same high weight low rep work but
reduce the total number of sets you do
for example if you worked your way up to
ten total sets in the offseason then you
may want to reduce that down to four to
six total sets during the base season
this of course will depend on how
demanding you're on the bike training is
that week once you get into race season
some may choose to cut weight training
down to once a week or cut it out
completely to allow for adequate
recovery okay so we're in the week do we
place these gym sessions you want to
make sure you do them after the
intervals either the same day or the
next day in this example I've got gym
work on Wednesday after Tuesday's
intervals and then gym work again after
Saturday's workout which will give me
two days to recover from the gym before
doing intervals again the following
Tuesday the rest of the rides should all
be zone two or below and if you can get
in at least one long ride in the week
that'll be extremely helpful for your
endurance for example in this week we've
got an hour endurance on Wednesday an
hour and a half on Thursday and a four
and a half hour long ride on Sunday with
Monday and Friday being rest days and if
you like you can include an hour active
recovery ride on one of those days this
is a pretty good template of what a base
training week should look like if you
got more or less time than this then you
can adjust the length of the endurance
rides you may also choose to up the
difficulty of the intervals as you go
for example you may start with four by
ten minutes it's steady-state so you're
doing forty minutes of intense work and
then work up to four by 15 minutes of
steady-state so you're doing sixty
minutes of intense work the main
takeaway from this video should be this
if you want to maximize
performance don't take shortcuts high
volumes of zone to work will produce
results slowly over time and the base
season or preseason is the perfect time
to focus on that and then as you get
closer to the race season you can
increase the intensity of your workouts
but more important than that make sure
your workouts are becoming more race
specific thanks for watching for weekly
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