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Base training concensus

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Base training concensus

Old 02-04-10, 08:06 AM
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tspek
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Base training concensus

If you can/are willing to ride 15-25 hours a week, the standard base methods work.

If you don't have the time/desire to spend most your free time on a bike, perhaps something like SST is more appropriate.


Is this the conclusion we can make? It's almost March, so our base posting is coming to a close and we need to start focusing on build posting before the peak posts get here.
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Old 02-04-10, 08:19 AM
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ha, ha, ha, ha

waterrockets wins a bunch of races and told me i had to do sst and wris and a bunch of other acronyms

zecannon told me i had to train 30 hrs./week to be any good and that 2x20s arent useful but 8x5s are

enthalpic demonstrated i need training in advanced mathmatics to possibly understand making a bike go fast

ymca told me to double my hours, do group rides, and race 100x a year to be any good

gsteinb told me to ride 20 hrs./week, lift weights, and do it all inside while typing one handed on the twitter feed

substructure told me to do vo2max intervals at 3 in the morning all year long

nomad told me i needed to do MAP tests and track tsb, atl, ctl, tss, ftp, and other bs

racerex told me to attack people in registration lines

mollusk told me to eat cashews, or almonds, or something like that

actually no one told me any of this stuff, it's just things i recall reading here.

conclusion: there are many ways to make a bicycle go fast, none is really right or wrong, and all will work provided that you DO THE WORK. the methodology one uses to guide their training is subject to time available, goals, individual physiology, and applying it to their own specific situation.
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Old 02-04-10, 08:20 AM
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I don't think we can make any conclusion.

The premise is sound however, provided that this is not a scientific experiment. The reason I say this is there are proven examples of both of the techniques you mentioned being useful for improvement.

The big x-factor in this is that the human body (and how it specifically relates to cycling) is an inherently complicated system, and cannot be distilled down to an essential procedure (i.e. I do this exercise, and hence start winning races). If that were the case, then we wouldn't have the enormous variety of studies on the topic.

Allen/Coggan have their adherents, and the Ride Lots school have theirs. Both of these groups have successful examples. It is logical to assume that both systems work well when applied properly. That doesn't imply that either one of them is superior or (more importantly) that there is not some third system that may not yet be developed which outperforms them. Or a fourth. Or a fifth. etc.

Not to mention the fact that cycle racing is such a complicated sport that there is no one particular kind of development which will guarantee victory. You might spend years developing the ability to produce threshold power, only to be defeated by someone who has a better sprint, or vice-versa. This is just one example of many.
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Old 02-04-10, 08:21 AM
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Originally Posted by MDcatV
conclusion: there are many ways to make a bicycle go fast, none is really right or wrong, and all will work provided that you DO THE WORK. the methodology one uses to guide their training is subject to time available, goals, individual physiology, and applying it to their own specific situation.
You know BF.net isn't going to accept this.
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Old 02-04-10, 08:24 AM
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Originally Posted by tspek
You know BF.net isn't going to accept this.
I thought this was intended to be a legit 33 thread.
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Old 02-04-10, 08:25 AM
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Originally Posted by Grumpy McTrumpy
I thought this was intended to be a legit 33 thread.
It is, more or less.

People are asking "How does my base look, I ride 7 hours a week" to which the studs respond "That's not a base" while on the other side of the room people seem to advocate SST as (more or less) an alternative to a traditional base. This sort of leads to an obvious but as far as I can tell an unstated conclusion.

I actually do have a vested interest as well. Through January I was riding a lot but the last 2 weeks and likely next weekend as well it's looking, I don't have time to get in a long ride and I really don't have 4 hours available during the week to get a long ride in, so I'm also looking to adjust my methodology a little.

Last edited by tspek; 02-04-10 at 08:28 AM.
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Old 02-04-10, 08:29 AM
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^probably not, but what i tried to do with that post is (off the top of my head) to identify folks who provide really good training dialogue on bf.net, are quite successful in their racing, and do things differently.

i think grumpy and i said the same thing, he just did it less flippantly
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Old 02-04-10, 08:30 AM
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I've come to the conclusion that if you are going to be fast you will be. If you arn't you won't. Regardless of training method, lifestyle, ect. As evidence I submit hoards of career 4's who ride their asses off. Power meters humming, and computer data aquisition programs analyzing. And at the other end we have the occasional drunken partying pro's who take off months at a time and still compete at the highest level by simply getting on their bike and riding.

Of course these are the extreme ends of the continuum. In the middle are many of us here who will either end up a 3 regardess of how we train. Or make it to 2 if we find that training sweet spot, do everything right, and work really hard at it.

Last edited by Voodoo76; 02-04-10 at 08:35 AM.
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Old 02-04-10, 08:34 AM
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again..

if your definition of success in cycling is equal to category upgrades, you cannot leave out the unstated variables

1. where are you racing?
2. what is the terrain like?
3. who are you up against? how deep is the talent pool?
4. are you physically suited to the types of races that happen in your locale?
5. is your local upgrade guy willing to overlook the rule book a bit?
etc
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Old 02-04-10, 08:36 AM
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Originally Posted by Voodoo76
I've come to the conclusion that if you are going to be fast you will be. If you arn't you won't. Regardless of training method, lifestyle, ect. As evidence I submit hoards of career 4's who ride their asses off. Power meters humming, and computer data aquisition programs analyzing. And at the other end we have and drunken partying pro's who take off months at a time and still compete at the highest level by simply getting on their bike and riding.

Of course these are the extreme ends of the continuum. In the middle are many of us here who will either end up a 3 regardess of how we train. Or make it to 2 if we find that training sweet spot, do everything right, and work really hard at it.
What about all the people who say "anyone can be a pro/cat1, there is no such thing as genetic limitations only lack of training discipline"?
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Old 02-04-10, 08:57 AM
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Originally Posted by umd
What about all the people who say "anyone can be a pro/cat1, there is no such thing as genetic limitations only lack of training discipline"?
They are lying, or trying to sell you something. I guess we need to find a few sets of twins. And talk half into the favored scientific training method of the day, half into JRA and see what happens.

Grumpy, If the goal is winning and placing in Races (hence the term Bike Racing). Then Category upgrades, since they are based on results, are I would think a reasonable measure.
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Old 02-04-10, 09:03 AM
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Originally Posted by Voodoo76
They are lying, or trying to sell you something. I guess we need to find a few sets of twins. And talk half into the favored scientific training method of the day, half into JRA and see what happens.
Yeah, I should have put an eye roll next to that
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Old 02-04-10, 09:21 AM
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any plan is better than no plan
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Old 02-04-10, 10:05 AM
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To put it simply how about something like: Available training time is inversely proportional to appropriate training intensity.
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Old 02-04-10, 10:19 AM
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Originally Posted by esammuli
To put it simply how about something like: Available training time is inversely proportional to appropriate training intensity.
7 5" sprints each week should get me in top form
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Old 02-04-10, 10:35 AM
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Originally Posted by esammuli
To put it simply how about something like: Available training time is inversely proportional to appropriate training intensity.

Leave the math to the mathematicians....leave the racing to the racers....leave training advice to the experts assuming there are actually experts in the 33

In all seriousness to the OP, train however you feel is best. If that doesn't work, try something else
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Old 02-04-10, 10:55 AM
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Originally Posted by tspek
7 5" sprints each week should get me in top form
Hey, if you've only got 5" a day to train you've gotta do what you've gotta do.
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Old 02-04-10, 11:06 AM
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I do V02s at 3:30am. And only after a very dense peanut butter sandwich. But thanks for noticing
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Old 02-04-10, 11:13 AM
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what i am struggling with in terms of planning my volume is the idea that you really cant increase your volume by much more than 15-20% per year without risk of burnout... my comute volume in previous years was in the ballpark of 600 hours a year, so this year i'm planning for 700 of much more structured training, which puts my light recovery weeks at about 10h a week, which is just a hair more than my commute, on a slow week. 10h is a pretty respectable low volume week for a cat4, but it really should probably ideally be distributed a little differently than: 1 hours twice a day M-F... so i'm really kinda unsure whats the best way to structure my rest weeks given the built in commute.
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Old 02-04-10, 11:33 AM
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I am in a similar boat with regard to the commuting and how it works into a training schedule. Basically I just decided to accept the fact that it's an unchangeable part of my schedule and try not to worry about it. Maybe at higher levels of training it would have more impact but at a lower level just count it as miles on the bike and don't sweat it. Maybe just go slow and easy if it's supposed to be a recovery day (easier said than done, I know).
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Old 02-04-10, 11:46 AM
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Originally Posted by tspek
If you can/are willing to ride 15-25 hours a week, the standard base methods work.

If you don't have the time/desire to spend most your free time on a bike, perhaps something like SST is more appropriate.


Is this the conclusion we can make? It's almost March, so our base posting is coming to a close and we need to start focusing on build posting before the peak posts get here.
I'd say that's fairly accurate, to the extent you're going to get any consensus, and would add that most folks probably do something in between. Some long steady rides, and some structured work in the base phase.
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Old 02-04-10, 11:52 AM
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definitely doing that. at this point i'm:

monday - z1 commute
tues - cadence drills in the morning, strength drills (overgeared hil repeats) in the afternoon
wednesday - recovery in the morning, longish (90 min to 3h) z2
thursday - z1
friday - repeat tuesday

and then i'm pretty much at 10 hours

i would really like to do LSD or a group ride on the weekend, even in rest/transition weeks (this week is trans between base 2&3 for me), but both the bible and my coach friend (who worked with friel) recommend against it. and i'm much more concerned about overtraining than i am undertraining.

just seems like even during rest weeks (particularly in base) i should ideally get in one good LSD a week, but short of taking the bus to work, i dont really have hours available for it.

i'm not complaining really, just puzzling over the (exciting) challenges of putting together a training plan.
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Old 02-04-10, 12:05 PM
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i think it depends. on a lot of things........for an all rounder, in 10 hours I think SST training is great. I pretty much have been doing 2-3 hour rides at tempo 76-90% of FTP. This is working very well for me so far.
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Old 02-04-10, 12:06 PM
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what zone is 76-90%?

is that 3?
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Old 02-04-10, 12:11 PM
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according to Coggan - training by power not HR, z3

btw i think one can, and others have proven it, be a strong cat3 on 10 hours a week.
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