More on intervals - can they keep you young?

Having just turned 65, it was quite a coincidence to receive 2 questions form my peer group (senior cyclists). Thee is little question that stressing your cardiovascular system will delay the inevitable decline one sees with aging. And it is not just the miles you put in. Athletes who maintain or increase workout  intensity tend to see their VO2 max decline at a lower rate than those who focus on higher  mileage but at a slower pace. Stay with those intervals - year round. Aim to keep the heart rate at 85 - 90 % of max. 2 days a week.

But don't overcompensate. That means take a day or two off a week and warm up before you do your intervals. I got the sense that the second reader was pushing too hard - and it is then only a matter of time till injury, burn out, or overtraining occur.

Other points to be remembered:

 

• There is a drop off in muscle volume near age 60. Keep lifting those weights.
• You will need a little more recovery time than when you were 25. So factor in a little off the bike rest time to let those muscles heal between workouts.
• Stay on that balanced diet with an emphasis on fruit, vegetables, more whole grains and enough protein to help main muscle volume. And, of course, enough carbs to replace what you will be using on those rides.
• Keep your life in emotional balance and enjoy family, friends and other activities. Don't just
• focus on the biking to the exclusion of all else.

You can read more at http://www.cptips.com/age.htm and  http://www.cptips.com/livelng.htm

CPTIPS - Website/Blog/Facebook --- How do they work together ?

Over the last few months, I've been expanding Cycling Perofrmance Tips presence in the social networking/online world. I was told the website alone was not enough, and there were better ways to get information to those that would benefit. The first step was the Blog, and now I have added a face book page.

My plan is to use:

• The website: www.cptips.com for facts and information. It's shortcoming is that it often feels fragmented and difficult to feel one has the whole picture.
• This blog Blog: http://wwwcptips.blogspot.com/ to focus on new information in the literature and discuss individual areas or topics in more detail
• A Facebook page www.facebook.com/pages/Mukilteo-WA/Cycling-Performance-Tips/108078485907369#!/pages/Mukilteo-WA/Cycling-Performance-Tips/108078485907369?v=wall&__a=161&ajaxpipe=1  to a) provide a forum for reader feedback and ideas in an interactive way and b) to highlight how biking fits into one's life, specifically talking about ride planning and trips.

We'll see how this works, and make changes as needed.

Intervals - how long?

"How do I decide on the right duration for my intervals?"  An interesting question posed by a friend at work. She is training for a triathlon and wondered if there was a formula (or guideline) to define the optimal interval length (perhaps, she speculated,  related to the duration of the ride one isplanning).

I suspect that there is an "upper limit" beyond which a longer interval will not provide additional training benefits. And one also needs to remember the importance of rest, that is the duration of the rest interval - too short and the muscles/CV system do not have time to recover and let you maximize the next effort, too long and you aren't stressing your performance to the max.

I did find this from the literature - as relates to sprint intervals: In order to enhance aerobic endurance and increase VO2max towards its upper, genetic limit, interval training should consist of 3-5 minute work bouts with a 1:1 work to rest ratio or less. The intensity should equate to 90-100% VO2max.

My advice would  be to set 3 to 5 minutes as the maximum length for your sprint intervals - where you are pushing your absolute maximum to train for that sprint at the end of a ride or preparing to respond with a chase to a early breakaway rider.

For endurance riding, the idea of stressing your CV system to improve still holds. But if you just want to pick up your average performance from 60% VO2max to 65%, then a half mile or even mile ridden at the faster pace qualifies as an "interval" and if you work in a half dozen during your ride, you will improve.

The final answer to "how long" the interval is, as in many things, "it depends" and more on the level of exertion of the interval than the length of your total ride.

Dick

Improving Your Performance - Intervals

You have done your prep work - 1) you have your base miles to minimize injuries as you push up the miles, 2) you have mapped out your personal  training program (based on a few principles we discussed in April), and 3) you have made a decision as to how you will track your level of training exertion (either a heart rate monitor or perceived exertion).

Now the final piece - intervals to provide that improvement in your cardiovascular performance.

An ideal training week should include one long ride at a reasonable pace and a rest day or two. Rest is important, and if you ignore it, thinking that 7 days of riding = optimal training, then you will fail to reach your personal best. But more about over training next time.

That leaves you with 3 more riding days during your training week. One (or perhaps two) are going to be interval days - and these will be the key to your performance improvement. Intervals are based on pushing your anaerobic threshold, and it is this "stress" on the cardiovascular system that leads to adaptation and improvement (just as weight training improves muscle strength).

Intervals are most effective when they are :

• limited to twice a week during the peak training season
• when the interval sessions are separated by at least 48 hours to allow adequate recovery. (For example, if your long ride is on the weekend, Tuesday and Thursday make good interval days.)

Short exercise intervals are generally 15 to 90 seconds and almost always anaerobic in intensity, while longer intervals may be up to 3 to 5 minutes duration. Once you decide on the duration for your interval training for that day, pace your effort to exercise at your maximum throughout that period (if you can't make it through the entire interval, you need to cut back your effort a bit and not the length of the interval). The goal should be a total of 10 to 20 minutes of hard pedaling during the intervals themselves (don't count warm up, recovery, or cool down). If you are just beginning an interval program, start with 5 minutes of peak effort per riding session (total interval time) and work up from there.


To get the maximum benefit from interval training, it is important to allow adequate recovery time between intervals. Subsequent intervals should start before your heart rate and oxygen uptake have returned entirely to normal. If you are using a heart rate monitor, wait for your heart rate to drop to 60 or 65% of your maximum heart rate. If you are using perceived exertion (i.e. how you feel) to decide, wait until your breathing has returned to it's normal depth and rate.

For those of you interested in more specifics and ideas, there is more information @ http://www.cptips.com/intervl.htm
 
But just as rest days are important, setting reasonable interval training objectives is important as well. If you set the bar too high, burnout and training drop out rates rise.

Improving Your Times - measuring your "work" to maximize improvement

You have put in your base miles. You are feeling good on the bike. And you have made that personal commitment to improve your speeds and anaerobic threshold. But where next??

What is the best strategy to push your body, maximizing your improvement for the time you are spending on the bike. Your friends talk about heart rate monitors (HRM) and "training zones". You have read about lactate threshold and the theory of pushing your limits using intervals. And in surfing the web you have stumbled across numerous training "systems". But the numbers you read about vary from program to program. Which ones are right - is there some science to call upon as you optimize training to improve?

The very fact that you are riding regularly has already stimulated changes in the cardiovascular system, lungs, and muscle cells which improve your work capacity - for both endurance and sprint activities. Muscle capillaries will increase and the effectiveness of the muscles in extracting oxygen from the blood will improve. In addition,  muscle cell changes will improve the rate at which lactate is metabolized and as a result, the rate of removal of lactate from the blood stream increases. Thus the balance between production and removal is shifted towards removal and lead to better performance before lactic acid inhibits muscle performance.

But your biggest improvements will come with pushing your anaerobic threshold. All the approaches mentioned in the first paragraph are effective, and there is no proven "best one" (at least based on any head to head comparisons I could find). After chasing my personal numbers from day to day (my HR using a HRM, which varied significantly when I compared my HR to my road speeds and how I physically felt), I decided that perceived effort (PE) made more sense for my personal style (more on PE can be found at http://www.cptips.com/percxtn.htm ). And for the last years, that is how I have trained. I have been much happier with my training, feeling less stressed than when I would miss my day's target, and I find I am just as strong as ever when it comes to my I do.

So in the end, I think this is a personal choice, and after you have a good training base, the real decision lies in the commitment to take that first step to push your comfort limits and stress the cardiovascular system.

Dick Rafoth

It's Spring - Time to Get Back into Shape

It's been a long winter, the sun is out, and your thoughts turn to cycling with your buddies (you don't want to be embarrassed about your performance), maybe a summer cycling adventure you have been planning, or maybe that century ride "personal best".  To ride at your best, you will need a training program - one that sets reasonable goals and will keep you focused. You want to maximize the results of your efforts (and time available to train) but not go out so hard or fast that you end up injured. Here are a few tips for successful training. 

1. Before you get into serious training, have at least a few hundred long easy miles under your belt as a good base.

2. Increases total weekly miles by 10 - 15% per week. The 10 to 15% figure has been used for years by marathons runners to minimizes musculoskeletal injuries with training.


3. Once you begin your actual training program, it's important to try to ride at least 5 days a week, and take at least one day off. Depending on your level of training (or evidence of overtraining) the seventh day is either an additional intermediate mileage day or an additional rest day. A typical weekly program would look like this:

• ONE long mileage day - The ride which is your goal is the basis for planning your weekly long mileage days. Some coaches suggest you work up to a ride equal to the length (or even 125% of the length) of that event while others feel that reaching a distance equal to 75% of the event distance is adequate. This is usually a Saturday ride (with Sunday as a backup for bad weather or other unexpected circumstance that could derail your training program).
• ONE short mileage day - Plan your short mileage day to follow the high mileage day. It should be about 1/4 of the length of the long ride and ridden at a leisurely pace to loosen up your muscles after the long ride of the week.
• THREE (or four ) intermediate mileage days - The intermediate mileage days are midway between the short ride and the long ride in distance. At least one of these should be an interval training ride.
• ONE  (or two ) rest days off the bike

4. The pace of your training rides:

• the long ride should match your own goal ride pace
• the short "recovery" ride should be a leisurely pace at no more than 50-60% of your maximum heart rate
• two of the intermediate rides should be at the planned goal ride pace
• one of the intermediate rides, preferably prior to your day off the bike, should be at a brisk pace 2 - 3 mph faster than your planned goal ride pace.

5. You can estimate the length of your training program by taking the long ride from your base training period, increasing it by 10% to 15% a week, and repeating this until you arrive at a figure that is at least 75% of the length of the event for which you are training.

6. Remember to be flexible and adjust your program to your lifestyle. A rigid program is destined to fail.

7. A good nutrition program is an important part of preseason training. Carbohydrates are the key to optimizing your personal performance. If you are planning to trim off a few pounds while training, cutting back on total Calories risks poor performance and the psychological impact of feeling you are not going to be at or beyond last years level. So if you are trying to shed the pounds, be prepared to deal with the fatigue that will surely occur on those longer rides. Suggestions for nutrition for six specific types of rides are summarized on the web site Cycling Performance Tips.
Keep these tips in mind as you plan your training program and it should be a successful riding season!

Dick Rafoth

Training - Is there science in "training to the numbers"?

You have put in your base miles. You are feeling good on the bike. And you have made a personal commitment to improve your speeds and aerobic threshold. But where next?? Friends talk about heart rate monitors and "training zones". You have read about lactate threshold and the theory of pushing your limits using intervals. And in surfing the web you have stumbled across the Carmichael Training System Field Test (CTS). But the numbers vary from program to program. Which ones are right - is there any science to call upon?


The fact is that all these training programs are based on the same principles, all provide improvement, and there is not a proven "best" way (at least based on any head to head comparisons I've  been able to find). In fact, after chasing my own persoanl heart rate numbers from day to day (which varied significantly - especially when I compared them to my road speeds and how I physically felt) I decided that logic really supported perceived exertion as the most logical. And for the last many years, that is how I have trained. I have found myself much happier in my training, feeling less stressed than when I would miss my day's target, and I find I am just as strong as ever when it comes to how I ride. So in the end, I think this is a personal choice, and the real decision lies in that commitment to take that first step to push your comfort limits and stress the cardiovascular system.

I think the following question and my answer reflect the frustration many feel and my approach:

Question:  I am not sure which base calculation I should use for setting up my training zones. My measured Max HR is 181 and my measured LTHR (by the CTS) is 170. Do I base my zones off the MHR or the LTHR. Because of the high LTHR compared to my low measured MHR, there is a large disparity between the two zones. Training so far using the MHR method seems hard enough, but should I be pushing it harder and go for the LTHR method? - BL

My answer:  As far as I can research it, the CTS Field Test is a proprietary Carmichael idea. I could not find any studies that correlate it with traditional methods to determine lactate threshold or MHR.

Will it work? Sure, any approach that forces you to push yourself will lead to improvement. Is it the best? There is no data.

What are the risks of picking one approach over another? If the heart rate you are aiming for in a recovery zone is too high, you risk over training when you really wanted to be in what is a very important part of a training program, a recovery zone, and as a result you risk a higher rate of burnout or overreaching/over training in your program. And if you are riding at a high level threshold zone at a heart rate that is excessive, you may be putting in a lot of unneceassary pain for minimal additional if any increase in training benefits (and may in the end decide to bag the whole thing).

There is no question that I feel different in training from day to day - what I ate, time of day, an extra cup of coffee, and even the effects of my ride the day before. I worked through this quandary (for myself) a number of years ago and decided that perceived exertion (not using HR numbers) avoided the focus on the monitor and in my mind made the most sense to maximize my training benefits and keep cycling enjoyable.