Training Articles

This article will focus on the topic of “base training” and how an athlete goes about building fitness for the racing season. In cycling there are many terms that are oftentimes poorly defined and misunderstood, and base training is one of those terms. It has been used and talked about for a long time, certainly before I ever started racing. I will offer my take on base training in this article and how it can be put into practice.

Traditionally, in cycling and many endurance sports, the fall and winter are devoted almost exclusively to long, slow distance work (a.k.a., “base training”). In some instances, any type of intensity is avoided in order to avoid disrupting the base building process. Many athletes follow this plan, and many enjoy success later in the season. But it's not the only way to accomplish base building, and while decidedly "pro," it might not match the objectives of many amateur cyclists.

This tradition of long slow miles in cycling originated in the European pro ranks and was emulated by the US pros, and then, by the amateur racers. The average reader of Gamjams and the vast majority of MABRA racers are not preparing for 200km races and 3-week grand tours, but rather a season full of events ranging from 30 minutes to several hours. The vast majority of these events are less than an hour in length and are raced at a very high intensity. I propose that long mileage may not be the most effective way to build a base of fitness for a season of blistering fast criteriums and time trials that rarely exceed an hour.

Before an athlete sets forth on a training program, it is important to look at what the goals are and what types of events are a top priority. It is a harsh reality that being best in all disciplines of racing is impossible and training to attempt this will result is mediocre performances across the board. Once clear goals are established then a proper training program can be created to support those goals, while keeping in balance the social aspects of riding, work and family commitments, and the athlete’s motivation.

Another topic that often needs to be highly stressed with amateur athletes is that what the pro tour riders are doing has little applicability to their training. If you attempted to emulate the type of volume they train it would simply overwhelm you and leave absolutely no time for any quality work. So my advice is to forget what the pros are doing; and in all honesty, there is little transparency in what their actual day-to-day training really is. So forget it. Rest assured, many professional riders are doing dedicated threshold work regularly, but often in the context of longer training sessions.

My thoughts on how to best prepare an athlete for the demands of racing are contradictory to the traditional methods and is based on experience with a number of athletes, sports scientists and techniques used in other sports. “Base training,” as I define it, involves maximizing power output over 20 to 60 minutes, otherwise termed CP20 and CP60.

While there are a multitude of factors that go into racing success, one aspect of fitness that has been shown to have a high correlation to racing success is a high functional threshold power (FTP). It is therefore my professional opinion that the foundation for all the athlete’s training revolves around maximizing both the FTP itself and the athlete’s ability to spend significant time at or near that power level.

There are many ways to increase FTP, but the most effective by far is spending as much time as possible training near that intensity. While it may be controversial to some, I feel training at lower intensity levels, especially long slow rides, is not only less effective, but may actually be detrimental to an athlete’s fitness. I personally advocate elimination of this type of training for the most part - with the exception of occasional long rides and events that are fun, but not necessarily selected for training efficacy. There is a benefit to long rides in terms of making sure your body is suited to sit on a bike and pedal for hours on end, but many athletes already have this ability from years of riding.

So how does an athlete put this into practice? Training to increase FTP is done with long steady interval work at 90 to 100% of FTP and typically performed in 2x20:00 format or similar variations. Depending on the fitness and recovery ability of the athlete, these types of workouts can be modified but would not often contain more than 60 minutes of work at or near FTP. Training of this type has been proven to be more effective in raising both FTP and the ability to ride at, or near, that intensity for extended periods than lower intensity work. Lower intensity riding just doesn’t offer the same training benefit, no matter how many hours are performed.

One concern many athletes have is that if they are not regularly doing long rides and high volume weeks that they will not have good “endurance”. This is simply not true; most athletes will find that by maximizing FTP, their endurance has also improved significantly. Additionally, concerns about peaking too early and doing intervals in the winter causing burnout are often voiced, but the chance of overtraining and burnout is far greater with high volume training than with a properly designed and monitored lower volume, intensity-focused program.

Another reason long slow rides have been in such favor in winter months is their fat burning aspect. While I have written on this subject before, I will state unequivocally that if your goals are to be a faster bike racer, training should support that goal. Fat loss is an entirely different goal and training for fat loss is not remotely the same thing as training to be a fast bike racer. My recommendation is to get your diet in check, do an honest assessment of what you want to accomplish, and train for it. I’m sorry to say that you simply can’t incorporate proper intensity at the same time as layering on volumes of riding to burn fat. Imagine how productive and different training could be if the athlete was not concerned with burning off the effects of a poor diet.

I've seen in the athletes I coach that building a “base” of the highest FTP possible with focused threshold interval work yields formidable racing fitness at a fraction of the saddle time. If an athlete has spent several months focused on improving their FTP, then they will be very well prepared for the higher intensity efforts and the rigors of racing.

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