How does this weekly plan sound



chimpchops27

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Jan 14, 2010
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Last year I managed to hit 266 watts @ 55kilos for 20 mins, im looking to improve on that this year.
I take part in time trials and mountain biking.

My 5 second and minute power isn't the best, but my 5 min and ft isn't so bad.

How does this look for a weekly plan for improvements.?

Monday 1 min on 3 off X10
Tuesday 2 x 20 95 % FTP
Wednesday 6 x 4 mins vo2 max
Thu 2 x 20 95% FTP
Fri Micro Intervals 150% of FTP
Sat Day off
Sun 3 hr road/mtb ride.

Thanks in advance for any comments.
 
chimpchops27 said:
Last year I managed to hit 266 watts @ 55kilos for 20 mins
Good work!

chimpchops27 said:
How does this look for a weekly plan for improvements.?

Monday 1 min on 3 off X10
first a question, what power are you doing the 1-min on part for monday? what about the off part? guessing you are doing some sort of L6 work here but only you can say for sure.....


chimpchops27 said:
Tuesday 2 x 20 95 % FTP
Wednesday 6 x 4 mins vo2 max
Thu 2 x 20 95% FTP
Fri Micro Intervals 150% of FTP
i know some, ha ha many probably, will disagree with me but this stretch of 4 days sounds painful to me. and if you are doing L6 work on monday then it sounds like a superwoman/superman schedule :eek:

i got my idea of scheduling training days in part from lemond's book. more or less he did his most intense/hardest days first, then worked down. for example, monday would be L5, tuesday L4, wed. would be L4 or L3 depending on what you can do and want to do.
-if you are set on doing the schedule then maybe try putting your most important/key workouts when you are freshest during your week & putting the less important ones on days you won't be as rested or sharp.

oh, seems like you have only one rest day and ride 6 consecutive days. if you can do that & meet your targets, awesome, but i couldn't do it. something tells me i am not alone in that :)
 
DancenMacabre said:
Good work!


first a question, what power are you doing the 1-min on part for monday? what about the off part? guessing you are doing some sort of L6 work here but only you can say for sure.....



i know some, ha ha many probably, will disagree with me but this stretch of 4 days sounds painful to me. and if you are doing L6 work on monday then it sounds like a superwoman/superman schedule :eek:

i got my idea of scheduling training days in part from lemond's book. more or less he did his most intense/hardest days first, then worked down. for example, monday would be L5, tuesday L4, wed. would be L4 or L3 depending on what you can do and want to do.
-if you are set on doing the schedule then maybe try putting your most important/key workouts when you are freshest during your week & putting the less important ones on days you won't be as rested or sharp.

oh, seems like you have only one rest day and ride 6 consecutive days. if you can do that & meet your targets, awesome, but i couldn't do it. something tells me i am not alone in that :)

Hi there thanks for the reply.

My minute interval will be at 150% ftp so yep L6 work.

Maybe if you think this is to much, I could try Thu @ 85% of FTP.

I was planning on doing this schedule as 2 weeks on with 1 week easy
 
oh, i dont want to discourage you or suggest you train one way or another. i just looked at your schedule and thought 'well that's (much) more than i can do!'. if you can manage it then, super.

guess i would ask myself a few things...

what am i looking to improve upon most? is it FTP? AC? sprint power?
once i have that answer then i would create a timeline to my goal events.
then i would create blocks in my training plan to focus on the key energy systems for my races.

right now you have L6, L5, and L4 work.

there is overlap to some degree sure where doing one of those helps the other. but many find focusing on one aspect of fitness to be easier. then you would proceed to transition to another component. example: L4 focus for 12 weeks, then an L5 block of maybe 6 weeks, closer to races and then L6 just 3 weeks out. long winded way of saying periodization...

my focus now is entirely on FTP, so i do lots & lots of SST/L4/high tempo work. i dont do any L5 or L6 work because that would mean cutting into the L4 work + the added recovery i'd need from L5/L6 would = lower volume/tss. that fits my timeline & goal events for now but if those were diff. or changed, then my training plan would reflect those changes.
 
DancenMacabre said:
oh, i dont want to discourage you or suggest you train one way or another. i just looked at your schedule and thought 'well that's (much) more than i can do!'. if you can manage it then, super.

guess i would ask myself a few things...

what am i looking to improve upon most? is it FTP? AC? sprint power?
once i have that answer then i would create a timeline to my goal events.
then i would create blocks in my training plan to focus on the key energy systems for my races.

right now you have L6, L5, and L4 work.

there is overlap to some degree sure where doing one of those helps the other. but many find focusing on one aspect of fitness to be easier. then you would proceed to transition to another component. example: L4 focus for 12 weeks, then an L5 block of maybe 6 weeks, closer to races and then L6 just 3 weeks out. long winded way of saying periodization...

my focus now is entirely on FTP, so i do lots & lots of SST/L4/high tempo work. i dont do any L5 or L6 work because that would mean cutting into the L4 work + the added recovery i'd need from L5/L6 would = lower volume/tss. that fits my timeline & goal events for now but if those were diff. or changed, then my training plan would reflect those changes.

Ok that sounds good. I just feel I would struggle to just do L4 work, I like to break it up a bit.

I am mainly going to be doing time trials this year, but i will also compete in mtb events.
Someone mentioned to me that its great have a good FTP value, but if you are low on say Anaerobic strength ie minute intervals, this will drag down your ftp in a race situation where you have to grind up a steep climb.

When you work on your L5 And L6 will you also throw in some L4 at some point in the week?
 
Gotta agree with Dancen, that's a very stout schedule and one I doubt many athletes could stick with for very long.

You're planning 6 training days per week of which 5 are L6,L5 or L4 and the sixth is a mountian bike ride which probably works out to Tempo but likely with some very high power/torque sections if you're riding technical trails. If you disregard recovery (which you shouldn't) then this looks great on paper but I don't think many clean athletes could sustain a schedule like that for very long.

It's really hard to do all the high end work we need during any one cycle of the training year. It's one reason we periodize and vary our training focus throughout the year. So that might mean a Threshold/Tempo focus during early winter, maybe bringing in some more VO2 Max work later on and then at some point introducing more AWC work. But each time you bring in a higher end workout you typically have to swap one of your other high end (L4,L5,L6,L7) workouts for something more sustainable so that you can recover well enough to still get quality work on your hard days.

It's one of the challenges, but also one of the opportunities. No one can work every system every week all year long. You have to pick and choose based on your own strengths and weaknesses and the needs of your events. So like Dancen suggests, think hard about where you excel and where you struggle and the needs of your target events then craft a plan that hits those parts that will help you the most but still allows you to recover well enough to improve. Without sufficient recovery there won't be any long term improvement as it's not during the workout, but during the recovery that our bodies adapt and grow stronger.

IME, it's a rare cyclist that doesn't need to work on sustainable power so it's a rare training week that doesn't include at least a day of dedicated L4 work. So yeah, when you introduce the high end work it's usually a good idea to still retain a day of focused Threshold work.

Good luck,
-Dave
 
chimpchops27 said:
Ok that sounds good. I just feel I would struggle to just do L4 work, I like to break it up a bit.

I am mainly going to be doing time trials this year, but i will also compete in mtb events.
Someone mentioned to me that its great have a good FTP value, but if you are low on say Anaerobic strength ie minute intervals, this will drag down your ftp in a race situation where you have to grind up a steep climb.

When you work on your L5 And L6 will you also throw in some L4 at some point in the week?

hey, you know yourself best so if only L4 work isn't your bag, then for sure get a bit creative.

You can get some interesting workouts while still focusing on sustainable power.

Here are some alternative workouts to the ubiquitious 2/3 x 20 format:

Workout 1
-10 min warm-up
-5 minutes @ 85% of FT then 1 minute @ 120% of FT. work your way up to 60 minutes non-stop.
- 10min. cool-down.

Workout 2
-10 min warm-up
-7 min @ 80% of FT then 1 minute @ 130% of FT. work up to 60 minutes non-stop.
- 10min. cool-down.

Workout 3
microintervals like you had in your plan
-10 min warm-up
15s on @ 150% FT, 15s off @ 50% FT (or a diff. combination/mix of intensities if you prefer)
- 10min. cool-down.

Workout 4
-10 min warm-up
-5 min on @ 100% FT w/1min rest. do 8 (or more) reps
- 10min. cool-down.

Workout 5
- 10min. warm-up;
- 20min. @85% of FTP;
- 5min. @70% of FTP;
- 5min. @100% of FTP with last 30sec. thereof @140%+ of FTP;
- 5min. @70% of FTP;
- 5min. @100% of FTP with last 30sec. thereof @140%+ of FTP;
- 10min. cool-down.

Workout 6
- 10min. warm-up;
- 70% of FTP then every 4.5min. go @140% of FTP for 90sec. (so total of 6min.) and that is one rep and you continue that for 10 reps (total of 60min) never letting things go below the 70% of FTP base level;
- 10min. cool-down.

Workout 7
- 10min. warm-up;
- 5min. @110% of FTP then 2min. @60% of FTP and that is one rep; do 3 reps per set and 2 sets with 10min. @ L2 between the sets.
- 10min. cool-down.

Workout 8
- 10min. warm-up;
- 20min. @90% of FTP with last 2min. thereof being @110% of FTP and that is one rep; do 3 reps with 5min. @ L2 between the reps;
- 10min. cool-down.

Workout 9
- 10min warm-up;
- 57min. @75% of FTP and spaced out fairly evenly during that 57min. do 4 x 2min. @110% of FTP;
- 18min. @80% of FTP and spaced out fairly evenly during that 18min. do 4 x 1min. @120% of FTP;
-10min. cool-down.

Anyway there are infinite ways to do these workouts. some of them i picked up from other people like Bill Black who is famous for his 'hour of power' style workouts (#5-9 above are in that spirit), and others i kind of improvised.

I'd follow Dave's suggestion. I would always keep some L4 work in the program during a block focus on a diff. energy system. Even then you might experience some FT backsliding.

About this point:
chimpchops27 said:
Someone mentioned to me that its great have a good FTP value, but if you are low on say Anaerobic strength ie minute intervals, this will drag down your ftp in a race situation where you have to grind up a steep climb.
there are some riders who feel that strong Anaerobic ability is the key to making those steep climbs (or breaks, etc) in a race & they emphasize L6 work accordingly.

but i am more of the mindset that because any race over 1 minute long is primarily aerobic.....then that should be the focus since aerobic ability will be the most important factor.

keep in mind that anaerobic gycloysis is 2-1/2 times faster than the aerobic mechanism. but it is also much, much less efficient, (~2 ATP/glucose vs 36/glucose). it is like comparing airplane fuel to diesel.

a few more points:
yes AWC does regenerate to some extend, but not completely if you dig very deep. witness how the worlds best pursuit riders, even in the olympics, cannot match their qualifying times despite having 8+ hours to rest between rounds. now imagine in a race with repeated surges and little time to rest - you are going to drain that AWC tank and what will you have left after that?

if your FT is 250 and you have a surge that takes you to 350watts for 1 minute then you are at 140% of FT. you just burned a match right there. But get your FT up to 300 and now it is only 116% of FT - an intensity many do for several reps during routine vo2max work workouts.

given a choice of a high FT & high AWC, you'd take both & be hard to beat :)

but given a choice of a high FT or high AWC, i'll take a high FT & like my chances over a rider with a lower FT but high AWC.
 
chimpchops27 said:
How does this look for a weekly plan for improvements.?

Monday 1 min on 3 off X10
Tuesday 2 x 20 95 % FTP
Wednesday 6 x 4 mins vo2 max
Thu 2 x 20 95% FTP
Fri Micro Intervals 150% of FTP
Sat Day off
Sun 3 hr road/mtb ride.
I'm with Dave and Dancen. If you do these workouts at the levels people seem to suggest (and have properly measured your FTP), then this is a killer schedule and most people would lose the mental edge before the week is over. However, only you know you so if you think you can take it maybe it's okay.

The schedule also has the odd property of having your lowest intensity workout as the first one after the rest day, leading off six straight hard days. I've heard and read that it's better to do the higher intensity stuff when you are fresher.

My final comment is to not do the same thing every week. Mix it up a bit.
 
lanierb said:
My final comment is to not do the same thing every week. Mix it up a bit.

I agree with this. The schedule posted seems to cover all the bases, but keep in mind that not all bases need to be covered every week. Many people have a schedule with more weekly focus that what you've posted, but with a focus that shifts as the training season progresses -- a periodized training program, if you will. Search the forums on periodization and you'll find lots of good discussion.

The schedule you have seems to provide a lot of variety, but you may also want to consider varying the routine by week or month as well to make sure you're mixing up the training stimulus. A one schedule fits all routine might get stale if you're not careful.
 
I have to agree with DM and Dave on this as well. I used to focus on strict L4's all the time, and that was hard enough. Doing L4 and then going to L7, L4, L6 right after ?? I would be taking waaay too long to recover after that last day, and not give a full effort.

If it works for you, that's awesome, more power to ya, but remember, recovery is more important than the actual workout.

Now-a-days I also do SST/L4, since I retested my FTP.
 
Ok thanks for the advice everyone im currently looking at making a few changes to my plan,
maybe to make it a touch easier.

Ill let you know how I get on.
 
Well after taking onboard what everyone said, I thought I would retest my ftp.
Ive had 5 weeks off with a chest infection which I think has cleared up now.

Well the test didnt go well I struggled to make 230 watts for the full 20 mins. I find it hard to believe
ive lost that much. ive been riding cyclocross for the back part of last year.:confused:

So it looks like I might just bash on with some L4 work to get myself going again.
 

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