Increasing Endurance
- Thread starter rymoto
- Start date
OK. Ride many miles to improve endurance.
However, I am of the opinion that competitive cycling, at least amatuer cycling, is not an endurance sport. If you train for a race like an endurance athlete, you will not last more than five minutes. Cycling is about learning to produce power and then sustain that power.
Here are my generic recommendations for workouts:
One Minute Intervals: Ride as hard as you can for one minute. Rest for one minute and repeat 10 to 15 times.
Eight Minute Intervals: Ride as hard as you can for 8 minutes. Rest for 2 minutes and repeat 4 to 6 times.
Sprints: Sprint as fast as you can for 15-30 seconds. Rest and repeat over and over again.
Tempo: Ride at an uncomfortable but sustainable pace for an hour.
Crit Sprints: Sprint for 15 seconds, rest for 15 seconds, sprint for 15 seconds....over and over again for 30 minutes.
Three Hour Group Ride: Ride with a group for 3 hours.
Do each of these at least once every two weeks.
Hell, Chris Carmichael and Joe Friel have nothing on me.
However, I am of the opinion that competitive cycling, at least amatuer cycling, is not an endurance sport. If you train for a race like an endurance athlete, you will not last more than five minutes. Cycling is about learning to produce power and then sustain that power.
Here are my generic recommendations for workouts:
One Minute Intervals: Ride as hard as you can for one minute. Rest for one minute and repeat 10 to 15 times.
Eight Minute Intervals: Ride as hard as you can for 8 minutes. Rest for 2 minutes and repeat 4 to 6 times.
Sprints: Sprint as fast as you can for 15-30 seconds. Rest and repeat over and over again.
Tempo: Ride at an uncomfortable but sustainable pace for an hour.
Crit Sprints: Sprint for 15 seconds, rest for 15 seconds, sprint for 15 seconds....over and over again for 30 minutes.
Three Hour Group Ride: Ride with a group for 3 hours.
Do each of these at least once every two weeks.
Hell, Chris Carmichael and Joe Friel have nothing on me.
Ride e.g. 2*20 min intervals with 5-10 % less of the maximum power for the duration. Is it then long and hard? Well, those are are pretty subjective terms.sogood said:I guess the question is, is there anything training strategy for endurance apart from long and hard rides? Or is blood and testosterone doping not a good idea?
I think improving your FTP will surely help you on your 250 km ride. For example, I have succeeded in keeping an IF of ~0.7 for 7-10 hour events, with training of mainly 2*20...25 min during winter, and maybe one month in spring with riding up to 2-3 hours on the tempo zone. Another issue is then if FTP training is all one should do; the issues how to pace, eat, drink during multihour event are best learnt on a multihour ride.sogood said:
Yes and no. My post is certainly not precise.Alex Simmons said:But isn't that endurance?
My point is that doing long rides will do nothing to increase your speed. In order to increase speed, you must train at a greater speed. Doing one minute intervals will do more for increasing speed than a long ride. Don't get me wrong. Cyling is a mix of endurance and power. However, if you are looking to get faster and endurance is not a problem, you should focus on power.
Ultimately this training stuff is like eating a balanced diet. You need healthy portions from each of the food groups....sprinting, AE intervals, lactate threshold intervals and endurance rides.
Just ride some long rides, your weekly total of time should be really high during this time and endurance should only continure for a couple of months depending on how long you have been racing or riding for. Also during base mileage it isnt necesaarily good to be chained to your saddle because all you will get from this is slow legs. Go ahead get off that saddle every once and a while just be sure not to make intervals out of this it is just to remind your legs why they are hear and that is to race. Then later in the year after a month or so of endurance be sure to include some hill work and pacing.
Frigo's Luggage said:
Generally speaking, when cyclists train for an "endurance" they perform to much low-intensity training. Personally, I find too much "endurance" training hurts my endurance. The best way to increase indurance is to increase the FTP. I prefer large amounts of "sweet-spot" training filled in with some 2X20s and V02 max intervals, with only one long training ride per week.
FTP and SST training was the vast majority of my training this year and I just finished my season with a 206 mile race with substantial climbing and did quite well. Yeah, I do more than 2x20s and by mid season was shooting for an hour or more in L4 and up to two hours in level on SST days but very few rides longer than that. I rode one 105 mile ride with a friend and my pulls were at Tempo pace but the whole ride averaged to mid L2. I also did a big all day event ride with lots of climbing with an old friend for the heck of it and paced the day to just enjoy it.sogood said:
Anyway, I'm totally convinced now that you can ride and even race events much longer than your typical long days if you get your FTP up high enough and can both pace yourself and feed yourself well enough during your long events. Yeah, some longer rides would have been a good idea if they'd been ridden with enough intensity and raising CTL in general is a good thing but you can definitely ride long events after SST/FTP training if you've done enough of it.
-Dave
The best thing I did for increasing my endurance (when you have no base yet) was to slowly increase my one long ride a week to a century. It was something like:
Week 1: 30 miles
Week 2: 40 miles
Week 3: 50 miles
Week 4: 60 miles
Week 5: 65 miles
Week 6: 75 miles
Week 7: 85 miles
Week 8: 100 miles
The slow buildup was very important because there's the comfort on the bike issue (saddle sores if you don't slowly build up your butt toughness, back pain from leaning over so long) as well as knee/joint pain if you increase too fast. Once you've done that once, then i'd say do the intervals everyone else recommends. It's important to first just get the miles in during your first year.
Week 1: 30 miles
Week 2: 40 miles
Week 3: 50 miles
Week 4: 60 miles
Week 5: 65 miles
Week 6: 75 miles
Week 7: 85 miles
Week 8: 100 miles
The slow buildup was very important because there's the comfort on the bike issue (saddle sores if you don't slowly build up your butt toughness, back pain from leaning over so long) as well as knee/joint pain if you increase too fast. Once you've done that once, then i'd say do the intervals everyone else recommends. It's important to first just get the miles in during your first year.
Thanks Dave and that info is very useful, particularly for someone who is relatively time restricted and would find it hard to find the time to ride for anything longer than 100km. Lots of 2x20 and I might consider entering that 220km Grafton-Inverell road race next year...daveryanwyoming said:
ride a long ride with somone faster than you, and give it your best to keep up...
that should work, right?
that should work, right?
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