Should a Cat. 3 bother with "peaking"?

[Animator]

Greetings, I'm new to this forum and I like what I've read here so far. It's an antidote to all the questionable training fads and advise I find elsewhere. This appeals to the contrarian in me, but I'm also interested in the truth, whatever it may be, and not just bucking popular opinion. So I'm genuinely curious in the questions I ask below.

Scheduling "peaks" in training schedules has been made very popular in recent years. The idea seems to be that we only have the pontential to peak but a few times a year and only for a few weeks at a time. The rest of the year we should expect lackluster results. My questions are:

(1) Is the science behind this idea sound?
(2) If so, how beneficial is it for "weekend warrior" amateur athletes?
(3) And lastly, is the frequently-made assertion that it is impossible to ride strongly all season long really true, especially at the "weekend warrior" level?

Just so you know where I'm coming from, I've taken up racing again after a 10 year hiatus and so peaking is a new concept for me.

Thank you!

 

[beerco]

I would say it depends on how much you're training (i.e. how high is your CTL). If your over all volume is too low, a taper to induce a peak can simply result in an over all loss of fitness, especially for several weeks after the peak.

As a fellow cat 3, I believe that the racing is easy enough that it's not really necessary to peak. I also think it's funner and less risky to try and hold a high level of fitness through the season.

 

[Alex Simmons]

I would say it depends on how much you're training (i.e. how high is your CTL). If your over all volume is too low, a taper to induce a peak can simply result in an over all loss of fitness, especially for several weeks after the peak.

As a fellow cat 3, I believe that the racing is easy enough that it's not really necessary to peak. I also think it's funner and less risky to try and hold a high level of fitness through the season.

I suppose as a Masters age rider I'm around that level too. I'm peaking because I train sufficiently to warrant it and want to do personal bests in my target events (championship pursuit & points racing). But you don't always need to peak to get good results, indeed I have won & placed in quite a few events this season even though I was not peaking for those events. Nevertheless, with a sufficient training / gradual overload principle in play, then peaking will optimise performance for a #1 priority event.

 

[bikeguy]

(1) Is the science behind this idea sound?
(2) If so, how beneficial is it for "weekend warrior" amateur athletes?
(3) And lastly, is the frequently-made assertion that it is impossible to ride strongly all season long really true, especially at the "weekend warrior" level?

Just so you know where I'm coming from, I've taken up racing again after a 10 year hiatus and so peaking is a new concept for me.

Thank you!

1) Yes.
2) Not likely. Only with a high volume of training or high level of fitness
does peaking really start to help. A moderately trained athlete can pile
on training stress and expect continuing improvements - to a point.
3) It's not possible to repeatedly ride one's best - there will be variations
at all levels. If you are riding that consistently - then some of those are not your best efforts. Some days you'll be sick, some days your legs will be tired and some days you'll just not feel motivated.
4) As Alex said the idea of peaking is to target an event for optimal
performance, at the expense of others. If you're placing in the middle of the pack, peaking bringing you a few places up probably doesn't matter. Training more would help more.

-bikeguy

 

[Animator]

Hey thanks, guys. My follow up question is then, at what volume of training does peaking start to make sense?

I'm afraid I still measure volume by hours in the saddle and not these fancy new acronyms but I train from 7 to 11 hours/week depending the goals for the week. I do have a coach and someday I'll get a PM (hey! I used an ancronym!) when they cost less and aren't hard-wired into the components.

3) It's not possible to repeatedly ride one's best - there will be variations
at all levels. If you are riding that consistently - then some of those are not your best efforts. Some days you'll be sick, some days your legs will be tired and some days you'll just not feel motivated.

Whoops! Sorry, I was misunderstood. All the above reasons are why I said "ride strongly all season" and not "ride one's best." i.e. I'd prefer to be competitive all season long than to focus on one or two events. Well, except maybe I'd like to be strongest during Super Week. I just want to have fun racing Masters and Cat. 3s. For me its a pasttime. A time-consuming one, but pasttime nonetheless. Thanks.