During the season, it’s natural to want something extra for a
special event.
Perhaps you'd like to sharpen your form for a hilly tour or the
high-mileage demands of a cross-state ride. Maybe a century PR is your goal,
or getting onto the podium in your district's road or time trial championship.
“Something extra” is what this
eBook is all about!
Coach Fred Matheny reveals dozens of special training and
racing techniques used by top riders and coaches. Some are secrets that these
pros would prefer to keep to
themselves. Others are gleaned from physiology studies conducted by exercise
scientists obsessed with finding out how the body performs. And some are just
common sense -- but go against traditional tenets of the sport that riders have
clung to for years.
Some will help you peak for specific events. Others will guide
your daily training. And several of these workouts are designed to fight the
staleness that you might experience as the season wears on.
BONUS! Included is Fred’s review of
new power meters and how to train with them. Plus, he shows you innovative ways
to calculate your wattage output
and VO2
max right on the road -- no need for expensive lab tests!
EXCERPT:
How Hard?
As Hard as You Can!
This concept in a nutshell: Forget heart monitors or power
meters. Go flat out when riding intervals up to 5 minutes long.
Coach Dean
Golich is not only infamous for his block training (see chapter 6), he also
preaches a heretical approach to doing intervals. He counsels his riders to
ignore the usual methods of gauging intensity, such as heart monitors and
watts-measuring devices. He eschews elaborate training zones based on
percentages of max heart rate or lactate threshold.
Instead,
Golich argues, every interval should be ridden as hard as you can. What’s
more, he doesn’t want you to ride a 3-minute interval at a steady high pace,
calculating how hard to push so you can last the distance. No such luck.
Instead, he wants you to start the interval with a sprint and hang on for all
you’re worth.
“Don’t
pace yourself,” says Golich. “Start each interval flat out. You’ll be
struggling at the end, but that’s okay. That’s when you get the adaptation.”
WHY DO THIS TO
YOURSELF?
Golich
likes to invoke the “30 miles per hour rule” which states that if you never go
30 mph, you’ll never go 30 mph.
Put
another way, if you don’t train at race intensities, you won’t be able to go
that fast in a race. Don’t expect to do well at your goal pace, whether it’s
30, 25 or 20 mph, if you consistently train at lower speeds. If your goal is
25 mph in a time trial, start your interval with a hard charge off the line,
then do your best to hold that pace. As you get tired, your speed will
decrease but your effort won’t.
“If you do
intervals this way, next week or next month you’ll be able to hold the speed
longer,” says Golich. “You’ll feel fatigue but it will be temporary. It isn’t
overtraining, so tough it out.”
TOC:
Supercharge Your Training
|
About
the Author
Introduction
How to
Use This Book
1:
Manipulating Intensity
Fast is Better
Is No-Man’s Land Ever Appropriate?
2:
Warming Up for Top Performance
Shorter May Be Better
A
Warm-Up for Training and Racing
Cooling Down
3:
Power Training
What’s a Watt?
Applying
Wattage Information
The
Race of Truth
Compare Wattage and Heart Rate
Importance of Perceived Exertion
Personalizing Your Training
Efficient Use of Time
The Downside
Product Review: Power Meters
Recommendations
4:
Simple
Testing for Wattage & VO2 Max
Meters-Per-Minute Climbed
Average Watts
Maximal Oxygen Uptake (VO2 Max)
5:
High-Cadence Pedaling
Lim’s Law
Testa’s Climbing Test
Expert Evaluation
How to Use Watts
Muscle Fiber Type
6:
“Stage Race” Training
The Pro Approach
Golich’s Block Training
Vaughters’ Block Training
Touring to Boost Fitness
Weekend Getaways
7:
Speedwork for Faster Long Rides
What Research Tells Us
From Rats to RAAM
Easy Speed
8:
How Hard? As Hard as You Can!
Why Should You Do This to Yourself?
No Heart Monitor
Three Training Zones
Should You Try It?
9:
Spinning for Strength and Power
Home Machine
Three Drawbacks
The Workout
10:
Cardio-Resistance Workouts
The Program
Rapid Results
11:
Painless LT Training
Gain With Less Pain
12:
Using Centuries to Boost Fitness
Before the Ride
Plan Your Strategy
13:
Hill Circuits for Better Climbing
Choosing a Course
Workouts
14:
Get Dirty
Smooth Strokes
Steps to Perfection
Bike Handling
15:
Tapering for Top Performance
A
Schedule That Works
Training Tapers
16:
Special Techniques of the Pros
Vaughters: 10/20 Intervals
Vaughters: Fat-Burner Workouts
Vaughters: Leg Weights Plus Miles
Klasna: Hill Running
Klasna: Off-Road on a Road Bike
Sweet: Sprint Progression
Bessette: Time Trial Training
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