Supercharge Your Training

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by Fred Matheny Contents Excerpt Delivery

$12.95 eBook RBR Publishing Co. 71 pages PDF file size: 594 KB

eBooks by Fred Matheny

Basic Training for Roadies*
Off-Season Training for Roadies*     

Spring Training for Roadies*

Supercharge Your Training*

Coach Fred's Solutions to 150 Road Cycling Challenges

*Included in Fred Matheny's Complete Book of Road Bike Training for a savings of $13.85

Also check Coach Fred Matheny's $3.99 training programs:  Power to the Pedals and Swift Endurance

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.”

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TOC: Supercharge Your Training

About the Author Introduction How to Use This Book   1: Manipulating Intensity      Vary the 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