Training Plans That Suit You
Training plans are vital to any cyclist who wants to improve their three Fs: Fitter, Faster and Further.
If you don’t have a plan, you’ll simply become good at whatever riding you currently do. So if you always do endurance rides, you’ll be good at endurance rides. If you always do two-hour tempo rides… you get the idea.
This sounds obvious, but it’s a big reason why cyclists plateau and get frustrated that their performance isn’t improving.
It doesn’t matter if you don’t intend to race – a training plan is still going to help you get more out of you and your bike
Training isn’t just for elite athletes and you don’t have to be a ‘good’ cyclist to ‘deserve’ a coach. It’s perfectly valid to be coached even if you’re a complete novice or simply trying to be healthier.
Achieving your first 30km ride, if you’ve been sedentary, is just as valid a reason to train as trying to get a ‘gold’ time in the Dragon Ride. It might even be a better reason.
A structured, goal-based training plan, if set properly, will blend endurance, threshold, baseline and high-end speed/intervals sessions so that your body is forced to adapt to become stronger and more efficient. It’s the adaptation process, which occurs during recovery periods, that actually improves your fitness, rather than the exercise itself.
So, irrespective of whether you're a seasoned Sportive rider, a lover of cycling holidays, a dedicated fundraiser for charity, a novice mountain biker, a passionate Strava segment collector, or motivated by the impact of cars on the environment then feel free to contact us to see how we can help you get Fitter, Faster or riding Further.
“Andy’s training plan, which is broken down into specific daily sessions (some days are this thing called rest...) have made a massive difference to me and whilst more subjective, I’m a more confident rider and don’t let my mates drop me.
I’m leaner, I believe I can actually ride up hills now, and I feel/know I am in the best shape I’ve ever been despite being 50 this year.”
— Tim L
What will a Training Plan look like for me?
Dream it.
First of all, we’ll have a conversation about your goals, objectives, cycling background, strengths, weaknesses, family life, available time, medical history and anything else that helps us understand the person that YOU are.
As a coach, it’s so nice to be able to understand the rider from a holistic stance as well as the cycling aspect.
So -if you want to declare your insatiable binge-watch TV sessions; your love of the smell of coal fires or your allegiance to all things Rapha, then that’s up to you but we like to hear about them!
Write it.
From there, we’ll ask you complete a simple form - don’t worry, we store this information on an encrypted hard drive and will delete it one year after the training has finished.
If you want to be proactive, the form can be downloaded here.
Plan it.
Your training will be organised according to a process known as Periodisation.
At its simplest level, this is subdividing the training plan in to discrete, manageable blocks of time so that you will be at your peak performance level for your chosen ride(s).
For example, a 6-month training plan would consist of 26 weeks (microcycles), grouped in to 4-8 mesocycles depending on your circumstances and enclosed in one overall macrocycle.
The volume and intensity of sessions will rise and fall over the microcycles but always leading to you being at your peak at the right time!
Do it.
We’ll supply the training sessions one or two mesocycles at a time but call them Build1, Build2 etc as that makes it much easier to know where you are!
By limiting each Build to a couple of mesocycles, there’s plenty of scope to adjust the sessions based on the feedback that you provide.
Coaching certainly isn’t a case of ‘set and forget’, so your feedback is every bit as important as our knowledge for a successful outcome to the plan.
Tweak it.
During the week before the next Build starts, we’ll send you 3 documents to ensure you have everything you need.
There will be:
A description of the upcoming Build and recap of things we have learned from the previous build.
A 1-page summary guidance document that you can print and stick to your wall if you want to!
A schedule that defines each session day-by-day, week-by-week for the Build and gives all of the specific session information that you’ll need.
If you’re using Training Peaks and you’ve connected to our Coach account, the schedule will be loaded in to your calendar.
The Super-Domestique
The simplest plan type that we have available.
As with the real life domestiques in professional cycling teams, success comes by working as team towards a shared objective. Let's have a discussion about what you want to achieve and I'll find a way to help you get there!
Your plan, which really needs at least 2 months to demonstrate results, can be based on power readings, heart rate measurements or just old fashioned "perceived effort" known as the Borg scale.
It just depends on what equipment you have. Rest assured that we're not going to tell you that you have to go and buy this and that widget and gadget - but you can if you want to!
The Directeur-Sportif
The ultimate plan that we have available and known within Sportive Cycle Coaching as the 'All-in-One' option.
With this plan, structured training and conversational coaching are all available to you.
It costs a little bit more than the Super-Domestique plan but it does enable a much greater degree of personalisation and adaptation as a result of the regular fortnightly telephone calls.