This is a sponsored post in association with A1 Coaching.
In the first post of this series I spoke about the need to challenge conventional methods and to embrace new knowledge and techniques. This phenomenon of 'junk miles' is the main factor preventing athletes from maximising their available training time.
- Click here for free access to A1 Coaching’s winter training video series
- How to get more speed with less training
The main training-related problem with this average speed culture (made worse by Strava) is that riders ride around at a perceived effort of 7 out of 10 most the time. Therefore, whatever number of hours are available, they tend to ride as hard as they can for that time, trying to get the best average speed. In this way, they are not training the different physiological systems for optimum benefit.
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Your physiological systems and training zones
If you’re a time-crunched cyclist you must learn that performance is a combination of your different physiological systems working in harmony. Each system is trained differently, and you have to adapt your training accordingly – this is ‘zonal training’.
Sounds complicated? It isn’t really. Zonal training is the concept that you work at different intensities – or zones – to train the respective physiological systems. You can learn how to do this in practice pretty quickly.
The physiological systems
In basic terms we have three key physiological systems, each of which should be stimulated by working in the appropriate zone.
1. Endurance / aerobic endurance / exercise economy (AE)
2. Threshold / lactate threshold (LT) / functional threshold power (FTP)
3. VO2 max / maximal aerobic capacity
The training zones
- Zone 1: ‘recovery pace’ – this feels very easy and you might find it difficult to go this slow as you’ll think you are wasting your time
- Zone 2: steady endurance – a pace you would ride steady at for two to six hours without putting yourself under pressure; conversation is easy (‘tempo’)
- Zone 3: moderately hard but sustainable; limited conversation (‘tempo’)
- Zone 4a: sometimes described as the ‘sweet spot’ – quite difficult, conversation in short sentences only
- Zone 4: time-trial pace – the maximum output you can hold for around 30 minutes or more. It hurts; conversation is definitely out
- Zone 5: short, all-out efforts from 10 seconds to five minutes; it hurts a lot
- Zone 6: extremely short, maximal efforts of a few seconds (not relevant to most cyclists)
Smart training – setting and using the zones for optimum performance
You can read more at BikeRadar.com
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