Training To Be Fit & Fast

Cycling as an activity or as a sport can be Euphoric!! It surely has the potential to make life more exciting than it has ever been, it has many health benefits as we are all aware of –if you have decided to Participate in a bike race/event it demands commitment and requires advance preparation. Since races/any cycling events can get extremely competitive and dangerous, it's important that you put enough time and effort to get yourself conditioned to put your body to strenuous demands and challenges you may have to face when competing, at any level!!

Training Fundamentals

- Train Hard and Smart

- Commit to a Systematic Training Plan,

- Your are what you Eat; Have a good Balanced Diet

- Train Hard/Recover harder to get the best out of your training,

- Effort Rate and Heart Rates are very personal, be honest to your self and do not compare it with others.

- Know your fitness; know your strengths and weaknesses; capitalize on your strengths and work on your weaknesses.

- Enjoy the Process to deliver Performance and you can Win!!!

Message to all Parents and guardians:

Accompany your children for their ride.

Children below 11 years of age should avoid strenuous training effort; this can slow down natural growth of the child and also expose them to having sports injury at an early age.

Allow them to play and develop their Motor skills which can be learnt Best between 9-12 years.

How Fit are you to Ride?

Knowing how fit you are is imperative before you challenge yourself with any strenuous physical activity, may it be training or racing.

If you aren’t sure how fit you are you may want to build up on your fitness gradually and progressively.

You may have a heart of a Lion, but, it still needs your attention - Cycling like many other cardio sport activities can be quite demanding for your heart and exposes you to hidden weaknesses, which can sometimes be fatal.

If you have a history or you suspect that you have a Heart problem/Injury

PLEASE CONSULT YOUR DOCTOR; BEFORE YOU START TRAINING/REGISTER FOR ANY RACE

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Training Plan

A good training plan needs to be a mix of aerobic and anaerobic variations, a proper mix will put training load on both your fast twitch and slow twitch muscles which is like having more match sticks in the match box that you can put them on fire when it counts.

Strongly Recommended

Monitor your Resting Heart Rate daily
If your Resting HR is 10% higher than usual call it a rest day or go for a recovery ride.

If you miss a workout on one of those days don’t worry average it out by increasing TST for rest of the weeks by 15-30mins to average it out for the week.
Warm up – 15mins and Cool Down – 10mins
Maintain a training Log to monitor your progress.

Lets look into some of the training variations and understand how to do these workouts.

Work Outs	Description
Basic Miles (BM)	How to do this workout: This workout is to be done at a conversational pace (Z2), on lower gears where once can maintain a cadence of 85-90. Keeping the gears low will increase your training load on your aerobic energy system and will give you future aerobic benefits.Its very Important one not to get carried away to ride at higher intensity to get maximum benefits for this workout. This workout is gone best in group especially when anticipated workout time is more than one hour. Consider doing this workout year round. Workout time range 20-360mins with HR - Z2.
Seated Sprints	Objective: To increase your muscular power in the saddle. How to do it: This workout needs to be done on relatively flat terrain, with slightly tail wind. The gearing should be really large 53-13/53-12(depending on your level of fitness development). Your effort should begin at moderate speed around 24-30kms, while Seated in the saddle start Stomping the pedals as Hard as Possible!! Concentrate on pulling through the bottom of the Stroke and Stomping down during the down stroke. Keep your upper Body as Still as possible and let your legs drive the pedals. Seated Sprints, should last 15-20 secs, with a minimum RBI of 5 mins. This being a Muscular workout your heart will not get time to respond.
Flat Sprints	Similar to Seated Sprint however, done by going off the saddle and going as fast as you can.
Endurance Miles (EM)	This is the Next Step after Basic Miles(BM) towards building an aerobic system that will increase your endurance capabilities. Expected benefits: - Increase capillary development. - Improved temperature regulation. - Increased respiratory endurance. How to do this: The Pace during EM is quicker than BM workout. Its performed at a moderate pace, however, with higher Heart Rate than BM. Use your gears when you hit the hills to remain in the saddle as you climb. Expect to keep your RPM to 85-95 range unless you have been prescribed to do anything different. Goal is to stay within your HR zone using your aerobic energy system to power your cycling. Workout time 60-240mins, HR Zone (Z2+ i.e. Lower limits of Z3 or Z3) slightly above conversational pace.
Steady Intervals (SI)	Objective:Increase your lactate threshold (LT) by training at the edge of your aerobic/anaerobic threshold. How to do it: This workout can either be performed on the road with a long steady climb, hills or flat terrain at your individual LT, it is critical that you maintain this intensity for the length of the Interval. Interruption during this workout will limit your adaption from this workout. Incase of SI on climbs RPM should be 70-80RPM and Incase you are doing the SSI on flat terrain cadence should be at 85-95 RPM. Maintaining your training zone is most important, not your RPM. Focus on continuous riding for the length of the prescribed intervals.
Recovery Ride (RR)	Objective: To speed up the recovery process by riding at an easy pace at low resistance on flat terrain. Key Benefits: Increase in blood flow to the muscles to help remove muscle soreness. Reducing free radicals build-up that causes muscle stress and damage. Active recovery at an appropriate pace leads to faster recovery than complete rest, plus you add more time of being on the saddle. How to do it: RR should be done on a flat terrain at low resistance and RPM lower than normal. HR will also be low even when you hit the climbs. Key is to ride just enough to engage active recovery process but not to induce training stress by doing long or intense ride. Workout time 30-120mins with HR Z1

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Beginners


Week Days	Workouts	Time	Effort Rate 1-10

Sunday	TST – 90mins Basic Miles(BM) – 90mins on Low gear resistance RPM 80-85 HR zone 2 (Conversational Pace)	90 mins	4-5
Monday	Recovery Ride – 30 mins HR Zone – 1	30mins	3-4
Tuesday	Seated Sprints – 2 x 10 secs (2) RBI – 5mins, RBS – 10mins HR Zone – n/a	60mins	8-9
Wednesday	Recovery Ride – 30 mins HR Zone – 1	30 mins	3-4
Thursday	TST – 75mins Interval training on Moderate Gear Resistance 3mis (RPM 95-100) x 4 RBI 10mins HR zone 5	75mins	7-8
Friday	Recovery Ride – 60 mins HR Zone – 1	60 mins	3-4
Saturday	Rest Day

Effort Rate: 1-10 (1 being very very easy and 10 being hardest)

Abbreviations used

TST – Total Scheduled Training time

RBI – Recovery between intervals

RBS – Recovery between Sets

HR Zone - Heart rate

Want to be fresh and crisp on the race day?

Tapering starts One week prior for a major racing event, simply cut down on the volume by close to 50% and focus on very short intense effort.

Why are all the workout schedule time based?

Distance is what our minds have learnt to understand, where as our muscles will understand Time.

Training Plan Shared by:

Cyclozeal – Training and Assistance

Intermediate


Week Days	Workouts	Time	Effort Rate 1-10

Sunday	TST – 120mins Basic Miles(BM) – 90mins on Low gear resistance RPM 80-85 HR zone 2 (Conversational Pace)	120 mins	4-5
Monday	Recovery Ride – 45 mins HR Zone – 1	45mins	3-4
Tuesday	Seated Sprints – 3 x 15 secs (2) RBI – 5mins, RBS – 10mins HR Zone – n/a	90mins	8-9
Wednesday	TST – 75mins Endurance Miles(EM) – 75 mins on Moderate Gear Resistance RPM 85-90 HR zone 3 (Slightly above Conversational Pace)	75mins	5-6
Thursday	TST – 75mins Interval training on Moderate Gear Resistance 8mins (RPM 95-100) x 3 x 2 RBI 5mins, RBS 10mins HR zone 5	90mins	7-8
Friday	TST – 75mins Endurance Miles – 75mins on Moderate Gear Resistance RPM 85-90 HR zone 3 (Slightly above Conversational Pace)	75mins	5-6
Saturday	Rest Day

Effort Rate: 1-10 (1 being very very easy and 10 being hardest)

Abbreviations used

TST – Total Scheduled Training time

RBI – Recovery between intervals

RBS – Recovery between Sets

HR Zone – Heart Rate Zone

Want to be fresh and crisp on the race day?

Tapering starts One week prior for a major racing event, simply cut down on the volume by close to 60% and focus on very short intense effort.

Why are all the workout schedule time based?

Distance is what our minds have learnt to understand, where as our muscles will understand Time.

Training Plan Shared by:

Cyclozeal – Training and Assistance

Advance


Week Days	Workouts	Time	Effort Rate 1-10

Sunday	TST – 180mins Basic Miles(BM) – 180mins on Low gear resistance RPM 80-85 HR zone 2 (Conversational Pace)	210 mins	4-5
Monday	Recovery Ride – 30 mins	60mins	3-4
Tuesday	TST – 90min Seated Sprints/ Flat Sprints – 3 x 15 secs (3) RBI – 5mins, RBS – 10mins HR Zone – n/a	90mins	8-9
Wednesday	TST – 120mins Endurance Miles(EM) – 120mins on Moderate Gear Resistance RPM 85-90 HR zone 3 (Slightly above Conversational Pace)	120mins	5-6
Thursday	TST – 90mins High Speed Interval training on Moderately Higher Gear Resistance 3mins (RPM 100-110) x 6 RBI 10mins HR zone 6	90mins	7-8
Friday	TST – 90mins Endurance Miles – 90 mins on Moderate Gear Resistance RPM 85-90 HR zone 3 (Slightly above Conversational Pace)	120mins	5-6
Saturday	Rest Day

Effort Rate: 1-10 (1 being very very easy and 10 being hardest)

Abbreviations used

TST – Total Scheduled Training time, RBI – Recovery between intervals, RBS – Recovery between Sets

HR Zone – Heart Rate Zone

Want to be fresh and crisp on the Race Day?

Tapering starts One week prior for a major racing event, simply cut down on the volume by close to 70% and focus on very short intense effort.

Professionals are known to cut down on their volume to as low as 10% of their total weekly workouts, starting to tapper down couple of week prior to their primary competition.

Why are all the workout schedule time based?

Distance is what our minds have learnt to understand, where as our muscles will understand Time.

Training Plan Shared by:

Cyclozeal – Training and Assistance

Why Do I Need A Cycling Coach, I Have Been Riding A Cycle Since I Was A Toddler?

Coaches, who have the ability and knowledge of cycling as a sport can assist you with

- A holistic approach

- Setting goals/objectives.

- Evaluate your heart rate/Power zones

- Training plan designed for you,

- Deliver and evaluate detailed periodised training programmers,

- Work with you towards achieving your goals/objectives, to the best of your ability.

- Share various techniques/tactics which will allow you to ride more efficiently,

- Make you aware of the Do’s and Don’ts along with other micro details of cycling as an activity/sport,

- Can assist you with preventing injuries (which can be caused due to over training, incorrect position on the bike, use of improper gears and badly chosen training methods)

- Provides motivation and gives the support you may need, both in good and not so good times.

Investing in a Coach gets you a buddy helping you to make those critical objective decisions about your training and racing. Cycling can be a lot more Fun!!

Nothing beats having a mentor/coach you can discuss over your ideas, strategies, commiserate and celebrate with!!

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