Principles of Training

Training - A systematic regimen that provides periods of physical stress separated by periods of rest and recovery for the purpose of improving an athlete's ability to perform work.

Developing a Training Program

Developing a training program begins by deciding which goals you want to achieve in the sport of cycling and determining the physical demands required to achieve those goals.  Once these guidelines have been established, the cyclist should assess their ability to meet the demands of competition.  The purpose of this assessment is to determine which abilities are lacking and require extra attention during training.  These assessments can be as simple as seeing how you measure up at the local club time trial or can be as sophisticated as VO₂ max and lactate threshold tests at an exercise physiology laboratory.

What Makes an Elite Cyclist?

Success in bike racing requires three physiological ingredients:

1. Endurance

2. Sustainable Power Output

3. Non-Sustainable Power Output

Endurance is an easy concept to grasp as it simply refers to the ability to ride for an extended period of time.  Though endurance capacity is important for the competitive cyclist, the winner of a bike race usually is not determined by who can ride for the longest period of time, but who can get from the start line to the finish line in the shortest period of time.  This is a feat that requires power.  Power is simply a measure of how quickly a given amount of work can be completed.

Since I began working for the U.S. Olympic Committee in 1992, I have performed a variety of tests on hundreds of cyclists varying in ability from Category 5 riders to world champions and Tour de France winners.  Based on these tests, I have learned that the most pronounced physical variable that separates elite riders from their sub-elite counterparts is the elite riders' ability to produce and maintain high power outputs.  This concept, known as Maximum Sustainable Power Output or MSPO, simply refers to the maximum amount of power that a person can produce and maintain over an extended period of time.

Increasing Maximum Sustainable Power Output

Increasing MSPO requires four training phases: 

1. Weight training to increase the size and strength of muscle tissue.

2. Long, easy rides combined with short, sprint intervals to increase cardiovascular capacity and local muscular endurance without compromising muscular strength and power.

3. Moderate length, high-intensity intervals to increase the muscles' ability to produce and sustain high power outputs.

4. Long intervals to increase the rider's capacity for high intensity work.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   This four-phase approach is designed to improve the ability of the cardiovascular system to deliver oxygen and other nutrients to the working muscle, and to enhance the working muscles' ability to use the oxygen and energy nutrients to produce power.  To optimally prepare the rider, the training for each successive phase should complement the proceeding steps in the training program.  For instance, phases 3 and 4 are incredibly important as it is during these phases that maximal sustainable power output is built.  However, the physical conditioning required to get the most out of phases 3 and 4 is gained during the first two phases.