HIGHER FORM

Before you know it, the clocks will have sprung forward and the 2020 sportive season will be upon you. How can you best develop your fitness and keep what you’ve worked so hard to build?

How to build your best fitness ever and keep what you’ve slogged your guts out to develop

As the sun sets on your sportive season, motivation nestled at the crest of the hill, thoughts inevitably turn to a new year. ‘In 2020, I’ll shed weight, build muscle, boost power and climb the results listings,’ you tell yourself. ‘The only alcohol that’ll touch my lips will be a successful splash of Dom Pérignon.’ Reality soon bites, of course. Family and work life, a drop in daylight, temperatures and immunity, plus a rise in mucus production, soon send you off track. Thankfully, with some periodised planning – dividing your training year into blocks of time – your cycling dreams can come true.

But if optimum fitness seems a world away at this time of year, don’t be too hard on yourself. A study undertaken by Professor Aldo Sassi of the famed Mapei Sport Research Centre in Italy analysed the fluctuations of VO2 max in road cyclists and mountain bikers through the course of a season. (As a reminder, VO2 max is the maximal oxygen uptake a rider can utilise per minute of intense exercise. It’s measured in millilitres of oxygen per kilogram of bodyweight or mL/kg/min. A good amateur rider’s VO2 max is upwards of 50; a pro’s is around 70-85.) Sassi tested the riders in December, March and June, roughly corresponding to a rider’s rest period, and early- and peak-season fitness, and noticed that, on average, VO2 max increased from 69.4 to 74.2 to 76.7mL/kg/min. Peak power output also rose from 6.3 to 6.8 to 7 watts per kilogram during an incremental fitness test. In short, even Grand Tour winners allow themselves to lose a modicum of fitness during the off-season – around 9% in Sassi’s study.

Of course, pros sit at the peak of the performance pyramid so they arguably have more to lose. You, the recreational rider, should seek improvements this winter, but don’t beat yourself up if you’re not flying up Cheddar Gorge like Bernal come February. Then again, by periodising your training, you’ll enjoy your greatest chance of drafting young Egan…

Which training model should you choose?

Periodisation of training is an Aladdin’s cave of peak performance. But ultimately, it's about tweaking riding volume and intensity to peak at your goal event. Arguably the most simplistic is the traditional model of periodisation where you build stamina during winter via long, mid-effort rides before upping intensity as the season approaches. So, you might ride 80% of the time under 75% of your maximum heart rate in the off-season and 20% over. This might then change to 65% beneath 75% maximum heart rate and 35% over as time rolls by.

The physiological and performance rationale behind this model of periodisation is extensive but the top-line benefits include: raising your ability to burn fat; studies show that a higher aerobic capacity, forged from long, slow-to-moderate efforts, lays the foundations for higher sprint speed when you raise intensity in the spring and the ability to sprint and sprint again), like chasing and then leaving a breakaway; and a lower-intensity winter’s kinder on your immune system. It's a basic template that many CyclingPlus readers should follow.

More experienced cyclists could go all Team Ineos and reverse periodise. It was coach Tim Kerrison who brought this idea to Team Sky from Australian swimming. Instead of starting with volume in the winter, the rider focuses on power and speed from the start, before increasing the duration of the sessions as race season nears.

It’s a periodisation model that requires a high aerobic base, something you see in topend amateurs and elite cyclists. “Reverse by definition is probably wrong – you accumulate adaptations over years,” says David Bailey, head of performance at Bahrain-Merida. “From research and experience, if you have a solid three or four years of training history, you don’t need to build the same endurance base each winter. Your body becomes more efficient at responding to the training stimulus.”

And then there's block periodisation, which involves working on specific fitness goals in nominal chunks of time, with occasional ‘maintenance sessions’ to sustain fitness gains from the previous block of riding. As an example, it’s suggested fitness gains from aerobic endurance, strength and technique work last 25-35 days; anaerobic and muscular endurance work 15-23 days; and top-end gains, like maximum power output, five days.

With block training, say you focus on speed with three or four sessions a week, the proximity of these high-intensity efforts rewards the high-end athlete with significant gains. It’s highly fatiguing and your body must be bulletproof, but it will suit experienced cyclists who race numerous times.

“A major limitation of the traditional periodisation model is its inability to produce multiple performance peaks over the season,” explains leading sports scientist, Iñigo Mujika, ex-coach of the nowdisbanded Spanish racing team, EuskaltelEuskadi. “When multiple sportives are closer together, riders need to extend their fitness peak, instead of trying to achieve a new peak for each sportive. That’s where block periodisation comes in.”

Bailey uses it at Bahrain Merida but notes that its application varies rider by rider, trainer by trainer. “Ultimately, because of injury and illness, the ability to remain flexible is key,” Bailey explains. “You must make the athlete fit, then strong, then powerful and then fast. That right there is a watered-down periodised model. The workouts you develop for each of these is the holy grail.”

Burn fat, ride fast

Whichever model you follow, you should look to raise your FatMax zone. This is the intensity at which you’re burning the highest proportion of energy from fat stores, and is a concept of noted exercise physiologist, Asker Jeukendrup. Jeukendrup observed that the ‘best’ FatMax zone was around 60-63% VO2 max, or around 75% of maximum heart rate. For less fit individuals, this dropped to 50% VO2 max. This is an important consideration when analysing your metabolism’s impact on performance.

“Carbohydrate is the gasoline and fat is the diesel,” explains John Hawley, professor of exercise metabolism at RMIT University in Australia. “There’s evidence that the higher a rider’s FatMax is, the more they can

“YOU MUST MAKE THE ATHLETE FIT, THEN STRONG, THENPOWERFUL AND THEN FAST. THAT IS A WATEREDDOWN PERIODISED MODEL” DAVID BAILEY