Cycling: The Do’s and Don’ts For 2005

Originally published in Cyclesport Magazine, January 2005

Written by: Chris Carmichael

The dawn of a new year gives everyone a fresh start, a chance to wipe the slate clean and move forward with renewed focus and vigor. Working through round-table discussions with the coaches in the Carmichael Training Systems offices, we arrived at a short list of Do’s and Don’ts to help you make the most of your training time in 2005.

Do:

Organize Your Nutrition

In the Foreword of my recent book, “Food for Fitness”, Lance Armstrong wrote, “Paying attention to nutrition can make your dreams come true, ignoring it can be your undoing.” Any amount of hard work you pour into your workouts can be negated by a lack of fuel, and more importantly, a lack of the right fuel.

As an athlete, your nutrition program has to begin with the level and type of activity you plan on undertaking. Once you understand what you’re asking your body to do, you are better equipped to design a nutrition program that will provide the fuel necessary to accomplish your goals. As you progress from winter training, when weekly hours and intensity tend to be low, to spring training and summer competitions, your caloric intake and the percentage of your calories coming from carbohydrates should increase. Your more intense spring and summer workouts burn through more carbohydrate more quickly, meaning your consumption of this high-energy fuel has to rise to meet the increased demand.

Organizing your nutrition program to follow the periodization plan of your training program also helps eliminate periods when your caloric intake and expenditure are significantly mismatched. This often manifests itself as a reduction in winter weight gain (caused by a caloric intake that far exceeds expenditure), which consequently eliminates the need to restrict calories and/or add training load in the spring in order to drop back to race weight. Since most of us have very limited time available to train, I’d rather see you devote the time you have to gaining power rather than eliminating love handles.

Invest in a Power Meter

Cyclists are more fortunate than athletes in most other sports because we have a tool that can accurately determine how much force we exert and how much work we doing, as we ride. Runners can’t do that when they’re on the trail, nor can swimmers when they’re in the water. As an amateur cyclist, a power meter gives you access to data that elite athletes in other sports would kill to have.

Properly integrating power into your training program will lead to greater gains in one year than you’ve made in the past three without it. Pass on the lighter bike or the new carbon race wheels this year; invest your money in the tools that help you develop a bigger and stronger engine instead.

Open Up To New Ideas

Too many cyclists are tightly bound to traditions, trusting in the old adage, “If it’s not broken, don’t fix it.” The trouble is, how do you know that the traditional way is actually the most effective? Maybe trying something new would make you even faster and more powerful.

Tradition says that winter is the time for long, slow endurance rides meant to build an aerobic foundation. Hard interval workouts are taboo. Yet, the reality of modern living is that time is scarce and people don’t have the luxury of spinning down the road for several hours at a time. Since training load is comprised of a combination of volume and intensity, and time constraints are reducing training volume, it’s time to break with tradition and add more intensity to winter training in order to generate the total training load necessary for gaining fitness.

You still need to develop your aerobic engine and balance work with adequate recovery, but your reduced training hours allow for more recovery time. If you’re training 6-8 hours a week because work and the weather are keeping you indoors, you need to get a bigger impact from your limited time than you would normally get from traditional winter training.

Don’t:

Don’t Fear Failure

Fear of failing may prevent achievement more than lack of preparation, because being afraid to fail keeps you from taking the chances that are a necessary part of accomplishing your goals. The easy example of this is the person who won’t attack or work in the breakaway out of fear of losing or being dropped. Deeper and more insidious examples, however, are found in the people who only set goals they know they can accomplish. If you feel like your training or racing has stagnated recently, take a stark and close look at your goals; you may find they’re not truly challenging enough to keep you motivated and moving forward.

Don’t Obsess About Numbers

With the multitude of instruments you can use to monitor training, including the aforementioned power meter, you can end up relying so heavily on numbers that you forget to listen to your body. Heart rate monitors, power meters, cycling computers, and ratings of sleep quality are effective tools you can use to analyze the load your putting on your body, and the effects of your training. That information can then influence the workouts you or your coach chooses for your future. The problem with having so much information is that people sometimes lose perspective. Your body is always responding to so many variables, including nutrition, temperature, hydration, fatigue, minor infections, and stress, that small fluctuations in performance, and hence in the measurements we’re taking of performance, should be expected. Try not to let the mountain of data drive your crazy; the numbers can tell you if you have the potential to reach your goal, but on race day, success comes down to the decisions you make and the way your ride your bike.

Don’t Waste Time

When we ask CTS Members how many hours they can devote to training each week, the most common answers range from seven to ten hours. For many, this means 60-90 minute workouts on two to three weekdays, and longer workouts on the weekends. You can get a lot done in a limited amount of time, but only if you use it wisely. If your goal is to get faster on the bike, make sure your training activities will actually make you faster. This gets back to a few of the points I made earlier; matching your nutrition program to your activity level can reduce or eliminate the need to add training load in order to drop weight. Using a power meter can increase the efficiency of your training by accurately telling you how much work you’ve done, as well as when you’ve done too much. Adopting some new ideas, like shifting the balance of volume and intensity, can help address the challenge of having limited time to train as well. All of these things are aimed at eliminating wasted efforts, so you derive the maximum benefit from the time you have available.

As we close 2004 and look forward to the year ahead, I encourage you to take some time to acknowledge all the things you accomplished in the past year. While preparing for your future goals is important, so is allowing yourself to experience the satisfaction and pride that comes from accomplishment. I hope we all have a safe and fruitful year in 2005. Happy New Year.

Chris Carmichael is Lance Armstrong’s coach and author of “Chris Carmichael’s Food For Fitness: Eat Right to Train Right”.

© 2004, Carmichael Training Systems, Inc.