Catering Training to Your Goals (Specific Training and Periodization)
 As part of this series we have discussed starting to ride, methods to build fitness, and goal setting for your own specific purposes. Now we get into some of the meat and potatoes of training as we create a specific approach to your goals and what you want to get out of all this. Below you will find information on when to work easy, hard, specifically, and without a focus. After all, training should be specific to you and you should have the understanding of how to do so!

Periodization of Training
 Depending on who you ask, you will come to find there are different blocks to each season. Generally speaking, these can be broken into off-season, pre-season, season, and post-season. Based on which part of the overall cycle you are in will determine how specific you should be in your training. An example of an athlete I coach can be seen below for season periodization


Dec 1-April 15: Pre-Season (building fitness)
April 16-August 31: Season (peak performances taking place)
Sept 1-Oct 1: Post-Season (fitness is trending down, but still competitive)
Oct 2- Nov 30: Off-season (body and mind are recovering)


It is important to know that the time of year can change based on your desired peak performance. In general though, a pre-season or base period should consist of 4-5 months, season with peak performance should consist of 2-4 months, post-season should be roughly 1 month and then your off-season is around 1-2 months.  Based on your individual preferences and how your body reacts to training will determine how long each of these blocks are in your yearly training cycle. 

Training All the Time
 After discussing periodization, I hope that you can see there is a designed off-season when the focus shouldn’t be on performance. The ramifications of focusing on performance year around can be overtraining or burnout if you aren’t careful. Overtraining is a symptom that results in injuries to the body in the form of tendonitis, micro-fractures, and any other stress related injury that requires you to take time off. If you are lucky enough to avoid overtraining, you still could experience burnout which is an injury to the mind. This is when you feel the overall stress to perform at an optimal level but no longer can achieve the fulfillment of a workout. When this happens your mind starts to shut off and you begin to resent the activity as a whole and find no reason to continue. This is extremely detrimental to your performance and will often sideline athletes for months or even years.  I hope you are starting to see the need for an off-season and overall decline in fitness. This decline in fitness will result in the motivation and desire to regain your performance and come back even stronger the next year. 

Specific Training with Periodization
 Specific training is key to peaking for your optimal success. That being said, you need to be aware that you can’t peak year-round and you really only have 2-3 shots to get it right each training cycle (year). Therefore, you need to understand when specific training should take place and when it shouldn’t.  But before we go into those details, we need to understand your training zones for specific training

Training Zones
 Your training zones are generally developed in regards to your threshold. If you are on a bike and using a power meter, then generally speaking your threshold is the amount of watts you can hold for 1 hour. If you are using a heart rate monitor, then a good test to use is a 30 minute 100% effort where you take the last 20 minutes average heart rate and classify that as your threshold. Once you have either of these numbers, then a general way to break these down are:
Zone 1: 0-60% Recovery
Zone 2: 60-75% Aerobic Endurance
Zone 3: 75-90% Tempo
Zone 4: 90-105% Threshold
Zone 5: 105-120% Aerobic Capacity
Zone 6: 120-135% Anaerobic Capacity
Zone 7: 135+  Neuromuscular


Note: These zones are more specific to cycling, but rather close for heart rate as well. There are different zones you can utilize for heart rate that could prove more effective for your own personal ability/fitness.  (Karvonen Formula or other methods)


Example of zones with a 300 watt threshold
zone 1: 0-180 watts
zone 2: 181-225 watts
zone 3: 226-270 watts
zone 4: 271 -315 watts
zone 5: 316-360 watts
zone 6: 361-405 watts
zone 7: 405+ watts

When you start to develop your own personal zones, you can start to get very specific. 

Specific Training
 We are going to assume that our example athlete is looking to do time trials (40km) on their bike. This is how we would specifically train them utilizing their zones and periodization. Their main event will be the state time trial championship in late July. 

  Pre-season: 4-5 months in this case from Jan-the beginning of May.  So starting on Jan 1 we would focus not on intensity or volume just yet, but rather frequency (see week 2 blog) to build them in a safe an effective manner with reduced risk of injury. Our training zone shouldn’t be specific to race day just yet because we can only peak 2-3 times a year and we want to save that. Therefore, this racer is going to do a lot of z2/3 work for the first 2-3-4 months in order to develop a strong aerobic base in which to work. 

  As we start to get closer to season, we need to understand that the race demand for this athlete will be a lot of threshold due to the race lasting roughly 1 hour and some aerobic capacity to help the athlete when they need to make surges over a bridge or coming out of a turn. This athlete won’t need much anaerobic power (30-90 seconds) and it will only be put in the training to spice up the training from the mental perspective. Some won’t hurt, but a lot won’t help. 

  So, we have the cyclist who has done a lot of z2/3 time and once a frequency of 5-6x a week was established, we started to add in volume to increase fitness. Now we are getting close to the actual season and we are going to start adding in specific intensity to build fitness and the ability to perform at the desired race. As we get closer and closer to race day we will advance the length of the intervals in the desired performance zone (zone 4: threshold) and build the body’s ability to remove lactate from the muscles while under stress at a certain level. 

The build of z4 training may look like
May: 6x4 min z4, 5x5 min z4
June: 3x10 min z4, 2x20 min z4
July: 2x20 min z4 (creeping into z5) 1x40 min z4 with every 5th minute adding a z5 minute

     As we near the competition, we will overload the athlete with a high amount of stress and then back off training and let the racer recover for the amount of time needed. This is when the athlete will peak in their specific training for threshold results and have a great race day at the event. 

     Post-Season: The athlete will more than likely be tired mentally from the extreme specific training. This is normal and to be expected. This is the part of the season where fitness will still be high and racing should take place as the athlete sees fit. You don’t want to press the athlete in this portion of the season as burnout or overtraining can take place.  A great example of this is when a Professional rider wins the Giro but can’t podium at the Tour de France. This is because they peaked their fitness for the Giro and couldn’t maintain those levels for another big race. Again, this is normal and to be expected. You’ll still be fast during this time, but you won’t be 100%. Training zones to follow during this time should be back to z1/2/3 and at the riders discretion. 

  Off-season:  This is where fitness is brought back down for the body to recover and the athlete to take care of other things in their lives. Training zones here are at the riders discretion but the coach should keep an eye on total workload. The coach is keeping an eye on workload so the athlete is properly recovering and they aren’t going to peak to early next season.
 
Theory of Specificity
 I just want to put this in here because a lot of people ask me if they can get faster on the bike from lifting weights. The theory of specificity states that you only get better at what you are specifically training. Therefore, when doing squats or lunges, you are not utilizing the muscles of the legs in the same way that you would if you were riding a bike. While doing squats and lunges will help in balancing out the muscles and preventing injury, you aren’t going to increase your threshold by 40 watts if you increase your squat by 40 pounds. That simply isn’t how it works unfortunately.  Train for how you want to compete!

Conclusion:
 This was a lot of information for a blog, but its one of the most important aspects to get right for optimal race-day performance. By periodizing your schedule and training specifically for a goal you are in a far better place to perform to your peak ability. I hope this proved useful for your idea on how to tackle this winter and what you should be doing when.  Next week we will get more involved with heart rate and power training and how effective it can be for time crunched athletes.

Write Down Your Goals
    In the previous blogs of this series, I have written about the process of getting started with a new bike as well as the basic principles to building fitness. In this next entry I want to create a template for you to use for creating goals and why they are so important. As I’m sure you’ve heard or read many times, a goal without a plan is just a dream. Therefore, after this entry I hope you can use the template I create to realize what you want to accomplish and how you will do so. 

Parts of a Goal
    Where a majority of the population goes wrong with goal-setting is that they stop at just the outcome goal. For example, you might hear someone say they want to be the CEO of a company or they want to lose 15 pounds over the next 3 months. In my opinion those are fantastic things, but there is no plan in which to act. The most important part of any goal is the action plan and breaking down these lofty outcome goals to more realistic performance and process oriented tasks. Let me touch on what this might look like a bit further. 

Performance Goal
    For the sake of this blog and being a beginner cyclist, lets say that you have a goal to complete a 300 mile cycling tour next summer. This is a great outcome goal, but now lets break this down into performance. The first thing you need to see is that you’ll need to cycle 300 miles in a span of several days. This should be the foundation in which you work from and lay out a plan with performance goals along the way. 

Example: 16 weeks to 300 mile cycling tour
Week 16: 300 miles
Week 12: 200 miles
Week 8: 150 miles
Week 4: 100 miles
Week 1: 50 miles

You need to have tangible goals in which to shoot for that are within your control and realistic. If you remember last weeks entry about the 10% rule in volume, this would be a great place to use this principle along with performance goals.  The performance goal is the 2nd part of the equation. 
Note: Performance goals have numbers tied to them

Process Goal
    This is the bread and butter. This is where the magic happens. Process goals are small goals that if done repeatedly, lead to the big outcome goal. If we use the example above of the 300 mile tour rider, then a process goal might look something like this. 
Example: 
Ride 5-6x/week
Ride 1 long ride a week

 These goals are tasks that are easy to do, but will help lead you to your performance goals. As we know, your performance goals will lead to your outcome goal. What I often tell my athletes is that the performance will happen and the performance will help towards the outcome. However, if you can just limit your focus to obtaining those process goals, you will be in a fantastic spot to achieve all of the goals you set out for. If you were to talk to any of my athletes, their process goal is simply to achieve and upload all of the workouts I set out for them. They know that if they can control that and hit their workouts, then the rest of the equation tends to come together in the end. 

SMART Goals
    I feel obligated to put this section in here because of how many times it was drilled into my head in graduate school. 

Specific
Measureable
Actionable
Realistic
Timely

    Basically what this is saying is that your goal should be something that is obtainable if you work at it and can be achieved in a certain amount of time. Again, a goal without a plan is just a dream.

Template for Goal Setting


Outcome Goal: _______________________________________________________________


Performance Goal:____________________________________________________________


Performance Goal: ___________________________________________________________


Process Goal:________________________________________________________________


Process Goal:________________________________________________________________


Process Goal:________________________________________________________________


Timetable for Goal:____________________________________________________________


Specific Example
    I’ll leave you with one example of how my athletes set goals and how we achieve them. 


Outcome Goal: Qualify for Boston

Performance Goal: Build up to 55 miles/week

Performance Goal: Increase Run Threshold Pace from 8:45-8:00

Process Goal: Run 6 times a week

Process Goal: Upload heart rate data after workout

Timetable for Goal: 8 months

• What this was able to do for my athlete is take the stress of qualifying away by having her focus on small process goals of completing workouts and uploading data. By just focusing on these small tasks, she was able to accomplish her outcome goal and continue on with her journey. 

Intro to Part 4
    We now have a bike, a understanding of building fitness, and an understanding of how to develop goals. In part 4 we will get more catered to the athlete and talk about specifics and periodization of your training. By knowing the right times to train specifically, you can start to peak your performance for days that matter!

 In part 1 of the series for beginner riders, I focused on buying a bike and the proper steps needed to find safe equipment and  adequate roads. In this second entry, I will discuss the principles of fitness and what you should focus on when first beginning your journey. There aren’t many secrets to building fitness, but hopefully some of these principles will hit home with you and you’ll have a different outlook or approach as you start down your own path. 

The Three Ingredients to Building Fitness
    I can’t tell you how many times I hear of someone buying a bike or new pair of shoes because they want to “get in shape”. What I often find out is that this individual went out and worked really hard for 1 or 2 days and then either came down with an injury or burned themselves out rather quickly due to the sheer volume of work they put in. This often will sound like, “I haven’t ridden a bike in a while, but I just rode for 2 hours on Saturday”.  Or, “I ride 3 times a week with a group, and they are all really hard efforts”.  I hope after reading this entry, you realize there is a safe and effective way to build your fitness that will not only help your performance, but also help your longevity within your sport. These safe and effective ingredients are frequency, volume, and intensity. The rest of the entry will touch on when to incorporate each one of these ingredients. 

Avoid Injury
    Before I talk about frequency, volume, and intensity, it is important that I put a disclaimer here that you don’t try to build all three at the same time. Each one of these are a stressor to your body and current level of fitness or performance. By increasing all three at the same time you could overtrain and come down with sickness or an injury. Rather, you should focus on one ingredient at a time and work at it until you have a solid foundation in which to advance upon. Experienced athletes can get away with building 2 of them at the same time if they have a solid level of fitness, but even then proper steps should be followed in building one’s performance. I urge you to focus on just one at a time in your initial steps to building a better you and you’ll find that your body will thank you over the long haul. 

Frequency
    I’m starting with frequency because this is the first ingredient that you should start with as well. When first starting out with your new bike, your goal shouldn’t be to ride fast or ride far. Rather, your first goal should be to ride frequently. Yes, you will want to get out there and work hard, but that will come with time and will only be effective if you’ve laid a foundation beforehand. This foundation is the frequency in which you train. So what I do with all of my athletes that are looking for increased performance is try and build their frequency before we do anything else. This usually means starting at 3-4 days/week and trying to build up to 6-7 days/week. Your workouts during this time should be casual in intensity (think 50-60%) and generally stay at the same duration (example: 45-60 min) that you have time for. During this portion of the build, you don’t want to be stressed about certain intervals or mileage, that will come with time. Your only thought right now is training your body to get out on the bike and build a consistent routine. As your body becomes more accustomed to riding each day and you become better and making time for this, then that is when the volume or intensity can start to increase. A good general rule of thumb that I use with my athletes is that we don’t do really hard efforts until they are up to a general base level of fitness that is usually signaled by 5-6 days a week of training. This all depends on the athlete and their past, but this is a good general idea. 

Volume
    I’ll touch on volume second, but intensity could be here as well. These two ingredients are the ones that can be substituted based on time and life demands. 
    Volume is interesting in that it is different to everyone. For someone going out for their first long ride that could mean a 20 mile journey. For others preparing for Ironman that could be a 100 mile century. With that being said, it is good to know that volume is different for all and the requirements that come with the race. We will touch on specifics later in this series, but for now lets just lump all volume in together. 
    So, when to add Volume you ask? Simple, when you feel comfortable with the frequency in which you’ve built. I generally start adding weekly time as a whole for new athletes opposed to just 1 or 2 big days. The reason for doing so is because if you give a new athlete all 1 hour workouts and then ask for a 3 hour workout on Sunday, this is a huge increase in workload (overtraining possibly) and a huge increase in stress level (mentally) as they are unsure if they can handle it. So a good strategy to implement here would be weekly adjustments in volume such as add 1 hour/week. 
Example: 1 hour a day, 6x/week = 6 hours total 
You could increase to 1:15 a day, 6x/week for a new total now of 7:30 hour a week. 

• This example is much easier on the mind than 5x1 hour and 1x3 hour for 8 hours a week. That being said, there is a time for the 2nd option, but again this comes in with specific training and periodization that will come at a later point in this series. 

 Another rule of thumb for beginners is the 10% rule when increasing volume. This says that your weekly volume should only increase by 10% each week for a safe build. Building higher than this for beginners could lead to overtraining or burnout depending on how you do this and at what point of the season. 

 There are always going to be different circumstances for each individuals life, but these principles are widely accepted and should be put into your plan if you are just starting. 

Intensity
    This is the final piece to the puzzle but could be switched with Volume if you are a time-ridden athlete or later on in the build. Again, it all depends on where you are at and what your life is looking like. 

    When building intensity it is very important that you know what your goals are and what type of intensity you should be working at for specific training. Again, a later blog in the series will touch on this. Depending on what you are looking for, there are intensities that range from recovery to threshold to maximal oxygen uptake to anaerobic to neuromuscular. You can see how I could rant about this for a long time!  The important part to know is that whatever your goal is with fitness, there is a specific intensity that you should be working on to maximize your results. Hopefully after this series you have a better idea of all of these and can start to understand what type of training should accompany you on your path to better fitness or performance. 

Part 3 Intro
 You’ve bought a bike, you understand some of the basic principles to building fitness, now it is time to set a goal for what you want to accomplish. The next entry will focus on breaking down your goal into process driven tasks that you can tackle in a timely manner. By having a goal in place you can then start to look at specifics needed to build fitness/performance and start bringing your entire picture together!
Week 1: You just bought a new bike
Week 2: How to build fitness (volume, intensity, frequency)
Week 3: Realizing your intentions and setting goals
Week 4: Using metrics (heart rate/power) and setting baselines. 
Week 5:Periodizing your season and goals
Week 6: Specificity of training and its importance
Week 7: Peaking for your goal

  One of the most majestic feelings in the world is riding your bike and getting faster, but where should you start and how do you improve? Over the next 7 weeks, I will demonstrate what a coach will do with an entry level cyclist who just bought a bike and wants to get into endurance racing or just better shape in general. My intention is that after the 7 week beginner to athlete series, you will have a better understanding of what things mean and how to be as efficient as possible with your training. 
Week 1: You just bought a new bike
Week 2: How to build fitness (volume, intensity, frequency)
Week 3: Realizing your intentions and setting goals
Week 4: Periodizing your season and goals. 
Week 5: Using metrics (heart rate/power) and setting baselines
Week 6: Specificity of training and its importance
Week 7: Peaking for your goal

While every individual is different and needs customized training, there are basic guidelines that everyone follows. As a coach, I like to think about this as the guidelines being the outside of a puzzle. Then, the inside and actual picture is the athletes life. It is up to the coach to make the picture come together and end in the final product of a completed puzzle. 

With that being said, enjoy the series and leave comments/feedback if you have questions

You just bought a new bike
The first thing you will want to do as a new bike owner is ask your local bike shop or coach to get you fit to your bike. This often means that an individual will put you on a bike trainer and watch you as you pedal. You can either be set up for comfort ( open hip angle, relaxed/upright position, relaxed hand position, etc) or for performance/aerodynamics (aggressive hip angle, flat back, power arm position, etc). Almost all of this will depend entirely on your purpose of riding and your flexibility. 
 Once you have been fit to the bike and you feel good on your bike, it is then time to ensure you have all the proper equipment that is needed while you are on the road. For the purpose of this article, we will assume that you are into fitness and making improvements, so I will recommend the following equipment
You will need:
- Helmet (regardless of activity level)
- flat repair kit (c02 or pump, spare tube, tire levers) < learn how to fix a flat
- pedals/shoes
- speedometer (garmin is the best, if you are serious about it.. don't go cheap here.. 500 series garmin)
- Clothing (makes huge difference in comfort and speed)
- Heart rate monitor or power meter (syncs with your garmin.. can upload for analysis <Coaches job)

These pieces of equipment are going to do a lot for your ride quality and progress as a cyclist going down the road. You can get fancy with sunglasses and gloves or new saddles as you go, but all of these are preferences and not absolutely needed. It all depends on what appeals to you after these pieces. 

Safe riding
 You have your bike and your equipment. Now what do you do? The best thing to do at this point is ask the local bike shop about friendly roads in the area, group rides that are well established, or if there are possible bike trails in your area. You will be amazed at how a community has established bike roads and others that no cyclist would ever dream of riding on unless they absolutely had to. Yes, cyclists are allowed on most roads (not on most highways), but that doesn't mean it is necessarily safe for you to ride on all of these roads. What you want to look for as a beginning rider is roads with low volume or roads with bike lanes on them. The more bike lanes or lower car traffic, the better for most circumstances. If you have no other options, you can ride sidewalks, but in some places this is both illegal and puts you at an increased risk of an accident (cars don't look at sidewalks routinely before turning). 
 If you are able to talk to your local shop about routes to ride, you will be in a good place to help you build your skills of riding on a road. 

Joining a group
 Joining a group or club may be the best part about riding a bike. It brings in the social aspect of cycling and builds a network of individuals that will routinely meet on weekly nights to ride and enjoy each others company. The connections you make in cycling clubs go a long way and it is highly recommended that you join them. Here is Kalamazoo we have the Kalamazoo Bike Club that puts on annual bike clinics (Bike Week) and hosts group rides for many different skill levels. Also, the group or club is always full of safe roads to ride and can be a great resource for beginners in finding those safe places to practice. Seek out clubs

Intro to Part II
 Alright, you have your bike, equipment, and roads to ride on... Now what? The next step to helping you in your journey to better performance or fitness is the building of fitness itself. Next week we will touch on the principles of building fitness and how you can both work around your life schedule and maximize your fitness. 

Check back in next week to further your journey in becoming a better cyclist. 

Written by: Joe Siegel

Coming back to an endurance activity after an injury, especially a traumatic one, is perhaps one of the hardest obstacles to overcome as an athlete. I've learned this from personal experience and through interactions with friends and clients.  I want to talk about the steps we can take as athletes to bounce back and be stronger than before.
 
The Initial Shock
 
In 2011, I was becoming a well-rounded triathlete but was forced to completely stop run training due to sudden and severe running induced vertigo. I underwent a lengthy diagnosis and treatment, during which time my cycling was unaffected by the vertigo. It was during this time I fell in love with cycling even more and started training for pure cycling events. Even though I can now run without issue, it is now a recreational activity for me as I am very happy with my transition. 
 
It is very easy to fall into a depressed and/or pessimistic state while sidelined with an injury. Your world has flipped - you've gone from high intensity training and racing to a complete withdrawal. Firstly, it's OK to be upset, angry and down about the situation, these are perfectly normal human responses. The first way to start getting over these negative emotions is to focus on the positive. How bad is the injury vs how bad could it have been (having been hit by a car, for me personally this was key)? What can you still do? What activities had you dropped that you can now return to?  Figure out what activities you can still do to keep yourself active and engaged physically. I found a positive in my running vertigo, and that was cycling.
 
 
The Long Road to Recovery
This past June I was struck by a car and have spent 4 months so far recovering from a broken patella. I'm into my long recovery phase and have thought a lot about what I've been doing right and wrong during these past few months.
 
I think the first thing to do, and one you can work on while still unable to workout, is to talk with your doctors/surgeons/physical therapist or coach to figure out what caused the injury and how to prevent it in the future. Here you need to be your biggest advocate, stand up to the doctors et al and make sure they know your background and where you strive to be again.  The last thing you want to do is repeat poor tendencies or further aggravate the injury. What you don't want is an apathetic doctor or PT used to dealing with rehabbing elderly patients who don't know how to really push an advanced athlete. Personally, I travel 30 min out of the way to see a PT who's a cycling coach and lifetime cyclist himself - no one will understand my needs better than him.
 
From there, creating a path forward towards recovery will provide positive milestones to focus on. Don't think just about just the long term, which can be overwhelming and seem like a daunting task. Rome wasn't built in a day, nor is a torn ligament mended in a week. A rehab or physical therapy protocol sets out schedule or milestone based steps and you can do the same. By doing this, you can focus on small accomplishments towards a greater goal. Each new step will bring new activities, intensities and/or movements back. In this way you can always have a short term goal to work towards and accomplish, providing the necessary motivation and feedback for a positive mental and physical state.  My personal milestones along the way have included everything from walking unassisted and regaining flexion to pedaling a bike and rebuilding atrophied muscle. I can bike again, but it's baby steps in time and intensity to get back where I was and can use my knee on the bike and in regular life without pain.
 
Regaining Lost Fitness
Fitness is fickle. Hard to gain and easy to lose. All is not lost though, figuratively and literally, when sidelined with an injury. While you will lose fitness, it will come back easier and quicker the second time around. Your body has learned to become more efficient and made adaptations - those are not lost and there is a certain amount your body won't need to "relearn" the second time around. It is just as important to make a plan yourself or with your coach, to set realistic expectations about regaining the lost fitness. It's easy to dwell on how much slower you are, but it's more important to check off positive results - each week can have a goal, e.g. a new running pace met, new long cycling ride or power achievement. Setting these small and manageable goals are the trees you need to focus on instead of the entire forest.
 
Probably the hardest part of recovery will be in your first few workouts back. Firstly, it is easy to slip into bad habits and out of the good habit of consistent workouts. Set manageable goals - 3 workouts per week, then 4 then 5, etc and build the consistency back slowly. Secondly, the difference in fitness may be a shock and somewhat depressing. The first thing is to accept the reality of your new fitness, then embrace the opportunity to build again. Give yourself the time to rebuild and use reasonable milestones along the way to track your progress and stay positive.
 
 
Final Thoughts 
Not all injuries and recoveries will be the same. Some will be simple and some may take years, if we ever fully recover at all. Especially for serious injuries, a positive outlook is important, or you may find yourself losing hope and giving up. The road to recovery can no doubt be a daunting one but by understanding your past and setting manageable short term and long term goals, you can bring yourself as an athlete back to your prime. For me personally, doctors and my physical therapist are unsure whether I will ever regain my former ability or ride without knee pain again, but I'll never know until I try. However, the more I push myself now, the quicker I can get back and the better chance I'll have.