Growing up as an athlete I always wondered how much each practice helped me in preparation for my games or overall ability. Surely they all came together and created a better overall athlete in the end, but how much better? Was I maximizing my time in the weight room or on the field? Thankfully in endurance athletics there have been smart minds (Dr. Andrew Coggan, TrainingPeaks LLC) at work putting together calculations to show the training effect of each workout (Training Stress Score). Now, you can start to put all of your daily training stresses (workouts) together to show you just how fit you are overall. From a coaching standpoint, this starts to paint a picture of how to build and athlete and where they should be for peak competition. There is no more guessing, we can now see how much better the athlete gets year to year. 

What Makes Chronic Training Load (CTL)?
    Chronic Training Load is a rolling average of your last 42 days to 3 months of training. For example, if you were to train at 70 tss every single day for 3 months, then your CTL would be 70 CTL.  If you were to start bumping up your daily tss though for a month to 90 tss/day, then your CTL would start to gradually grow upwards from 70 and find the average of 2 months at 70 tss and 1 month at 90 tss… probably around 78 CTL. 
    If you are confused at how we get TSS, you can go back to my previous blog which discusses this topic and how it is set up. TSS is an extremely important component of CTL and should be correct before calculating CTL

Starting an Athlete With CTL
    Anytime an athlete starts with Dalzell Coaching I often discuss with them that the best results for that year will be between 6 and 12 months of training. The first reason for this is that it takes roughly that long for the body to adapt to a large chunk of training and peak for a race. The other reason for this time period of training is because it takes the data from your training about 6 months to fully catch up from 0.  I find that many athletes have all of the technology they need, but they don’t use it properly and never have their zones set up correctly. So while I can adjust zones and formulate an estimated CTL, it is often a guess at best because the athlete wasn’t training properly to begin with. Each new athlete resembles a clean canvas and those first 3-6 months of coaching are really priming the canvas in order to paint the best picture possible. 

Building Athletes CTL
    If you read the book “Training and Racing with a Power Meter” by Hunter Allen and Dr. Andrew Coggan, you will find a bunch of numbers on how to build athletes CTL effectively. When first starting out I would use this as a base line foundation of my understanding. Anywhere between 3-5 CTL/week should be sustainable for most. However, just like anything, it always depends on the athlete, their life circumstances, vacations planned that week, etc.  What I have found is that a 2-4 CTL is often manageable by many and that when warranted, some can jump as high as a 6-8 CTL/week with caution! This is an important metric to measure each week for each athlete because as CTL builds rapidly, so does opportunity for overtraining and injury. 

Overreach/Overload
    If you look at last weeks blog, you will read about Training Stress Balance (TSB) which is simply the amount of fatigue on your body. As your Acute Training Load (ATL) rapidly climbs, your TSB will accumulate fatigue quickly.  What this does to CTL is spikes CTL and shows a peak in fitness. This should only be done for 1-2 weeks max at a time and should fall within the 6-9 CTL range/week.  If you were to continue on this trend for long periods of time I would suggest your training zones aren’t correct or you are setting yourself up for injury rather quickly. While an overload and overreach can be extremely beneficial for peaking an athlete, it can only be done in short bursts and then should be followed by recovery for time to adapt. 

Top Numbers of CTL
    This is going to differ between every athlete and their lifestyles. However, what everyone wants to always know is what my top athletes have in terms of CTL. Again, this is a long process as you should really only jump up about 2-4 CTL/week to keep things safe. That being said, what I have found for my athletes and optimal success is: 


Pure Runners: 50-70 CTL (From running only)
Pure Cyclists: 100-115 CTL (from cycling only)
Triathletes: 100-125 CTL (from cycling/running)


    I hesitate to post these numbers because as a reader its easy to just look at these numbers and say “oh, they are doing that so I can too”. No, that isn’t the point of posting these numbers. The point of showing these numbers is to show a peak form fitness for athletes peak races that took 6-9 months to achieve, plenty of sacrifice, and dedicated training of 8-12 hours/week for those 6-9 months. 
    Also what is missing from here is how well an athlete adapts to the training load. Some of my exceptionally fast athletes will only ever hit 70-80 CTL but they adapt well to their training sessions and life responsibilities don’t allow for higher CTL due to daily stress levels already being high. 

Maintaining CTL
    As athletes begin to understand the process and what we are looking for in terms of building, they often become in love with a number (100+ CTL). They have worked so hard for that number and don’t want to let it go. This is where you often see athletes trying to maintain training loads after an Ironman or after a cycling season. However, what you need to understand as a reader is that your body can only handle 2-3 true fitness peaks a year, then you must recover and rest. Trying to maintain peak form all year will only lead to overtraining injuries and at a certain point Burnout due to your bodies inability to perform at levels you think it should. As your body starts to give out and your mind expects it to perform, you will enter into severe training depression and question if training is even worth it, this is what burnout looks like. As you come down off your season peak and its time for a recovery period, your CTL should decline and you as an athlete should see this as part of the process for better results the following year/build. Without the full recovery, your body can’t fully adapt and it can’t fully prepare for an even larger build next time. 

Conclusion
    While I have given you a lot of points here, understand that this is still only a piece to the puzzle. While CTL is great for showing overall fitness, it doesn’t account for specific fitness which is a key ingredient for performance. It is easy to trick CTL into rising if you know how, but if you can raise your CTL with race specific training, that is when true performance increases. This can all be measured and should be. We have the tools handy to properly monitor and track fitness. If you are currently an athlete with the technology but aren’t tracking your actual training load, I would urge you to sit down and start. We don’t have to be subjective in our training anymore, you can become objective and extremely efficient with what you’re doing. 


For more information on CTL, Jeremy Brown of MindRight Multisport and I will be hosting a google hangout on Wednesday at 10 AM Est. 


For questions or concerns please reach out to me at ddalzell@dalzellcoaching.com

      With endurance athletes, its often the job of a coach to keep their training stress manageable to ensure progress without the risk of overtraining. This balance that a coach can offer is one of the best services any athlete can receive. Without the monitoring of your training stress balance (TSB), many athletes are at risk of either overtraining or not maximizing their form going into big races. By understanding TSB (designed by Dr. Andrew Coggan), athletes can start to understand when to recover and for how long a recovery period should be. 

What is Training Stress Balance
    Training Stress Balance is a metric used to monitor the fatigue of an endurance athlete. For many there is no explanation needed on why this is a good feature. However, for other athletes that are in the mindset of “more is more”, this may be the best tool we can use as a coach. This metric factors in acute training load (ATL) which is based on the athletes training stress score (TSS). If all of these acronyms are getting to be overwhelming, I wrote a blog last week on TSS which may be required reading for this blog. Essentially, as TSS builds day to day and therefore increases your acute training load, your training stress balance will go down (down is fatigue, up is freshness). So, as your acute training load (2 week average) continues to rise higher and higher, you will become more and more fatigued. This seems simple enough to understand, but keep in mind that many athletes don’t pay attention to this and therefore become overtrained or in some cases, undertrained. 

Using Training Stress Balance
    So how do you use this in an effective manner. I would urge that as coaches we use this on a day-to-day basis or at the least on a week-to-week schedule. If you use this correctly, you can understand where to put big training days and where you need to have an off-day or an easy z1 spin on the bike. You can start to see where you overload the body and where you need to adapt to that training with recovery. No longer is the generalized 3 weeks on, 1 week off needed… but rather you can schedule athletes with 24 days on with 5 recovery days mixed in and then a 3 day easy period to fully recover before going back into another build. Essentially what I’m saying with that last sentence is that you don’t have to be generalized in your training and you shouldn’t be. Generalized plans account for a perfect life balance and I will be the first to tell you that many people are constantly trying to find balance in their life which often requires training schedule changes. This metric allows you to customize your training to your life which may be the most powerful thing any athlete can do for future development. 

The Actual Numbers
    Based on the book by Hunter Allen and Dr. Andrew Coggan, they have looked at numerous athlete profiles and came up with specific numbers to shoot for during builds and during races. In my experiences, I have found that when building, athletes should range in scores from -5 to -35 when going through a block of training (negative numbers show fatigue). Anytime an athlete is going above -35 they are getting high in fatigue and this becomes a red flag to send the athlete into a recovery day or two. You can also use this as a coach in programming day-to-day by understanding that the higher the negative number, the more fatigue the athlete has. So, if you wanted to program in threshold workouts or speed days for athletes, you would never do that with a high negative TSB score. Rather, you would look in the week to see where the best place to put the speed work is so you can maximize the workout for the athlete without increasing their risk of an injury.
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    Beyond the monitoring to recover, TSB also allows you to maximize the taper going into any race. Because you can measure fatigue, you can see just how many days in advance an athlete needs to properly taper and maximize their fitness (form) going into their race. Again, no more generalized 10-14 day tapers… now your taper becomes specific to your travel days and training load that led up to it… 100% customized. 

Conclusion
    The main takeaway from this is that TSB may be the best tool for any coach or athlete looking to customize their plan. Generalized plans are good if you have a perfect balance in your life, but I have yet to see that in any person I’ve coached. Keeping balance in life is a key contributor to athletic success and this tool allows us to do that in a more efficient way. Beyond keeping the plan customized to your life and ensuring progress, this also gives us the ability to maximize training and tapers for your races. By using this tool, you can ensure that all of your hard work actually goes into the race vs showing up to the race overtrained or stale due to rest. 

Jeremy Brown of MindRight Multisport and I will be having a live talk regarding TSB on Wednesday at 10AM EST. 

If you have any further questions or comments, reach out to me at ddalzell@dalzellcoaching.com

    If I could suggest any endurance athlete to follow just one metric while training, it would be TSS (Training Stress Score). TSS is a metric that was designed by Dr. Andrew Coggan and is used in the TrainingPeaks software to measure the stress on the body from any one single workout. While the one day TSS value is important, as you begin to add up all of your training days this number becomes very powerful for the athletes development. Over the the course of this blog we will focus on setting up TSS for your use.  To dive into the subject deeper, Jeremy Brown of MindRight Multisport and I will be doing a google hangout at 10 AM eastern on Wednesday June 15th. 

Whats Needed To Obtain TSS
    In order to obtain TSS, you need a device that is able to record data that can be calculated by Trainingpeaks into a TSS value. These devices are power meters on the bike or a gps watch/ heart rate meter for the run. A company that I would fully endorse is Powertap power meters. I have been using their products for the past four years without a single issue in product or customer service. Power tap has a nice line of power meters ranging from wheels to pedals to cranks. This allows for the user to select a power meter that meets their needs for their riding or multiple bikes. With a gps watch or heart rate I have found the garmin line of products to be fantastic as well and have been using these for the past five years. 

Testing to Set Up TSS
    This will differ based on the coaches philosophy of how to best test, but essentially what you are looking for here is a threshold test to find your bodies 1 hour maximum output. Due to a 1 hour test being very tough both physically and mentally, many coaches shorten these efforts and take a % of the test as a result. A great test for power in my opinion is a 20 min max effort on the bike and taking 95% of that number as the athletes theoretical 1 hour threshold effort (FTP). An example would be a cyclist holding 300 watts for 20 minutes. This would turn into a 285 FTP.  As for heart rate, I generally issue a 30 min max effort and take the last 20 minutes of the test and find the average heart rate. With heart rate not fluctuating as much at threshold, this is generally a strong indicator of what the athlete could hold for 1 hour.  

The Actual TSS Number
    TSS is set up to show 100 for a maximum 1 hour effort.  You can go over 100 if you go longer than 1 hour, but understand that TSS is a function of intensity and duration. 
Some common TSS values for efforts are:
1 hour at zone 2 base = 40-55 tss
1 hour at z3 tempo = 60-80 tss
1 hour at threshold = 100 tss
2 hours at z2 base = 80-90 tss
2 hours at tempo = 130-150 tss
2 hours with threshold work = 170-190 tss

    Now, If you go over 100 tss and you haven’t been training for 1 hour, then in theory your FTP (threshold) is low and you should bump that up. 

Utilizing TSS as An Athlete
    As coaches, we know where an athlete should fall in the TSS range for certain race efforts such as 40km TT efforts, 80 mile road races, ironman triathlons, etc.   So when we know what the race will require in terms of stress on the body, this is how we start to program in workouts. No longer are we required to prescribe workouts by speed or miles, but rather we can prescribe workouts that are much more meaningful to the race and specific to the demands. After all, speed and miles (intensity and duration) are what make up TSS anyways, but we can manipulate this number in ways to make training more effective/efficient.  Let me show you a quick example. 

Case Study: An Ironman athlete is required to ride around 240-270 tss on the bike. With Ironman performance being strongly tied to FTP on the bike, instead of only riding long slow miles for this athlete, we can start to program in workouts that builds their tss values in a workout such as
3:30 ride
mixing in 6x20 minutes @ 85-90% FTP
riding low-mid z2 between efforts (10-15 minutes between efforts)
This workout will be close to 220-260 tss

    Essentially, we are getting much more out of each workout and building the ironman athlete closer to their goal without always having to get out the door for 4-6 hour rides.  As you get closer to competition you want to get more specific, but just because you are training for Ironman doesn’t mean you constantly need huge weeks. As long as total TSS for the week is where it should be, you are building in a proper manner and will be fit for the task. 

Setting up Your Device to Show TSS
    Thank you Garmin for this one. Garmin in their latest updates have included a TSS field to their data screens. Now instead of just having power, heart rate, speed, duration, etc on your garmin screen, you can also have TSS. This has been a game changer for my athletes as we now prescribe workouts with TSS values and specific approaches to each day. The athletes know what to do in terms of specifics and just ride until their TSS has been met for the day. Speed can be manipulated so easily based on wind, incline, drag, etc. By using TSS with specific approaches, we ensure that the athlete is putting enough stress on their body to make progress and isn’t training blindly with just miles or speed. 

Conclusion
    While it does take some time to set all of this up with devices needed, education of training approach, development of zones, and setting up your device… there isn’t any better way you can train for efficient and effective results. If you are able to get a power meter and a coach that can fully relay the message as to why you are training a specific way, there really is no going back to the old way of training. While I’m a purist in many facets and love the simplicity of riding a bike or going out for a jog, when you are serious about results and really targeting a season/event, this is without a doubt the best way to train in my opinion. 

To listen in more depth about TSS and how we use this as coaches, Jeremy Brown of MindRight Multisport and I will be doing a google hangout Wednesday June 15th at 10 AM Est. 

All Dalzell Coaching athletes are able to receive a discount on Powertap power meters through our partnership with them. Please reach out to me at ddalzell@dalzellcoaching.com for any questions.

    When training for a big race or peak level of fitness, athletes often wonder if doing group rides can be beneficial to them and their goals. Surely there are some benefits to doing group rides, but how harmful are they to your overall training plan. The easy answer in my opinion is that group riding is extremely beneficial to any athletes progress. However, just like anything, there are times when it can become too much. Specifically when nearing a race/peak event. 

Handling Skills
    When going through training, triathletes or cyclists in general often ride solo miles which can be great for intervals and building a specific engine. However, they often neglect handling skills which can make a big difference in a race. One of the best ways to work on handling skills is to ride in a group. You must be focused on where you are in the pack, be able to hold a line through a corner, and often ride 1 handed due to pointing out pot holes or giving hand signals. By doing a group ride your handling and awareness on a bike will increase 10x what it would if you just ride alone all the time. Riding in a group makes you a better cyclist overall. 

Intervals
    A misconception by many athletes is that doing a group ride means you can’t mix in intervals that are specific to you.  This is something that me and my athletes do on a  weekly basis with our local Wednesday night ride. I have TT specialists who work to attack the group and stay away for 5-8 minutes along with sprinters/lead out specialists that sprint every city limit sign and work on lead outs.  The group dynamic is actually the best training day for these specific sets because it puts the athlete in a race simulation and allows them to work on their tactics and creativity in attacking. Group ride days for my cyclists in Kalamazoo is one of the best days for their actual progression as a racer. 

Training Stress
    When building my athletes schedules, it is often a mixture of training stress and specifics that yield the progress needed for advancement. If the athlete gives you a weeks notice as to what group rides they want to do, there should be no reason why its harmful to their overall training stress. A group ride can be added into a week and if given specific goals for the ride, can achieve both a high training stress and specific training day all in one. However, if the athlete starts wanting to do 3-4 group rides a week, then this can become problematic as the group dynamic doesn't necessarily allow for 20-30 minute intervals and the athlete may start losing out on some specifics. 

Balance is Key
    Everyone likes riding a bike and its only better if done with people. I believe the sweetspot for doing group rides is 1-2 a week as it allows for the social aspect of training, high training loads, but also the ability on the other 5 days of the week to mix in a specific training plan that allows for individual progress. 

Con’s
    There are some cons associated with group riding, but again… the pro’s far outweigh them. The cons that are associated with the group ride are the opportunity for a crash to happen along with injury (this shouldn’t happen if handling skills and communication are developed and in place). Another con is the athletes extrinsic motivation that makes them want to beat others or “show off” in the group. While there is plenty to gain from going hard in a group ride, you can’t go hard all the time as it may sacrifice a later training day.  Your coach should talk to you about the goal of the group ride so you are aware what you should be working on. The final con is when athletes, like noted above, want to do group rides 4 days a week. While this is good for overall training stress, you start to miss out on specifics.  Training stress is just one of the ingredients to performance. 

Taper/Peak
    The only time that I take all group riding out of the mix is during a taper or final 2 weeks prior to the athletes “A” race. The reason for this is due to it being a large training stress day, the risk of a crash happening, or the athletes inability to soft pedal and instead putting in large attacks. All of these things can derail a peak for race day and the risks far outweigh the pro’s in this case. 
​
Conclusion
    Group riding is awesome and its something that every cyclist/triathlete should seek out. The pro’s of group riding will help you become a better overall athlete and possibly even make some friends in the process. By adding in group rides to an athletes training plan, the coach should give some specific ideas for optimal focus/training that day. As always, everything depends on the athletes goals/progress/life/training to that point and everything should be factored in when adding a group ride to the schedule. However, if you’re an athlete reading this, understand that a group ride can be very beneficial to you and you should ask your coach about it ASAP! 


For more information, Jeremy Brown of MindRight Multisport and I will be doing a google hangout on Wednesday at 10AM EST. 


For questions or concerns, email me at ddalzell@dalzellcoaching.com

   As endurance athletes, sometimes we get into the mindset of “more is more”. While there are times during the year to train longer hours with limited recovery, this should still be done in a structured way to ensure progress is actually taking place. One of the worst things you can do as an athlete is to get into the mindset that I always have to be doing more.  That isn’t the case and over-training can often lead to weaker results.  The content below is just a snapshot of why recovery and rest is so important to your progress as an athlete. 

Rest = Strength Building
    While at rest (sleep), your body recovers in a way that isn’t fully maximized if continuously moving or exercising. During your deep sleep cycle, the natural hormone (Growth Hormone) is released and allows your muscles to recover and body to heal from training. Have you ever heard of professional cyclists/runners/triathletes taking their sleep very seriously? Its because without this sleep and rest, they couldn’t handle the training load or their body wouldn’t adapt fully to the stressors being put on it!  Sleep is very important and if you aren’t getting quality sleep then you're not fully maximizing your training. 

Over-training Injuries
    Beyond the sleep, many athletes fall into the training rut of always looking to do more. This is a common mistake made by many athletes looking to get into fantastic shape.  This is often the case for athletes that don’t track training load or any metrics. While I am all for a free-spirit and letting your body tell you how to run/ride… the mind can often play tricks on these athletes and tell them that they can handle more. As the athlete continues to train and mentally push for results, they don’t allow their muscles the days to recover and therefore miss the entire point of training. We train so we can rest, we rest so we can get stronger. One of the largest side-effects of not resting is injuries and this is often where you find the running injuries with athletes. They didn’t track their training load, their mind told them to keep pushing, and their body broke down. This is common but it doesn’t have to be! Learn how to track training load and learn when to recover!  Recovery is when you actually get stronger!

Burnout
    While sleep is important and overtraining injuries are painful, burnout may be the worst thing possible for any athlete. As competitive individuals we are constantly seeking an upper hand in any situation and that is no different for athletes. We look to train more so we can be faster. When we get fast we want to keep getting stronger and we have these unrealistic expectations for ourselves. I want athletes to read this part carefully… ITS NATURAL TO HAVE AN OFF-SEASON… AND NEEDED!  If you are constantly maintaining a high level of fitness, your body will eventually push back and you won’t be able to maintain your results. With more training you will start to stress yourself out and question why are you even training if you can’t get faster. This is a slippery slope and will eventually lead to burnout and not wanting to ride your bike or run.  Unrealistic expectations made entirely by you due to your lack of rest and recovery. 

Conclusion
    This is just a small glimpse into why rest and recovery may be the most important part of your training. It will allow you to adapt to your training and actually see the gains. It will allow your muscles to recover to limit risk of over-training injuries. It will also allow you to enjoy the rest days and relieve some mental stress from your training which could lead to burnout. For any athlete seeking top end performance, it is going to be a process over many years. You can not go from beginner to pro in 1 season and your training should not intend to do so. A well structured training plan will make you much faster in 1 year, but that is only due to the specific builds and rest needed to adapt. For optimal success, trust the rest and recovery process for 3-7 years and be amazed with just how strong you can become as an athlete. 


For more information, Jeremy Brown of MindRight Multisport and I will be hosting a google hangout Wednesday June 1, 2016 @ 10AM Est.  See our Facebook pages for the link. 


For questions, please email me at ddalzell@dalzellcoaching.com

     Surely if you’re in the endurance world you have heard of training weeks that range from 18-30 hours and all the time athletes are putting into their training. Odds are that you have often told yourself “If I had just 10 more hours a week I would be really fast too!”. I’m here to tell you that you don’t always have to train 18-30 hours a week. You can get exceptionally fast on 6-10 hours. While I do realize that big hours can help for most, it also depends on how long athletes have been in the sport. 

Disclaimer: There are methods of coaching that do call for long hours of training and depending on your race goals, you may need to shoot for over 10 hours/week. However, in my years of coaching Crit Champions to an Ironman World Championship qualifier, each of these athletes has averaged between 6-10 hours/week. 

How Can I Get Fast on Less Time? 
    Does work and family time leave you crunched for training time? Good! You need balance in your life if you’re going to be a successful athlete. How we make you fast on less time isn’t tricky and its not gimmicky. Simply put, it is structured and everything has a purpose. The foundation of our training principles is consistency of training (frequency) and aiming for 6-7 days/week of training. When first starting out, it isn’t about the power of your ride or the length of your run, its simply about getting into the routine of training 6-7 days a week. When you get into this habit (even if its just 45 min/day), your results will start to trend upwards.  

Whats Next? 
    Once you have the 6-7 days a week of training in place, you start to add more specifics required to meet the race demands. This can include either volume or intensity.  Due to time being an issue for most people, we will start with intensity that is specific to the athletes needs. This starts out slow at usually 1 or 2 days a week with plenty of rest between. As the athlete progresses, the frequency of their intensity will increase (on the bike only, running intensity too often can lead to injury). Now the athlete is starting to get in more quality with their limited time and the fitness/results continue to progress. 

Another Step?
    When you have the frequency and the specific intensity workouts in place, we may add some longer days but still keep total training time for the week at just 10 hours. This is the biggest part of the season and usually right before race season for the athletes. If the athlete is given a heads up in advance, they can generally plan for a 3-5 hour workout once or twice a month. By setting up a periodized training schedule and knowing when the big days are coming, it can give the athlete plenty of time to schedule it in with work or family. As these big days are added in, the athletes fitness continues to trend up and they start to near their peak form. 

Final Prep Phase
    You started with the 6-7 days a week easy for low amounts of time. You started to add in some intensity and build your bodies ability to recover from these efforts. Then you were able to mix in some bigger days and stress your body again. Now comes the last part. The peak is when you ramp up training at a high rate for 1-2 weeks and completely crush your body. This again can only be 10 hours if you ramp up your intensity and keep volume up. Following this overreach for 1-2 weeks, you will go into a taper and be in your best shape for top end race results.  There is nothing tricky to this, it is simply structured and has a purpose. 

Real Results
    The amount of time training reflects the average per week for each athlete over a 180 day period. The best results for each athlete come in the 6-9 month time window of when they started their yearly training build under Dalzell Coaching. 

Athlete A: 6 hours 31 minutes/week - FTP 260 to 315  (cyclist only)
Athlete B: 9 hours 08 minutes/week - FTP 330 to 375 and 5 min from 380 to 466 (cyclist) 
Athlete C: 6 hours 20 minutes/week - FTP from 270 to 318 (triathlete)
Athlete D: 3 hours 4 minutes/week - From 2:02 half marathon to 3:40 full (Boston Qualifier)
Athlete E: 7 hours 52 minutes/week - FTP from 275 to 305, PR on 25k run (Triathlete)
Athlete F: 4 hours 49 minutes/week - Sprint from 1120 to 1355 and 1 min from 653 to 713 (cyclist)
Athlete G: 6 hours 7 minutes/week - FTP from 280 to 350 (cyclist)

    These are just a handful of results the athletes have seen. While some of them are new to Dalzell Coaching, others have been on for multiple years. However, regardless of the time they have been training, we have always maintained balance in their life by keeping training averages to under 10 hours a week. The athletes with the best results are those that have been consistent in their training over multiple years and maintain well structured builds each season.

Conclusion
    I’m not here to tell you to train less, and I’m not here to say this is the only way. I simply just want to show you that if you are crunched for time, you can still improve as an athlete. While there should be long slow days mixed into any plan, it should still serve a purpose for the bigger plan as a whole. If you can start to structure training with a purpose you will be amazed at how much progress you can make on such limited time. For those athletes that do very long course racing such as Ironman or Ultra, you still need your big weeks mixed in, but those training plans as well should include structure and a purpose to ensure progress is happening. 

To hear more on this topic, Jeremy Brown of MindRight Multisport will be hosting a Google Hangout session with me Wednesday at 10 AM Eastern. Follow the link in the Dalzell Coaching or MRM Facebook page on Wednesday to listen in.

For any questions, please email me at ddalzell@dalzellcoaching.com

    As athletes begin to excel in any sport, they will almost always be learning training tactics as they advance. This would lead one to believe that as they get to a certain point, they can surely maintain their fitness on their own. While this is true, I also know that athletes who excel in sports want to continually get better. This is where a coach can come into play for these reasons below. 

Keeping an Objective Approach
    One of the hardest things for any athlete to do is look at their training objectively. Too many times I’ve heard an athlete say sentences such as “I trained really hard Thursday, so I can probably take Friday or Saturday off”. They begin to make deals with themselves and justify their lack of focus or lack of structured training. For this reason alone, a coach who can look at their training objectively can make a world of difference. Having a coach to hold you accountable may be the biggest benefit to any aspiring athlete. 

Continually Seeking Advanced Methods
    While you are surely researching your job as a teacher, marketing expert, physical therapist, or company CEO, your coach dedicates his/her time to researching exercise physiology studies, new equipment, and training methods. If your coach is taking his/her job seriously, then they are going to be up to speed on the most efficient means of training and increasing performance. This will save the athlete from doing long research of their own and instead, the athlete can put that time back into their own training. Simply put, having a coach can help make your time in the sport more efficient.

Managing Life, Training, Responsibilities 
    When an athlete is training themselves, they often have to wear many hats at the same time and continually juggle their schedule. One of the biggest impacts I hear from many athletes is how much  time they have in their schedule due to having a coach with a set training calendar. The coach can objectively look at your work schedule, family commitments on weekends, race selections, and piece together a plan that allows for racing goals to be met without sacrificing other responsibilities in life. By having a coach, you can focus on your training when it happens, but still have plenty of time to manage all of the other important aspects of your life. 

Understanding When to Push, When to Recover
    From keeping an objective approach, training efficiently, and keeping your life in balance, a coach will develop a plan to push your limits and then recover when necessarily. Many self-coached athletes get into the mindset that more is always better. This just isn’t the case. When you have someone that is dedicated to monitoring your training load, you are continually being analyzed for whether you can keep pushing your training or if its time to back off and recover. What most self-coached athletes get in the habit of is chasing a number and wanting it as fast as possible. This number chasing can lead to over-training and eventually injury or burnout. By having a coach in place, the athlete will methodically advance towards their training goals in a safe and efficient manner while also maintaining the balance of their day-to-day lives. This sort of balance is key to success and something that is OFTEN overlooked by self-coached athletes. 

Conclusion
    Is coaching for everyone? Maybe not. However, I do know that if you are serious about your training/performance then a coach will do nothing but help enhance your abilities. I know from a personal standpoint that when I get ready for a big event I want to do well at, I seek the abilities of a coach to help keep me honest and moving forward. Regardless of how much we may know or how much we may help others, we often need someone else to analyze our training from an objective angle to ensure that we are progressing as athletes. Hiring someone who can objectively look at your training mixed with your responsibilities of life may be the most powerful thing you can do for your athletic career. 


If you have any questions, please reach out to me at ddalzell@dalzellcoaching.com

Data Analysis of a P123 Race. 
    When Mathew Haymen won the Paris Roubaix race and his data was discussed via TrainingPeaks Website, I was flooded with comments regarding the data. I had many riders telling me “look at this” or “really cool analysis”. This triggered something in me that said, maybe the athletes want to be more involved with the analysis of their own data. This blog is being done to show that you don’t have to be a professional racer to have data analysis done. It is something we do every week to program future training and discuss performances in races. The following analysis is of a P123 race. The rider has chosen to be anonymous (Rider X).  
(Photo 1 Shows entire race power profile)
​
Race
   The race was 61 miles in duration and full of riders ranging from professional cyclists to category 3 racers. Rider X was able to stay in the pack for the first hour of the race by putting in big efforts such as his peak 1 minute output of 554 watts (7.61 w/kg) and peak 2 minute output of 448 watts (6.16 w/kg).  
(Photo 2 shows 1 min max power)

    At the 5-10 mile mark, a break of riders (3) were able to get away from the group. At this point, Rider X was able to sit in the pack for the next 20 miles and conserve energy working at roughly 65-80% of FTP. While Rider X had to surge several times to stay with the pack, the overall average of power is down in this section of the race.
(Photo 3 shows 20 miles of tempo/endurance)

    As the race went on, Rider X was seeing the peloton become content with a sprint for 4th place at the finish. Utilizing Rider X’s strength of v02 and threshold abilities, he made the conscious decision to put in a dig near 1000 watts and go on a solo break to try and chase the 3 leaders. 
(Photo 4 shows surge)

    As the race continued, Rider X was able to close the initial 1:30 gap to 25 seconds. However, as the gap shrunk, the 3 leaders were informed and they were able to open the lead back up. In the end, Rider X was able to rely on his TT abilities and stay away from the peloton for over 30 miles. During this time, Rider X averaged 344 NP and 330 Average power. Also, while gaining 1200 ft of elevation in this distance, Rider X was still able to manage an average speed of 25.4 mph.   
(Photo 5 shows 30 mile solo effort)

     In the end Rider X couldn’t quite close the gap on the 3 leaders, but he did come across the line in 4th after doing a 30+ mile solo time trial. He ended up working exceptionally hard in the race but it ended with a quality result in the first P123 race of the season. 

Final Placing: 4th
Duration: 2:24:56
Distance: 61.4 miles
Normalized Power: 344
Average Power: 311
Max Power: 1249
Training Stress Score: 208.5
Elevation Gain: 2861 ft
Average Speed: 25.4 mph
Rider Weight: 160 lbs (72.72kg)
W/Kg: 4.29

Conclusion & why it matters
   When doing an analysis like this as a coach, you are able to look into the actual efforts of the race and see where things went right or where maybe a bit too much energy was used. While in road racing you often have to stay with the flow of the group, this race demonstrates how important pacing can be when you find yourself solo in a race. By utilizing power in all of Rider X’s training, he was informed enough to know how hard he could push when going solo without the risk of blowing up. By calculated training and conversations of pacing with power, Rider X was able to bring his knowledge and training into a race for a great result. 

   If you are interested in training with power or having your data analyzed, we can do it. This isn’t something reserved for the pro’s, this can be done on a daily basis!

   When setting out in the endurance world, you often hear many athletes say “ I can eat whatever I want because I train so much”.  While this is true in a snapshot of time,  it simply isn’t true for long term success. Over the course of this blog, I’ll touch on different reasons why you still need solid nutrition to become an overall healthy individual while training. More importantly, I hope you leave here understanding you need good nutrition for optimal performance. 

Disclaimer: I am not a registered dietician and my views are purely from experience as an athlete and coach. I hope you don’t drastically change anything because of this post, but rather I hope it gives you the interest to study these issues for yourself. 

Eating Whatever You Want
    From a pure weight loss standpoint, yes, you can probably have those 5 slices of pizza and extra brownie after your week of continuous 1500 calorie workouts. To be completely honest, this can be a positive thing on your “cheat days” which allows you the freedom to keep motivation going throughout the process. However, eating this way all the time will have many negative affects to your training. One of those areas is the lack of recovery you will start to have. 

Food is Your Energy, Your Recovery, and Your Key to Long-Term Success
    When training 8-14 hours a week you are burning between 5000-10000 calories a week. With this amount of workload, you need to be eating plenty of food for your energy and recovery. However, what you’re eating has an effect on all of this. 
    The reason you can’t simply eat pizza every day or crush drinks all the time is because it doesn’t allow the body to recover from hard workouts in an efficient manner. Again, I am not a registered dietician, but the cheese on pizza along with the alcohol from drinks can cause inflammation or thin blood which doesn’t allow your muscles to recover for the next days training. Any time you aren’t recovering as an athlete, your next days workout is going to suffer and that is where we feel optimal nutrition comes into play. 
    What does optimal nutrition mean? That is different for everyone and this is where we hope you will do some research for yourself. Some individuals perform great on a vegan diet while others really do well on a high protein diet. We aren’t here to tell you what to eat, we are simply here to tell you that eating better foods does make a difference in the long term success of your training. 

What the Body Does Need
    The basic needs for your body after a training day are protein and carbohydrates. Your body needs the protein in order to help your muscles grow and recover and you need the carbohydrates to help restore your muscle glycogen levels for energy. How you want to go about getting these nutrients in is up to you. Some people will do a protein shake while others will simply make a chicken salad, turkey sandwich, spaghetti dinner, etc.  It isn’t so much what you’re having for a meal, its just that it contains your protein and carbohydrate needs. 

Fasting Serves One Purpose
    Sometimes you’ll hear of athletes going into training sets fasted. The sole purpose of this is to target fat utilization for energy. This can be effective for some longer distance athletes, but it shouldn’t be the main focus of their training. Again, Dalzell Coaching is focused on performance and while this may help your body become more efficient at burning fat for fuel, you will never be able to do any serious sustained threshold training in this state. As the intensity of exercise increases, your body pulls on more and more glycogen (carbs/sugars) for energy. If your muscle glycogen stores are depleted, then you simply will be pedaling at a slow rate of speed and utilizing mostly fat for your energy. If you do this wrong you can also be pulling from your protein sources for energy which will actually break down your muscles for energy. In my years of coaching, I have never specifically programmed a fasted workout because I feel more passionate about building someones speed and endurance vs focusing on fat utilization. This is a tricky subject that you will get both sides of the spectrum on. Again, I urge you to do your own research if you are training yourself. 

Well Balanced for Long-Term Success
    The long-term success of your training is focused around proper training, proper recovery, and properly fueling to ensure you are ready to train. Below is an example of a strong diet and the training stress is allows along with a poor diet and where individuals start to fall off. 

Example of Strong Diet vs Poor Diet Weekly Training

Strong week (cycling example);
This is based on a strong diet rich in protein/carbs and focus on recovery
Monday: Threshold workout (100 TSS)
Tuesday: Base with Sprints (140 TSS)
Wed: Freedom ride (80 TSS)
Thurs: Sweetspot Set (75 TSS)
Fri: Easy spin (30 TSS)
Sat: Long Endurance (180 TSS)
Sun: Base with Attacks (110 TSS)


Note: Best day to cheat meal here is Friday night. This is because you’ve had a full day to recover from the mid-week and a cheat meal often has a ton of carbs which will fuel you for the long endurance day. 


Poor week (cycling example);
This is the same week as above, but your body won’t be able to sustain training load (see tss)
Monday: Threshold workout (100 TSS)
Tuesday: Base with Sprints (140 TSS)
Wed: Freedom ride (80 TSS) << legs will feel cracked, may only get 60 TSS in
Thurs: Sweetspot Set (75 TSS) << may not be able to get quality here.  55 TSS
Fri: Easy spin (30 TSS)
Sat: Long Endurance (180 TSS)
Sun: Base with Attacks (110 TSS) <<  body will be done.. might take today off


Note: without proper recovery and nutrition, this week is now 150 TSS short of the optimal training week. While 150 TSS isn’t a huge deal if only done 1 week, as you add up weeks and months, 150 TSS/week is the difference between a strong peak performance and not meeting your full potential.  This is why you need strong nutrition along with strong training. It allows your body to recover and keep making progress toward your potential. 

Conclusion
    Training will not overcome poor nutrition because as poor nutrition continues, you’ll neglect to fuel your body in a way that allows proper training. If you are training between 8-14 hours or more a week, don’t get sucked into any of these fad diets. With the amount of training per week you are doing, you are burning between 5000-10000 calories a week which will result in weight loss. At this point what you need to be focused on is properly recovering so you can continue to make progress as an athlete. While weight does start to become important to performance, we would much rather see your weight drop because of proper training and diet vs having a sole focus on weight loss. If you are focused on training and being recovered for your next days workout, then you’ll start to have a better diet and you’ll soon start working towards your potential as an athlete.