cycling training plans - I Love Bicycling

These 3 Tips Will Make You Better At Endurance Cycling

September 20, 2022 by Eric Lister

The Basics

To get better at cycling, you’re going to have to spend a lot of time on your bike. Training for endurance cycling is, in some sense, a simple endeavour. We just have to create the infrastructure that can perform for long periods of time at a given intensity. This is what many people refer to as: Building your aerobic base.

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Building up a large aerobic base is the foundation that will support you through long, gritty rides on the roads and trails. By cycling at a low, sustainable RPM for extended sessions (on a consistent basis) your body will begin to make adaptations because of the demands you’re placing on it.

Being able to produce and utilize the adequate energy, while also effectively removing the byproducts of that energy production (lactic acid), would mean you’d be able to ride longer, harder and faster over greater distances for extended periods of time, just like professional cyclists.

A more comprehensive and robust capillary network will begin to form, and this will serve to supply more oxygen and nutrients to the working muscles. Further, it will increase the production of mitochondria, which can be thought of as the power plants of your muscle cells. These mechanisms combined create an efficient energy production and waste removal system.

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What Allows Us To Train For Endurance Cycling?

This is actually the first question we should be asking. Endurance training can be brutal and exhausting, yet we are often so concerned with the various training methods and desired outcomes that we forget to ask ourselves, “Am I ready to train today?”

The truth is that most people have not properly prepared for the training they put themselves through, evidenced by the high percentage of pain and subsequent injuries (non-traumatic) reported in the average cyclist. This could be due to a number of factors, all of which significantly contribute to an individual’s general health and well-being.

It will ultimately be a willingness to consider the various parts of our lives, health and bodies in combination with one other that determines how long we stay on the saddle, and how well we perform during that time. Despite the tried and true training protocols for endurance cycling, if we can’t ride due to injury or fatigue, none of them will matter.

How To Become A Better Endurance Cyclist

Here are three tips that will ensure you get the most out of your long distance training. By following this advice, you will also be mitigating your injury risk and working towards a sustainable, long term cycling practice that you can continue to do for the rest of your life. Staying on the bike and riding pain free should always be the number one goal.

Monitor Your Resting Heart Rate (RHR)

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This can be done in a number of ways with all sorts of fancy tools and gadgets, but there’s also a simpler method that costs no money and actually does more in the way of connecting you with your own body. That is by manually checking your pulse as soon as you wake up, and tracking your beats per minute in a simple journal or by creating a new column in your training log.

Studies have shown that an elevated RHR of just five extra beats per minute is strongly associated with overtraining. You’ll notice the same effect when you get sick, are having a troublesome time at work, have been making poor food choices – and the list goes on and on. All of these things are associated with a person being under increased levels of stress.

Whatever the reason, it can be taken as a sign that today might not be a great day to try and push yourself. Today might be a day for rest and relaxation. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and you’re not going to become an elite endurance cyclist in one either. Taking the time to focus on recovery could be the best option when this simple metric starts to stand out.

Follow The 80/20 Rule

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The 80/20 rule, also known as the Pareto Distribution, basically states that 80% of outcomes are due to 20% of causes. It is quite a miraculous phenomenon that is rampantly prevalent in human activity and nature too. Surely our meager cycling endurance training can’t escape something so fundamental. Perhaps it means we don’t have to work quite as hard as we think, either.

Adapting the 80/20 rule to endurance cycling would involve deciding what amount of time to spend between low intensity and high intensity training. As mentioned in our introduction, it is important to spend the majority of it (80%, perhaps?) building a large aerobic base. That leaves 20% for us to dedicate to higher intensity training like hill, sprint and interval workouts.

Having a training plan makes a ratio like this easy to track, but even a loose adherence to this guideline will start to provide significant returns on your training investments over time. A great way to start is if you ride five days a week, commit one of those days to a workout that really pushes you, saving the others for longer, more manageable rides.

Start A Strength & Mobility Program

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Cycling positions can be tough on the body, and if the plan is to stay in those positions for longer stretches of time over greater distances, that means the chances of injury are going to increase as well. Incorporating a properly programmed and professionally designed strength and mobility program can help counteract this.

Supple joints that can move through varying ranges of motion and strength training in particular have been shown to increase endurance cycling performance. By increasing the cross sectional area of the muscles used while cycling, they’re able to produce more force over longer periods of time, and their fibers become more resistant to pulls, strains and tears.

Dynamic Cyclist is our recommended choice for an all-inclusive program that is accessible 24/7 through an easy-to-use online training platform. It has follow along strength training, warm up and mobility routines to help you optimize your cycling performance, reduce pain and stay injury free before, during and after your time on the bike.

Deciding what to do and at what time can be challenging with all of the conflicting information available online. Dynamic Cyclist gives our readers a personal trainer, physiotherapist and professional cycling coach all combined into one low-cost option that they can try here for FREE.

No matter what your end goal is with endurance training, be sure to look after yourself, make sure you’re prepared, and do the necessary work that is going to keep you riding for years to come!

What To Look for in a Cycling Training Plan

February 21, 2020 by Sarah Lauzé

What is the purpose of a cycling training plan? When you boil it down, it comes down to setting goals and measuring progress. A training plan serves as your road map to get you to a certain place, but what are some important things to look for? Just as you wouldn’t start trying to navigate the streets of a foreign city without a detailed map, you want to establish what aspects you need included to see success.

There are a lot of options when it comes to training plans, and also the means to how you access them. Some will choose to spend a little more and hire a personal coach to build their plan for them. Others will use online resources or join a certain challenge. The issue here is that these are not personalized to you. What happens when the timeline set up in a certain plan doesn’t match your life in a realistic way? You need to be able to understand the basics, so that you can take certain aspects of a cycling training plan into your hands.

Why You Need a Training Plan

Establishing a cycling training plan eliminates the danger of becoming complacent or falling into the “I will do it tomorrow” thought pattern. It makes you accountable as you follow the plan. It motivates you to change your habits and manage your time more efficiently to finish your first century ride or sign your name to that first Gran Fondo event.

Another great aspect of a training plan is to avoid the dreaded ‘plateau’ that is so common with athletes. As an active lifestyle becomes part of who you are, it’s easy to reach a certain point and stay there. There’s nothing wrong with maintaining a healthy fitness level, but if you want to continue to see changes, then you have to keep pushing yourself.

Cycling Training Plan Options

Personal Coach – A personal coach will not only create a training plan tailored to you and your goals, but they will also help keep you accountable. They will be checking in on your progress, and have the knowledge to make necessary changes to get you to where you want to be as quickly as possible. The downside? They are, in most cases, the most expensive option.
Pre-Prepared Training Plans – There are a ton of resources available online that can serve as a general outline or starting point for your training plan. In some cases they can be difficult to follow because it will not take into account your lifestyle, starting point, or your specific goals.
Build your own – It’s always better to understand why you’re doing something, rather than simply doing it because someone tells you to. So, if you have the time to do the research and put together a comprehensive training plan for yourself, by all means do it! This can not only work well, but it help you come to understand your own body a whole lot better.

Start at the end

No matter what option you go with for coming up with a training plan, you will need to define your goals. It may sound counterintuitive, but starting from your overarching goal and working backwards is actually a great idea. This may be weight loss, completing a century ride, or doing a multi-day Gran Fondo. Once you’ve defined this goal, you can break it down into tangible “check points.” These could be various distances, target weights, or a certain number of hours spent on the bike.

Measure your progress

Now you need to take a look at where you are right now. This may include testing yourself to find your mental and physical limits. What can your body handle? This can be done a number of ways.

Power Meter – A power meter is a great tool as it make comparisons easy. It can give consistent feedback on your effectiveness, and is a great training tool. Power is ultimately a measure of how hard you are working, and by using a power meter on your bike, you can more precisely monitor your effort. That being said, it’s not a must-have.
Heart Rate – Using a heart rate monitor is a great way to structure workouts, and a lot of training plans include heart rate zone training. Heart rate training is a valuable tool for all athletes, as it helps bypass your brain to listen directly to what your body is telling you.
Your Brain! – You don’t really need anything but a bike to complete a cycling training plan. You can make your own intensity scale (as long as you’re honest with yourself) from 1 – 10. 1 would be “I could do this all day,” and 10 would be “this is everything I’ve got in me.” The issue, of course, is that it takes a special kind of person to be that disciplined with themselves.

One of the greatest things about a training plan is being able to track your progress in a tangible way. Once you sign up for a cycling training plan you will see your body, mind, and outlook improve over the next few days, weeks, and months. You will continuously break your own personal records and the records of your friends, as you monitor your own fitness. Keep track of each ride you do, even if you just write down the basics like distance and time. Keeping a food diary can also be a great way to look at why you may feel great some rides, and then not so much on others.

Not only will this show you how much you can achieve, but it also gives you some serious bragging rights. There’s nothing more satisfying than looking at your year end totals, whether it be distance or time in the saddle, and seeing some huge numbers.

Off the Bike

A good cycling training plan helps you to keep track of less-obvious issues of fitness such as sleep and recovery, nutrition and hydration, and strength and stretching. You’re more likely to meet your fitness and weight loss goals if you’re looking after every one of these aspect. A detailed cycling training plan helps you keep track of these small details and makes you more conscious of them on a day-to-day basis.

Strength / Cross Training – Strength training for cyclists further develops tendons and supporting muscles which can help treat and prevent overuse injuries. Your training plan should include some strength training, whether through some basic weight training or cross training.
Stretching – Stretching can aid in aligning the thick and thin muscles back into their ordered state after rides, as well as remove the lactic acid buildup that causes soreness. Maintaining flexibility will also help you stay in the correct posture while riding, which can prevent injury.
Nutrition & Hydration – Eating right can be hard at the best of times, especially for those of us who like to exercise as a hobby. With a passion for cycling often comes a need for a balanced diet – and this is even more true when you opt to cycle for long periods of time, or working towards a goal. Having a cycling training plan that includes a detailed nutrition plan can make sure you are properly fuelled for each ride, and will help you get to those goals faster.

Stay Flexible and Adapt

As with mapping out anything, whether it be a road trip or your cycling training plan to success, you need to remain flexible. If you have a rough night’s sleep, or feel like you’re coming down with a cold, then ignore what your plan says and take a rest day. There’s no point in half-hearted training, and at that point taking a rest day is probably more important. You have to be able to have the freedom to switch around training days, because things will come up. Having structure to your training is important to ensure it happens, but you also need to remain flexible enough to have a life!

Heart Rate Zone Training for Cyclists

January 28, 2020 by Sarah Lauzé

Heart rate zone training is one of the most effective ways to get to know your body and what you’re capable of. It’s easy to stop doing something when it’s hard, especially if you don’t have a tangible goal. Using your heart rate zones, you can push yourself further than you may think possible, while also ensuring you aren’t overtraining.

As a cyclist, you always want to be improving. Whether you’re aiming for a 100 mile race or want to keep up on group rides, making the most of your time in the saddle will get you there. Here are some sample training sessions, using heart rate zones, to increase your efficiency and get you flying up those hills.

If you are unfamiliar with the heart rate zones, please first go read this article on how to determine your perimeter beats per minutes and define your zones from there.

The long slow distance

3-4 hours in Zones 1-2

Breakdown: This one is pretty self explanatory. Plan out a long distance ride with moderate climbing, and be sure to stay in HR zones 1-2, even if this means getting into your climbing gear earlier than you usually would.

Everybody loves LSD! And no, I’m talking about the drug. The long slow distance ride is your entry into heart rate (HR) training, and the perhaps the most overlooked because let’s be real, it can seem slow and boring. It’s hard to be disciplined enough to stay in these lower zones, but it will pay off in the long run. It seems counterintuitive, but these relaxed rides build up your endurance and overall fitness, and will make your faster.

It may be a good idea to ride alone for these ones to avoid your more competitive side getting in the way. Sit back, enjoy the scenery, and spin those legs!

The high intensity intervals

40 minutes in zones 1-7

Breakdown: 10 minute warmup (zones 1-2)

3 sets of 4 x 30 second sprints (zone 5) with 40 second recovery (zone 1-2)

5 minute cool down (zone 1-2)

No pain no gain, right? This ride is short, but it will burn fat, improve endurance, and increase your overall fitness. Intervals may not be a whole lot of fun, but if you mentally prepare yourself, the pain really doesn’t last that long. Take it one interval at a time, and make the most of the rests in between!

A little bit of both

2 hours in zones 2-3 with zone 4 intervals

Breakdown: 50 minutes (zone 1-2)

10 minute sprint (zone 4)

40 minutes (zones 1-2)

10 minutes (zone 4)

10 minute cool down (zone 1-2)

It’s all about endurance. This ride will build both your strength and endurance over time, and the ten minute sprints are actually a whole lot of fun. Don’t cheat yourself, but stay focused and within the zones if possible. If you’re just starting out, try two hours in zone 3 instead, and work up to this ride.

Keep in mind, the more riding you do, the better you’re going to get. Even if you do the same ride twice, it may take you more effort to get into the different zones than it did before as your body becomes more efficient. Once you reach a certain level of fitness, many cyclists tend to plateau, but using HR zone training you can avoid this and keep pushing yourself each and every ride.

The Key Information About Cycling Training Plans

August 2, 2015 by U.M.

If you are a fairly casual cyclist the idea of a training plan is probably not at the forefront of your mind. However, if you wish to test your body out further and take part in a race, or you’re interested in endurance cycling, then you won’t simply be able to hop onto your bike and get right into it.

In many cases, you will need to have a decent plan in place to get your body where it needs to be before you try something new. Here we take a look at cycling training plans and the benefits they can bring.

So What Are The Benefits?

The main benefit of taking part in any cycling training plan is that the plan itself is geared towards an eventual aim. If you want to build the muscle needed to increase your speed, a good plan can show you how. Conversely, if it’s stamina that you’re after, a plan will be able to provide the structure you need to build that endurance. These two training plans would look very different!

It’s that structure which helps more than anything else. Rather than just going out for a ride, a good plan will target the core areas that you need to improve to achieve whatever goal you are aiming for.

Do Online Training Plans Work?

In short, yes they do! Any training plan is better than no plan at all. As long as you understand the terminology being used and can use some common sense to adjust the plan as necessary, you should be able to make use of an online cycling plan to increase fitness and strength.

If you are new to the world of cycling, it may be a good idea to consult a cycling coach to help you cut through the jargon and get the most from a plan. If you are not interested in getting a coach or don’t feel you would like to pay that much, group rides are a fabulous source of knowledge. There are so many people in a group rides that have had a coach in the past, or have gone through training plans. You can learn something from everyone. The more you talk about cycling with others the more you will learn.

Training Plans vs Coaches?

While a cycling training plan is going to be able to help you improve in whatever aspect you want to improve, using a trainer is likely going to be able to help you achieve the results you want much faster. A coach will be able to create a plan that is tailored to you, in addition to helping you if you start to struggle. As such, they can place focus on the areas that need attention, rather than creating an overall plan that doesn’t take your current fitness levels into account.

A cycling coach will be able to tell you something in 5 minutes that on your own may take you months to learn, if at all. If you hire a good coach then you will trust what he/she will have to say, do it and see the benefits and learn from that experience. There are so many things to learn as a beginner cyclist: proper nutrition, hydration, effort, rest and so many other topics. You try and be a sponge and soak up as much as you can when your coach speaks as they are a wealth of knowledge. Obtaining a cycling coach is like a jump start on your cycling goals.

A training plan is a good start, but how do you even know that that specific plan is right for you?

Do I Need A Plan?

If you simply use your bike for the occasional commute, or to head out for a ride on the weekends, the odds are that you aren’t going to need a cycling training plan as you are simply using the bike to get around or for leisure purposes.

However, if you have designs to get into competitive cycling, be it a short race or endurance, a good training plan will help you to prepare your body for the trials that it is going to be facing.

These 3 Tips Will Make You Better At Endurance Cycling

The Basics

What Allows Us To Train For Endurance Cycling?