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What sort of training should you be doing at this time of year?

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SATURDAY 19TH OCTOBER 2019
POSTED BY MATT IN GENERAL TRAINING

In the northern hemisphere the multisport season has drawn to a close for most of us and we have hopefully enjoyed a bit of a post-season break. As I’m writing this we are heading into winter, nights are drawing in, the clocks go back next weekend and colder days are ahead.

At this time of year, as driven, competitive athletes, our thoughts naturally turn to next season. Your race schedule might already be planned - in your head if not on paper - but have you set out the training schedule that will get you ready for those races in the best possible shape? Your first A-race might be over 7 months away yet. Should you be doing the same training for all of those 7 months? Probably not.

So, where should you focus your training lens at this time of year? Two fundamental training principles can give us a clue here: the principles of specificity and individuality.

Specificity

Looking first at the principle of specificity. In its simplest terms what that tells us is that your training should mimic the demands of your A-race. That makes sense really: if you are training for a 40km cycling time trial then honing your ability to ride technical singletrack on your mountain bike probably won’t have a direct impact on your TT performance.

Or will it? More on that later.

If we zoom in on this concept of specificity and give it some more thought, what it’s really saying is that the closer you are to your goal race the closer your training should mimic the requirements of that race. Since, at this time of year, you are a long way from your main race(s) your training can have a less specific focus. That opens the door to a range of activities and training intensities.

Individuality

Turning now to the second fundamental training principle: individuality. What that is saying is that we are all unique; we have our own strengths and weaknesses. Two athletes could complete the same training program but obtain different results.

Combining Specificity with Individuality

If we combine these two training principles and apply them to the question of what we should be doing at this time of year we get some guidance.

  • you are a long way from your A-race so your training can, in fact ought to, be less race-specific.
  • it makes sense therefore to work on areas of weakness that might limit your performance.

Going back to the earlier example of a cyclist training for a 40km TT and the question of whether riding technical singletrack on a mountain bike will help. The answer is ... it depends.

If the cyclist in question has poor bike handling skills, then doing a little technical mountain biking over the winter will absolutely pay dividends. Improved bike handling will have a positive impact across all cycling disciplines.

On the other hand, if our cyclist has ridden mountain bikes for years and has recently switched focus to time trialling on the road then some other form of training will likely yield a greater return.

That’s individuality.

General technique & strength work

Regardless of individual strengths and/or weaknesses there are some aspects of training that everybody needs to work on, namely: technique and strength.

At this time of year, you can safely focus more of your attention on these important areas. The concept of individuality still applies: if you are lacking in a particular area of technique then that’s where you should focus - for most triathletes that would be in the water so pool sessions should have a strong technique focus.

General endurance

We still need to maintain our basic endurance abilities. If you have 20+ hours a week to train, then the traditional idea of building a base by riding lots of easy miles over the winter is the perfect way to do that. For the rest of us long, slow, distance is not the way to go. Yes, we need to do the zone 2 training but it doesn’t need to be overly long during the winter. And we can compliment that basic aerobic work by spending some time at the opposite end of the intensity scale.

Anaerobic interval sessions can have three distinct benefits:

  • they can enhance your overall aerobic capacity
  • psychologically they get you used to working hard
  • they tend to be short sessions that are simple to perform indoors while the weather is less than ideal.

Summary

Areas to focus on:

  • technique - we all need to work on that in the water and on land and winter is the perfect time to concentrate on it;
  • strength - again something we should all focus on but it becomes more important the older you get. Around the age of 50 strength training takes on a new level of importance;
  • work on aspects of your training that are not specific to race day but have a wider impact on your performance or are simply enjoyable aerobic activities (eg. get off-road, get your swim stroke filmed/analysed);
  • don’t forget about basic endurance but also you don’t need to spend too long doing it;
  • don’t neglect the anaerobic end of the intensity spectrum.

Without knowing your personal circumstances and training history I can’t prescribe specific training sessions. Instead, what I have tried to do here is provide a framework that you could apply to your own circumstances to determine how best to spend your limited training time over the next 8 to 10 weeks to give you a solid foundation on which next season can be built.

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