There is a book: "The Sports Gene: Inside the Science of Extraordinary Athletic Performance" by David Epstein - difficult, great and demolishing all imaginations that people are born equal. Unfortunately, it is not. Have you ever wondered how it works, that your friend, Staszek, let's call him, he rides a bike 3x less than you, eats kebabs and basically see him only on Sunday when he overtakes you in the race? It is always unfair - after all, who trains more / heavier this one goes faster ... no, unfortunately it is not. The one who is more talented and trains better wins. It means smarter, more systematically, but not necessarily more.
There are 3 things to success in sport ... supposedly
"For an American man between 20 and 40, standing between 6ft and 6ft2in the chances of playing professionally in the NBA are five in a million. If he's 6ft2in it's 6ft4in there is a still-distant 20 in a million chance. But if he's 6ft10in is 7ft, the odds shorten is 32,000 in a million. And if he stands 7ft, there is a chance to be playing in the NBA. "
~ Malcolm Gladwell "Outliers"
[dropcaps type = ”type3 ″] 1 [/ dropcaps] You were born giftedyou have predisposition in the genes. With this we will not do anything, if someone was born the proverbial dry-coat, then he will have some more work than the born masters. At the amateur level, however, it is not so visible.
"Carol Dweck, the psychologist who studies motivation, likes to say that all the world's rules are:
~ Daniel's Coyle's The Talent Code: Greatness Is not Born. It's Grown.
[dropcaps type = ”type3 ″] 2 [/ dropcaps] You discovered that you are better at something (point 1) and you have been practicing vigorously from your youth. Possibly your parents found out or at least supported you in passion. There is a tennis player: Andre Agassi, you probably know. IN interview tells how much he hated tennis, like a father (an Armenian-Iranian immigrant, traveling by car with a pistol and a stick-ax) forcing him to play and train. He also tells you that he can not imagine that a happy person could win Wimbledon. This is a good example of discovering and shaping talent when young. What's more, it's not enough that you have to practice from a small one, it's still going in the right direction: as a capable Chinese with ping-pong predispositions you will probably never achieve success in sprints, on the other hand there are not many Jamaican bats in ping-pong. However, you can be probably a happy Chinese sprinter, but not the best. If you are more than a few dozen or so years old and have not yet discovered that you are much better at something than others and do not cherish this gift, then you have turned it a little. Although there were cases where it was successful. Again, as long as you are an amateur, this is not a big problem. Visible, but not big.
Gladwell's book "Outliers" and points out the fact that they do not work for the first time. Twenty hours a week. At this rate, it will take the Olympics. To succeed in the continuous and purposeful practice. Top violinist and top athletes at least one thousand years.
~ Matthew Syed "Bounce"
[dropcaps type = ”type3 ″] 3 [/ dropcaps]working: intelligently, systematically, with a plan. This is the point on which we will focus, because you can always start. However, I do not encourage anyone to be trained, because it is much more pleasant to just ride - it usually requires more time, and not everyone has it. Yes, for spontaneous coming out with my cycling buddies, I miss a week more weekly in the weekly balance than in training. In the most demanding pitches, it is about 10h / week (talking about the bike itself). So we set the priorities and check whether it is worth sacrificing this time for lonely driving. Some will say yes, others will not.
The beginning, or what is worth knowing, although you do not have to.
Plans are largely based on TSSach and IF, both informing you about what to expect on a given day. In short: the more TSSthat theoretically better (at least in winter): 100TSS it's an hour in a corpse, that is 100% or two in 50%, etc. In a very simple way, you can say that 70 points are tormenting you as much as 70 points tires your more advanced friend. IF this is the intensity factor. It determines how much time you spend over your threshold FTP. That is: large TSS at low IF it means a long ride without unnecessary fatigue and the other way round: low TSS and large IF it's a short ride in the corpse. In winter, during the building of the base, the first case will prevail, in the season, when the breaking of the group will be much more important for us, the latter.
NP, i.e. normalized power. This is the kind of average power during activity calculated from difficult calculations, complicated algorithms and a bit of magic. He compares our effort to the constant power that we could generate. Useful for example in races where there are many jumps. If you are going to change into a corpse and lightly, then the average power will be low, which in no way reflects what really happened. Such an injustice repair.
FTP, the power that you can generate for an hour of driving. This is mainly based on training, especially the base.
LTHR, that is, the maximum heart rate that you can maintain for an hour of activity. Keep in mind that while running you will probably keep higher (eg by 10 beats / minute) than driving.
[pullquote] Only cotton is important in life, and it's really cotton per kilo (W / kg), if we have a little bit in the area. [/ pullquote] IN like wat. Watts is a power unit, or how much you press the pedals. The more watts you generate, the faster you go. The less you weigh, the faster you go up, assuming the same power. In Watts, your thresholds will be defined and training will be based on them. Mark Cavendish says he can pull out in the sprint until 1580IN. The best high-speed trainers in the world obtain an average of 23 seconds from the 5-second testW / kg. So for comparison: the laptop consumes ~ 20-75INand a toaster from 1000IN.
It is against all appearances the whole theory that needs to be known. At least at the beginning.
You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else.
~ Albert Einstein
Life is an RPG game
Most of us lost a bit of life on games (she lost her pejorative term, I remember this time very well).
I have always envied the characters from Fallout or Warcraft, that they have bars that represent their progress, that there are specific paths builds (character development) and their increase is proportional to the work being done. Fortunately, we live in the 21st century. age and we already have such technologies, thanks to which we can feel like Sims (if of course we have the right amount of simoleons). We can control millions of parameters ourselves and trust computers that will develop our career path, limiting us to making the right decisions. We can measure numbers in the privacy of the privacy of our home, and a trip for efficiency tests will give us so many numbers that we can read enough for long winter evenings. Let's focus on the home version: budget-self-development. For example, we can help: TrainerRoad
A quick reminder if someone has not read THIS, What do we need:
standard trainer - then we connect a speed sensor to the computer on ANT + and the second one at the bike is a "speed" message and the application will estimate our generated power based on the resistance curve of a given model implemented by programmers at a given load. Will it show us the exact watts? Unimportant, in training we will compare results only with ourselves and not with others. However, it is important that the conditions are repeatable (tires, pressure and stuff).
smart trainer (I use WAHOO KICKR - unprovoked;)). Here the situation is easy, we have accurate power results and more importantly, the resistance is set automatically. Regardless of the term that we have at the moment, it is permanent. This means that as long as we are shaking our feet we have no chance to generate incorrect power with assumptions (of course, driving with a 30 or 190 cadence is not always recommended)
The training plan always looks the same:
First of all, the base, which is slightly (though contrary to popular belief, not necessarily very easy) but for a long time. There is nothing without a base. It's like giving general points in the form you are creating: intelligence / agility / strength, etc. Additional skills, chosen at the end of the wizard such as small weapons, lasers, sprints, ramps do not matter if we do not have a foundation built. At TrainerRroad the base is divided into: 2 times 6 weeks or 3 times 4 weeks. Both plans, in turn, divided into three intensities depending on how much time we have during the week: more 4, 7 or 9.
Once we finish the database, we go to building, or additional skills - 8 weeks. 3 plans with 3 load levels to choose from:
Short Power Build - for criteria, track cars, MTB, cross-country riders and all who like to have a lot of strength for a while
General Build - if we care about general development
Sustained Power Build - for holding constant power: ultras, triathlonisers, long mountain races, long flat, time cyclists and all those who just ride.
After that, there are already pears, or specializations, the available categories are: Road, General Fitness, Triathlon, Off-Road. We are probably interested in the first of them, in which we can find:
Rolling Road Race, Climbing Road Race, Criterium, 40k TT, Century, Half Century
and three intensities for each of them. So I built a path for a highlander, here's how it looks on a professional diagram (Paint is always cool):
It looks exactly like completing a character development tree in the game wizard, right? As a result, we always get a calendar filled with information on how our future will look like, for example:
The best training program in the world is absolutely worthless, and with intensity.
~ John Romaniello
How to start? FTP Test, i.e. the darkness I see, I see darkness
If you do not know yours FTP it's not a problem - each plan starts with a test. You have to rely on something in the end. There are several possibilities, in each of them the point is to maintain the highest possible load at a given time. 8 minutes, 20 minutes, 2 times 20 minutes, you have to rethink in which of these options you will be able to demonstrate the best. Usually it is 20 minutes preceded by a half-hour warm-up and 10-minute cooling. The chart looks like this:
The result achieved is multiplied by the value appropriate for the selected time. At the beginning, the program assumes that ours FTP is 200 and on this basis chooses a warm-up, but you should not worry about it too much. Warm-up is only for us. It is known if we predict how much our threshold may be, it will be easier to spread out the strength, because it is what to base on. We can check it later by comparing it NP with medium power, ideally should be the same - in the case of large deviations I suggest you repeat the test, although it certainly will not be nice. The second test, however, comes out much more credibly - remember, however, about the break for regeneration - a minimum of a few days. If you like watching movies during training, know that from about 38 minutes you will not need it, because your eyes are flooded, and even if you manage to open it is still dark.
When it comes to setting the simulator, there are two possibilities:
We're starting the mode ERG, i.e. the device automatically adjusts the resistance during the warm-up to the pre-set FTP, and goes into mode for the test SLOPE (standard), i.e. the faster we go the greater resistance - as in life.
However, if we have no idea what ours is FTP we set it right away SLOPE and we are going on the feel - as in the case of ordinary training simulators that do not control resistance.
How are standing going?
I ride in mode ERG, because thanks "Smart trainer" I can, I would like to remind you that you can practice on ordinary. Even without power measurement - a list of available devices: HERE. Driving boils down to cranking and applying to the texts displayed on the computer / TV screen: a reminder about neck loosening, increasing the cadence, lifting from the saddle, etc. As long as the training sessions are relatively light, i.e. the first months, we can calmly connect them to your favorite series or YouTube. Accuracy of training performance on ERG without looking at the screen you can see below. Yellow is the generated power, blue is planned in training. No matter how fast you turn your legs, the resistance is always set to generate a defined power.
The disadvantage is that if we stop pedaling for a while and the wheel stops while the load is high, it will be hard to move. Generating 200-300W of space is not simple or convenient.
Sweet spot, or the golden mean
The sweet spot is a place where a combination of action and a maximum response. In tennis, squash, racquetball, baseball, or cricket, and a given swing will result in a more powerful strike on the ball. sweet spot.
~ Wikipedia
The form grows during rest, not during training - many people forget about it. If you train very hard, you must rest for a long time. Professionals sometimes sleep after several hours. If you train very lightly, then you do not need regeneration. If you do not need regeneration during which the form grows, it means that the form does not grow, it is simple. The relationship between these two types of training is unfortunately more exponential than linear and omitting the fact that sometimes it makes intervals, and sometimes the base, does not work so that super strong training and 3 days of rest is the same as light training every day. So you have to find the golden mean - a place where you will maximize the effects of the work put in with the minimum amount of time and take an amendment to the part of the season we are in. Because, let's be honest: training is not always pure pleasure - pleasure is its effects.
Application, or how to turn it on?
The program is available on a computer, phones and tablets with an apple in the logo. Android is currently in the final phase of the developer, so it's a matter of up to a few weeks. The application itself is undergoing a recent facelift, and both the interface and the service itself have become much more convenient (screenshots come from the publicly available Beta version). While driving, we have a screen full of graphs or a minimalist bar that covers a part of the screen. Unfortunately, most things are watched with subtitles, so: the bar + subtitles from the application + subtitles from the movie + film do not fit on a several-inch screen. I solve this problem using my phone:
Apart from the program itself, it is also available Workout Creatorthat allows you to build your own training.
TrainerRoad is of course payable, but for a month you can use it for free - just to check if you are catching the bug.
Computer, and coach Andrzej.
Looking at the application and considering that there are certainly a lot of similar, the question arises a very important question: whether they can replace the normal coach, to whom we call and write. And unfortunately not. There is one thousand and one situation in which contact is useful. When we leave one training, when we leave five trainings, 2 weeks because we were sick, when we want to run, go to the gym, practice yoga for cyclists, etc. For some of these and similar questions, we find the direct application's blog on the blog: http://blog.trainerroad.com/ and in FAQ for training. They predicted most of our problems. We can find comprehensive information about all the missed training sessions here. - unfortunately, everything in the lengthen. We have to check the rest in books. Training alone is such a DIY, it provides a lot of joy, because we want - we do not want to acquire new knowledge, but if we do not care about it and we have some unnecessary funds, then there are trainers - they will forgive us and save some time.
[Pullquote]In most cases, the trainer will not increase the volume of cycling in our lives.[/ pullquote] For most very ambitious amateurs, the trainer is not to motivate more effort or volume. It allows you to optimize the time necessary to meet certain goals within the available time range. A lot of my friends were surprised how little it should be to complete the training assumptions. It's a bit worse, however, to keep up with the systematic - everyday life means that it is not always possible to find these two hours for training, even though you know about it a month earlier.
Just play. Have fun. Enjoy the game.
~ Michael Jordan
2-3 weeks was enough for me to say that training in TrainerRoad is not a good thing for me. It goes away, though, that it's all dressing up, leaving the city, washing, but it does not pull me in. It's hard, apparently I do not have the master's self-discipline. I prefer reading more about training and data analysis than just training itself. However, there will be many people who like it. Sylwia, known as Panda, who had not sat on the trainer for more than 40 minutes before, now turns regularly over 1.5-2.5 hours, thanks to which she can mark more days in the calendar.
Is it worth a try?
It's 100% worth it. Even if we know in advance that we will not be able to keep the plan, it's worth to drive a week or two using the free period. We will easily find out what a perfectly planned autumn-spring season looks like, what more-more power we generate and how long we can withstand the load on a given load, and such knowledge will never be lost.
TrainerRoad, and the Zwift case.
After writing this text, I decided to go back to the moment Zwiftawhose free trial period has been extended. The application has been enriched with the mode "Workout", or trainings similar to those described above. At first, the idea seemed hopeless, because after all I have a virtual tour to feel like going uphill or on the wheel, for some unknown reason I was drawn to it.
Training plans are less extensive, but the trainings themselves are divided into much friendlier categories. You can see that the target is rather less demanding recipient (although of course everyone will find something for themselves). Looking at the speed at which Zwift develops, I am sure that in the near future we will see many new improvements.
If I had to make a decision today, I would recommend TR. Sylwia answers much more, I in turn return to Zwifta. I do not know if it's all these bajerki like gaining experience and levels, interacting with other users passing along the way, unlocking other equipment (there are already real equipment) or the sense of humor of the creators, but definitely more suits me .... despite driving constantly on two of the same routes.
While driving, it looks like this: at the top the power that we should hold and what we are generating at the moment, the left full training session, the profile of the generated power at the bottom:
Perseverance!
