Los Gatos Bicycle Racing Team Ride Guidelines: December - January

Training Overview | Team Rides | Training Zone Explanation

Training Overview:
December and January training should be focused on development of Aerobic Base, Pedal Force and associated physiological systems. Central to this is sustained efforts at moderately low heart rates. Typically this means lots of Zone 2 and Zone 3 riding. In general I use the following training zones for heart rate based training:

For those training with power the following zones generally apply:

Pedal force is considered to be the equivalent of “weight lifting on the bike.” – I generally use two types of effort to increase force:

1. Low Cadence/High Gear: practice riding at a low cadence (50-60rpm) in as big a gear as you can while maintaining a Zone 3 level of effort. This is designed to both improve the pedal stroke muscle recruitment and the volume of muscle being recruited.
2. Neuromuscular Intervals – Short, high intensity efforts. A sample Neuromuscular Interval at this time of year would be a 2 –3 minute block of 15 seconds of hard, fast pedaling followed by 15 seconds of easy tempo. This should be followed by a 5 minute recovery period. For now limit the workout to 3-4 sets of these. Power is the easiest way to accomplish this workout because it is designed to be a 150% Threshold effort for 15s and a 50% threshold effort for the recovery. Heart Rate is not a good measure of effort because the duration (15s) is too short. You will, however,  see a dramatic HR response during the course of the interval block. That is one reason we keep the duration of these short initially.

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