Revitalize Your Training Routine: Key Steps to Overcome Plateaus

One of the biggest jobs of a coach is understanding the unique situation every cyclist finds themselves in and often I get the opportunity to make a real impact on riders who are self-coached and find themselves on a plateau in terms of performance. Sometimes it's as simple as being reminded of the fundamentals of strong and consistent performance.

Here are 4 ideas to consider:

Train consistently (and often)

Often when an athlete isn't able to train consistently it's because of overdoing a workout or overdoing a week of training that results in levels of fatigue, injury, and often illness.

What do you do when:

Riding in a group and intensity is far too high for your body that day?
Performance is stagnant?
Push till you can't even finish your last interval?
Watch your competition training more than you do on Strava.
Fear losing fitness ALL THE TIME?

Take these questions and begin to think how you approach training. Are you the David Goggins type where you just need to get over it, toughen up and do more and more? Or are you the Roger Federer type of “least effective dose” with continuous improvement? One is sustainable, the other is not (sorry David). GET A COACH if you are unsure!

Rest and Recovery

In today's world of “no rest for the wicked”, deadlines and chasing just a little more and more washes over into every part of life. Ever been away and felt guilty for “doing nothing”. All the athletes I work with often understand that rest is where the body, the nervous system and energy replenishment happens.

To-do list:

Prioritize sleep
Track your sleep if you dont know if its a problem (deep sleep, REM sleep, light sleep and awake time)
Protein at 1.5-2g/kg per day
Avoid Caffeine in the evenings
Avoid or restrict alcohol right before bed
Measure your HRV to give some insight to training loads effect on nervous system
Check your mood (Do a POMS questionnaire)...are you overtrained and dont even know it?

Group Rides

I know you don't want to hear this, but Tuesday and Saturday World Champs every week is killing your progression. Let's unpack this.

Good Things about group riding:

Learn to ride in a group and conserve energy
Practice nutrition in a pack of riders
Motivation…hey who wants to be chirped on the WhatsApp group chat

Bad Things about Group Riding:

Degenerates into a flat-out race
Sometimes you need to ride easier and the group won't allow it
Sometimes you need to do specific structured work and the group will allow it

What's the secret here: Use the group rides to serve a specific purpose to your training. If you need some intensity for a race that is 3 weeks away…great! If you need to work on riding in a fast paceline or getting used to being pushed around in a bunch, the group rides are a safer place to get some exposure. Don't just aimlessly use it as a carrot to ride… it's not sustainable.

Strengths and Weaknesses defined

We tend to gravitate to things are are good at. You won't find a 140kg lock forward in Rugby deciding that racing Time Trials is a better spending of their energy. Likewise, you tend to find your big muscular riders sprinting at every opportunity, training it, breathing it, preaching its virtues.

Here's a question to answer: What is your weakness, how do you lose a race?

Understand the difference between a limiter (what does the race require and do you have that quality well trained) and a weakness (a general lack of fitness in a particular area)
Have you worked on pedaling skills such as cadence, can you ride in a fast-moving group and use very little power to stay in the pack, how do you handle your bike (the nervous rider holding brakes). Become more efficient so you do not need to train as hard
How is your big match temperament, or mental fitness? Self-discipline, belief in yourself, patience, and desire to succeed. You may be physically gifted but if you don't believe in yourself, it's hard to express that physical ability
GET A COACH. If you have a day job, let someone else figure this out for you.
We will explore more of this in future blog posts with power profiling, critical power, power duration curve, and a lot more. Stay tuned!