As part of my new role in the team I’m so excited to announce a base training plan for all! My goal is to make it viable for anyone on the team, those new to “training” and those of us who are a little more seasoned. My idea will be a weekly email newsletter talking about some training tips, answering questions that have come up during everyone’s training/riding and provide a weekly set of workouts that can be followed by anyone on the team, whether using RPE(we’ll address some basics in this email!) or Power/Heart rate and establishing an FTP, a threshold heart rate or just understanding a different effort. I’ll attach my email(obviously) and my phone number if anyone has questions specific to the training, specific to themselves or just general “why would i want to do this?” questions. As we come closer to race season, I’ll dive a bit deeper into some aero things and general “sharpening the knife” things you can use for your cycling, whether pinning a number or just a competitive group ride. Again, do not hesitate to reach out with any questions!

First things first: lets go over some key concepts. In order to use the plan you’ll need some basic understanding of the training concept I will use, some basic terms such as RPE, Threshold heart rate, FTP and training zones.

First thing: I personally really love Sweet Spot training. This is a wonderful way to get the maximum benefit when you’re time crunched. Secondary to that, the zone in which you ride in keeps you interested, it’s not a boring pace to numb the mind even when on a trainer. For Sweet Spot, we need to establish training zones. Before that we need to understand some terms:

FTP- Functional Threshold Power: FTP is roughly the power output that you could hold for an hour. To find this, you must do a test. We’ll talk about that shortly. Threshold Heart rate: exactly as it sounds. This is the maximum heart rate you can hold for 1 hour. RPE- Rate of Perceived Exertion: for this, we’ll use a scale of 1-10. 10 being an all out maximum effort. Generally this would be shorter than 1 minute. Think like a final sprint in a race. 1 being a recovery pace: very easy and allowing the muscles to flush out.
Sweet Spot- sweet spot is a very specific zone range. For Power Meter users, this is 84-97% of FTP. For heart rate users it’s the same 84-97% of threshold heart rate. For RPE this will be an effort of 7-8 out of 10.
Interval- this will be a prescribed time in a zone. intervals make you fast. they are also hard lol. They get harder the closer we get to the races.
Fatigue Dependent training- the other half of sweet spot training is this. Basically it means that Tuesday will be the hardest workouts(closer to that 97% number) Wednesdays will be closer to that 84% number and Thursdays will be Zone 2
Training cycle- I will schedule the training on a 2 week on, 1 week off cycle. week 3 will be a recovery week. recovery weeks are half the volume, but same intensity.

A normal week will be 5 days of rides/workouts. tue/wed/thur will be the meat and potatoes with Saturday and Sunday being group rides, longer rides, and maybe some workouts. One of the training tips to come will be how to do workouts while in a group ride. Look for this when it gets warmer and we’re outside on rides more. The group ride is an invaluable tool for training. I believe wholly in a complete rider. While training and numbers are good: cornering, tactics, pack riding skills and racecraft will always be more important. i’ll show you so many examples of the smartest rider winning, not necessarily the strongest.

FTP test- for those using a power meter or smart trainer you’ll have to do an FTP test. Apps like; Zwift, TrainerRoad, MyWhoosh etc. all have preset ones you can do. Stick to the 20 minute standard test for your first one. it is the hardest, but it will get you the best data. The 20 minute test will also give you your threshold heart rate as well! In an effort to not keep this email becoming a book, reach out to me with any specific questions regarding the FTP test. I’m happy to help and answer. This weekend would be perfect for a test, and you can start with the workouts on Tuesday. Those using RPE you wont need to do this.

This does bring up a point: while you don’t need a heart monitor, power meter or smart trainer, it does make a difference. I highly recommend if you’re coming from using nothing, start with a heart rate monitor. It’s a more stable place to start, and doesn’t fluctuate as much as power can. This is the first step to more accurate training. Fair warning: so far everyone that I’ve ever coached who started with power from a smart trainer, has ended up purchasing a power meter for their bike. Again, this is not needed but the accuracy and exact measurement is undeniable, especially when used with heart rate simultaneously.

I’ll also be around and available for anyone that needs help setting up a trainer. it can be tricky getting all of the hardware and apps to communicate to each other. reach out with any questions regarding this as well!

I’ll be posting the workouts and descriptions of the workouts on our team Facebook page. look for an email on Sunday or Monday explaining the weeks goals and more in depth description. We’ll start using this method, and if it becomes apparent we need something a little more specific and requiring more data analysis Dan D and I have a couple things we can implement, but for now good ol’ email and Facebook will be the thing! I also want to do group Zwift workouts. most likely one during the week. it will be that week’s day’s workout. Zwift is cool because it will allow all of us to stay together despite the different outputs. We can also use Discord for this as well and we can actually talk to each other during, Dan and I will sort this out.

For now, this will get us started. Let me know if you have any questions on any of this, or any questions with training, racing, bike set up, trainer set up or anything at all really. I’m here as a source for you to enjoy this wonderful sport as much as possible.

As always, happy riding and as Joe will always say, push hard and pedal fast.
Rick Danielsen