Too many riders are training without asking themselves the vital 'Why?' questions at this time of year.
Top Irish rider turned leading coach, Anthony Walsh has used the experience he has gained racing at home and abroad to launch his A1 Coaching business for racers and leisure cyclists in recent years.
In conjunction with stickybottle, Walsh is now rolling out a series of coaching videos and written guides aimed at tutoring riders to improve through this winter.
And to mark the launch of the new project, Walsh will publish a separate series of shorter training pieces here on stickybottle over the next weeks, beginning with this first introductory instalment.
The videos and winter coaching programme being launched by A1 Coaching can be accessed by following this link.
By Anthony Walsh
I am on a mission to dispel the culture of disinformation that has built up around training principles and philosophies.
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Over a coming series of articles here on stickybottle.com, I am going to take you step by step on a transformation from the rider that you are to one who is maximising his or her available training time to fulfil your true potential.
We are all looking for a way to get more speed with less effort; a way to get more return on our hourly training investment.
The answer isn’t to repeat the same preparatory steps from last season and hope for a different result.
Too many riders are riding around without asking the ‘Why?’ questions:
- Why am I always falling short of my goals?
- Why am I riding for 4 or 5 hours on a Sunday?
- Why am I training so slow that I am freezing to death?
- Why are other riders going faster?
- Why am I listening to poor advice?
My goal is to get you to start questioning every aspect of your preparation.
If you are time crunched – balancing work, family and relationships with cycling – you need to start asking these hard questions.
Our time is valuable so it’s important that we learn to maximise the fitness return on our training investment.
Over the coming series or blog-posts and videos I’m going to reveal a step-by-step formula for success.
If you follow these steps I’ve no doubt you’ll be more likely to achieve your targets next season.
Through working with a countless number of athletes over the past few years, I’ve seen common trends in the mistakes that athletes make.
From this experience, and drawing from the most up-to-date research, I am going to teach you those strategies and techniques which will make you a better rider.
At A1 Coaching, we know that these strategies work. The topics covered will include:
Setting your Training Zones and Using them Properly
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Most athletes are riding around at the same speed all the time or using flawed metrics like average speed or Strava for judging improvements. You will learn how to set and use the correct zones for training.
Periodize your Season
Your season should be broken into different periods of training to hit your priority events in the best form. You will learn about the preparation phase, base phase, build phase, specific phase, race phase and taper phase.
Get the most out of your Training Time by Utilising Intensity
Our body needs training stress to make a physiological adaptation (take it up a level and get fitter). I am going to show you the best way to increase your training stress so that you can achieve the same results in 8 hour’s training as your peers who are doing 15.
Get Free Speed through Technique Drills.
A proportion of riders are throwing away free speed by ineffective pedal stroke. I will outline how an even application of force over 360 degrees can bring you significant increases in power.
Set Effective Goals
Effective goal setting is a key part of preparation and I will discuss how goal setting, incorporating visualisation, will pull you towards that goal and act as extrinsic motivation through a long season.
Get Faster while Doing Nothing by Adopting Cutting Edge Recovery Strategies
Hard training only allows for the possibility of increased levels of fitness. Increased fitness only happens after we ‘absorb’ the training and I will outline some of the best ways of doing this through the best recovery strategies.
Embrace the intensity revolution.
Until next time.
Anthony
The A1 Winter Training Series is all about helping time-crunched cyclists to maximise their speed, strength and fitness through effective training. Tune into this series and check out the free three-part video series by following this link.
This information will prepare you for the upcoming 2016 season and will show you how to gain a 20 per cent increase in speed, strength and functional threshold power, by committing to less than 7 hours training per week. You can watch by following this link.
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