If you want to be in the best shape possible for 2022, the off-season will dictate how good you can be. Whatever your choice of discipline - time trial, road race or sportive, winter will form the basis for your success or otherwise. The work put in over autumn and winter will set the parameters for next season’s performance and can build a foundation that will either allow you to explore your full potential or limit your capacity.
So, why would a ‘coached winter’ be better that a club ride and a couple of Zwift sessions a week?
Specificity – to create an appropriate training effect, you need to overload, adapt & recover in a manner that is specific to your physiology and what you want to achieve. Adopting somebody else’s plan, one Google throws up or something generated by algorithms is arguably better than no plan at all but it's unlikely to be optimal. Your plan needs to reflect your age, sporting background, previous training and your goals. It must fit around real life and when unexpected interruptions occur, to be capable of appropriate adaption.
Structure – the sequencing of your sessions is critical. With great music, the most important parts can be the pauses and silences between crescendos. With training, the rest and recovery between sessions is critical to creating the training effect. Understanding what to do when - how hard for how long – and when to rest to consolidate the gains made by your efforts, means you stay on target.
Objectivity – You know you better than anybody else, but it’s rare to find somebody who can be wholly objective about their own training. Riders can worry unnecessarily when training doesn’t go quite to plan or when sessions are missed through illness or ‘real life’ getting in the way. Often the temptation is to play catch up which risks fatigue. To have an experienced coach overseeing your progress means you have a confident reference point to answer questions and ensure your training remains on track. Objectivity and consistency are key to durable, resilient performance improvements.
Accountability – Simply put, you pay to be coached, it means you value your training and have (wisely in my opinion) decided to invest in your physical and mental health. To know that somebody is providing regular feedback on your sessions keeps you on track. It means your 2 hour rides are less likely to become an hour and 23 mins and your efforts are going to hit the prescribed power band because a third party is going to be looking at them. As a rider, you can also hold your coach to account – why is a session being prescribed and what improvements can you expect to see over what timeframe? It’s a fair challenge.
Help and support – Psychology has a big part to play in effective training, particularly with Covid-19 knocking everything out of balance. Not only do the physiological demands of your training need to match your goals, winter training must be mentally engaging, stimulating and sufficiently interesting to keep you on track. Get somebody who understands you as a person and an athlete to keep you motivated when things get tough.
I believe we should train for the 2022 season with purpose and intent. We should train with hope & optimism that events will happen next year in the knowledge that if they don't, we will have made a valuable investment in to our mental & physical health.
Get in touch by the contact form (here) if I can help.
So, why would a ‘coached winter’ be better that a club ride and a couple of Zwift sessions a week?
Specificity – to create an appropriate training effect, you need to overload, adapt & recover in a manner that is specific to your physiology and what you want to achieve. Adopting somebody else’s plan, one Google throws up or something generated by algorithms is arguably better than no plan at all but it's unlikely to be optimal. Your plan needs to reflect your age, sporting background, previous training and your goals. It must fit around real life and when unexpected interruptions occur, to be capable of appropriate adaption.
Structure – the sequencing of your sessions is critical. With great music, the most important parts can be the pauses and silences between crescendos. With training, the rest and recovery between sessions is critical to creating the training effect. Understanding what to do when - how hard for how long – and when to rest to consolidate the gains made by your efforts, means you stay on target.
Objectivity – You know you better than anybody else, but it’s rare to find somebody who can be wholly objective about their own training. Riders can worry unnecessarily when training doesn’t go quite to plan or when sessions are missed through illness or ‘real life’ getting in the way. Often the temptation is to play catch up which risks fatigue. To have an experienced coach overseeing your progress means you have a confident reference point to answer questions and ensure your training remains on track. Objectivity and consistency are key to durable, resilient performance improvements.
Accountability – Simply put, you pay to be coached, it means you value your training and have (wisely in my opinion) decided to invest in your physical and mental health. To know that somebody is providing regular feedback on your sessions keeps you on track. It means your 2 hour rides are less likely to become an hour and 23 mins and your efforts are going to hit the prescribed power band because a third party is going to be looking at them. As a rider, you can also hold your coach to account – why is a session being prescribed and what improvements can you expect to see over what timeframe? It’s a fair challenge.
Help and support – Psychology has a big part to play in effective training, particularly with Covid-19 knocking everything out of balance. Not only do the physiological demands of your training need to match your goals, winter training must be mentally engaging, stimulating and sufficiently interesting to keep you on track. Get somebody who understands you as a person and an athlete to keep you motivated when things get tough.
I believe we should train for the 2022 season with purpose and intent. We should train with hope & optimism that events will happen next year in the knowledge that if they don't, we will have made a valuable investment in to our mental & physical health.
Get in touch by the contact form (here) if I can help.
Rich Smith has coached the GB Transplant Cycling team for 10 years, is a British Cycling qualified Level 3 coach and a final year psychology student. Previously he spent 30 years responding badly to people in authority in senior roles for Barclays, HSBC, British Waterways and National Grid Property before establishing RideFast Coaching in 2015.