Hello, roadman. Today, what we're going to do, we're going to sit…
Hello, roadman. Today, what we're going to do, we're going to sit down and I'm going to teach you how to build your own training plan. Let's cue the intro. The big question is this. How do we use cycling as a tool to improve our health, our happiness and our long changes? That is the question and this podcast will give you the answers. My name is Anthony Walsh and welcome to the roadman podcast. Welcome back roadmen, it's another roadman bites short form podcast and today's short form topic, I'm going to talk to you about how to build your own training plan. So over the last couple of episodes, if you haven't been listening, I would advise you to jump back and check them out. We talked about how to set your threshold. I walked you through a threshold test that I actually completed myself and even gave you the results as painful as that was to do. Everybody for some reason likes to keep these things private. The next episode we talked about how to interpret these results and the unique language that we have as cyclists. Yesterday I talked about the number one mistake I see cyclists making and it's the distribution of training time on equally into just one of those training zones, zone three. Affectionately I like to call these guys the headless chickens. So if you are a headless chicken, You know what, just hang your head in shame. But you won't be a headless chicken after today's episode, because today what I want to talk to you about is how to build your own training plan. But before I do it, you know what I'm gonna say. Pause this, put your coffee down, head on over to patreon.com, P-A-T-R-E-O-N.com forward slash Anthony underscore Walsh. Spell it out just in case you're having difficulty getting across there, because I'm feeling touristy and I need you to buy me a coffee. Patreon is the way we keep the podcast going. It's the generosity of listeners. Facilitate this, let me do the research, let's me justify spending my time on this and it's the way you vote to keep this podcast going. So much appreciated. Training plans, it's something that I would probably advise learning how to do. I think everybody should know how to build their training plan. And then what I do myself, I have a coach and I obviously, you know, that's our business, I encourage everybody. And I think you get a lot more by having that accountability and objectivity that a coach brings. But it's absolutely essential to understand why you're doing what you're doing. And I think for progression to happen, it's just, it's so, so necessary. My goal for today's podcast is I don't want you you going out the door anymore and just doing a random workout or going out the door and just going, what am I doing today? Going out the door without a plan, basically. If you're going out the door without a plan, I have failed in my mission for today's podcast. So hopefully everybody downloaded the threshold calculator was in yesterday's episode. I'll put a link again into today's episode. If you haven't downloaded the threshold calculator, you're going to put your test results into that and it's going to spit out your training zones. That's what we talked about yesterday. So today's step, what I want you to do is let's work backwards. So let's start by picking a goal. So we're going to pick a goal. And ideally, that is going to be, you know, we're not looking at a goal that's, you know, six weeks away. This is a macro goal. What's our big goal? So I typically try and pick one that's, you you know, maybe 27, 28 weeks away. That's ideal goal for me if I want to bring you through an entire macro cycle, which I'm going to explain to you in one second. So if you pick a goal that's anywhere between 26 and you can go up to 34, 36 weeks away, that's perfect. Now I want you to pull out a Google Calendar or if you're using something like today's plan, which we use even better, which is effective via fancy Google Calendar. And you're gonna stick down every family event that you have in this calendar. Stuff that's unmissable. Wife's birthday, girlfriend's birthday, daughter's birthday, mother's birthday, father's birthday, these things that you can't miss. We're gonna take them as set in stone. Next, we're gonna put down stuff like big work events, other things we can't move because we need to plan around this.
There's no point in building out this perfect use hope and trying to…
There's no point in building out this perfect use hope and trying to plan only to realize that, oh shit, I have a big work conference and I need to travel for three days right in the middle of when I'm meant to be doing my tape processions. So that's just not going to work. So we need to avoid that like the plague. So we get down in the calendar, the Setonstone events, work events, family events, social events that are set in stone. Don't have any judgment around it. They are what they are. You have to do this stuff. You're not a full time athlete and that's really the whole goal this podcast, teaching you how you can work around this stuff. Now next I'd like to figure out what the event is. So if you're targeting the National Criterion Championships, that's going to have one set of demands. So we talked recently in a recent podcast a couple of episodes ago about this new vocabulary we have. So zone four zone four sessions are definitely going to be heavily prioritized, really punchy stuff on the pace, off the pace. It's the demands of a of Criterion versus if somebody wants to Everest, we know it's gonna be a big zone tree. It's gonna be massive endurance demands, massive sub-trashall demands. So you're starting to see that different events have different demands. So this is why we can't just train like the headless chicken in zone tree all the time. We need to train for the demands of the event. So that's what we do next. We figure out what that event is and we break down the demands of that event. And then we work backwards. So what I like to do is, we call this a macro training phase. So I'll typically say a one-week taper period. So that's the week before the event. I'll typically have six-week peak period. The peak period is when we're getting really specific. So the closer we are to the event, the more specific session should be. So session should really mimic the demands of the event, the closer you get to the event. So if you're riding a sporty for three 60 minute climbs in it, you know you're gonna be pretty close to thresholds for those 60 minute climbs. So we need to build in a lot of threshold work. Specifically, we need to try and build in a lot of 60 minute threshold work in the six weeks prior to the event. So that's the, so one week tape of before the event and then we have a six week peak period. And that's the really specific period. Working back from that, I like to do an eight-week build period, working back from that, all I like to do, a 12-week base period. So that is what we call a macro cycle. So if you take the base-build peak taper as distinct phases in this training cycle, and at the end of each distinct training phase, what I like to do is test the athlete. So we start out at the base period and we have very specific markers we're looking to achieve. So if you take a typical event like I'm trying to take a typical stage race for me that I'd be looking to try and for. So a four day stage race, say at Easter. At the end of my base phase, I'm looking for certain results. I'm not just randomly trying it for 12 weeks, passing the time. I'm looking to improve things like aerobic efficiency. I'm looking to improve key endurance markers. So a functional threshold test may not be always the absolute best thing I can look for because the functional threshold test is going to show me one thing really. It's going to show me has my threshold improved. But if I haven't started adding much threshold working in those 12 weeks and I test and I don't get any improvement in my test results, I might take a lean from that that I got no benefit from my 12 week space training, absolutely not. So I look for key markers like that, like aerobic efficiency. I look for, say I start out in week one and I do a four hour endurance ride, a 200 watts at a 140 heart rate, but in the last hour, it drifts to a 150 heart rate. And then we fast forward eight weeks later and I'm doing the same pace, I'm doing the same power on a workout, but I'm doing it at 15 beats lower.
That's like aerobic efficiency and we're looking at markers like…
That's like aerobic efficiency and we're looking at markers like cardiac drift to make sure we're not getting this decoupling of power on heart rate. So depending on what the target at the end of the, you know, if we think about this as our hypothetical road to Oz and we're all on this journey to get to our targets, depending on the target, we're going to have really specific KPIs that we want to see achieved at the end of each training phase. And that way we know we're actually making progress. Like I always say to our athletes, success and failure, it doesn't just show up by accident, it doesn't show up as this catastrophic event and we go, oh, holy shit, I thought it was going to do 47 minutes for that 40k TT and I ended up doing like a narrow in 17. I never seen that one coming. We know success and failure leaves clues all the way along. Are we hitting our KPIs or key performance indicators at the end of each training phase? So a little bit of food for taught and that guys really the main takeaway from this podcast is picking your goal, getting your work events, your social events, set and stone around that and then starting to build backwards from it. So one week before your target you're starting your taper. Seven weeks before your target it's starting your peak phase. Eight weeks again before the start your build phase, 12 weeks before the you start your base phase. So typically as I said you're looking at this up. You use my C in past maths and leaving certain great effect here. 12 plus A's is 20, 26, 27 week micro training cycle for me is absolutely perfect. Obviously, when you're in the middle of the season and you're now going, oh shit, I didn't set a target yet, I need to pick a target, you're not maybe gonna have the benefit of going through a full base build peak taper. A lot of you guys, if you're coming in and starting a training plan at the moment, we might assess where your fitness is at and we might do a shortened base phase, then into to the build phase and lookin' to hit your target. Guys, that's it, these podcasts, I feel like I need to lay them down as the basis and the foundation for what we're talking about a lot of the future podcasts so we can dive into kind of nuanced topics and we can go off in my directions. But there's no point in starting to talk about ketones, faster rides, intermittent fasting, you know, photoboil modulation therapies, heat shock proteins and so on, as in some of the cool bio hacking stuff that I know some of you guys are itching to hear about, but there's no point in talking about this unless we have an understanding of the very core principles I'm trying to, because this is the stuff, honestly, that makes 90 to 95% of the progress, and it's the other kind of sexy stuff that's very heavily marketed to us, that makes a small improvement on top of that. This is the stuff you need to nail, you need to get it right, and you're gonna make massive progression. Hope you've enjoyed this podcast, and you know what I'm gonna say, I'm gonna be back again tomorrow. Don't forget to check out the Roadman resources page. I'm tipping away and I'm trying one or two new things in there each day. So it's turning into quite the little library already. I think eventually what I wanna do is, I wanna record a wheel of video for each thing telling you why I've chosen these supplements, why I've chosen these tires, why I've chosen these wheels, et cetera, et cetera. Just not enough hours in the day at the moment. So I will get that done. That's my promise to you, but it may not be very fast. I'm working on something really big at the moment. Can I talk about it? No, I'm not gonna start talking about it, but I'm gonna try and bring together a collection of maybe up to 30 of the greatest minds in cycling under one event. That's all I'm gonna say for now. You're gonna hear more about this in the next few weeks. Well, man, stay safe out there. I'm gonna chat to you tomorrow.