After a very easy week I am feeling a bit like greyhound ready to burst out of the starting pen. Hence last week will now count as my end of season break (as if I have ever had an end of season break!). The winter of 2008/09 will be an experimental year. In order to make gains at my……ah hemm….more senior time of life, I need to shock the body with new training and increased intensity. I need to ensure I keep the muscle mass (what little I have) as I move into the 45 – 49 age group in 2009. After reading some stuff by Chris Boardman, I am going to train shorter and more intensively over the winter; however, I am also going to take more rest. The details will become apparent as the weeks and months tick by. There will be lots of turbo training, which will be handy as my remaining bike training buddy, Turbo Man, is abandoning me…….a sad day…..sniff…… The following will form the basis of the plan up until the end of Jan 09:
Mon: Swim Technique. Conditioning.
Tues: Swim Technique
Wed: Bike/Run Brick Power (alt short and long efforts each week)
Thurs: Swim technique
Fri: Swim Technique. Conditioning.
Sat: Tempo Bike/Run
The conditioning involves supersets of high rep squats/low cadence turbo hill simulations/fast feet treadmill. Then it’s onto core and some upper body exercises. Hence, during the conditioning sessions I actually bike and run.
The key bike sessions are on Wednesdays and the aim is to raise my power threshold gradually throughout the winter at short and long intervals of 6 mins and 20 mins, respectively. Turbo Man, for your info, my targets are:
Basic:
Short Intervals: 360W
Long Intervals: 320W
Stretch:
Short Intervals: 380W
Long Intervals: 340W
If I reach any of those targets, it’s game on!! I have a 4 month coached swim period coming up. During this time I hope to make the changes to my technique that I need to improve my swim times. From Jan 09 I will join the local swim club again and get myself beasted with the 12 year olds that swim under 20 mins for 1500m!
My running will take a back seat and the majority of run sessions will be off the bike. That said, I intend to do a full cross country season during the winter but there will be no easing down for races and, invariably, I will have completed the turbo efforts earlier in the day prior to any cross country running……….that’s why I have lots of rest in the schedule!
The routine is totally made up by me and whether it seems good or not, I have no idea! I am sure that coach Roy will scoff at the bad planning! I do, however, know that I will enjoy the training and that will be good enough for me! I suppose at worst I would get no slower??
Today I did the first session of conditioning. For squats, I only used the bar to get the movement back into my legs………ouch, it is a heavy bar for a lightweight like me! I enjoyed the session immensely and it feels like I am training bits that have been neglected!
Feel free to ridicule etc but don’t be too hasty to do so…….you never know what the training may yield come next summer……
Until the next instalment…..
Disclaimer: This schedule is not endorsed to be productive for any blog readers. Should any blog readers incur bodily damage whilst attempting to replicate strange made up training sessions, Mark Sags does not bare any responsibility for said injuries.
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3 comments:
Sounds like a plan and, as you say, I can't see you going slower with it.
Can you e-mail me your conditioning programme; it sounds like just what I want to do for the first month in Qatar.
As for the turbo sessions, are you planning to still do the 6 x 6 and 2 or 3 x 20 mins at those settings? I assume you will build up to those power levels?
Yes and yes! I have worked back from April so I can make small increases of power over time. I used this method when I used to weight train and it can work. I had 1/4 kilo plates made so I could make tiny increases every time I trained. Same theory on the turbo I guess. 290W one week; 292W the next. Mentally hard to keep up, I know, but time to embrace the pain!
Sags, I too took a week off and will use it as my end of season break. It was back to training today, 28 mile hilly bike and 4.5 mile run straight off the bike. Ouch springs to mind. It was so hard going up hill after 2 full weeks without riding up hill. Good luck with the master plan!
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