I’ve been using Coach Jack for a little over a month. I’m on a base period and the Sundays workout is getting quite long. I do all my rides indoor at the moment since I’m in Arizona and it is extremely hot outside.
I am doing 4 workouts a week and I tried checking all days as long days and it seems like CJ keeps Sunday as the longest, then Saturday as the second longest, while the weekdays are shorter.
No complains there, it looks like the best assumption for most of the population.
Does anyone knows of any pros and cons of keeping one day long while making the other regular VS Making all days longer, causing the Sundays workout to be shorter
We each have to figure out what works for us. If you are all indoor you might want to turn off the long rides completely or as Dave suggested set limits. The experts I respect the most feel that doing really long sessions indoors is risky from a anatomical health perspective. If it is base and you really are doing z1/z2 type efforts you could do 7 days a week of 45 minutes for example… You could just use our HR+ mode and not follow a training plan for that. Do the shortest sessions you can each day but trying to hit your weekly suggested hours.
A weekly long ride has been a standard for a very long time and belief is it causes extra adaptions that shorter sessions don’t create but I don’t know if there is any solid evidence for this. Especially during a base phase where weekly hours likely matters more than single session hours. During a build phase where a long ride is z2/z3 and turns into a hard session then the weekly long ride likely matters more.
Search for mitochondrial development. It really does matter, and I experienced this myself.
My latest exploit, a little over a week ago, was 100km on foot in a total of 19h29m, moving time 18h12m.
I would have never been able to accomplish that if I didn’t built up the long day.
For those curious on how I prepared for it:
Try to evaluate how much time you will need approximately. I set a more or less realistic goal of 18hr moving time with 1 longer rest for a warm meal and some shorter breaks to change clothing, grab a bite to eat and drink, for a total of 20hr.
From your actual weekly hours (that would be the average weekly hours of the last 6 weeks), build up to 18 hours a week first. Build progressively, about 10% per week. Use TIME, not distance and don’t care about speed. Speed will come with the volume. The important factor here is to be able to spent all that time on your feet, moving.
Once you reach those 18 hours a week, keep the time volume per week equal but compound your hours. First set the goal of doing them in 5 consecutive days, then 4, 3, 2. Skip 6 because, normally you already should have 1 rest or very easy day during the build-up. For those compounding days, give yourself two weeks for each phase. If for whatever reason you can’t keep up the planning, you’re screwed if you only have one week. You can’t stop life from getting in the way! So avoid extra stress by creating more flexibility in the plan.
The last phase of 18 hours in 2 days, will for most turn out to be 18 hr in 36-40 hours followed by a night. Meaning that you should be ready to do them in one go (the event I did was with a 24hr limit). It is important to have a very good rest period of at least 7-10 days before the event. Only do some short, easy activity and sleep as much as possible.
This worked well for me. My pace was pretty constant and HR was rock-solid just below 100 bpm for up to 85km. Then it eventually became harder and I started to struggle a bit. But compared to many others, I crossed the finish-line in pretty good condition.
Each time I upped the long day, I sensed fatigue in the last part. But the next long day always went smooth for the time I did the former one. A single long session seems to be enough for the body to adapt and grow further.
If you like the long and ultra-long events, the above information allows you to plan for it. And you can easily calculate how many weeks you will need to prepare for it.
Yeah but it sounds like you had the goal of a super long event and other long activities helped you accomplish that. Regading improving or increasing your mitochondria or mitochondrial function there are tons of people saying different things and no clear proof that one method is better than the other. I would say it seems more clear that total weekly volume contributes more than a single long ride but again their is no solid proof. Best bang for your buck is doing blood flow restriction with mild HIIT workouts… but that is pure suffering and pros would rather just put in the time. Again no proof. But since the “long ride” is so well established as a fundamental training practice, it’s a smart one to try to do.
Just to check - You can see chatGPT agrees with my thinking. Total volume is most important but a long ride can add additional mitochondrial benefits as well.
@MedTechCD, that is impressive! Fantastic job, I still struggle to get to 3 hours in zone 2
I kept my long Sunday and split it into two workouts. I was trying to push myself to do it the whole ride at once, but in an indoor bike it gets pretty rough on the saddle. Specially cause it has ERG, so it is hard to get up from the saddle to take a quick break.
I did add extra two days, going from 4 to 6 days on CJ. I noticed it added 2 recovery workouts and made the other 3 days shorter, while keeping the long day the same.
I am excited to do this. I get all my mornings to ride, and I miss it on the days I wasn’t riding. Definitely enjoying the indoor riding; I can’t wait for Arizona temps to go down.
I should say that is a very interesting plan, I never heard of it though and makes total sense especially for someone wanting to complete a very long event. Really my current training is very similar to what both you guys are saying here.
I believe for some people, during a base phase they may rarely need rest days, as long as they are very good at taking it easy (real zone 2) and doing real recovery rides on the right days.
Not saying 7 is best just that it can be fine and useful. I have only taken 2 days off in 4 weeks with this strategy, 15 hours biking outdoors last week. Normally I would only recommend this in specific cases though.
I don’t have any goals so I just built my weekend long ride up to 4/5 hours and started to think about what my indoor (hopefully mixed) season will look like.
I also appreciate you focus on movement time. I 100% agree with this approach. No distance goals. Add other forms of movement is very healthy. Take it easy, smell the flowers. Go hard when kit’s fun.
On the trainer you can dramatically improve saddle comfort by allowing a little movement. Get yourself some packaging foam and put it under the trainer. Not the polystyrene that falls apart but the plastic variant. A thickness of 3 to 5 cm is ideal. It allows slight movement of the trainer and that’s a huge difference compared to being absolutely fixed. Make sure to add the same thickness under the front wheel to remain level or you will get more load on the arms.
The foam allows a little compression and thus side to side movement. That reliefs your but
Well, in my case, I had both . Consistent high weekly volume and regular very long activities.
This was very specific preparation for that ultra long event. Another advantage of the long one is that muscles and tendons get stronger to support the relentless loading. It also helps mentally, because the gradual increase in length isn’t that big a shock.
The ‘compounding’ approach has been used by Gordo Byrn, training for triathlons, Iron man.
I do have over 20 years of experience in endurance events and I’ve gotten to know and understand my body for a good deal. Anytime during the preparation, if it doesn’t feel good, don’t push. Just take a small step back and allow your body to adapt. If you have niggles, do some cross-training that relieves the aching body part but keeps cardiovascular improvement consistent.
Yep, from my perspective there are not so many experts in the world that understand this stuff as well as you do, at least a very small percent of the athletetic population, I am sure there are many that we just don’t hear from. You combination of experience, research and applying your learnings. It’s very well suited to ultra-endurance events and aging athletes.
I am reading a book by a guy that owns CycleFit, one of the best bike fitting companies in the UK for 30 years or something. He has some serious credentials and while not so low heart rate focused he still believes strongly in Zone 2 and you would likely agree with most of what he suggests. It’s a really good read.
My first big endurance event was 45 years ago. Two days of 100 miles each day with 10-speed, heavy, pannier loaded bikes at the age of 13. But in reality I probably have 20 years of training and learning but many of those years were before we had access to so much amazing information.
Total volume is most important but a long ride can add additional mitochondrial benefits as well.
