JM Coaching - Caleb and 2015: Intensity

Last time we looked at the role that volume played in 2015 for Caleb. We learned that a consistent and increasing build was critical to keeping Caleb strong enough to complete the workouts, as well as keep motivated, but a certain level of fatigue was necessary to improve. But volume will only build capacity for training. The real side of training that both prepares a racer for races and give them the speed is the intensity. While volume is pretty generalized for all riders, intensity is highly personalized for the individual and the demands of the events.


Just like volume there are multiple ways to look at intensity. I heavily favor a few metrics; time in power and heart rate zones, anaerobic stress, interval numbers, and work above threshold. A lot of people will use intensity factor to measure intensity, but intensity factor doesn’t tell the whole story because it’s influenced by time and extra riding will give an artificially low IF. To me, the key to measuring intensity is measuring the amount of high effort. This follows from the basics of training. If you want to increase you endurance, you need to ride more. So if you want to increase your top end, you should do more top end. So when measuring the “dose” of high end, you want to measure the efforts as direct as possible. I also use time in power and heart rate zones with a grain of salt for the same reason. The charts are difficult to make objective data driven discussion from and the raw data doesn’t tell any unique stories. So I use it as a guide. With that said, here are some insights into what Caleb’s year looked like.

Anaerobic Stress

Anaerobic Stress for the later part of the season

This stress metric measures the amount of effort expended specifically above threshold. The stress is calculated in such a way that it specifically looks at above threshold and the long and short terms stresses respond in a way the models the anaerobic energy systems adaptation periods. It works similar to TSS (with a stress component, short term, long term, and stress balance). There isn’t anything too ground breaking here except that it makes seeing the anaerobic trends a million times easier. But as far as Caleb’s season is concerned, there isn’t any real magic here . Just like anyone would, we concentrated the anaerobic work at the back end of the season where the high power is needed. Increasing threshold will help you hang on the back of the group, but increasing your anaerobic capacity and repeatability will get you to the front and to the next group. A big challenge we faced and one might face here is that it requires power to calculate and often the big days are race days. So you need to get good at estimating it or have a power meter for racing. Luckily, Caleb was able to race with a power meter a few times making estimating and tracking much easier.

W`

W prime is sort of a new metric for me this year. It is the amount of work completed above threshold. Nothing too difficult to worry about, although writing my program to automatically calculate it is nice. But golden cheetah will do that too. Specifically, what was huge was the combination of the data and the ability to track the race data and how I matched up in terms of total W` burned for a given ride/race, the maximum amount burned in a single effort, and the amount burned over long periods of time such as across days and weeks. Again, we had to estimate some of these since he didn’t always race with a power meter, but even with heart rate, you’re able to make some intelligent guesses.

Interval trends.

With the lack of complete race data, my best way of tracking Caleb’s fitness quickly became tracking interval results. The power of intervals should be pretty clear to anyone who does them. The added intensity, at any level of effort, the consistency, and pushing limits, is what triggers your body to adapt. But the consistency, the all out nature, and riding at the limits can also be incredibly telling. In the world of performance cycling, like much in life, we learn the most when we run on the limits. This is why a big trend in a lot of my workouts is maximal efforts during intervals. Now that doesn’t mean every effort is all out as much as you can do for a given effort. But it does mean that every workout should have a goal, and if that goal is to get stronger, then that workout needs to push something to it’s limit. By finding the correct metrics for those intervals, and tracking them, you can track fitness in a very real way. Everyday, every ride, every pedal stroke is a day in the lab.

Next time we'll finish up our analysis with a look at what Caleb did above and beyond. Thanks for reading.