Local Recovery Day and Periodization – BionicOldGuy

Tuesday’s trip was a protracted arduous one so yesterday was a straightforward restoration day, simply over 90 minutes close to residence. It was nice and my legs felt higher afterwards. The trip is right here on Strava

Periodization

Periodization is various your coaching in the course of the yr to emphasise various things. Now I’m getting into a part the place I’m growing my mileage, so it’s a good suggestion to compensate by reducing again on depth. On arduous biking days I used to be doing multiple sort of intervals, plus some sprints, plus “on-bike power coaching“. I’m dropping the intervals for now and simply concentrating on cardio coaching with extra regular driving. But this neglects the bigger fast-twitch muscle fibers in my legs, and at my age I can’t afford for them to atrophy. So I’m nonetheless doing the sprints and on-bike power coaching, each of which goal fast-twitch muscle groups. After I’m finished in a few months or so with my longer distance challenges, I can change issues up once more by decreasing quantity and including extra depth again in.

I observed one thing attention-grabbing again after I was operating marathons. Leading as much as the marathon I’d be closely targeted on growing the size of my runs in coaching, and lower manner again on every little thing else. After I’d run the race, I’d recuperate for a few weeks and after I’d resume coaching I’d emphasize velocity as a substitute of distance. Within just a few weeks I might all the time set a private document in a 10K race. So the several-month interval of excessive quantity, decrease depth acted as a great base, on which I may rapidly add velocity. I didn’t invent any of this, it’s a basic periodization idea going again to Arthur Lydiard, however it’s good to know one thing works for me personally. I’m hoping the identical concept will for me in biking. This is named base coaching adopted by race-specific coaching, however I’ve by no means construct as excessive of a base as I’ll be doing within the subsequent couple of months.