Training progression - duration or intensity

Markster

For next season I'm planning to follow a cycle of 4 weeks training followed by a rest week, during which I will carry out a test (30min TT effort on the turbo trainer, measuring power with SRM cranks). My question is, during the 4 week work cycle would it be best to increase the intensity each week (using power), or increase the duration of training keeping the intensity constant. Last year I increased the intensity of sessions 2% every week and this seemed to work well, but I've read some stuff recently which said it may be better to work at a constant intensity level between tests, but increase the duration of the efforts every week (CTS follows this approach, and I didn't get very good results with them!).
The other approach I suppose is to train at constant HR, and hope that as fitness improves you will naturally work harder at a given HR.

Any thoughts?

p.s. although 4 weeks is a pretty long work cycle, it will include a break of 2 recovery days and 2 days of no training in the middle (a weekend off).

2LAP

I'm not sure that increaseing intensity (i.e. increase average power by 2%) or increaseing duration (i.e. hours on the bike) would be a very effective way of gaining improvements on the bike. Perhaps I have misunderstood what you have written, however you would be better with a correctly periodised program where the focus of training changes from month to month (or season to season) and each months training is based upon a number of different sessions completed in the same week like tempo rides, intervals, steady state rides, recovery rides, etc. (i.e. neither guided by a 'common' intensity or duration).

In its simplest of forms the program would contain reletivly high volume and low intensity out of the season and reletivly low volume and high intensity in the season. The relative being the important part; meaning specific to your goals, target event and your training & medical history.

Perhaps I have read your post wrongly, but increasing duration or intensity and ignoring the content of individual sessions on a day to day basis is a recipie for disaster.

Markster

Sorry, I tried to simplify the question and lost a lot in the process!I always do different sorts of sessions. I'll use an example to demonstrate what I mean.

The first week after a test may include the following workouts:

Tuesday: 50mins @ 80% of test power (approx. 160bpm)
Thursday: 2 * 15mins @ 95% of test power (approx. 170bpm)

During the second week do I increase power, e.g:

Tuesday: 50mins @ 81% of test power
Thursday: 2 * 15mins @ 96% of test power

Or do I increase the duration of the efforts, e.g:

Tuesday: 55mins @ 80% of test power
Thursday: 2 * 18mins @ 90% of test power

Or do I let the increase in power at a given HR as I get fitter progress the training load: (Ric will like this one :-))

Tuesday: 50mins @ 160bpm
Thursday: 2 * 15mins @ 170bpm

Hope thats clearer

Markster

Sorry, the bit above (option 2) should read:

Or do I increase the duration of the efforts, e.g:

Tuesday: 55mins @ 80% of test power
Thursday: 2 * 18mins @ 95% of test power

2LAP

Now I see!

You could use a mixture of the two! In interval training increasing the duration allows you to train to 'go on for longer' while increasing th intensity allows you to train to 'go harder'.

If you want to increase your power output increase power in training to increase the duration you can hold an effort increase time in training.

In the short term, I'm not sure they would lead to huge differences in adapation. In the long term you could find you are doing too much or going to hard (and overtraining) so smaller increases in both would be preferable. Also using this approach assumes that (1) development is linear (its not) and (2) the same session (despite power and time increases) has a similar effect over time (it doesn't).

Also manipulating intervals by power or time during efforts is far too simple again. Since just by changing either duration, intensity, recovery, sets and repetitions; the whole session can present a completely different chalenge and training stimulous. The same situation exists across your whole training plan!

I personaly train with HR, and am lucky enough to have max tests and LT tests done in work regularly for free. I then use these values to describe my training intensities (but I do want a power meter though)

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Markster

I'm not just talking interval training though, I'm also thinking about increasing sub-maximal training loads.
Say that one of my goals for a 3 week block of training is to increase my power during 60min Tempo sessions from 290 to 300W. Is it best to do all my workouts at 60mins, and increase the power by 5W every week, or is it best to do 40mins at 300W the first week, and increase the duration by 10mins per week.
Is there any science to support either approach? I've read in certain places that you should train at your goal intensity, and increase the time you can train at that intensity. Or maybe you think I should be breaking tempo sessions into intervals at goal intensity?



The rate of increase was just an example (although I have had actually increases in tested TT power of 4% in 3 weeks during certain parts of the year).
When planning a block of training do you not plan to progressively increase the training load, based on how much you have adapted in the past?
Why is a roughly linear progression over 3 weeks not valid? I find this works really well, with the final week maybe a little harder leading to a little over-reaching going into the rest week.

2LAP

Sorry, the interval training was just to highlight a point. I think both stratergies are perfectly valid, but look towards your goal when you decide what to do. If you are unable to maintain your goal intensity for reletivley long periods, you should look to increasing power or completing them as intervals if you can't maintain your target power for very long. In terms of scientific support, you need to 'overload' your body to 'force' it to adapt and both time and power are effective means of measuring that overload.

When doing a test of TT power in a lab, you might expect to get different values due to imporvements in pacing or 'day to day' variability; sometimes it is difficult to determine if a change is 'real' or not. While you have recorded a 4% incraese that would be a good place to start, however realise that you may get better or worse (as you fatigue) by a different rate during another month.

My own coaching has been much more reactive, following positive rider feedback increases in training could be as much 25% (i.e. 10 hours going up to 12.5 hours) or more depending upon the goals or how training is manipulated. Following negative feedback training is maintained (i.e. 0% change) or reduced (i.e. by as much as 100%) depending upon the situation.

The reason why I said that the progression wouldn't be linear is for two reasons (1) your response to a the same training load will differ from day to day and (2) improvements from training are less as you become more trained (e.g. the law of diminishing returns). Changes in lifestyle (e.g. stress in work), nutrition, sleep, etc. will also affect your improvement.

Balancing training load is difficult and I think setting a % increase each week isn't the best option; rather follow a periodised program and react to the feedback that youy write in your training diary.

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Markster

Makes a lot of sense. Thanks 2LAP

m.