timmhaan

last year, when i was going through all my "by the book" training, there was a guy who i would see everyday on the same course. he hammered every single day i saw him. going all out, aero position... like a man possessed. i never saw him sit up or rest in anyway.

i know this isn't considered great training, and is frowned upon by academics and coaches, but i could never shake the idea that this guy was much faster than me! even when i was doing all-out intervals, i could hardly keep up with him. so, it was obviously working for him.

anyone here train like this? or does periodization rule the day?

patentcad

Do it.

Duke of Kent

Perhaps he was simply more comfortable in his drops, and naturally faster than you?

Just because I "blow by" someone going 18mph when I'm going 22mph, it doesn't mean I'm "hammering", by any stretch.

Lithuania

i think this is hard to answer without know what hammer all the time means. Like riding all out 7 days a week? 5? 3?

All I know is after a year of working with a coach that seems to have me training less and easier than I would have by myself I am seeing vast improvement.

SpongeDad

I'm moving more and more back to the view that working hard works. Especially if you aren't putting major hours into it. Periodization is probably more relevant to people putting in 15-20 hours a week than to those of us who are lucky to get 10.

Right now I'm doing 3 hard days and 1 long day a week. Even for the long day, I've added a few 15sec all out sprints (legs hurt in that oh so good masochistic way today).

timmhaan

i could tell he was hammering. very low in the drops, labored breathing, and an intense focus on what he was doing.

MDcatV

not for me. I'm lucky to get 10 hrs./week, and am typically more like 8 and I'm completely flying right now compared to other times of the year. periodization works. it doesnt mean you arent fast or working hard other times of the year, but when you hit a peak, you're able to endure more pain, recover much faster, and able to find those big efforts after putting out a bunch of big efforts.

timmhaan

i'm just thinking ahead to the winter months. i've always hated doing long cold rides in the dark. i think it would be much easier to just hammer for an hour and get home before the toes and fingers are frozen.

merlinextraligh

Ok, go out for an hour, and ride as fast as you can. Repeat 6 out of 7 days, week after week. A few things will happen:

1) you'll get pretty good at riding an hour at 24 mph, but you won't be much good at much else.

2) you'll hit a point where you hit a plateau, and will see very little improvement past that plateau,

3) you'll go out of your freaking mind, and likely quit the sport.


Going constantly hard will help you improve for awhile but then you'll quit improving. Moreover, you'll only be trained to do that one thing well.

The biggest problem with the just hammer all the time approach is that it isn't hard enough to stimulate the training response you want, and it isn't easy enough to allow recovery.

another problem is that it's not training you for all the things you need to be successful as a bike racer, such as accelerating to 32 mph for 30 seconds, recovering briefly and repeating over and over and over, or sprinting, or climbing, etc.

Lithuania

Im thinking about it too but luckily for me my race season goes well into december and then I am planning on peaking in like march/april so winter wont be so long and bad for me.

timmhaan

i do agree with all of your points. however, as for number 3 above, i nearly dropped the sport entirely last year after significant burn out. i'm just not equipped to riding long distance, steady mileage over the winter. i know it helps (i saw benefit from it), but it won't help much if i end up hating it and stop riding altogether.

i think i want something different, as an alternative to the periodization model. something that requires less planning, scheduling, etc. i like the idea of hammering as much as i want, and resting when i get tired or the weather sucks. nice and simple

merlinextraligh

^ cyclocross.

cmh

You can still train using a periodization approach without long steady rides in the winter. Instead, focus on a lot of sweet spot training in the winter, than mix in the Vo2 and anaerobic stuff as the season approaches.

mollusk

I haven't written a book or anything like that, but I have been riding for a LONG time and I'll tell you what works for me.

Like others have said there are many aspects of riding that are important in racing. If you want to work on any aspect you need to target your training. When I target something I "push" and "pull". This means that I put in volume below the target (push) and intensity above the target (pull).

If I don't "push" and "pull" I stagnate. The guy you describe always seems to be "pulling" at his functional threshold. Like others have said such a training path leads to stagnation. That is my experience as well.

There is an old saying in training: "Most people go too hard on their easy days and too easy on their hard days." That is so true.

DannoXYZ 

I'm with MDcatV, even with 10-hours/wk, you simply can't do 10-hours straight of sprints and intervals. Those are by far the most effective workouts given the time, but you just can't do that much of sprints & intervals without overtrainining. Maybe 2-3 hours/wk of sprints & intervals and then get in 1 hill-climb day or VO2-max tempos. Then 1 longer "endurance" day and you'll round out your 10-hours/wk nicely.

urbanknight

He had the genes... You don't.
Imagine what this guy could have done if he trained properly... and took EPO.

wfrogge

It is almost if not impossible to have more than 2 hard workouts a week...... And by hard I mean all out holding nothing back. Week after week of doing this and theres no way you can recover between hard days and soon your power for the hard days will start to drop while you feel like you still are giving 100%.

CastIron

Some of us actually enjoy cycling.

bitingduck

how do you know those weren't his easy workouts?

simplyred

Not much to add as merlin pretty much explained why you don't hammer all the time. You don't want to exhaust your adrenal glands so that you become stale. You'll begin to hate the bike.

If you're jealous of how fast he is - he obviously is doing his hard bouts now, but has put in the aerobic base time earlier - he was probably the guy slogging away in the small ring during the winter.

Anecdotally, I tried this "hammer" away all day for 8 weeks. I lost 50W on my FTP!!!
Reason: using up base, not building it, and my "hammer" efforts were not long enough to make any good training.

Phantoj

It sounds like he was putting in hard, but steady efforts. There was a discussion on the Wattage list about training like this ("All L4 All The Time"): https://groups.google.com/group/watta...d55a3ce9d42fd7

Stallionforce

I have a buddy who was an ex-National team trackie -- a superb sprinter. Just mindblowing final speed. I've raced against him a few times, gotten away from him (I thought) only to have him go by me at the end like he was on a motorcycle. Now he never trains his sprint, and works only on his weakness, which is L4 threshold riding; he's turned himself into a very good time triallist. All he does is hammer during training, perhaps only 3 or 4 times a week for an hour or so. It seems to work for him; but, I have tried to explain to him perhaps his system of improving his time trialling is working despite his training regimen, and not because of it. In other words, his genetics are so good that pretty much any stimulus provides growth; and that recovery isn't an issue for him -- at least not in the same way it would be for me. You can (and should) probably 'crash' train at L4+ two weeks to 10 days out from a big stage race event but other than that I wouldn't personally use this approach. Not only would I fry my body (CNS + joints) but psychologically I'd be cooked within a couple of months.

dutret

yes you can unless you are only counting the effort part of a sprint or interval session in that ten hours. Longer endurance rides and climbing days will probably help most people but thats not because of the risk of overtraining.

I think it depends what you mean by periodization. Clearly your workout should change over the year. However if you have a good base 5-10 hours a week is probably not going to be helped much with rest or light weeks on 4-5 week periods. Tapering for one or maybe two races a year not being included.

dutret

a track sprinter or a road sprinter/track endurance rider? Most natural track sprinters aren't going to have genetics very conducive to good tting.