Glow123

First a bit about me: I'm 30 and have been cycling for ~8 years. Raced cat2 XC and cat4 CX between 2013-2015. Never had time to train more than 5-6 hours week but managed to be front of pack most races. Fast forward a few years and I now work 80 hours/week, get 4 days off a month, am married and have a 1 year old. Needless to say that doesn't leave much time to train. Up until a few weeks ago I was happy to get in 2 hours per week but surprisingly had kept a decent amount of fitness. I feel like doing some racing again this year (likely just cyclocross this winter) so am trying to maximize what time I do available.

For the past 3-4 weeks I have been carving out 30 minutes/night of intervals on the trainer M-Th, doing a 2 hour outdoor ride on Saturday then maybe jumping on the trainer on Sunday if time allows. I could maybe squeeze in a few more minutes of trainer time during the week but unfortunately this is about all my schedule will allow.

Any recommendations on how to optimize my training? I realize I'm not going to be winning races on this training schedule but would like maximize my potential. Should my trainer rides be full gas every time? Tempo? Threshold? VO2 max? Low intensity/base work seems out of the question with only 4-5 hours a week. I have skimmed through some of the time crunched stuff and even that seems geared to people with more time to train than myself.

caloso

If I only had 30 minutes on a trainer, I'd probably do several 30/30 or Tabata sets. Make sure you're warmed up.

12strings

30 minute 30sec on/30sec recovery sprint intervals are my bread and butter trainer sessions, but only 2, maybe 3MAX...if I'm feeling good. That plus one 1.5-2 hour ride and one 30-45minute ride with a decent hill climb per week.

If I do that, (3-3.5 hrs per week), I see really good progress, (meaning, I can usually contend for the hill-climb finishes at our fast club rides).

I've been not doing the trainer this summer and just been outside, but planning to get back to it as cyclocross season approaches. (Will be my first racing of any kind).

All that to say, I myself would NEVER try to do super high intensity trainer workouts 4 days in a row. I think it would be counter productive for me to not allow at least one day for recovery.

redlude97

what is your current base fitness/mileage for the year?

absoludicrous

I think it's totally doable, you have options. What type of trainer do you have? I would consider investing in a subscription to TrainerRoad...made a huge difference for me and I will be picking up their mid-volume (6 hr/week) cyclocross plan this August.

Workout wise, I would think something like a 3-day block (Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday) approach would be good. Super tough workouts, lots of VO2 max stuff.

Here are some sample interval workouts that I think could work well.

Tuesday: 2 sets of 5x1min (1min on/1min off 5 times with 5 minutes of rest between sets)...these should be ridden as hard as possible that will let you finish the 1 min
Thursday: 2 sets of 3x3min (3min on/3min off 3 times with 6 min rest in between sets)...ride these hard, but not eyes out hard, like 8 or 9 out of 10 perceived effort
Saturday: 2 sets of 5x30s (same as the above but 30 seconds on/30 seconds off)...these should be ridden as hard as possible

Another type of workout that could be effective is 15-30 seconds all out immediately followed by 1-2 minutes at threshold or slightly below (Sweet Spot). These will work on clearing the lactate, but still working at a high level after the supra-threshold (15-30s) effort.

Or these:

https://fascatcoaching.com/tips/tabata-intervals/

You could even work these into an outdoor ride. These are the types of VO2 work I do on my commutes.

After a weeks worth of these and depending on how you feel you could bump up the number sets, start with 2 then work your way up.

rubiksoval

With four hours a week, I'd do 4-5 45 min -60 min rides. I'd do 2-3 at sweetspot/threshold and 1-2 at vo2 or frc.

Basically all intensity all the time, but a mix and more high end aerobic intensity (90-100% ftp) and not a ton of super high intensity (>110%).

absoludicrous

But CX is mostly short supra-threshold efforts. I think you need to balance out the workouts with one super-high intensity workout per week.

rubiksoval

Supra-threshold efforts are more supra the higher your threshold.

And FRC is essentially 30-60s all out. It's just not something you can do week in and week out for months on end and expect to improve. Especially if you're including a race in that four hours. Gotta have that aerobic base to build on, in my experience.

4-6 weeks is generally the max recommended block for vo2 max or higher training, too.

absoludicrous

A person's threshold has no relation to whether or not they are "more supra". Someone with an FTP of 150w will find riding at 150% of FTP to be extremely difficult in the same way that someone with an FTP of 350w would. Your FTP doesn't matter. Work is work.

I'm saying this guy should see good benefits by working in ONE supra-threshold workout per week. Talking Tabatas or 30s to 1min @ 150+% of FTP. There's tons of scientific proof that suggests good adaptation is to be had from doing these types of workouts. And on a 4hr per week plan he needs all he can get. Read this: https://fascatcoaching.com/tips/tabata-intervals/

I would be curious to know what his "base" is like right now. It might be tough to develop it with 4hrs/week and less than 8 weeks before the cross season starts. At this point, I would put all my eggs in on developing good anaerobic power.

Again, I said ONE PER WEEK.

Glow123, can you work in some bike-handling during your rides? I think you could seriously offset your lack of fitness with efficient dismounts/remounts.

rubiksoval

"More supra" was a joke that you seem too worked up about to notice. In any case, the point is that 500 watts is a lot easier for someone whose threshold is 350, than someone whose threshold is 300. That's pretty much a given. Your ftp matters tremendously, as every prominent coach you can find will attest to.

Your anaerobic power means little to nothing if you don't have the aerobic power to back it up. After all, races are comprised of multiple efforts. How would you expect to make each subsequent effort if you're aerobically challenged? Cycling is an aerobic sport. A cyclocross race is an aerobic event. Every effort done in a cyclocross race falls on the back of your aerobic capacity.

It's fairly elementary sports science and physiology, to be frank. And again, too many of those high-end efforts will erode your fitness over time, not increase it. Hence the peak and burn aspect of training and racing. Hence my suggestion that very high end stuff be limited with more a focus on threshold, especially in the midst of the races themselves.

You don't like my suggestions, but it really doesn't matter a bit, right? So keep that in mind.

12strings

You both make good points, but from what I've read, and experienced, short Max sprint efforts also increase AEROBIC capacity, to a point, especially for "shorter" events.

This is why cross-fitters who never jog can go out and get a PR on a 5K run.

In my experience, I can make significant fitness improvements doing Two 5x30/30 (20 minute total on the trainer, with warm-ups), 2x per week....such that on a 2 hr club ride, I can keep up with, and in many cases surpass, riders who know to log really big miles, but never do interval work. Of course, the longer the ride goes, the more they have the advantage.

12strings

One other thing to consider, depending where you are starting from now after being a prior cat 2 racer...cat 5 cx races are only 30 mins, while cat 123 are often twice as long. That seems like it would take different fitness to be competitive.

absoludicrous

Not worked up, just couldn't distinguish the joke. My bad. I must say, we aren't debating whether or not holding 500w would be more challenging for someone who has a lower threshold than another person. Of course it would.

My suggestion was to work in one very very hard anaerobic workout per week that has OP riding on the limit for 20-60seconds per interval. I thought your suggestions were good, but seemed to A) make it sound like I was advising multiple VO2max or anaerobic workouts per week and B) emphasize base fitness over the value of incorporating one really really intense workout per week.

I agree, base fitness is very important...but we don't have a lot of time to cultivate that, and OP is looking for cross-specific workouts.

Yes, CX is aerobic, but given the fact that OP has limited time and is focusing on cross his workouts and adaptation goals should be cross specific. Next year he can get a head start in the winter/spring and focus on building a base, but I think right now, he should go all in on cross-specific workouts and put the base building on the back burner. This all depends on when his season starts. If it's not till September or October then perhaps one workout per week could focus more on aerobic intensity...although I'm not sure 4 hrs/week is enough to cultivate it.

I still think a couple sweet spot workouts + an anaerobic workout is going to deliver the most bang for buck on the limited time.

Also, work on bike handling...

Overall, I think your advice was mostly spot on. Not mad at all.

Sure, cross is intense, and the races can tax the system themselves. Thankfully they are probably only going to be 30min efforts. I think OP should be able to drop the intense workouts once season has started.

absoludicrous

Very good point. I carried little base and zero bike handling skills into my first "season" of cross, but was able to hang mid pack with 4's and 5's largely due to having the ability to go hard for all 30. I wasn't making up time with clean re-mounts...

After 30, I was toast. I got by though.

Glow123

A lot of good stuff here for me to look through. Cross season here usually starts the last weekend in September and runs through mid January.

In regards to my current base it's admittedly low. For the past 2 years I've been limited to 1-2 rides per week so the traditional base training hasn't been an option. I'm able to hang with the fast local group rides on any route less 3 hours but after that I fade quickly.

I generally take the cross bike out on local singletrack and fire roads once every couple of weeks. Was planning to increase that as the season approaches. Unfortunately there isn't a dedicated training series where I currently live. We had where I used to live and it was a great way to work on skills the 1-2 months before the season officially started