Ask any cyclist what they do in the winter and most will answer with “long rides”, “base miles” or “long slow distance.” \u00a0I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS MYTH STILL EXISTS FOR THOSE OF US WHO AREN'T PROFESSIONAL RIDERS! \u00a0If you think of the physiology behind a professional cyclist's training, they MUST be doing slow miles if they're riding for five hours a day early in the year. \u00a0They couldn't possibly maintain significant intensity at that volume, that early in the year. \u00a0Factor in that those long slow rides are often used for teams to gel during training camp and you now understand why pros are on their bikes five hours a day, doing low intensity or zone 2 work.<\/p>\n

Even though everything listed above is a compelling reason to swap your winter training from monotonous, long zone 2 miles, consider your goals for the coming season. \u00a0Shorter duration, higher intensity work helps a cyclist to build specific fitness that will translate into event specific performance. \u00a0For example, if said cyclist has a lot of climbing events in next year's schedule, workouts that tax climbing power, strength and technique should be used. \u00a0They will not only build base fitness but begin to lay a foundation for that athlete's goal specific fitness.<\/p>\n

Caveats<\/h3>\n

Don't get me wrong: I don't hate long zone 2 workouts. \u00a0They're perfect as a small part of your winter training or as a way to mentally check out and just pedal around the countryside. \u00a0But when used as the bulk of an offseason workout program, they are grossly inferior to more current training methods that will provide better results. \u00a0Ideally, your winter training plan will include a day (maybe 2) of longer duration zone 2 work, one to two days of higher intensity work and at least a couple days of technique or fundamental type work. \u00a0Not only will this build event specific fitness, you'll still get those zone 2 days to recover and “build your base”. \u00a0Eddy Merckx would be proud….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While I can’t fault people for counting their mileage, what I CAN fault them for is continuing to buy into the myth that “more miles equals more fitness.” Another name for this would be “more hours equals more fitness.” Eddy Merckx made it famous by saying “just ride.” While there is some truth to this adage, especially for cyclists who are new to the sport, as we progress and our fitness builds, it becomes less and less truthful. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64,101,38],"tags":[175,162,68],"yst_prominent_words":[],"wppr_data":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwind-coaching.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1659"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwind-coaching.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwind-coaching.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwind-coaching.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwind-coaching.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1659"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tailwind-coaching.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1659\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwind-coaching.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwind-coaching.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwind-coaching.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1659"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwind-coaching.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=1659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}