Time trials<\/a> are especially good since they are a singular effort that depends on your own fitness, not any other outside factors.\u00a0 You can add to the repeatability by comparing your results with those who you frequently race with as well.\u00a0 So if you've consistently been beaten by a great sprinter, closing the gaps in placings between the two of you is a great measure of training improvement.<\/p>\nFinally, for those of you who are more interested in group riding and fondos, you can still get some measures of improvement.\u00a0 Performance on group rides (especially relating to how long and fast you can pull, how well you recover in the group and how you hold up to long days in the saddle) is a great metric to track improvement with.\u00a0 The more you ride with people and the stronger you get, the more you'll be able to put the hurt on them.<\/p>\n
How frequently do you measure training improvements?<\/h2>\n
Improvements can be measured on any given ride.\u00a0 However, you shouldn't put too much stock in day-to-day changes.\u00a0 Changes over time are the key to noting improvement.\u00a0 (you don't see your hair grow a millimeter each day, but after it gets 2 inches longer you notice, training improvements are the same.)\u00a0 Typical testing is performed every 4-6 weeks to give objective data.\u00a0 That objective data is important to effectively modify\u00a0your training to elicit the desired improvements.<\/p>\n
Too frequent of an evaluation and you don't give time for your body to adapt and adjust.\u00a0 Too long and you leave potential gains on the table.\u00a0 So be smart with your measurements.\u00a0 Start with a baseline and measure yourself every month or so, making small changes to your program when necessary<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
If you’re a cyclist dedicated to training and improving your fitness, you probably want to know how much you’re improving. When do you test? How do you test? WHY do you test? What do you do with all the data that you get when you test?
\nIn this podcast, I’ll give you a few tips on how to use that data and which data makes the most difference to your training program.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12890,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64,25,106,38],"tags":[175,183,206,68],"yst_prominent_words":[4676,4615,446,4661,4672,4670,4674,563,5161,568,5325,5324,4662,4660,377,4666,268,4664,4671,4675],"wppr_data":{"cwp_meta_box_check":"No"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/tailwind-coaching.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/trainingimprovements.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwind-coaching.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9453"}],"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=9453"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/tailwind-coaching.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9453\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12891,"href":"https:\/\/tailwind-coaching.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9453\/revisions\/12891"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwind-coaching.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwind-coaching.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwind-coaching.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwind-coaching.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9453"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwind-coaching.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=9453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}