Winter sessions, Christmas cake and my beloved Turbo trainer!

Wow.. I looked around and it's Christmas already, where have the last few months gone?!

The long cold nights are drawing in and the dawn of the new season looks a long way off! As any coach will tell you, now is the time to get into that base building that will support all the more intensive work in the build period. Sounds like good solid advice, so what does that actually mean?

Well most of us know this is the time of year (at least in the Northern hemisphere) that we build our endurance levels by longer duration or distance of sessions, controlling our heart rate and power numbers so we are not over stressing the body, but we are getting it used to developing our aerobic capacity. Its also worth considering the other elements that will provide a great return on our time investment next year. All workouts regardless of the time of year need to have a specific purpose, it will help to include a little variety to keep things interesting but not at the expense of the purpose of the session.

Quite a few years ago I had the great fortune to be coached by the athletics legend Frank Horwill, as many who have met the great man will tell you Frank is full of fantastic stories and has a fabulous way of describing what needs to be done. He was a real inspiration to me and fired my love of all things athletic. I remember an anecdote he shared with us on one frosty morning at Battersea track, when none of us were looking forward to the work ahead. It was his way of explaining basic periodisation to us. If you want to bake a Christmas cake there are certain ingredients that need to be included for it to become a Christmas cake. Miss some of them out or add something extra and whilst you might end up with a cake it probably won’t turn out they way it was originally intended. The point was well made, and 28 years I still remember it now.
So apart from developing our endurance profile there are a couple of other important elements to work on. Notably, skills and technical improvements are best worked on now. Movement patterns and the way our muscles fire have been being developed since we first began to move. These are driven by the vast neural networks in our brain and throughout our bodies, these systems take time to adapt and adjust. This is why so much emphasis is placed on developing the technique of our younger athletes. Learning the complex muscle patterns of the kind we find in swimming take longer to develop in adults. Great technique means economy of movement and saving vital energy; regardless of the distance we are racing we can all do with improving our economy.
The third element that we should be focusing on right now is developing our strength in order for us to push a bigger gear, run into a headwind or swim in choppy water. Joe calls these ‘Force’ workouts and can involve various activities and equipment simple examples of these types of sessions involve running or riding up hills, or swimming with paddles.

So the question is...What are you looking for in terms of improvement next year? If you work with a coach, one of their key roles is to help you identify the things you want to improve and set up a plan for you to go to work on them. They might also suggest a few ideas of their own to add to the pot. If you are self coached in each of these areas of development it's helpful to identify small incremental gains, which you can continue to measure. These could be a treadmill session in which you are maintaining a 0.5% higher incline whilst maintaining the same speed. Riding a hill and staying in the saddle for longer each time.

Dave Brailsford the Performance Director for British Cycling has set out a clear plan with his team of coaches and athletes and calls this process ‘the aggregation of marginal gains’. These are small discreet improvements in key milestones that build over time. What are yours? Do you know what your next running or cycling goal is? What milestone you are now aiming at?

Getting regular cycling during the winter period is one of the most challenging parts of training for most of us that work regular hours. We are constantly trying to balance out our lives as an athlete with all the other stuff we want to and sometime have to do!

This is where you turbo training can become your best friend. (I know, I really do need to get out more!) I know many people find indoor bike sessions a real chore and take every opportunity to get outside. Which is great and in many respects much preferred if you have that option. If you have or can develop the mindset that will get you out of the door with the worst of the weather that is a real bonus. Indoor riding is safe, can be very specific and controlled and if you let it, can really add value whilst being very time efficient.

Here are my 7 key tips for your winter turbo sessions.

1. Add variety to the sessions whilst being mindful that you still want to bake a Christmas cake!
2. Make sure every session has a purpose, a specific workout set, time goal and outcome i.e. what will make it a successful session?
3. If you are going to add some entertainment to your ride, i.e. music, video etc. make sure it fits the session your doing. If you’re doing interval repeats on a big gear is Celine Dionne going to do it for you? Make it work for you; small things make important distinctions to the quality of the session.
4. Join a group cycle session at a gym or health club, invite other athletes to your place for a session, the act of riding together provides a greater sense of unity and makes the time go quicker as you focus on your work out together. This also allows everyone to work at their own level unlike the usual group rides outdoors.
5. Identify ways of measuring or at least gauging your work out intensity. This could be as simple as giving yourself a sense of how hard you are working, like a scale of 1-10 and adjust throughout the session accordingly (RE: Borg). If you have a Turbo trainer or bike with a heat rate monitor or Power meter so much the better. There is lots of current research on the benefits of using both heart rate and power (Watts) as measurement of performance (Include research paper web links in here) in aiding individual performance. The GB Cycling squad are great example of know the numbers that need to be achieved for success.
6. Use the indoor sessions to drill technique and develop muscle memory, ‘perfect practice makes perfect’ get some feedback from other athletes or coaches, look in the mirror and check out what you are asking your body to do. What we do in training is more often than not repeated in racing.
7. Create a positive frame of thought about your turbo trainer workouts, think about the benefits that they will deliver in a few short months, and where ever possible surround yourself with the right positive messages. Your race goals, pictures of you achieving and breaking through barriers that have been in your way in the past, finishing a tough race, beating a PB. Also spend some time to appreciate how far you have come along your athletic journey, value the process that you are using as you tick off each of your key milestones.
   
   So what are the kinds of sets that would help me love my turbo a bit more? Click here for our free resource section and see the kind of sessions that will help you build part of your base profile this winter.
   
   HAPPY CHRISTMAS
   P.S. not too much Christmas cake…even if does have all the right ingredients ;-)