Training zones

[Red Rick]

I'm really unfit now, so I want to take this cycling thingy a bit more seriously. What I'd like to know is how the training zones work. What type of efforts are in which training zones and how should you train in certain zones?

 

[DirtyWorks]

Keep it simple. Track your hours spent riding for a couple of weeks to figure out how much time you can actually commit to riding a bike regularly with all the rest of the stuff in your life.

Let's imagine it's 10 hours a week. Vary the hours inversely with intensity.

Week #1: 5 hours, very high intensity rides concentrating on going faster.
Week #2: 7 hours, high, steady pace rides.
Week #3 9 hours, steady pace rides.
Week #4 7 hours with an hour or two of total intensity for the week.

7 days might look like this:
Mon: core workout, upper body
Tues: 1 hour ride. High intensity efforts
Wednesday: Light workout of some kind.
Thursday: 2 hour ride: High intensity efforts
Friday: Core workout, other strength stuff
Saturday: 2 hour group ride done "race pace."
Sunday: 2 hour group ride, just steady pace from start to finish. Don't be tempted to "race."

As the hours increase, you might ride longer on Saturday/Sunday, but at a lower intensity.

Don't make the mistake of doing both lots of intensity and lots of hours. Recovery is essential for adaptation. Be flexible.

Those fancy devices that quantify rides aren't as useful as they seem. Especially on a daily or even weekly basis. I know that will not go over well with some coaches who post here, but I'd argue they almost have too much knowledge to be useful for people just figuring the sport out.

 

[JayKosta]

For someone who is truly 'unfit', I recommend not thinking about training zones for a while. Just start riding easily for pleasure, and take it easy until you can judge how much rest is needed before doing another ride.
Easy rides should be able to be done on consecutive days. A day of harder riding might require a 'rest day' for sore muscles.

During these rides the 'cycling muscles' will be gaining strength and endurance, and cardio fitness will improve. All of this is needed to create a fitness base that can be further improved by some structured training.

It's very important to judge how much exercise 'works' for you, and then continue to be motivated to continue on a regular basis.

After a while you'll know when it is appropriate to increase the intensity and duration of the rides.

Jay Kosta
Endwell NY USA

 

[swuzzlebubble]

Somewhere I see zones described as relative to time - eg Z7 = "< 30secs"
Elsewhere I see zones described as percentage of CP (or FTP?) - eg Z7 = "> 150% CP"

Is either "more correct"?
Using the default zones in CP I end up with Z7 going out to about 2mins.

 

[Alex Simmons/RST]

Somewhere I see zones described as relative to time - eg Z7 = "< 30secs"
Elsewhere I see zones described as percentage of CP (or FTP?) - eg Z7 = "> 150% CP"

Is either "more correct"?
Using the default zones in CP I end up with Z7 going out to about 2mins.

Since there is an inverse relationship between the intensity we ride at and the duration we can sustain it for, it's axiomatic that one follows the other.

For the OP, there are a variety of training levels, and in general they describe the primary physiological adaptations riding at each focuses on, but in reality it's pretty much all on a continuum. Levels are used for convenience in communicating training plans, but keep in mind the levels themselves are descriptive, not prescriptive.

Example of training levels and descriptions.

When unfit the main aim is simply to improve general condition. What intensity level you ride at isn't all that important other than including a good proportion of riding at an effort level (overall) that requires you to concentrate a little, you could talk but not sing, and such that it enables you to gradually increase how much work you do each week, e.g. by adding 15 to 20-minutes extra riding per week for say 2-3 months. Some days might be harder than others, that's fine.

When you can't fit any more hours in your riding week, then you can start to increase the mix of higher intensity effort into your rides, but keep it fun. As you get fitter, you'll tend to ride a bit harder anyway.

An easy way to do some higher intensity work is to include hillier routes in your regular training week, perhaps do some hill repeats one day. Hills provide for natural intervals as it's very hard to ride them at lower level of effort.

 

[SteveT]

OP not been back I see so perhaps wasting my breath, however....

I have to disagree with recommending 'Very High Intensity' rides concentrating on going faster for the OP who claims to be extremely unfit.

JayKosta I must agree with, don't worry about zones just ride your bike. If you wish to user a heart rate monitor to help you focus, then fine. My opinion and how I do it when starting from zero is to ride Zone 2 to build up a base of around 2k miles before I start looking at intervals and so on.

Zone 2 equates to what I have heard referred to as the 'Gossip Threshold' in other words at zone 2 you should just be able to hold a conversation if riding with another rider, if alone well I am sure you can work this out.

Les Woodward used to describe initial base training and how it effected your heart. First you need to increase the size of your heart and how much oxygen it can pump, so lots of zone 2 will do this and will increase your endurance.
However if all you ever do is low level riding your heart will end up like a large paper bag, no harm in this but it will not have strength.

An athlete who only does intense workouts will end up with a small strong heart a bit like a orange. The idea is to increase the size of the heart first (which is only a muscle and will increase in size like any other muscle) and then strengthen it with intense workouts.

So for the initial phase I would suggest you ride for the first month every other day at zone 2 or gossip threshold. (Only every other day to avoid injury, tendonitus etc)

Start at 20 miles each session, pick flat rides if you can. When you can do 20 miles OK pick every other ride up to 30 miles.

After a month start to ride every day if you can, perhaps with one or two rest days. Start to build up to 40 and 50 mile rides on at least one ride a week. All still at zone 2 or gossip threshold.

Pick flat rides for all of this where possible, or if you cant avoid hills, back off to keep the heart rate in zone 2. It takes some will power to do this. You have to be prepared to forget the ego and let any stronger rider go past and not try and hang on.

When you have logged around 2k miles then it is time to start upping the intensity. I do all the above alone as it allows me not to be carried away by a group ride. But after 2k miles you should be ready to start upping it.
If you can join a club and start riding the Sunday club runs they tend to be mixed terrain and you will find this an easy way of initially upping intensity and miles without it getting boring.

Its up to you how far you want to take it after this point, the main thing is to enjoy it