The importance of planning

If you have read the last article on the basic underpinning principles of sports physiology, you will understand that training needs to be structured. Structuring your training over the year requires you to break your year into cycles. The process of breaking up your year is known as, "periodisation". Without periodisation, you will not be able to peak properly for your major races of the year.

Where to start - setting your goals

For any successful plan the first initial step is to work out the major goals. Once we have the goals set in place, we can work back from our goals and structure our training accordingly. It is important also to state what you want to achieve with these goals. The first two questions should be:

•  Step 1. What are my major goals this year?

•  Step 2. What do I want to achieve within these goals this year?

For this you should ideally get out a piece of paper and write down all the races you want to peak for. So for example, you may want to peak for the National Championships on 6th June and the regional championship final on Sept 2nd. These are your peak "A" races. Write down the dates. These two major goals should be 'set in concrete'. You won't want to change these goals because all your training and racing relies on knowing these dates.

Next you need to consider your "B" secondary events, which are important, but not major season peak races. You may have quite a few, but don't chose all your races. Stick to quality. You will shortly see that you cannot peak for all your races! These races are not 'set' so rigidly as "A" races because you may want to have the flexibility in deciding which B races you want to do.

The weekend gaps left in your diary are races or trainings that will be 'stepping stones' to achieving you desired goals. Normally these are races you use as training. You obviously have freedom of choice as to when you chose to train.

Step two asks what you want to achieve within the major races of the year. It is important therefore to take a look at your current level of fitness and analyse what your strengths and weaknesses are within races. You have to ask yourself what you aim to achieve. Is it to win the race? Is it to come in the top 10? Remember to be realistic. Please read my article on the how to progress in International Cycling to get a perspective on how to 'progress up the ranks'. Although that particular article is aimed at women, it is a good read for the male cyclist too.

Breaking down the year - periodisation

Periodisation categorises the year into cycles. These cycles can vary in length depending on how close you want to look at your programme. The longest cycle is called the "macrocycle" - this is the full yearly cycle of racing and training from beginning to end.

The next length cycle is termed the "mesocycle". You may have up to five mesocycles of varying length in a year. You can divide up the 12 months and add each training objective within it. The diagram below shows how this works.

Diagram 1: shows how the mesocycles break up the year, based on your race season:

For example, diagram 1 illustrates that you could have the 'preparation for training' lasting 8 weeks, then 'cycle conditioning' for 12 weeks, followed by a period of 'specific' race training for 8-10 weeks, then the 'race season' of 16-18 weeks and the final mesocycle being the 'transition'. Don't worry too much about the terminology. I cover it very soon.

A "microcycle " is the smallest repeated cycle of the year. This is traditionally a week long, but you can chose how long you have your microcycle. Some people use 10 days as a typical cycle of training. Here, once you have established your microcycles, you mark in your daily training.

So how do I peak for my races?

Now that we have your goals and your mesocycles set up, we can start to analyse the type of training that needs to be done to achieve these goals.

To peak for racing, you obviously need to start training! Training for the race season starts in November or December depending on when you want to start. Let's take a look at the mesocycles and their objectives in turn:

The preparation phase

This is where you start your winter training. Normally most cyclists will use this to develop their 'core' overall fitness. This is easy and fun training, normally consisting of other sports. You may have heard of the term "cross-training". This refers to taking up different sports other than cycling.

The advantage of taking up other sports is that it will help you develop your balance and coordination. It will also strengthen other areas of your body that don't normally get used in the same manner as riding a bike. For example, walking easily will help strengthen your bone structure and strengthen your weak hamstring muscles, which oppose your strong quadriceps used for cycling. Swimming is excellent exercise to strengthen your diaphragm when breathing out under water. It is also excellent for your back muscles. Cycling tends to ruin one's posture: swimming will help strengthen the muscles around the spine and stretch you out.

Circuit training in gyms is also excellent training to supplement your cross-training. Although it is hard work, it tends not to put too much strain on the cardiovascular system. It is used to build your overall 'core strength' like your abdominal muscles. Circuit training can then be progressed into weight training later on. I don't cover weight training in these pages, but there is plenty of information on weight training for cyclists on the internet.

So the preparation cycle is done within heart rate zone 1. Your heart and lungs won't know the difference between the sports at this low level - hence the term 'general' or 'core' cross training training. Enjoy!

Continued article on next page...

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