Block Training
Block training is useful in getting the most effect from a limited time of training. The idea of block training is to target a specific energy system and focus on that system for a certain period of time. The variables you work with are:
An example of a block using the variables above might be as follows:
The next week I would bump the 20min set up to 22, or 25, or whatever worked for me. Week 3 would be another increment. Week 4 is rest & recovery. R&R actually starts on Sunday of week 3, as I will ride an easy 60 min on Sunday, then do the same Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. Thursday I throw in some sprints or harder work to get myself back in the flow. On Sunday of week 4 I got for my normal hard ride of the week. Monday starts a new 4 week block.
The theory is that you get the most gains from a block of training where you pick one area of focus, then rest, allowing your body to super-compensate. After the rest you move on to another energy system. The focus should be heavily on one system at a time. It doesn't matter what energy system you focus on, but rotating systems makes sense. How to lay that out is more an effort of your periodization plans.
The system in question is up to you, your goals, and the current point you're training at. To be complete, you should probably spend some time in each of the L3-L6 levels, as defined by Coggan. Essentially these levels are summarized by the time you can spend at a certain power output, roughly:
The most common approach is the 4 week block, where you spend 3 weeks training and 1 week recovering. Stacked back-to-back days lead to greater adaptation, as opposed to the classic staggered approach where you rest after a hard workout. Mentally this is tough, but the results are better. In order to maintain overall fitness I don't use pure block training, since that omits all other training for 3-4 weeks. My approach is usually 2 days of blocks on Tue/Wed, then an off-road ride on the weekend. Racing, race simulations, hard off-road rides, and group rides will tend to work all energy systems. I then follow a hard Saturday ride with an endurance Sunday ride, or an active recovery ride if the day before was really difficult. This is as outlined above.
An alternate approach is to do a mixed block, where you can do 2 days of L6, 2 days off, 2 days L4, 2 days off, and so on. This is probably effective at keeping yourself sharp, or for mixing up your trainer work in the offseason. This may be a good approach for the weeks leading up to a race. You can also tack L4 work onto the end of an L5/L6 workout, so long as the overall work load doesn't leave you spent. You generally want to do the more intense stuff earlier in the workout. Having said that, you don't get to choose when the killer hills are going to come up during a ride. So some high intensity stuff at the end of your workout probably better mimics the "real world", if you want to call riding a bike the real world. This isn't Day 1 sort of stuff. This is a good time to remind yourself that intervals lead to a much higher rate of dropout when added to any exercise program. They also lead to vast improvements.
In general, the training load is reduced somewhat as the block progresses, but not always. If you do 5 min intervals today then maybe shoot for 4 min intervals tomorrow. Or maybe 5-3-1, 5-4-3...you get the picture.
The exception might be the beginning of the season when the trails are messy and the roads are loaded with salt, sand, and chunks of pavement from the snow plows. The biggest drawback with pure block training is that you literally focus on only a single energy system at the expense of the others. At the beginning of the season, when you're not at the peak of fitness, you can probably get away with jumping right into a block of L5/L6 and going from there.
This fits with the reverse periodization scheme as well as the aforementioned lousy weather blues many people experience. Also, when you hit the highest energy system, you do actually work the lower systems in part. So if you're going to be exclusionary, shoot for the L5/L6 intervals at the beginning of the season. This translates to roughly 3-5 minute intervals. Many say this is where you see the best gains in the shortest period of time. So it could very well be the best way to introduce yourself to the regimented season again. After that block, you're probably better suited to get away from the pure block training and mix in some race simulation type work on the weekends to make sure you're not neglecting anything. Or at most, do a pure block of VO2max stuff, followed by a pure block of LT work. Then start your off-road or group rides to maintain your overall fitness.
There's one key to make sure it all works. Rest. With block training, you usually don't need to worry about the "hard enough" aspect of your training, though it does sometimes take a few weeks to realize that yes, you can actually go harder. If you follow the ideas of block training you'll be getting plenty of training stress. The thing you absolutely need to do is rest & recover enough. The general rule is a 1:1 ratio of work:rest. So if you have a block of 2 days, rest for 2 days. 3 days is tougher. Some can get away with 2 days but others need 3. You really need to play around with it a little to get it right. But your better off erring on the side of too much rest, especially as you get further into your block. This is a time to be in tune with your body, and to learn how to be in tune with your body. Overall, it's good to rest every 4th week for the whole week. Some people can push this to 6 weeks. Some people also choose active recovery rides on their rest days. I prefer to let the whole system rest, which includes tight knees, potential saddle sores, back issues, etc, Again, details which need to be worked out.
The amount of time you rest is also dependent on how hard you've worked. Again, this is a time to be in tune with your body. If your 3 days block has left you struggling to get out of bed, a 2 day rest might not be quite enough. Overall, block training is going to put more stress on your body, which is the driving force of the super compensation. But if you do it properly you also allow for full recovery. Another thing to remember is that it isn't necessarily based on a 7 day work week, at least pure block training isn't. So many are either forced to abandon the 7 day rotation or to not train every available weekend day, something foreign to those of us with real day jobs and free time on the weekends.
With pure block training, you would look to do something like M/T/W on, then T/F/S off. S/M/T on, and so on. Some advocate 4 day blocks, but that may be putting too much stress on the body at one time. You can also work with 2 on, 2 off, or maybe 3 on, 2 off, 2 on, 1 off. Again, much of the structure is what works for you. But you need to make sure you have 2 cornerstones for this: hard work and hard recovery. Otherwise you'll either be burnt out or underworked.
David Morris, author of the book Performance Cycling, advocates the pure approach. Says Morris:
"Remember, improvement in work capacity requires hard work and periods of rest and recovery. Thus, you should follow each block of interval work with an equal number of days complete rest or easy recovery rides."
and
"...involves training very hard for several days in a row and then resting for several days to allow the body to recover and super compensate. Frequently, to increase the training stress on the body, the same types of workouts are performed on each day of the training blocks. The theory behind block training is that overloading a single system and then allowing adequate rest will cause the system to supercompensate more than with traditional training strategies"
Morris also advocates focusing on VO2max and anaerobic intervals before LT, which also works well with reverse periodization and inclement weather. The general idea there is to first build the power, then maintain it.
Here is a quote form Tim Crowley CTS coach
"Block training- This training concept is quite popular for elite cyclist and multi sport athletes. Simplified, block training combines several (usually 2-3) quality training days, followed by an equal amount or more days of recovery. Hard training on Saturday and Sunday can be followed by 2 days of recovery. Another 1 or 2 quality days mid week can round out the training week. This is an effective method of increasing the total minutes of quality training in the week without over reaching or over training."
Here is a quote from Carmichael
"this can mean alternating workout days and recovery days one for one, or applying training load over two or three consecutive days and then allowing one or two days for recovery"
and
"After giving athletes appropriate recovery time, I found that the consecutive days of load lead to greater training adaptations"
Block training can be used in the cycles of your periodization plan. Instead of generic base1/2/3 or build1/2 periods, these can be L4 or L5 periods. Or you can mix them together. A lot of this really depends on what works for you. But many people have had success in using block training. So the principles certainly apply.
To get the most out of block training, you need to experiment and see what works for you in terms of intervals and back-to-back days. It's also a good idea to have a reasonable grasp on the concept of different energy systems, as well as a rough training plan which follows some sort of periodization principle. Putting it all together is a mix between assessing how you deal with this kind of training and laying it out into a plan that will have you in good shape for your target event without overdoing it. As always, the whole process is a work in progress. You won't be able to sit down in October and lay out exactly how next season will go. It doesn't work that way. You're always going to have snags along the way and you'll assuredly change the plan as you move along. By having a good understanding of yourself and your approaches to training, on-the-fly changes will be more useful and training more effective.
- The energy system to focus on
- Length of the block
- Stacked or staggered days
- Pure block training, or not
An example of a block using the variables above might be as follows:
- Targeting the LT system (LT push workouts)
- A 4 week block
- Back-to-back LT work on Tue/Wed
- Non pure, where weekends are used for other rides (race sims, endurance)
The next week I would bump the 20min set up to 22, or 25, or whatever worked for me. Week 3 would be another increment. Week 4 is rest & recovery. R&R actually starts on Sunday of week 3, as I will ride an easy 60 min on Sunday, then do the same Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. Thursday I throw in some sprints or harder work to get myself back in the flow. On Sunday of week 4 I got for my normal hard ride of the week. Monday starts a new 4 week block.
The theory is that you get the most gains from a block of training where you pick one area of focus, then rest, allowing your body to super-compensate. After the rest you move on to another energy system. The focus should be heavily on one system at a time. It doesn't matter what energy system you focus on, but rotating systems makes sense. How to lay that out is more an effort of your periodization plans.
The system in question is up to you, your goals, and the current point you're training at. To be complete, you should probably spend some time in each of the L3-L6 levels, as defined by Coggan. Essentially these levels are summarized by the time you can spend at a certain power output, roughly:
- L1 Recovery (forever)
- L2 Endurance (3+ hours)
- L3: Tempo (45m+)
- L4: LT (8-20m)
- L5: VO2max (3-8m)
- L6: Anaerobic Capacity (30s-3m)
- L7: Neuromuscular Power (~10s)
The most common approach is the 4 week block, where you spend 3 weeks training and 1 week recovering. Stacked back-to-back days lead to greater adaptation, as opposed to the classic staggered approach where you rest after a hard workout. Mentally this is tough, but the results are better. In order to maintain overall fitness I don't use pure block training, since that omits all other training for 3-4 weeks. My approach is usually 2 days of blocks on Tue/Wed, then an off-road ride on the weekend. Racing, race simulations, hard off-road rides, and group rides will tend to work all energy systems. I then follow a hard Saturday ride with an endurance Sunday ride, or an active recovery ride if the day before was really difficult. This is as outlined above.
An alternate approach is to do a mixed block, where you can do 2 days of L6, 2 days off, 2 days L4, 2 days off, and so on. This is probably effective at keeping yourself sharp, or for mixing up your trainer work in the offseason. This may be a good approach for the weeks leading up to a race. You can also tack L4 work onto the end of an L5/L6 workout, so long as the overall work load doesn't leave you spent. You generally want to do the more intense stuff earlier in the workout. Having said that, you don't get to choose when the killer hills are going to come up during a ride. So some high intensity stuff at the end of your workout probably better mimics the "real world", if you want to call riding a bike the real world. This isn't Day 1 sort of stuff. This is a good time to remind yourself that intervals lead to a much higher rate of dropout when added to any exercise program. They also lead to vast improvements.
In general, the training load is reduced somewhat as the block progresses, but not always. If you do 5 min intervals today then maybe shoot for 4 min intervals tomorrow. Or maybe 5-3-1, 5-4-3...you get the picture.
The exception might be the beginning of the season when the trails are messy and the roads are loaded with salt, sand, and chunks of pavement from the snow plows. The biggest drawback with pure block training is that you literally focus on only a single energy system at the expense of the others. At the beginning of the season, when you're not at the peak of fitness, you can probably get away with jumping right into a block of L5/L6 and going from there.
This fits with the reverse periodization scheme as well as the aforementioned lousy weather blues many people experience. Also, when you hit the highest energy system, you do actually work the lower systems in part. So if you're going to be exclusionary, shoot for the L5/L6 intervals at the beginning of the season. This translates to roughly 3-5 minute intervals. Many say this is where you see the best gains in the shortest period of time. So it could very well be the best way to introduce yourself to the regimented season again. After that block, you're probably better suited to get away from the pure block training and mix in some race simulation type work on the weekends to make sure you're not neglecting anything. Or at most, do a pure block of VO2max stuff, followed by a pure block of LT work. Then start your off-road or group rides to maintain your overall fitness.
There's one key to make sure it all works. Rest. With block training, you usually don't need to worry about the "hard enough" aspect of your training, though it does sometimes take a few weeks to realize that yes, you can actually go harder. If you follow the ideas of block training you'll be getting plenty of training stress. The thing you absolutely need to do is rest & recover enough. The general rule is a 1:1 ratio of work:rest. So if you have a block of 2 days, rest for 2 days. 3 days is tougher. Some can get away with 2 days but others need 3. You really need to play around with it a little to get it right. But your better off erring on the side of too much rest, especially as you get further into your block. This is a time to be in tune with your body, and to learn how to be in tune with your body. Overall, it's good to rest every 4th week for the whole week. Some people can push this to 6 weeks. Some people also choose active recovery rides on their rest days. I prefer to let the whole system rest, which includes tight knees, potential saddle sores, back issues, etc, Again, details which need to be worked out.
The amount of time you rest is also dependent on how hard you've worked. Again, this is a time to be in tune with your body. If your 3 days block has left you struggling to get out of bed, a 2 day rest might not be quite enough. Overall, block training is going to put more stress on your body, which is the driving force of the super compensation. But if you do it properly you also allow for full recovery. Another thing to remember is that it isn't necessarily based on a 7 day work week, at least pure block training isn't. So many are either forced to abandon the 7 day rotation or to not train every available weekend day, something foreign to those of us with real day jobs and free time on the weekends.
With pure block training, you would look to do something like M/T/W on, then T/F/S off. S/M/T on, and so on. Some advocate 4 day blocks, but that may be putting too much stress on the body at one time. You can also work with 2 on, 2 off, or maybe 3 on, 2 off, 2 on, 1 off. Again, much of the structure is what works for you. But you need to make sure you have 2 cornerstones for this: hard work and hard recovery. Otherwise you'll either be burnt out or underworked.
David Morris, author of the book Performance Cycling, advocates the pure approach. Says Morris:
"Remember, improvement in work capacity requires hard work and periods of rest and recovery. Thus, you should follow each block of interval work with an equal number of days complete rest or easy recovery rides."
and
"...involves training very hard for several days in a row and then resting for several days to allow the body to recover and super compensate. Frequently, to increase the training stress on the body, the same types of workouts are performed on each day of the training blocks. The theory behind block training is that overloading a single system and then allowing adequate rest will cause the system to supercompensate more than with traditional training strategies"
Morris also advocates focusing on VO2max and anaerobic intervals before LT, which also works well with reverse periodization and inclement weather. The general idea there is to first build the power, then maintain it.
Here is a quote form Tim Crowley CTS coach
"Block training- This training concept is quite popular for elite cyclist and multi sport athletes. Simplified, block training combines several (usually 2-3) quality training days, followed by an equal amount or more days of recovery. Hard training on Saturday and Sunday can be followed by 2 days of recovery. Another 1 or 2 quality days mid week can round out the training week. This is an effective method of increasing the total minutes of quality training in the week without over reaching or over training."
Here is a quote from Carmichael
"this can mean alternating workout days and recovery days one for one, or applying training load over two or three consecutive days and then allowing one or two days for recovery"
and
"After giving athletes appropriate recovery time, I found that the consecutive days of load lead to greater training adaptations"
Block training can be used in the cycles of your periodization plan. Instead of generic base1/2/3 or build1/2 periods, these can be L4 or L5 periods. Or you can mix them together. A lot of this really depends on what works for you. But many people have had success in using block training. So the principles certainly apply.
To get the most out of block training, you need to experiment and see what works for you in terms of intervals and back-to-back days. It's also a good idea to have a reasonable grasp on the concept of different energy systems, as well as a rough training plan which follows some sort of periodization principle. Putting it all together is a mix between assessing how you deal with this kind of training and laying it out into a plan that will have you in good shape for your target event without overdoing it. As always, the whole process is a work in progress. You won't be able to sit down in October and lay out exactly how next season will go. It doesn't work that way. You're always going to have snags along the way and you'll assuredly change the plan as you move along. By having a good understanding of yourself and your approaches to training, on-the-fly changes will be more useful and training more effective.
posted by Norm at 11:02 AM
1 Comments:
Thanks for all the great info!
I'm unclear about something though-- do workouts during training blocks generally increase (or dercrease) in intensity until the final rest week? How about duration?
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