Cycling Science Digest sample
The volume question.
A sample issue showing how SEMIPRO turns a new study into practical coaching language, then connects it to a podcast recording and a YouTube recommendation.
Podcast companion
Listen to this as a podcast recording.
The volume question.
There is a tug-of-war in every serious cyclist training week.
Intensity is exciting. Volume is boring. So when a new block of intervals shows up on the plan, the temptation is to clear the decks. Pull back the long rides. Drop the easy days. Make room for the important work.
A study just landed that puts a number on what that costs you. Not in a lab full of beginners. In well-trained cyclists who already knew how to suffer.
What they did.
Christensen and colleagues took eighteen well-trained male cyclists. Average VO2max around seventy-one. Closer to your strongest training mates than to a WorldTour pro, but quick.
They ran them through seven weeks of intensified training. Three high-intensity sessions per week. A mix of four-minute efforts and thirty-second efforts. All during the competitive season.
Half the group kept their normal moderate-intensity volume. The other half cut it by about a third, roughly five hours a week less.
Both groups did the same hard work. The only thing that changed was the volume sitting underneath it.
What they found.
Both groups got fitter. That is the headline. Intensified training works.
But what they got fitter at was different.
The group that kept volume up improved the foundations. Higher power on an incremental test. Lower oxygen cost and lower blood lactate at submaximal intensity. The boring stuff that lets you ride strong for hours.
The group that cut volume improved the sharp end. Better repeated sprinting deep into a long ride. They got punchier when they were tired.
Same intervals. Different adaptations. The volume underneath chose which one you got.
The bottom line.
Volume is not the cost of intensity. It is the thing that decides what your intensity becomes.
What to do.
- If you are adding a HIT block: keep your easy volume. Defend the long ride. The intervals are the spark. The volume is the engine they run on.
- If you race endurance events: protect the moderate stuff. Cut it and you will get sharper but ride a worse race.
- If your event is short and punchy: the reduced-volume pattern might fit. You are trading endurance economy for repeated sprint capacity.
- If you have eight hours a week or less: do not try to live in both worlds. Pick the dominant goal and let the volume reflect it.
Click worthy
How 3 Hours of Cycling Completely Transforms Your Body
On my mind.
I had a coaching call this week with an athlete coming back from a crash. The call sat with me all week, and the pattern in it is universal.
Right at the top of the call I could hear it in their voice. The fight response. When you are forced off the bike, the motivation does not disappear. It pools. By the time the body is ready, the fight in you is bigger than before.
That instinct is correct in direction and wrong in dose. Almost every time.
You are not starting from scratch. A few weeks off after a solid block does not reset you. What goes first is the top end. Sharpness, repeatability, snap. The rest is a long tail.
Use the first rides as tests, not workouts. The first two weeks back are diagnostic. They are not where you make gains. They are where you find out what gains you have to work with.
The biggest danger is not the injury. It is the overtraining on the way back.
Damian
“Saves me valuable time on having to search for the articles myself.”
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