cycling Archives - Waite Endurance

NEW Body Comp Booster Plan

October 6, 2022
Blog

Work with a dietitian and optional continuous glucose monitor this off-season enhance your diet to become a fat-burning machine and improve your body composition!

NEW FOR 2023:

OFF-SEASON BODY COMP TRAINING PLAN.

As we head into the off-season, we’re already dreaming of longer days and PRs at our next season’s “A Event”.

More so than any training program, interval sessions, increased volume, or lightweight equipment you could attain, your biggest time gains in an endurance cycling event come from improving your body composition. Put more directly, unless your percent body fat is already in the single digits (or mid-teens for females), losing fat mass will make you faster, period.

SLOW DOWN TO GET FASTER.

In between seasons is the time to make changes to better yourself. Because you don’t have to perform in the off-season, there is room to be far from a peak performance; this allows you to slow down your training intensity to develop your fat-oxidizing energy system and emphasize lean-tissue development through resistance training.

TRAINING THE OXIDATIVE SYSTEM:

“Low-Intensity Structure” is the key to igniting your fat oxidizing aerobic energy system. Each week includes training your aerobic system through a combination of short, structured Aerobic Threshold sessions (perfect for mid-week trainer sessions), slightly longer “zone 2” indoor or outdoor rides, and optional cross-training activities on the weekends. This is the off-season after all, and training loads should be kept to a minimum with fat-burning at a maximum during this time of the year.

SIGN ME UP!

IMPROVE YOUR DIET WITH A PRO.

We’ve partnered with a registered dietitian, specializing in metabolic efficiency, to include personal support to assist you in optimizing your eating habits for improved body composition and performance.

Through the optional use of a Continuous Glucose Monitor (CGM) and four private video-consultations you’ll learn how to manage your diet & nutrition to support your training efforts leading to improved lean body composition and PRs race days!

Christine Zimmerman

MPH, RDN, CDCES

Christine is a registered dietitian/nutritionist (RDN), certified diabetes care and education specialist (CDCES), Metabolic Efficiency Training Specialist, and Certified Intuitive Eating™ counselor in Colorado. She has a Bachelor’s degree from North Carolina State University and Master’s in Public Health from UNC-Chapel Hill. Christine provides Diabetes Self Management Education, Medical Nutrition Therapy services, and Metabolic Efficiency Training for endurance athletes through her private practice in Morrison, Colorado.

YOUR OFF-SEASON TICKET TO RACE DAY SUCCESS!

Improve your diet while emphasizing aerobic fat-burning training and lean tissue promoting strength training to improve your body composition. Utilize your off-season to get leaner, healthier and faster in 2023!

8-Week Off-Season Body Comp Booster Plan

$419

Four Consults with a Dietitian
Optimize Your Diet Strategies
Utilize a Continuous Glucose Monitor (optional)
Increase Lean Body Mass
Improve Aerobic Function
Gain Off-Season Structure
Improve Metabolic Health Before Next Season!

Once payment is made, we’ll be in touch via email within 48-hours to deliver your training plan via Training Peaks & Train Heroic, and schedule your metabolic efficiency video-consultations.

Finding Form with these Strategies

July 19, 2019
Blog

Your Base has been built. You put in the quality Race Prep training. Now you’re just a few weeks out from your A-Race. The time is now for… Finding Form.

What exactly is form?

Form is the combination of high fitness coming from a quality training block, high freshness from appropriate restoration, and race readiness from the right pre-event workouts that leave you prepared for a peak performance.

Finding Form is essentially the taper and peak process going into your A-Event. The final weeks heading into an A-Race can be the most difficult time of the training season for many athletes. At this point in the season, with two weeks to go, the training is done; “the hay is in the barn,” as is said. You worked hard for many weeks, if not months, to build fitness and prepare for a peak performance. Your last few weeks of training may have been among your hardest and/or highest volume depending on your target event demands. Regardless, you should be very fit, and likely quite fatigued from the quality work.

Freshen Up to Find Form

With your fitness at or near its highest point of the season, it is now time to recover and freshen up for a peak performance. With high fitness comes high fatigue (as both come from consistent training). While you can still race well with high fitness and accumulated fatigue, you will almost certainly race even better (ie. “peak performance”) if you can shed that fatigue and replace it with freshness; all while minimizing the loss of fitness… AKA: the taper and/or “finding form.”

Within that statement above is the tricky part of finding form… In order to gain fitness you must accumulate fatigue; meaning you may be very fit, but also a bit tired or lacking freshness. In order to gain freshness you must lose (some) fitness. It’s a balance and one that can be a difficult task to achieve to perfection. You must train hard to get fit. As you train hard you get tired. To perform your best you must train less (for a short bit) to regain freshness and achieve a peak performance. Sounds easy, right?

The S:6 Base Builder Program: Block 5

March 4, 2018
Blog

Spring is on the horizon and we’re 2/3 complete with our Off-Season Base Build Program with the final 1/3 coming up! I’m not going to lie, the last 8 weeks have been challenging for our 45 in-house athletes training with us Monday-Thursdsay each week. The middle third of our program is perhaps the most challenging on the bike with Anaerobic Threshold intervals (block 3) and even more so the Vo2 Max intervals twice weekly (block 4). Combine that with continued resistance training on Mondays and Wednesdays and you can see how the training load is reaching a peak. See exactly how we structured our Vo2 Max intervals on the bike in our previous post in this series: Block 4.

This very same 24-week program is available as a downloadable training plan on Training Peaks ( 24-week Base Build Training Plan ). We also have a more condensed 12-week Base Build Training Plan available to those that prefer a shorter, faster build of early season base fitness. Both versions allow you to follow my programming on your own where ever you live!

Our upcoming Block 5 makes up weeks 17-20 in the 24-weeks of our Base Build Program. You can read more about each previous block from links at top.

The S:6 Base Builder Program: Block 4

February 3, 2018
Blog

It’s February and we’re now halfway through our Off-Season Base Build Program. Our local, in-house program of 45 Denver-based athletes are now beginning to feel the fitness gains! We’ve met 4 days a week, most weeks, for the last 12 weeks for indoor gym sessions, trainer sessions, and testing. A solid base of aerobic and strength training has been established in the first half of the program. We’re now prepared to build off the basic fitness and add some appropriate amounts of higher intensity work in the form of faster more powerful movements in the gym (plyometrics) as well as shorter and more powerful intervals on the bike in the sound half of the program.

This very same 24-week program is available as a downloadable training plan on Training Peaks ( 24-week Base Build Training Plan ). We also have a more condensed 12-week Base Build Training Plan available to those that prefer a shorter, faster build of early season base fitness. Both versions allow you to follow my programming on your own where ever you live!

Block 4 makes up weeks 13-16 in the 24-weeks of our Base Build Program. You can read more about previous blocks from links at top.

The S:6 Base Builder Program: Block 3

January 15, 2018
Blog

Happy New Year! January brings block 3 of our Off-Season Base Build Program with our local in-house athletes in Denver. We meet 4 days a week, most weeks, for 6 months for indoor gym sessions, trainer sessions, and testing. Weekends are for getting outside on your own and going longer to build endurance. We also offer the very same program as a 24-week Base Build Training Plan, as well as a more condensed 12-week Base Build Training Plan, to follow on your own where ever you live.

Upon conclusion of Block 2 we took a little recovery time through the New Year holiday window and returned on January 2nd for our second of 4 testing sessions within our 6-month program. Our first test was at the end of October right before we kicked off official training; test two was 8 weeks later right after the new year, tests 3 and 4 will follow in 8-week cycles at the 2/3 point of the program and conclusion of the program. We prefer testing every 8-weeks as this provides enough time for fitness to evolve and provides a carrot of sorts to keep your training consistent so you make the improvements you’re looking for.

With test results in-hand we can check progress, reset training zones, keep motivation high, and get ready for further improvements over the next blocks of training.

Block 3 builds upon Blocks 1 & 2 with continued progressions in the gym and on the bike.

The S:6 Off-Season Base Builder Cycling Plan (a deep dive!)

August 18, 2017
Blog

The stationary trainer is one of the best tools in your training arsenal.

The highly controllable environment makes it one of the most effective ways to improve your cycling power. By allowing your workouts to be controlled using variables like time, gearing, cadence, power and heart rate you can more easily execute precise, repeatable intervals. On the trainer you can eliminate the uncontrollable variables found in outdoor workouts like varying terrain, wind, weather, traffic, etc. You can focus solely on the work you are performing to make the most out of the time you are putting into your training.

Our 24 Week Base Builder Program/Plan, as well as its condensed little brother: the 12 Week Base Builder Program/Plan, are both designed to be performed during your “off-season”. The term off-season is referring to time off from racing, as opposed to time off from training. This concept is explained in a previous post, Ideas for Your Off-Season. During this off-season base-building phase your primary objectives are to develop a strong aerobic system and build sport-specific strength.

Training Blocks

Our 24-week Base Builder program is built around six 3-week training blocks. Each block has a specific training focus that builds upon the previous block in intensity and training load. Within each block there are three weeks of loading (training) followed by one week of recovery (low-intensity), before getting into the next block. Each training block targets a specific energy system and the overall progression is from lowest intensity to highest intensity before reaching a peak at the end of your base build.

The energy system block progression on the trainer includes the following: