Illustration photo: Annie Postma / Shutterstock.com
By looking at what the best do, and then considering why this works for them, you may gain valuable insight.
Insight that may help you improve your training and results.
So let us have a quick look at some professional numbers.
Elite athletes ride a lot – no surprise there
Male professional cyclists are commonly said to ride approximately 30 000 to 35 000 km each year (1-3).
If you were to ride this distance at an average speed of 30-35 km/hour, this would bring your yearly training volume close to 1000 hours per year.
As a specific example, these are fairly close to the numbers recorded by the French Thibault Pinot in his successful 2013 season. During which he clocked a total of 943 training hours.
It should come to no surprise that world-class cycling performances require close to 1000 yearly training hours.
What is more interesting is the content of these training hours.
World class road cyclists do a lot of low intensity work
A natural step in analyzing the training of pro riders is to look at their distribution of training intensity.
van Erp did an impressive piece of research on this matter by analysing 4 years of training data from riders of the professional Team Sunweb (4).
After reviewing close to 10 000 training files, they observed the following distribution of power data (using Allen & Coggan’s FTP-based zones):
To simplify this analysis we could break the above data up into the even simpler 3-tier intensity system.
Here, any training in power zone 1, 2 and lower half of power zone 3 would be characterised as low intensity training.
The upper half of power zone 4, plus zone 5 would constitute high intensity training.
Whereas, the remaining high end of power zone 3 and lower end of zone 4 would be considered moderate intensity training.
Although probably somewhat inaccurate, this crude conversion yields an approximate distribution of training intensity of:
- Men: 90.1% low, 5.5% moderate and 4.4% high intensity
- Women: 83.9% low, 7.7% moderate and 8.4% high intensity
Notice the the domination of low intensity training, compared to the relatively smaller amounts of moderate and high intensity work.
PS! The above data included training and races.
Professional road cyclists train across all three major intensity zones
While low intensity training may dominate, it also seems that pro riders spend significant time at moderate and high intensity throughout the season.
In 2007, Zapico and colleagues published training data from 14 male road cyclists at elite U23 level (2). Their reporting on training intensity was based on heart rate recordings.
During the pre-competition training, the U23 riders performed 77.7% low, 19.7% moderate and 2.4% high intensity training.
During the competition period of the season, this changed to 69.9% low, 22.1% moderate and 8.1% high intensity work.
A fairly similar picture was provided by Lucia and colleagues. Back in 2000 they published their findings from looking into the training of 13 male professional road cyclists (1). Here too, intensity reports were based on heart rate.
During the pre-competition training period, the professional riders accumulated a total of 77.8% low, 17.3% moderate and 4.9% high intensity training.
In the following competition period, riders performed 76.8% low, 15.1% moderate and 8.1% high intensity work.
These results suggest a somewhat more intensified training regime than that of the Sunweb riders. Specifically, more time is spent at moderate and high intensity. However, low intensity training is still and by far the most dominating training mode.
An example from a highly decorated female mountain biker
The nature of mountain bike races is arguably somewhat different from road bike races. As such, it would be interesting to compare the training of MTB riders to that of riders on road cycling.
Throughout her career, the Norwegian mountain bike rider Gunn Rita Dahle Flesjå achieved an Olympic gold medal, 10 World Champion titles, 9 European Champion titles and 4 overall titles in the World Cup.
During what has been described as her “most successful season”, Dahle Flesjå recorded the following training (5):
Importantly, the numbers of Dahle Flesjå are not based directly on heart rate recordings. Instead, training intensity is reported based on the “plan and feel method” (modifies session goal method).
By our simple 3-tier system, the training of Dahle Flesjå would constitute approximately:
- 86% low intensity work
- 7% moderate intensity work
- 7% high intensity work
Interestingly, this matches the distribution of the female road cycling professionals of Team Sunweb almost to a tee.
Take into account the differences in reporting (power data vs the “plan and feel method”) it is interesting to see that the training intensity of riders at elite road cycling and MTB level appears to be such a close match.
An example from a junior world champion time trial cyclist
In 2012, Oskar Svendsen was crowned junior world champion in time trial cycling. This event occurred only 3 years after he converted from alpine skiing to road cycling.
During that same year, Svendsen recorded a test result that to our knowledge remains the highest ever published by a cyclist – a VO2 max recording of 96.7 ml/min/kg (6).
Svendsen’s training in the years leading into his World Championship title are illustrated below.
During the three years leading into his World Champion title, his training intensity distribution was as follows (6):
16 year of age: 496 hours/year including 77% low, 20% moderate and 3% high intensity training.
17 years of age: 694 hours/year including 81% low, 14% moderate and 5% high intensity training.
18 years of age: 759 hours/year including 78% low, 16% moderate and 6% high intensity training.
Unfortunately, I have not yet received a reply from the author of this study to verify whether these numbers are based on HR data or the “plan and feel method”.
In total, Svendsen’s training intensity follows neatly within the emerging pattern from this lesson.
Yet again, we se an intensity distribution where approximately 8 out of 10 training hours occur at low intensity. A lesser volume of training takes place at moderate intensity. Finally, an even smaller but not insignificant amount of training is performed as high intensity training.
Summary of take-aways
Let us review what we have learnt so far.
Firstly, professional cyclists need to take on big training loads. Close to 1000 hours and 30 000 – 35 000 km per year are commonly reported.
Secondly, the great bulk of this training is performed at low intensity. Around 70-90% of all training takes place at this intensity.
Finally, professional cyclists tend to spend somewhat more time at moderate than at high intensity.
In summary, we see that professional cyclists spend training time in all the three major intensity zones.
At this point it would be very tempting to conclude “well, I need to simply copy that distribution of intensity then”.
Not so fast.
The wise next step would be to consider why these professional riders train the way they do.
This is exactly what we will be doing in the next post. I will get back to you in a few days time, so look out for my next mail in your inbox.