On this edition of the Ask Coach Parry Cycling podcast we take a look at base training and how building a solid base can help improve your cycling performance at a race like the Cape Town Cycle Tour or the 947 Cycle Challenge.

Transcript

Brad Brown: This is the Ask Coach Parry Cycling podcast, my name is Brad Brown, thanks for joining us today. I’ve got Devlin Eyden with us once again. Devlin it’s a few weeks now since the Cape Town Cycle Tour and the next sort of big fun ride is happening up north, the Momentum 94.7 Cycle Challenge, obviously those are the two big, big races in South Africa.

There’s lots in between though, but a question in with regards to base training and someone is saying that they want to try and improve their performance at the Momentum 94.7 Cycle Challenge and they’ve heard lots about base training and make sure that you do a lot of base training before your actual training, per se, starts for a race like that. Talk to us a little bit about base training, what are the benefits of base training and how do you go about building a solid base?

Devin Eyden: It’s a really good question and again, you have mentioned, there’s a lot of talk about base training. I think the first thing just to keep in mind, when we are talking about base training is making sure that we’re periodising our training correctly, making sure that you’re giving yourself enough time to build a good base.

You need to have balance in the training, so if we’re dealing with a long period of time before a target event, for instance, the base training then is the main focus and will probably take up a good 80% of your weekly training with the balance of that being more intensity work and more quality work. The closer we then get to that event, that ratio will obviously shift more towards the quality and the intensity but never really getting rid of the base.

The idea of the base training though is it’s a cardiovascular fitness that we’ve got that’s helping us to, for a prolonged intensity type of ride. Being able to get on the bike, being able to keep a high intensity for a lot longer is why we do the base training in the first place.

With that, it allows a recovery a lot quicker and a lot better as well between high intensity bursts as opposed to just doing high intensity work and you get out on the ride and you’re spending 4/5 hours at a time, you do the high intensity work, but you’re struggling to recover in between in order to keep going and keep going harder for longer.

BB: Devlin, as far as that base training goes, as a coach, what would be the ideal period out from the race? Let’s talk in months, the 94.7 Cycle Challenge coming up in November, if it’s the Cape Town Cycle Tour, depends on when you’re listening to this thing, but as a coach, ideally, if you’re working with someone, how long before a race like that do you want to actually start and building that base and then getting someone in their best possible shape for that race?

DE: Look, I typically like to get the guys out, probably about a good four, maybe even five months out of an event, so that you actually can start planning things a lot better. From a base point as well, obviously like I said, depending on the time you have, but I generally like to work on almost two base blocks. Building the intensity slightly in those blocks, but a base block typically being about 6 to 8 weeks of more lower intensity, the longer period ride and from there when we start building into the second base block, we’ll do a little bit of a transition period.

In between the two, in terms of the intensity and high focus on some speed and some power work, but then focusing onto a second base block that’s a little bit more intense, but still with the focus on maintaining for longer.

BB: Cool, I think that’s a fabulous answer. If you’d like some individual coaching and you’d like some help with a big race you’ve got coming up, all you need to do is head over to coachparry.com/cyclingcoaching and you can get all the details there, get Devlin to help you out and put in a great performance in your upcoming A race. Until next time, from the two of us, it’s cheers.