When I first started training, I used the infamous Cyclist’s Training Bible to plan out my season and come up with workouts. Weekends often consisted of a pair of group rides in which I would either hang for dear life or smash myself into the ground. During the weeks I would do some structured workouts as recommended by Friel. They usually consisted of a few sets of one or two step intervals. It was pretty simple. I had a Polar computer with heart rate (HR) and slowly began to look at training zones based on my HR.
Eventually I got a coach who provided relatively simple workouts utilizing HR zones. If I couldn’t remember a workout, I’d write it down on a piece of paper and throw it in my pocket. This was extremely rare as again the workouts consisted of a handful of one or two step intervals. The most complicated would be some sort of burst or over/unders where there may be three steps in each interval.
Without venturing too far down memory lane, as technology advanced, so did I. I bought a power meter and watts became my life. Even though my Garmin could save and display workouts, I had no need. My workouts were never that complicated. Then came the TrainingPeaks workout builder – a tool that I still use and have found it invaluable in both short and long term planning.
Advanced technology can complicate things
I began to build all my workouts in TrainingPeaks – I still do, it’s an invaluable tool. It was so easy to read about some crazy workout and then build it out. The first eye opener was “Tractor Pulls”. It’s a workout from Hunter Allen and while it looked interesting, it was just too much to remember and was too long to write down. I plugged that workout into the builder, downloaded it to my Garmin and BOOM – I was off. 39 intervals…no problem! (I have nothing against this workout, it’s a great workout and can provide good adaptations.)
You can easily see where I was headed. I no longer had the money for a coach, so I scoured the Internet for workouts. While there were, and still are, some great resources, the most appealing were the workouts that had dozens of steps and sounded “cool”. As you can tell, the science part of my training was lacking. I had the basic idea and structure, but as my time decreased and my aspirations increased, these flashy workouts seemed to be the thing.
As I’ve dug into the science and began to look at things in more detail, I’ve realized that if you can’t memorize a workout, or write it down on a notepad sized piece of paper, it’s probably not that effective – KISS workouts. The flashy “secret” workouts aren’t any more effective than a simple, practical approach.
Why bring it up now?
I recently did The Rønnestad workout. It’s a VO2 Max workout that consists of short, Tabata style intervals. I opened it in my Wahoo and there were 89 intervals! To be fair, I could probably write this one down and do it. It’s 30 seconds on / 15 seconds off (repeat three times). I load all of my workouts into my Wahoo, even if it’s a simple 3×10 Sweet Sport workout. In some of these higher intensity workouts (like The Rønnestad), it’s nice to have your computer beep when your heart rate is maxed out and your vision is so blurry you can’t see your computer.
As I said, when backed by science and real world application/experience, I won’t argue with a workout. However, I firmly believe workouts don’t need to be complex. I reached peak numbers last season (I know, numbers aren’t everything) without a 100 interval workout.
I go back to my original start with structured intervals: if you can’t remember it in your head – is it truly an effective and worthwhile workout? Or, is it just some fancy hodgepodge that makes you think it’s an effective workout? Think about those KISS workouts.