2015/1 The Journal of ISSN Number 1353-7008 Cycle Coaching The Association of British Cycling Coaches Developing and Sharing Best Practice Adam Topham, Multiple BBAR Champion The Journal of Cycle Coaching: Issue No 1:2015 ABCC Administrator: Mark Gorman Treasurer: Chip Rafferty 3 Glebelands, Calstock, Cornwall. PL18 9SG Email [email protected] Tel: 01822 834424 Mobile: 07974 887259 Committee: Shaun Bradbury, Dr Auriel Forrester, Richard Guymer, Chairman: Bob Hayward Steve Harrop, Duncan Leith, Red House, The Street, Martin Nash, Gerry Robinson, Redgrave, Diss, Norfolk, IP221RY Dave Wall, Dr Gordon Wright Telephone: 01379 898726 Email: [email protected] Content Foreword..................................................................................... 3 Train SMART or train More (Adam Topham)....................................... 4 Sky story (Gerry Robinson)............................................................ 9 Riding through Glue (Mark Jones)................................................... 12 A Blast from the Past …................................................................. 17 Book Reviews............................................................................... 21 Cover photograph reproduced courtesy of Kimroy Photography Page 2 The Journal of Cycle Coaching: Issue No 1:2015 Foreword Notes from the Sub-Committee Notes from the Administrator. This issue of the journal is about By now the Christmas pudding “thinking outside the box”. The key should have been digested and New to winning at top levels is to be Year's resolutions made. Like the prepared to question long majority I'm hoping for more from established beliefs and to experiment my riding in 2015 (time permitting). with doing things differently from the majority. Some of it may sound like Membership renewal reminders have heresy but the results speak for been sent to all of those due to themselves. renew in January. If you have not received one or you have changed Adam Topham surprises us all by your contact details, please let me revealing that he does not do know. If your membership is due intervals and trains right through the later in the year, you will be sent a traditional off-season but he has won reminder several weeks before the the BBAR three times. due date. Gerry Robinson light heartedly takes Things are moving on apace. a trip into a very different electronic Student registration in 2014 was up future. 30% on the previous three years. This bodes well for the future and Then Mark Jones uses new ideas on seems to indicate that interest in aerodynamics to show how only coaching is increasing. generating 300 watts can result in a series of short 19’s for 10 mile time From the 1st of January the training trials. course has moved to a fully online system. Students and coaches can Finally an article from the Sporting access the latest versions of the Cyclist of 1962 shows that no matter training modules using the secure whether the methods are old or new area of the ABCC website. the key to success is dedication. The editorial team is also doing Don't forget that this is your things differently by separating the Association. If there is anything you skills of selecting and writing would like to see or any matter you specialist cycling coaching articles would like to raise with the from the journalistic skills of Committee, please let us know. compiling a journal. We hope you like the result. Wishing you all a happy and The editorial team: Gerry Robinson, prosperous New Year. Gordon Wright, Jim Sampson, Lewis Hall. Mark Gorman Page 3 The Journal of Cycle Coaching: Issue No 1:2015 Adam Topham Adam Topham is a top class rider and this year won the CTT BBAR for the third consecutive year. Adam has kindly produced the following article based on his successful presentation at this years Pedal Power. Train SMART or train More? As a recipient of this journal it seems completely messing up my training, highly unlikely that the ‘train smart’ and at the optimistic end of the scale, revolution has passed you by. I was may support the notion that I have invited to present to the Pedal Power managed to evolve a highly effective annual ABCC conference in November approach to medium-to-long-term 2014, and this article conveys the progression. essence of that presentation, the subject of which was my thoughts Training Smart and interpretations of the dilemma I’d like to start by exploring some presented by the title of this article, general perceptions about what might in relation to endurance sport constitute training smart. A common progression. association seems to be the concept It seems appropriate to clarify my of training less, or less hard, for the credentials, or indeed lack of same as same or better return. Heavy some may conclude, to wax lyrical emphasis is placed upon recovery upon this topic. I am not a cycling and the avoidance of over-training. coach. I am not a physiologist. Being in your best shape for target Neither am I a sports scientist. I am races is another recurring ‘train an ‘ist’, however, namely a cycling smart’ phenomenon. And of course I time-triallist. It is therefore not my certainly sense a perception that intention to preach to or to educate smart training should encompass the anyone within these few paragraphs, latest thinking in terms of what but rather to provide some food for constitutes effective training thought about the relationship protocols. between training smart and training Now there is most certainly some more, and to explore their various merit in the inclusion of most of virtues and detriments in the these elements into an effective formulation of training approaches training plan. You may or may not be and programs. I do this from the shocked to discover I have little faith position of a highly ambitious rider in the concept of training less or less who has risen through the ranks of hard, a statement that perhaps steals UK time-trialling over the last 8 some later thunder, but that I can years, to heights that would at the live with. I would firmly contend, very least suggest I haven’t been however, that those elements that remain are most certainly NOT the embodiment of training smart. Page 4 The Journal of Cycle Coaching: Issue No 1:2015 For me, training smart is about WHAT Recovery schedule that training delivers and NOT about Periodisation HOW it is executed. Training smart is Races / events about reasonable, sustained Tapering progression, attaining ongoing LIFE!!! improvements in results or Health and wellbeing performances, and providing a Nutrition vehicle for an athlete’s personal fulfilment from their chosen I would identify the main outputs endurance sport. If training achieves from the infinite variety of possible those three virtues, I suspect very recipes combining the above few would argue it wasn’t at least ingredients as: quite clever! Of course I would be a long way back Sustainability in the queue of those arguing that Rate of progression recovery is not an essential Race performance component of a training program, Health and wellbeing albeit I’m possibly a little further Personal fulfilment back still, in the queue of riders clamouring for said recovery. What I probably cannot encompass the many riders may not appreciate is entire multitude of dilemmas that effective recovery cannot exist in presented in training program isolation. In isolation it is simply development and evolution, but here recovery, or rest, or doing nothing, or are at least some of the main culprits downright laziness! Effective arising from the aforementioned recovery can ONLY arise as the result variety of inputs and outputs: of having something to recover from. No training overload, no effective Intensity versus hours recovery! Variety versus measurability Progressive growth versus The training cycle sustainability The formulation of a training program Overall load versus that appropriately engineers this Necessary recovery overload, and of course enables the Fitness versus freshness effective recovery, is fraught with a Potential and goal-setting multitude of dilemmas. Before I raise some of those dilemmas, I’d like to These dilemmas NEVER go away. identify the main inputs and outputs They are frustratingly omnipresent, from a program that give rise to such because everything affects dilemmas. There are many possible everything else, and a given athlete inputs into a training program, is likely to be changing and evolving including but not limited to: all the time. Overall training load High level composition Session construction Page 5 The Journal of Cycle Coaching: Issue No 1:2015 I plan and execute my training in a have his or her various biometric continuous cycle of: markers measured and monitored, no one can ever know for sure if there isn’t something they could do as well or instead, or even simply stop doing, that would make them even quicker. For those of us that don’t have the opportunity to be scientifically monitored, the uncertainties are gargantuan. I therefore consider the biggest conundrum in developing and executing effective training isn’t in WHAT to try or how to refine it, but in how to effectively evaluate it. What to evaluate it against. How is one even supposed to know what rate The execution and measurement of progression to expect? elements I consider to be somewhat unhelpfully intertwined. In order to effectively measure the impact of one’s Goal setting and the limits to training, one needs to execute it in research such a way that it IS measurable, hence my observation that one of the The absence of absolutes is no dilemmas is variety versus doubt a considerable source of measurability. Evaluation and frustration for many. The singular refinement is underpinned in my escape route from this frustration approach by the mantra that if your is to EMBRACE the fact there ARE training isn’t working, change it; if it’s no absolutes.