Set yourself up for success: tips to make your training more successful
It happens time and again, people start training with the intent of getting fit, losing weight, or crushing their local criterium/mountain bike stage race/bikepacking adventure. A few weeks in and all is well….but as the fatigue of the unfolding season’s training creeps in, and it becomes easier to make excuses and roll over and hit snooze instead of heading out.
If your motivation isn’t being impacted by other factors (poor nutrition, extra stress, ramping your volume up too high, economic woes etc etc) then it’s likely that you can benefit from these few easy tips to set yourself up for success in your training plan.
Take a whole-week approach
Thankfully now I have a little more flexibility in my life, but at the stage I was most driven to race hard and fast I was working as a full time paramedic, fitting in rides between 7am-7pm shifts and using commutes as extra volume. This was effective, if not a very short-term approach for success due to excessive levels of fatigue. But the point is, I could still manage 14-hours a week around 12 hour shifts because I had a schedule that allowed it. I realise not everyone has the same level of support and that has it’s own limitations, but on 12+ hour days I would roll out at 0400 for a hill session on the mountain bike before heading to work, working 12-14 hours, then an easy hour trundle home.
Why did it work? Aside from a slightly unhinged motivation, it was all about preparing for the week ahead, knowing what sessions were where and how it would impact the rest of the family. If I had a late start and my partner would go to work, I would train on the ergo then do school drop, and my partner would do pickup. On those early days I had the whole day as I was useless for drop off and pickup, but had to manage my time and energy so could only do 90min prior to work and an hour on the way home. Weekends were always negotiated.
How to do it:
Have a look through your program and identify days where it’s really important to be organised. If working within the family unit, I find a big whiteboard or weekly A3 paper with everyone’s commitments and movements really useful. Writing this out gives you scope to visualise your week and realistically see if there are a clash of events or things that will get in the way, and gives you some space to move training around or plan sessions in the shed/on the trainer if need be.
2. Go to bed ready
That’s right guys, wear your cycling clothing to bed!
No actually that was a joke please don’t do that. But the idea is the same, maybe don’t put your clothing on; but get your gear out and ready to go. This is especially important if it’s winter and it’s cold outside! There is nothing worse than digging deep into your drawer for an arm warmer at 0500 in the morning in the pitch dark. If that’s not an excuse to go back to bed I do’t know what is!
How to do it:
For example, I have my kit laid out and ready in the wardrobe including gloves, socks and bra (and cold weather warmers/vests/jackets). Outside, I have my helmet, glasses and shoes together (spares ON the bike ready to go!), and inside on the kitchen bench I have my multi-tool, heart rate strap, cycling computer, aeropex headphones and snacks to throw in my pocket. Check your tyre pressure and lube your chain the night before (and charge any bike batteries required!) and when you have all this ready, getting out of the house is a piece of cake!
3. Check your session, sync your computers
When you have a quick minute after getting all your things ready, it’s a good chance to check in on what your session is. This way you can sync your workout to your device (if using structured workouts!) and read an understand the goals of the sessions and how to execute properly. For specific sessions, getting ready for these may require a bit of forethought about route planning for example, if you have ten minute hill repeats where will you do them? Can you get down in the recovery time? I like to put as much ‘joy riding’ in amongst structured workouts by weaving my favourite places in between the hard work.
4. Fuelling is part of the Matrix
And no, not the movie. Training is asking something exceptional of your body regularly, and in order for it to perform you must fuel well. This means looking at general fuelling and ‘looking after yourself’ (think: eating vegetables, enough carbohydrates for energy and protein for muscle repair) as well as specifically looking at nutrition before, during and after sessions. For really ‘big’ days this may mean taking stock of fuelling well the night before as well as having a plan for the session itself, and thinking about what is required for less ‘big’ (but perhaps more intense days, or even moderate days that require fuelling to perform optimally). Fuelling well involves recovery food, and as such paying attention to nourishing your body after your session will pay dividends in the next session and throughout the whole season. So when planning your session, have a bit of a plan for refuelling as well.
5. Life happens
Kids get sick, places flood, rampant virus’ crush our mojo. These things (and more!) have all happened to my athletes within the past few weeks, and having road blocks is just part of life. Even professional athletes have to content with illness and injury! All or nothing thinking can have you throwing away your season because of a few hiccups, but in all likelihood it’s possible that many of your competitors are facing similar struggles on occasion. It’s important to remember that one performance isn’t made or broken with one session, and that a whole overview, and consistency throughout a season, is key to success.
