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80 posts in Training science
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The cycling year: how to plan twelve months from off-season to peak
Transition, base, build, peak, race: what each block is for, how long it runs for an amateur with one summer goal, and where the neat diagram and the messy year part ways.
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The off-season: how long to rest and what to keep doing
Two to four weeks of light, unstructured riding, one short hard session kept, and not past six. The detraining studies say what you lose, how fast, and which losses are cheap.
Base, build, peak: what each phase changes in your body
Mitochondria and capillaries in base, VO2max and threshold in build, fatigue cleared in the taper. What each phase does, how fast, and why the order is biology rather than tradition.
Cross-training for cyclists: running, skiing and swimming that transfer
Fitness built in another sport reaches the bike through your heart and lungs, not your legs. What the transfer studies say, and how skiing, running and swimming rank.
Training with an injury: what you can keep doing and what to stop
Most cycling injuries leave some training on the table. Keep the intensity in whatever you can still do, load tendons rather than rest them, and rest fully for the few that demand it.
Four hours a week: the most fitness you can get from very little time
At four hours a week the 80/20 rule stops applying and two well-chosen interval sessions do most of the work. What the low-volume studies found, and a week that fits.
Junk miles: what they are and when they aren't
Easy riding is not junk; the fittest riders do most of their hours there. Unplanned medium riding usually is. A three-question test for any ride, and the evidence behind it.
Aerobic threshold: the test you can do on any trainer
Three field methods for finding your aerobic threshold without a lab: the talk test, heart-rate drift over a steady hour, and DFA alpha 1. What each is validated against and how far to trust it.
Standing power: why some riders climb out of the saddle and others can't
Standing adds body weight and upper-body bracing to the pedal stroke, at a cost in oxygen that only pays off near maximal effort or on steep roads. Who it suits, and how to train it.
Consistency beats everything: the evidence for boring training
The strongest predictor of an endurance result is how much of the planned training got done. Why gaps cost more than they look, why the spike after a gap is the enemy, and rules for boring training.
Does your speed in an indoor cycling app actually mean anything?
It is an honest measurement of exactly one thing: how fast your back wheel is spinning. What that is genuinely useful for, why it is not your road speed, and why the hill on screen does not slow you down when you ride on speed alone.
Why you stopped getting faster
For two years cycling gives you progress for free. Then one spring it stops. The six causes of a plateau in roughly the order they turn out to be the answer — and the uncomfortable sixth one, which is that you may be measuring the wrong thing.
How long should your intervals be?
Which intervals are best is the wrong question, in a specific and fixable way: length and intensity are one choice, not two. What each duration actually trains, how to pick by what your event demands, and how to progress a session that got easy.
Training camps: the week is only half of it
The most enjoyable training an amateur can do, and one of the most frequently wasted. A sensible day-by-day shape, how much volume is actually sensible, and the fortnight afterwards that decides whether any of it counted.
The training diary still beats the dashboard
Your files record what you did, how hard and for how long. What none of it knows is why Thursday collapsed. Six fields worth keeping, thirty seconds a day, and what a season of them lets you see that no metric will.
Training young riders: the principles worth holding
The area of cycling where confident advice does the most damage. Three broad stages, four things to get right, and why the only goal that matters is whether they still want to ride at 25.
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