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Fitness Training Like A Champion

Fitness Training Like A Champion 


Mo Farah's Coach Knows A Thing Or Two About Fitness Training. Here, We Translate His Insights To Two Wheels
A couple of months ago, i was lucky enough to sit through a coaching and performance training seminar by a real coaching icon: alberto salazar. He is a former new york marathon winner and us record holder, and is now coach to the mighty mo farah. One of the things that struck me was how willing he was to share specific insights into how he structured a series of training cycles, what sessions he used, how they fit together and how he manipulated training load over time.
What's involved
Throughout this plan your training sessions remain similar. This gives you lots of time to get used to what each session demands, and you'll be able to explore the boundaries of what you can do as your fitness improves. Salazar's approach is based around much longer cycles, increasing the training duration over five or six weeks, leaving it level for up to eight weeks, then tapering over a racing block that ends with a key event.
The plan featured is shorter than salazar's, building up through block one and block two, then levelling off and starting to taper in block three -- but the principle is the same. In each block, there is a handful of sessions, which you'll repeat again and again, with minor changes to the number of efforts. The first two blocks focus on maintaining performance as the number of reps increases. Use the same routes and keep close tabs on your speeds, distance covered per rep and (if possible) power output to establish your limits. In the final block, push carefully against these limits by aiming for a higher power output with each session.
This Is The Plan For You If…
You're a time triallist looking to take a jump in speed You struggle when the pace goes up and the attacks begin You want to improve your innate feel for different training efforts
Minute efforts
Based on the classic runner's 400m track session, these are a weekly staple. Keep a close eye on the speed you achieve and the distance you cover, and use that as your carrot for improving your performance as the weeks pass. Maintaining performance across the entire session is vital.
Short reps
Think of these as long surges rather than sprints. Instead of hitting hard and hanging on, wind your way up to the best pace you can over the 30 seconds, then let momentum carry you through the recovery on little more than coasting.
Four-minute intervals
Mile reps are another very traditional running track session, and this is an attempt to recreate them on the bike. In running, the goal would be to chip away at your time for the distance, but to make things more universal for different abilities, and more readily applicable to cycling, we've changed that to pushing for a slightly greater distance or power target instead.
Tempo rides
For elite runners, a tempo session is one that contains an extended effort at halfmarathon race pace, which makes it rather harder than a standard sweetspot effort in Z3b. You'll only do one of these per fortnight.

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