The Time-Crunched Cyclist Podcast by CTS

Episode 197: How to Leverage Zwift Racing in Your Training Plan

• CTS • Season 4 • Episode 197

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IN THIS EPISODE

  • Question 1: How to incorporate Zwift racing into a Time-Crunched Cyclist's training plan?
  • Three priorities for including Zwift races in your training plan
  • Training schedule examples with Zwift races included
  • Question 2: How can I incorporate a rowing ergometer into my cycling training
  • Using variety to improve training consistency
  • Workout examples for rowing machine 

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Adam Pulford has been a CTS Coach for nearly two decades and holds a B.S. in Exercise Physiology. He's participated in and coached hundreds of athletes for endurance events all around the world.

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Speaker 1:

From the team at CTS. This is the Time Crunch Cyclist podcast, our show dedicated to answering your training questions and providing actionable advice to help you improve your performance even if you're strapped for time. I'm your host, coach Adam Pulford, and I'm one of the over 50 professional coaches who make up the team at CTS. In each episode, I draw on our team's collective knowledge, other coaches and experts in the field to provide you with the practical ways to get the most out of your training and ultimately become the best cyclist that you can be. Now on to our show. Now onto our show. Welcome back, time Crunch fans. I'm your host, coach Adam Pulford, here today to answer your questions submitted by you, our audience. We have some great topics, including Zwift racing, aerobic cross-training and pushing beyond boundaries. In the spirit of time crunched-ness, let's dive right in. So question number one is all about Zwift racing and how to incorporate it into training. So here is the actual original question. Hi Adam, thanks for taking the question. I'm a big fan of the podcast and appreciate how thoroughly you answer listener questions. Thank you, I try my best at that. I'm a 38-year-old father. By the way, this is coming from Chris. Here's his little intro and then the question I'm a 38-year-old father and have three young kids and can typically squeeze in only about four to five hours of training per week.

Speaker 1:

I aim for four 45 minute weekend rides half zone two and half threshold or VO two intervals, with a two hour endurance ride on the weekend. I recently discovered, discovered Zwift racing, and it's helped me to have fun and stay motivated, but I'm not sure how to adjust my training with it. I'll typically do two races a week a shorter, 30 to 40 minute weekday race and then a longer, 60 to 90 minute weekend run. I also got promoted to a higher cat 3.2 to4 Watts per kilo and my 3.4 watt per kilo is dropped after one lap. So here's the question Should I take extra rest after these races or just treat them like a normal VO two or anaerobic interval day? Thanks for your thoughts again, chris. All right, chris. So first of all, congrats to you on caddying up on Zwift. That is, that's hard to do, and if you're pushing those watts per kilo, you're you're a you're a fit dude. So nice work on that.

Speaker 1:

Incorporating Zwift racing into a training program should be like think about it as any other hard day, in my opinion, and here's how I best. Here's how I think best to do it. Number one have somewhat of a bigger picture in mind with it. Number two go into each race fresh. Number three have periods where you don't race for a bit. Okay, so let's take those three aspects of having a bigger picture, going into the race fresh and then having periods where you don't race for a while. Let's break each of those down. So the first one is having a bigger picture.

Speaker 1:

What I mean by this is never lose sight of your overall goals and development, especially in the way of developing your energy systems. You're kind of like sprinty one, you're going hard, one which we call like kind of VO2 and threshold, and then also your aerobic development. You have strengths and weaknesses that lie within those sort of like power durations or those three energy systems, and you want to make sure that you keep developing those as you're going. And so we have racing can play a role into that. Racing hard every week is not the best method to get there. So if you just started and you're having fun, I would say, enjoy it for sure. Now, if you have somewhat of a periodized program and you have some longer-term goals here, that's going to help you stay organized by sticking to that periodized program and you have some longer term goals here that's going to help you stay organized by sticking to that periodized program. Now it could be as simple as just weaving in the races when it matches the goal of the periodized plan.

Speaker 1:

In particular, uh threshold basically, like every Zwift race, is essentially a threshold effort, and it's a hard threshold effort too. It's not like uh, like steady state, extensive threshold or like extensive threshold development, which I've talked about on the podcast before. It's intensive threshold development and it also goes kind of long. So it's like it is a hard day for sure. Now, when I say treat Zwift racing like a hard day in the training program, you can kind of deduce some of the other advice I have on the podcast, where any hard day I want you to go into it fresh, because if you go into it fresh you'll be able to give your best effort, which then you'll get the best training effect, and if you rest you'll get the best adaptation, and that's what I would encourage you to do, chris. Now, generally, like I talked about on, this is a hard threshold day.

Speaker 1:

If you're a time crunched athlete like you're, you're crunched on time for both training and recovery. So it's best to have almost like a polarized sort of rhythm going on where, um, it could be something like this, for example Monday's rest, tuesday Zwift race hard. Wednesday endurance zone to Thursday three by 10 threshold intervals, friday rest, saturday, your two hour endurance ride and then Sunday rest. Quick caveat there Some people are like, oh, sunday rest and Monday rest, two days of rest in a row. Yeah, totally, if you only have, you know, four to five hours of training, you can only of rest in a row. Yeah, totally, if you only have you know, four to five hours of training, you can only ride four days a week. That's, that's how to do it, and that way you're coming into the Zwift race as fresh as possible. You have as much energy and kind of like stored energy um, on your body and energy in your mind to handle that Zwift race. That's how I would do it, especially in a threshold block where we're going for FTP or intensive FTP training.

Speaker 1:

Now, my third point was to have periods where you're not racing on Zwift 2. Okay, the reason why this is important is just get away from it for once in a while, okay, like maybe a month or a few weeks so that you can focus on your individual needs as an athlete. That could be simply zone two, base training right, we've talked about that on the podcast before where we're doing things from a physiological sense where high intensity training is not as advantageous as low intensity training. Also, if we have been racing and you're kind of like building up and all of a sudden for a lot of North American athletes summertime hits and you want to go to the group rides, you've got some other events outside and you're not riding inside as much, yeah, get away from Zwift racing. No need to do it, in my opinion.

Speaker 1:

Now back to the intensity part of Zwift racing it's it's a, you know, high aerobic mostly threshold and, yes, you can gas yourself and get dropped Like you, like you said Chris, and and it's a hard day. But really when we're doing it, you know 30, 40, 60, even 90 minutes, that's primarily the glycolytic energy system that you're using. It's not pure VO2 work, certainly isn't zone two, endurance work. So again, it's, it's hard day and that's where I would lump it in again with either like a threshold, sweet spot, intensive threshold, development kind of works in a lot of periods in your training. So if you're always doing Zwift races you can. You can see how you're just like pressing on the gas pedal too much throughout the week.

Speaker 1:

I've said in the podcast several times where I think two to three days most for most time crunched athletes is the best to have high intensity like this. So the other stuff should be zone two and um when we're talking about getting away from racing, so you can focus on the individual stuff. Whether that is your zone two, uh or aerobic training, there's also a time period for the anaerobic capacity training. So that's zone five and higher. And if you're incorporating Zwift racing into a time period where you want to be focused on anaerobic capacity, I think that the Zwift racing will just be too hard and you won't be as fresh going into the anaerobic efforts. So therefore I would probably not race too much when you're doing that unless you're super dialed on sleep and you space out the anaerobic capacity work with the Zwift racing.

Speaker 1:

So if we go back to like kind of that backbone example I had above, where Monday was rest or Sunday was rest, monday was rest, tuesday we hit anaerobic capacity intervals. Then we have zone two training on Wednesday and perhaps Thursday's zone two, fridays off. Then you want to do a Zwift race on Saturday because that is motivating and helps you, like, rack up the volume, or it helps for the two hours to go past. I'd say that still checks out fairly well because, uh, in anaerobic capacity sort of training block, I mean, it is high intensity you want contrast between those training periods and that much time or that many days in between the anaerobic capacity intervals and then the Zwift racing. That's completely appropriate, so long as you're recovering well in between. So that's that's my advice there.

Speaker 1:

Then have periods where you're really focused on racing and this is what I do with some of my athletes that enjoy Zwift racing is they probably are racing throughout the year, um, but then fall, winter hits and we're not really ready to take a break. Break, uh, because I for, like my master's level riders, my time crunched athletes, I try to keep them going, uh, 50 weeks a year basically, which is very consistent. And so, if you're into Zwift racing, um, this is a great time period where you could do three races per week and again just just come in fresh. Keep contrast between. So, maybe, like every other day in your example, uh, chris, with what you have available to work with, tuesday, thursday, saturday you could be hitting those shorter group rides or races on Zwift on Tuesday, same thing on Thursday, and then the harder, longer one or even a short one on Saturday, zone two or recovery in between, and there you have it. So in summary to you, chris, and also to all those listening, treat Zwift like a hard day, go into it fresh, take an easier day afterwards, and that will help bring contrast to your training Meaning you're keeping your hard days hard, your easy days easy. Cycle these as workouts in the grand scheme of periodization, meaning, build yourself up aerobically so that you can handle it. Use Zwift racing as hard intensity when it's appropriate in your progressive build, then get away from it once in a while so you can incorporate other individual aspects of your training that isn't pertaining to racing and after all, I'll remind you this variety is also a principle of training, meaning your body needs training, a different training stimulus, in order to keep improving and break beyond plateaus. So don't forget to just change it up, all right.

Speaker 1:

So now time for question number two. This pertains to cross training. So let's, let's get into it here. Uh, let's get into it here. The topic is best cross training alternatives to building a solid base of zone 2 training when you live in a mountainous terrain. This is coming from rick. It's kind of a long one, but he frames it up well. So uh, let's, let's see what rick has to say here.

Speaker 1:

Personally, I find early season riding challenging to keep intensity from escalating, simply due to the frequency of hills and gradients of the climbs. Where I live in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Northern Virginia Beautiful spot to ride If anyone has not ridden there and you're looking for a place, go see Rick in the Blue Ridge Mountains. It's beautiful. Now, to ensure that I can build the base at the right intensity, I indoor row using a concept two row machine 60 minutes two to three times a week, keeping the intensity in zone two. Do you have experience with riders using indoor rowing to supplement their base build? Is the increased muscle mass used in rowing over cycling enough to make 60-minute sessions effective at base development? I prefer rowing over indoor bike training. Other days I ride outside whenever possible to let the terrain create unstructured interval work that often translates to zone three, four efforts over the hills, in the valleys and roads for recovery. Any other feedback you have on indoor rowing training as a supplement to cycling I would enjoy hearing.

Speaker 1:

I'm 54 years old, lifelong cyclist who picked up indoor rowing when I, when my family and career absorbed most of my time in training life. Now I find consistent rowing keeps my bike fitness higher beyond cross training. With rowing I do strength training two times a week. I enjoy your podcasts and again, that's coming from Rick. Rick, it's so a great summary of everything and you know what? Yes, rowing is great and yes, I use it with my athletes who have a row machine or desire to do it, and I think it's an awesome training tool to use, uh, especially the way that you're doing it. Okay, so I even use uh rowing as interval training or as like a warmup portion to strength training. So maybe let me give you some specific examples here, okay, so to your inquiry.

Speaker 1:

What I like about what you've written in here with Rick is you found another modality of aerobic training to keep you consistent throughout the year versus just riding a bike and, like I said in my in the first question, where I try to keep my time crunched athletes, uh, really consistent throughout the year, and some of that is adding in a different variety and stuff that really motivates you to get it done and as long as we're sticking to the program of, if it's so, to training and just getting aerobic, uh, conditioning in rowing is a fantastic way to do that and this may be more healthy in the longterm than you realize, as it incorporates different muscle groups, different movement patterns and adds variety with seasonality into your training program. So for anyone listening who has, like, tried rowing before or has never tried rowing before, I wouldn't dive in with just 60 minutes straight of rowing before or has never tried rowing before, I wouldn't dive in with just 60 minutes straight of rowing. Okay, um, it's pretty hard to do, in other words. So I would I would start a little bit smaller here and so I probably don't need to go over this with you, rick, uh, as you found something that has worked for you. So for listeners who, uh, who have never tried rowing before um, or maybe you have right, and you couldn't even do it 10 minutes continuously my advice is to start small and progressively overload if you wish to use rowing as a training tool.

Speaker 1:

So here's some examples in the in the base time period and this is for a beginner I would warm up with simply five minutes easy at an RPE of two to three, take it easy for a minute and then use aerobic intervals. We were just like creating little mini intervals here with four minutes at a rate of perceived effort of four to five out of 10. And then you take one minute resting where you do nothing. Okay, it's short, it's only one minute, but we want to keep that heart rate high, keep the, the, the you're not fully recovering because it is just aerobic and repeat that three times, four times. Okay, progressively build up and for the first session maybe it's only 15 minutes long, maybe it's 20 minutes. Uh, build up so that you're getting through that and the, the rate of perceived efforts are staying fairly low for 30 minutes of a total workout time.

Speaker 1:

Now, for a novice, maybe warm up with 10 minutes of easy rowing. Perceived effort there again is only three to four, and then what you can do is make these same like aerobic intervals, just make them longer. So we're extensive aerobic development here and in the way of thinking about this, where maybe it's eight, nine, ten minutes of interval time, the rate of perceived effort is four to six, and then you're using one to two minute easy rowing or resting, then you repeat it, build up to that, uh, 40 to 60 minutes of total workout time, like rick has done here, because that's kind of like time segment for a time crunch athlete works really well and if you break it up like that with rowing, um, that that can help wrap your brain around it and change up the muscle groups, especially if you're if you're new to it now an advanced athlete. Um, what I would do is have a 10 minute or so, 10 to 15 minute easy rowing, perceived effort, four to five, and then I would just go 45 minutes straight. Um, and with an advanced rower we can start to uh focus on, um, the kind of like the stroke or the row, how powerful they are. Uh, these concept two row machines do have power outputs and, um, they're tracking distance and all that kind of stuff. So we use that as more or less like a, like a power meter or a cycling computer. And without getting too in depth with it, all I do with my athletes is the same principles and intervals and intensive versus extensive sort of concepts. I apply that to rowing and so, rick, to you specifically and for advanced rowers, what you can do is you can. You can essentially if you're in your base build and you're just kind of like training, to, like you know, uh, three by eight minutes at uh RPE of seven or eight out of 10, then take a three minute recovery period with a warmup and cool down. That's a great workout on the row machine. It's hard for sure, but uh, yeah, you could. You could start to incorporate some of those structured interval workouts on the row machine If that sounds fun to you. Now, the other thing I like that you're doing here, rick, is you're incorporating quote, natural intervals into your routine and you're doing it. Uh, how should I say this? Not all the time.

Speaker 1:

I do this in my own. What I mean by that is you're, you're going outside and just riding some hills and you're letting the topography elicit the intensity. And I do this in my own training. I call it lazy coach training. Essentially, I don't want to follow a structured program for the day, so I make my goal to okay, I'm going to work on threshold, threshold, hill climb today. So I just head out to the hills, going easy, warm up and I aim for zone four. That's my goal for each hill climb and I hit threshold or zone four on the hill climb. I use the downhill as my recovery. I pedal endurance over the next hill, then I hit zone four again on the next hill. I do that until I'm tired and then I head home. So super simple.

Speaker 1:

And if there's any audience listening here who has never done that before, I suggest trying it. It gets your brain out of interval mode, meaning you know it's not overly structured and there's benefits there. Okay, and the. The reason that there's benefits there is because I I've had athletes who, um, if I tried to change it up like this and say they've been doing way too much interval work, you get really used to having a break or having a break that is there in front of you. So, like mentally, the, the, the stress of not having super structured work can be taxing. So this is a way to unwind your, your brain from that.

Speaker 1:

Now, secondly, if the goal is to go in zone four until you can't or until you run out of time, that could be confusing and, I would say, stressful to a lot of people as well. Boundaries that you may never thought possible. For example, if you're used to three by tens all the time, or three by fifteens, and that's like the biggest stretch you've ever done and you've got some long hill climbs, or you're used to, let's just say, 30 to 60 minutes of time in zone, but you have a couple hours and you go out and you hit zone four and you're hitting it, hitting it, hitting it and all of a sudden you've got 75 minutes of time in zone. Now you've just pushed beyond a boundary, like a time zone where you've never been before. For some people listening it's like man three by eights are hard. But if you go out and you push beyond what you've done before, you've stressed the body more and now you start to have more of a capacity and a realization of what you can do.

Speaker 1:

So for me, when I'm doing this with my athletes, I think it really tunes them into their bodies more. It helps with pacing, helps with perceived effort and it also tunes you into when are you tired. So with my athletes, I will tell them on certain days I call it self-determined training If we're doing some threshold work and they're feeling good, and we've got 40 minutes of threshold prescribed for today, if they're feeling good, go up to 60. And that's where I'm giving the autonomy to the athlete to go for it. If they are feeling good, not harder but add more. And this is this kind of like unstructured way of doing it that Rick is talking about, or I kind of took liberties on how I do it. That's a pretty cool way of exploring with it without using intervals and without being overly structured. So finally, rick, I think you're doing all the right things because you're periodizing your training a bit, meaning you're cycling intensities with seasonality, you're using a variety of exercise modalities cycling and rowing and you're using different terrain to change things up, and you're doing strength training two times a week. You're you're the model of what every time crunched cyclist athlete should be.

Speaker 1:

In my opinion, with everything that you wrote in about, I guess, and I guess, uh as I think about it, the last thing is uh, the upper body muscles or the musculature that you may build in rowing, does it apply to cycling?

Speaker 1:

Is there? Carry over there? I wouldn't worry too much about it, because that specific musculature that you build up, you're not going to like, develop a huge, huge upper body uh to where it's going to take away or hurt from, uh, cycling, because everything that you're doing is aerobic in nature. So sure, you might carry a pound or two or have a little bit more lean body mass, um, in the upper body, but that's actually super healthy. The older we get preserving or increasing lean body mass, the in the upper body, but that's actually super healthy. The older we get preserving or increasing lean body mass, the older we get. It's hard to do and you should maintain that as much as possible. So my opinion, rick, uh, keep it going, keep being a rock star and uh, right back in with with how it's going. We'd love to to hear how, uh, your very unstructured periodized plan is going.

Speaker 1:

So in closing, I want to thank you all once again for not just listening to the podcast but sharing your questions, your challenges and curiosities by writing in to us here at CTS. So, if you're new to the show, how to do this is by heading over to trainrightcom backslash podcast and click on ask a training question. Your questions get sent directly to me and we do our best to answer it on upcoming episodes. That's it. That's our show for today.

Speaker 1:

If you liked what you heard, please share it with a training partner or a friend, as that's the best way to grow the show and make sure that you keep getting actual training advice for your athletic journey. Be sure to come back next week for more and until then keep getting out there and keep training right. Thanks for joining us on the Time Crunch Cyclist podcast. We hope you enjoyed the show. If you want even more actionable training advice, head over to trainrightcom backslash newsletter and subscribe to our free weekly publication. Each week you'll get in-depth training content that goes beyond what we cover here on the podcast. That'll help you take your training to the next level. That's all for now. Until next time, train hard, train smart, train right.

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