Training Basics; Overload, the way to get better

I am out of commission for the near future due to a clavicle fracture and spending the interim developing a comprehensive training plan to facilitate a fantastic next season. There are several pillars to endurance training that every cyclist needs to be familiar with when developing a training plan.

Overload is the physiological concept in all training programs. Cyclists typically measure fitness as the amount of training stress over the last week, measures by Power Stress Score, Heart Rate Stress Score, mileage, time, or amount of climbing. At any given fitness your race performances are likely going to be the same race to race. To perform better, you must build more fitness, but how? There are four main ways to increase your training load, and an increase in any one of these categories will increase the amount of training load. The four are:

• Frequency – the number of training sessions per week
• Intensity – the rate of perceived effort, speed, heart rate, power, etc.
• Time – the length of each training session
• Type – changing the mode of training, or crosstraining