If you’ve been reading this blog over the last few months, you will have picked up on a few key aspects of my training philosophy:

*evidence based exercise prescription
*emphasis on quality over quantity
*keeping it simple, fun, and adaptable to a real-world environment
*focus on specificity of the events

For the most part, these are concepts that are now commonplace in the world of sports training. However, the perception that one has to spend many hours on the bike, and therefore cannot be a competitive bike racer, salary-earner and have a family is still pervasive amongst cyclists.  For this reason, I am going to share the FAQ’s I get about one athlete I coach in particular: pro mountain bike rider and category 1 road racer Scott Henry. Scott’s a great guy; approachable, calm, and has a great sense of humor. Scott also has a full-time job that can be very demanding, is the single father of two young children, and has a home to maintain. He’s the perfect example of an athlete coping with real-world demands and staying at the top of his game.

This year, Scott has won 2 state championship titles as well as a top 15 placing at the Mohican 100 mountain bike race in Ohio (men’s pro division). Scott won both the Texas Mountain Bike Racing Association’men’s open marathon championship title and cross country championship title.

Hopefully, these FAQ’s will arm you with the confidence to set goals, strike a balance, and earn success in your own endeavors.

There’s no way the guy trains less than 30 hours a week, so spill it, how many hours?
First off, by the time I finish building the quality portion of Scott’s schedule, there simply isn’t enough room to build in a bunch of volume without having him just pedal for the sake of pedaling. To get faster, he has to train faster. With his life commitments, his time is simply too limited to spend hours on the bike even if I wanted him to do so.

Typically, Scott has an 8-10 hour training week. The most he’s ever been able to train in a week (usually on a holiday schedule) is 15 hours.

Okay, he really doesn’t spend 30 hours a week on a bike, but he’s talented enough to get away with it?
Individual physiology aside, here’s the ultimate point: if he’s incredibly talented, then he has to compete against others that fall into that category, too. If you are a category 3 road racer, you’re still competing against people of that skill level, and ultimately, you have to become good enough to be at the top. It’s no different for a professional class athlete competing in professional races.

When Scott races nationally, it’s against endurance greats like Josh Tostado and Chris Eatough. He’s got to be competitive against full-time professionals on a part-time schedule. He doesn’t get as much exposure at the national level, so he has to work hard at home to be prepared both mentally and physically. Scott has certainly proven that you can race against the best and not spend your life in the saddle.

Point taken….What does he use to train? Heart Rate? Power?
Scott uses a Garmin 705 on the mountain bike and the Qark power meter on the road bike. The latter is a crank based power meter that integrates with the 705. Power has been a great tool to hone in on his strengths and weaknesses and demonstrate improvements over time.

With a guy who has reached that level, how do you design training to make large gains?
I have long held that, once a certain level of fitness is achieved, it is MORE difficult to train because one must continually refine the program more to make gains. To that end, I constantly evaluate strengths and weaknesses, and carefully interpret power files to understand fitness changes. I build a lot of custom workouts in order to ensure that we are getting in the specific training needed to be successful.

Even with reduced hours, with all those commitments, how is it possible to train and get better?
I often use training blocks as a strategy to help him develop and also give him some low-volume days during the week so that he can live his life. With his life demands, balance is critical to maintaining focus when on the bike. We might start on a Thursday and move through Sunday in a training block, then have a couple of light days before ramping up training again.

He must have to stick to a very controlled schedule.
Actually, not as much as you’d think. Scott has a busy life, and loves being a bike racer. He has a true passion for the sport, and a prowess over ultra-distance events. He likes to spend long hours in the saddle when he can—for example, if he has unexpected time available, he might decide to spend more time on the bike. Sometimes, he’ll add a race to his schedule at the last minute! As his coach, it’s my job to evaluate the consequences of that decision, and make subsequent changes to his schedule. If we are headed into an important race, I let him know if I think he should stick to the plan and what to avoid. I’m not afraid to say, “here’s what you can expect if you decide to do that,” or, “I don’t recommend that right now.” However, some days he needs to take some extra time to do the thing he loves. It’s incumbent upon me to understand that desire, and adapt accordingly.

How does he manage all of these obligations?
I have noticed that Scott is very good at separating out the facets of his life and focusing his attention where it is necessary.  This is very important to his success: when he is off the bike or away from races, he is not focused on the biking or racing. When he is with his kids, he’s a dad only,  and not worried about his most recent power data. This not only helps him to be responsible to other areas of his life, but it forces him to have a complete mental break from training and racing.

Alright, what’s he good at?
Just about everything. He’s a great all-arounder on the bike. I think his strongest point is ultra-distance mountain biking although he can hang with the best of them on a cross-country course.  He has a great power threshold and it is showcased during the longer events. On the other hand, I’ve also seem some huge sprints come out of this guy, and I wouldn’t write off that ability if I were in a break-away with him.

Scott is also just good at racing; he’s got a lot of mental toughness and an uncanny focus in a race. Those ingredients are necessary in a racer and are some of the more difficult capabilities to train.

What was the number one focus this year training-wise?
Repeated high power efforts. Like I said, Scott has a great power threshold, but we often train and ride where we are comfortable. In his case, the longer sustained efforts were easy, but the repeatedly high-powered efforts were problematic. He did a series of workouts designed specifically to develop better power over threshold, and then to repeat those efforts with different rest periods in order to further develop that capacity.

How do you know these abilities have improved?
Data and verbal feedback. In the case of data, having a good set of objective information handed back to me is crucial to understanding the athlete’s current status. That said, I firmly believe that coaches have to be absolutely keen on what their athletes say to them. Sometimes, perceptions do not coincide with what data tells us, and there are things that data cannot “say”. For example, power meters do not recognize whole body work done on a mountain bike, so part of a repeated effort ability has to do with movement of the body through a set of obstacles—power meters only capture work done on the bike by the legs and does not account for muscular work in the trunk. If a data file shows a very consistent interval set, and the athlete says they had a really hard time with that interval set versus telling me it was a piece of cake, those are two very different pieces of information.

If I want to balance racing and life, how can I (a non-professional rider) adapt to lower volume training?
Everyone has something they are really good at on the bike, and tend to spend time doing that thing. You should start picking your abilities apart, and spending time developing areas in which you are less comfortable—within the specific realm of your chosen event. For example, if you are a time trial specialist, you don’t need to hone your criterium race abilities! Additionally, you should:

1. be focused on the bike when you are on the bike only.
2. be prepared to get outside of your comfort zone; short, hard training bouts (an hour in duration) have been repeatedly shown to be as effective as long training bouts (3-4 hours in duration), but they are very uncomfortable!
3. set up a regular schedule. That will help you be consistent week-to week in your training.
4. discuss your training with your family. Set up a goal and let them know what that goal is. Even though I coach for a living, I talk to my husband about what my training will entail over a given time frame. That opens the door for us to discuss household obligations and avoid problems. He trains, too, so it’s a matter of ensuring both of us picking up some slack and that we’re flexible with one another.
5. group train for short, but intense sessions. There are some great indoor group training classes in Austin that are very beneficial. A long lunch can mean big gains in your fitness!

I’m not convinced: I’ve tried it, and I don’t think I got any stronger.
Mostly, I’ve discovered that people have a hard time allowing themselves the time to develop properly (myself included). They dip their toe into the water, then try to take it to the next level, expect to do better than they are ready for, and then revert back to, “I don’t have time to train like Joe does…” This leaves people feeling frustrated by what is perceived as a limitation in their own lives.

Whether you are interested in racing or have some other goal in mind, you should expect to give yourself time to develop as a rider. There are certain physiologic adaptations that simply take longer to attain than others. Part of getting better, whether you ride 7 hours a week or 15, is ensuring that your program progresses—and doing the hard training that goes along with developing speed. Use faster riders around you to chase, and you’ll better adapt to being outside of your comfort zone. The magnitude of gains varies from person to person and year to year, but if you allow yourself the room and the time to get better, you will.

Have more questions? Feel free to post them here.

Sara Krause, M.Ed., is an exercise physiologist and owner of Krause Sports Performance based in Austin, Texas.