Summer Training Intervals - General Training

Hi,

Some thoughts on General Training and some intervals to do to help you improve.

Basics...

1. Its a good idea to mix up your weekly training - too much of the same means you'll only improve the one area.
2. If you ride hard you must have an easy day - easy day means off the bike or a slow ride (think granny going to the shops - and she beats you!)
3. Every 4th week of training is an easy week - i.e if you ride 4/5 times normally, you ride once in this week - and its an easy ride - this allows your body to recover and adapt and then build for the next cycle..

Training - How to use Yas on a Tuesday

1. Going to Yas and hammering round for 1hr generally is not ideal - unless you want to become good at that...
2. Use the circuit for intervals, think the long back straight... its just over 1km - come out the corner and then max to the bottom and then ride back round steady and repeat - you get about a 2 min internal with about 7 mins rest... to make it a worthwhile lap, use the short straight under the hotel for a power interval - big gear into the corner then dead stop and accellerate upto the corner and then relax and recover all the way down to the straight for your interval
3. Hill interval - use the hill, from the bottom of the hill - attack the climb, then just as you get to the top, change up a gear (harder) and attack over the top and down to the pit wall.. great little interval - you can mix this up by doing a sprint on the 2nd start area.
4. And the full lap - do this 1 lap hard, 1 lap easy - 5 hard laps max
5. If you go as a group - practice lead outs - agree an order and then work on lead outs... I would suggest delivering the last rider to the bottom of the hill, so the final effort for the sprinter is up the hill... when over -regroup and change the order.

Other training options...

1. POWER - everyone needs more power, this is a simple session and should be done weekly throughout the year, either as a standalone session or included in a ride.
 Gear 53 x 14 or similarly large gear - seated in the saddle, slow to a stop and then staying seated accelerate for 10 secs (about 55rpm) and relax - you have 50 secs to recover and then repeat. if you start interval 1 on left leg start 2 on right leg - do 10 of these, if incorporating into a longer ride - if as a standalone session take 5 mins recover and then repeat
2. WORKING IN A GROUP LT work - Threshold - use the Saadiyat highway or a similar road - you need 20 mins of clear roads... This is not an easy workout as its done at threshold, warm up, then 20 mins at threshold, recover for 10 mins and repeat twice - so thats 1hr.30.
3. REACTING TO ATTACKS - you need one of the bridges on Yas or similar - flat roads work as well, but you cant get the lactate flowing as easy  .. Attack the bridge hard, then change up over the top and simulate a chase effort for 5-10 secs... recover down the other side of the bridge, turn round at the bottom and repeat... 10 times... you'll build up a resistance to lactate doing this... eventually

If i was going to build this into a weekly plan... it would look something like this...

Monday - intervals
Tuesday - Yas - wisely
Wednesday - recover
thursday - off
Fri - group ride (with whatever is thrown in)
Sat - group ride recover - with 1 or 2 hard efforts.
Sun - Off/recover.