Q&A: Easy Workouts too Easy?

The following is another question sent my way by a somewhat discouraged-sounding athlete who must be in his early Base period. In fact, this is an extension of the same question I answered in my last Q&A blog post.

Question: I have a question about theory. If it is true that the body only adapts when there is a demand put on it, how does riding around lazily cause my body to adapt? How does it put a demand on my body? It makes some sense to me that I could continually increase the duration of my rides in an effort to increase the demands on my body, but I am already capable of riding 4 hours in zone 2 without being tired at the end, riding longer than 4 hours can be a drag (and hard on my butt, back, neck, hands, etc), and you have recommended not to increase the duration past the duration of the longest event.

Answer: Perhaps the easiest way to understand training is to think about it in terms of desired outcomes. I believe what you are asking about here has to do with aerobic endurance and is similar to the last question I answered on this topic. Aerobic endurance is the ability to ride (or run, swim, XC ski, etc) for a long time at a low to moderate effort. By doing this you promote more slow twitch (type 1a) characteristics in type 2a muscles, develop a more dense capillary network in your endurance muscles (types 1 and 2a), increase the activity of aerobic enzymes, improve the cardiovascular system’s capacity for transporting oxygen and fuel to the muscles, cause your body to become better at burning fat instead of sugar and more. The bottom line is that your endurance improves and you are also able to go faster for a longer time at what used to feel like a somewhat more difficult intensity.

You don’t want to ride around lazily unless you are recovering. To stress your aerobic endurance you are best advised to ride at or slightly above aerobic threshold. In my last post on this subject I suggested that both zones 2 and 3 may be the best way to do this. If you have already made great progress with 4-hour workouts in z2 then begin to include more z3 efforts as also explained in the previous post. I think this will boost your aerobic endurance even higher.

All the best for your training and racing!

Comments

[Martin]

Hi Joe, I've bought your book "Your best triathlon" and love it. The training programs are well explained and the steps are easy to follow, but I've encountered a problem in base 3. In the Ironman-program (p. 169)the weekly ME for bike is 1.30-2.00h. The suggested way to do this is explained on p. 155 and is 10-30 min hill rides. If I go 30 min in the hills what should I do the remainig 1.30? Is this the warm up and cool down, should I also include some of the intervals described in base2 or have I misunderstood.

Regards
Martin

[Joe Friel]

Martin--Just ride above z1 (recovery).

[Darren Knight]

Hi Joe, touching on the start of the article, is there any point if you ride 6hrs at Ironman on race day is there any point in doing a 7hr training ride in Base 3 preparation?

[Joe Friel]

Darren Knight--I think a 7h ride is probably ok (I don't know anything about you so making assumptions here). Is it better than a 6h ride? Maybe, but not hugely. If 7h is good would 8h be better? I doubt it. The longer the workout the more plateau'ing there is in the fitness gains while "risk" (injury, burnout, illness, overtraining) becomes increasingly greater. But there is, indeed, something to be said for getting ready mentally, if not physically, for a long day.