VOLUME AND INTENSITY Training volume and training intensity have historically been the two main variables in any plan to improve physical fitness. Volume refers to how much you train. Intensity refers to how hard you train.
Manipulating these variables has traditionally been the staple of any endurance program. The training season usually starts with high volume and low intensity. As training progresses, the volume decreases and intensity increases (Figure 1.1).
What if I told you there is a better way? Only half of our training improves in fitness. The problem is to know which half. Whether that half is volume or intensity remains to be seen, but there is increasing evidence that intensity is the more important half.
If you increased volume and intensity together, you would surely burn out from physical exhaustion. If you increased only volume, you wouldn’t see any significant improvement. If you train by manipulating intensity, you will improve.
Why, then, do we focus so much on volume? Tradition. That’s the way training has always been done. The great racers used to do it. The great riders now do it.
Maybe the people who excel in a sport are the people whose bodies adapt well to traditional training. When I first started racing, I had coaches whose traditional plans developed national and Olympic champions. We did high intensity on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday and then raced on the weekends. The people who improved with this schedule were the people who recovered well. There were only two days off—nonconsecutive days—per week.
INTENSITY AND RECOVERY It’s time to start thinking of training as manipulations not of volume and intensity but of intensity and recovery. Using training principles taken from the exercise-science research, you can maximize your improvements while optimizing your recovery.
If traditional training has worked for you, then you already should have achieved great success in cycling. If you feel you could progress further, you should examine your motives for choosing workouts and building a training plan.
“Because it works for him” is an unproductive way to approach a training plan. Just because a plan works for the other guy doesn’t mean it will work for you.
If you want to excel in cycling, you need to adapt the training to your body. I will show you how intensity and recovery can help you reach your goals.