One Way to Plan, Build and Execute a Championship Program
“The beauty of training is in the details”
Athlete and coach celebrate after a win in Ontario, CA in late April.
I have been involved in cycling as a competitor, coach, fitting specialist and idea-seeker for about half a century. As I reflect on the process and evolution, I can now state one thing with complete certainty: developing a champion has gotten much more complex in the 21st Century…and this is a very good thing.
The development of cycling champions has always seemed to be shrouded in a murky haze of secrecy; what went on behind closed doors was sometimes known and talked about, but not fully understood until the public revelations in the last 15-20 years of doping and performance enhancement drug use. Out of this steady stream of bad publicity has come not only change in the form of testing and other regulations, but also a focus on both rider and coach to find new ways to optimize performance without the well-deserved stigma of performance enhancement being tied directly to drug use. It has forced our sport to once again be creative, this time within legal and ethical boundaries, in pursuit of winning. I am excited and renewed at this creative process, as it has been my focus for all these years to race clean, compete and win, without the ‘shortcuts’ of PEDs, etc. My approach is to use the best of Old World techniques with New World tools and technologies. So let’s explore the potential.
For the rider who has sights on the winner’s podium, ‘just getting on the bike and riding’ is no longer enough – not by a long shot.
Let me share a 2014 example of how it works, in my estimation, and how one athlete is progressing up the championship ladder:
The Athlete
Denise in the CVAC pod. It’s a great aid in recovery and enhance stamina and endurance.
Denise Mueller is a former downhill MTB racer as a junior. Denise and George Hincapie were chosen as USA Cycling’s the top junior cyclists in 1991, but shortly after this Denise retired from cycling. She is now a mother of 3, runs her own successful business, and has numerous outside interests including motor racing. Needless to say, time is a precious commodity, so our plan needed to be designed to make every minute count, while taking advantage of her strengths (explosive power and limitless desire to improve and achieve, to name a couple) and progressing her skill set as an aspiring road ace. It’s a coach’s dream to have an athlete who has such a combination of capability and desire.
The Plan
So how did we set about building a plan? First we set some goals –
- Win two National Championships in 2014:
- Women’s 40-44 category
- Mixed tandem in the 95 combined age category with yours truly.
- Move from Cat. 3 to Cat. 1-2/Pro by end of 2014 or early 2015
Our “how to” plan has included 8 steps –
1. Bike fit. Using my PowerFiTTE protocol, Denise’s KHS bike was set up to precisely optimize her body dimensions to allow greater leverage of power while enhancing comfort. Saddle choice, along with exact height, fore/aft and tilt adjustments were of utmost importance. Her setup has continued to evolve as she becomes leaner throughout the road season.
2. Off-bike exercise regime. Working with experts in physiology and biomechanics, I have developed a catalog of exercises that I call BodyFiTTE. Observing Denise’s individual set of biomechanics, I worked with her to equalize her left side/right side range of motion (ROM) and strength of various major and ancillary muscle groups. I noticed early on she was quickly fatiguing key major muscles and locking out her lower back (QL). Now we have all the muscles firing in perfect sequence and rely heavily on her new core strength for greater driving stability. This lowers Denise’s heart rate while increasing power output.
3. Body Work. Denise gets at least one deep tissue massage per week and more when she is racing multiple times. We also use the powerful Dynamic Motion Therapy (DMT) joint capsule technique on her weekly to break up muscle impingements.
4. A detailed training program of both on bike & off bike training. We utilized weekly track training at the San Diego Velodrome to bolster leg speed and indoor trainer work with a great performance aid called Bike Performance Reflexers to increase hip flexor firing. Think of them as resistance bands that you use while pedaling…on a trainer. (They can be used on the road, but I like the control factor of close monitoring these indoor workouts) Reflexors’ ingenious 3 tiered system of gradually increasing resistance triggers Denise’s explosive speed. We use them on one and sometimes two indoor sessions per week. Yes, even in San Diego, we train indoors for maximum power.
5. Power monitoring. This is important for determining our progress. To avoid staleness we don’t use it all the time, but it is vital in giving us our needed data which dictates precise progression of training.
6. CVAC – Cyclic Variations of Altitude Conditioning. Look it up (www.cvacsystems.com). This unique pod allows us to maximize altitude training gains with varied assents and descents only one hour per week. Since the nationals are in Ogden, Utah we will be ready with our own simulated altitude training.
7. Correct nutrition. All essential vitamins and minerals are ingested daily along with all essential amino acids, anti-oxidants, EFA’s. We use vitamin D-3 to safe guard Denise’s immune system as the training begins to ramp up. The key product in our nutrition kit is Phoenix Nutritionals’ LiquiDaily Supreme. It is a full-spectrum nutritional product that more than addresses our needs. It is available on our web site (www.johnhowardsports.com). Another critical nutrient for endurance athletes is magnesium, which is vital for helping in recovery and for the utilization of ATP. The product we use for this is Acid Check, a product that also helps buffer the effects of acids in the body caused by hard exercise. We also offer this product on our web site.
8. Hypnotherapy- In training and actually racing with Denise I noticed she had some performance anxieties that dated back to her junior racing days. Working with a local therapist we addressed these deep seated phobias and after a month of therapy I can report substantial improvement in mental fortitude and motivation.
The Results to Date
Denise’s results have so far exceeding my expectations. After a slow start in which she got popped off the back a few times racing with the top SOCAL women, Denise became more confident in close quarters pack racing. Working with her on the intricacies of team strategy with her new team took another month, but after a 10 day training camp in Mallorca she was finally on target and made her first podium finish in second place. At Dana Point, with girls crashing right and left just behind her, Denise won her first field sprint. This was the beginning of an unprecedented seven straight race wins including a successful solo in the Torrance criterium. I might add that she did this only a few hours after two long stints of driving in a 24 hour endurance motor race. At the Barry Wolf criterium in Woodland Hills she was promoted out of the Cat 3-4 class and will soon be racing Cat1-2/ Pro. As her coach, I’m very optimistic. Stay tuned for more.
Footnote: This past Sunday, June 15th, Denise entered her first Cat. 1/2/3 race in Chula Vista, CA and won it!! We are proud of what she’s accomplished and continues to strive for. The sky’s the limit!
Recent Comments