Adding Variation to Your Rides

I think of training as being multi-layered

If you’re aiming for a challenge ride or charity event it’s likely to be quite long, and the first goal of your build up will be to create consistency in your riding.  Once that’s nailed, progression comes next. You must gradually do more in a week or month than you were before. And when consistency and progression are part of your life, it’s time to think about the next layer - variation.

If you have come to my coaching from the 5 Key Principles of Cycling Fitness, then you’ll already have met the ideas of, consistency, progression, fuelling, variation and efficiency. If you haven’t read the 5 Principles yet, download your free guide to fitness here:  5 Principles

In the 5 Principles of Fitness I talk about adding variation as preparation for your challenge event. Sportives and charity rides are usually adventure rides. They go up hill, downhill, in the lanes, through towns or across open moors. The point is, I advocate adding variation to your training so that you are prepared for what your ride has to offer. But there are many good reasons for varied training, whatever you're aiming for.

The Science of Varied Training

Variation in training is simply doing different types of rides with different types of efforts within them. On a basic level, the more variation in your training the better prepared you’ll be to enjoy everything that cycling has to offer.

More specifically, it helps build complete fitness, prevent injury, helps motivation and can stop mental burnout.

There are many components to getting you – and your body – fit, and you need to address them all. Just doing the same rides will quickly lead to a plateau. Your body will adapt to the stimulus you give it – but keep that stimulus the same and it will stop getting fitter.

So, variation is the secret to building fitness:

Long rides build cardiovascular endurance, short & sharp interval training develops anaerobic ability and speed, crucial for chasing people on your group rides. Then hill repeats and climbing build muscular strength and the ability to keep the pressure on the pedals for extended durations. (perfect for those long European climbs) A proper training plan will have rides that include all of these.

When it comes to injury, doing the same thing all the time is a risk factor.

Cycling is a repetitive sport and can lead to overuse injuries if you are not careful. Variation is key to preventing, as on different rides you’ll use different muscle groups in different ways. This helps recovery but also reduces the risk of fatigue related injuries.

To help know what I mean, think how you would feel after a hilly ride across Dartmoor compared with a flat ride in Essex? There will be different aches and pains because different systems have been challenged – perfect.

Not Just The Legs

Variation then spreads the physical load, but it helps with the mental load too.

One of the big benefits of a varied cycling diet is psychological, and let’s be honest, we are all aware of how important feeling good is to keeping the exercise habit. It’s no coincidence professionals will often say, happy head, fast legs.

If every time you get on a bike you do the same ride not only can it get boring but it can lead to a lack of motivation and ultimately, reduced fitness. But if you have different rides planned, then you need to consciously think about them: you must plot your routes, prepare for efforts, adjust for different durations. They will be anything but mundane.

When I coach people one-to-one every ride I set has a goal. It could be recovery, it could be a group ride, perhaps hilly or flat, and have short efforts or even strength work on the bike. The list could go on, but adding variation means that every time you sit on the saddle you do so for a purpose, and every ride gets you one step closer to your goal. My coaching programme, the Cent-Soulor has a purpose for every ride in the 16 weeks. It is how I build progression and is why I build in variation. And going back to the head, it keeps training interesting. Rides are mentally as well as physically stimulating. Even in my own training, when my weeks and months are varied motivation to train is much higher.

Variation, The Rides?

If variation is good, what rides do you need to do?

I think of rides in terms of categories, and although there are potentially hundreds of sessions you could chose, there aren’t that many categories.

The ride categories I use are:

Endurance, or steady rides. They can often be long.

Endurance rides build just that, your endurance. The aim is to ride for multiple hours and build up the ability to spend time just riding. I aim for them to be consistent in effort level. That means not going too hard up the rises but continuing to pedal (where safe) down the other side and on the flat. If you could see a graph of your intensity through the ride, it would be pretty flat.

Strength Rides aim to build muscular strength through the terrain and the way you ride.

The stronger you can make your body the better for your overall fitness. Riding hilly routes forces you to press hard on the pedals and also use your upper body more - they build muscular strength. I also advocate tension intervals where you use a big gear to literally force the bike forward at low cadences. The constant strain on the pedals feels like strength training on a bike. This is a totally different way of riding compared with the smooth fast pedalling of endurance rides.

Sub Threshold – or Tempo Efforts are medium length intervals that boost your endurance in short periods of time.

Tempo efforts are continuous blocks that take concentration to do and feel progressively harder as the interval goes on. They are between 10 and 20 minutes long and boost your ability to climb long hills and add to the good work your endurance rides do. Technically, tempo efforts teach your body to clear lactate during exercise and sustain higher intensities. They also add to muscular endurance and help build mental toughness. In short, they are an essential part of a varied programme.

Short, sharp intervals or VO2 Max intervals boost your speed and the ability to try hard for short periods.

High intensity efforts of 2 to 5 mins in duration boost your ability to take in oxygen and increase your ability to ride fast, both on the flat and on short climbs. Putting them into your schedule is the final part of the mix and if you are going to ride with groups, then these above-threshold efforts will make coping with their erratic nature that much easier.

Variation, For The Soul

Most rides can fit into the above categories physically but I like to add variation to sooth the soul too. And there are many ways you can do this.

• Don’t always ride alone: Go out with friends, join a local group ride or club run.
• Do mini challenges: If your challenge is a big event, enter a few smaller ones in the months before. It's great practice to know what these days will feel like.
• Go on adventure rides: Plan a big ride on new roads, go to a different café, explore different scenes and environments.
• Ride place to place: If you must get somewhere, can you ride there? It is amazing how exciting not doing a loop can be.

So there you have it. The reasons why and a bit of the how for getting variation into your rides.

For me, variation really is the secret to good long-term training. It helps physically and mentally and is a vital part of your progression. If your cycling has to fit around life, and you’re close to the maximum time you can ride in any week, then variation will help you do more work. Tempo intervals add a bigger load than just simple endurance, and hilly rides are harder than flat ones.

When variation is added to the concepts of consistency and progression you have all you need to build towards your target ride. Each concept is simple to grasp but the trick is to NOT focus on just one. When setting your weekly training, think how it fits into the big picture and make sure you are addressing all three.

For more on the ideas of consistency and progression, I have blog posts on each here:

CONSISTENCY | PROGRESSION

A Thought...  and possible help

I know that when preparing for a challenge ride it can be confusing to know what rides to do, and when. That is why a created the Cent-Soulor. It's designed specifically for new and returning riders, and builds your fitness, skill and confidence. Starting from a modest base the 16-week course will take you from hardly riding to doing over 100km in one day.

To find out more and to see if it could help you, check out the info page here: CENT-SOULOR