Building Endurance: The Magic of Progression

Consider the situation....

You've dipped your toes into the world of cycling, drawn in by the camaraderie and the thrill of the open road. Your friends, some of them seasoned riders, have successfully lured you into the world of charity rides and sportives, setting the ambitious goal of riding 100km in a single day.

Whether you're new to cycling or returning to the bike after a few years away, the challenge seems monumental. The question looms: how do you get your body ready, how do you go from hardly riding to riding 100km?

The answer lies in a simple yet powerful concept of fitness: Progression.

Instead of doing the same rides and duration on the bike each week you must increase your riding and more importantly, increase the work you do each week.

Now imagine another scene.…

You're about 4 or 5 months away from your big ride. Your trusty bike is working well and you have started going out for a few rides. Six weeks ago, the thought of covering any substantial distance felt like a formidable task. Now, you find yourself comfortably managing three rides a week. It's a significant leap, but the journey has just begun…..

It’s at this stage that many people find themselves on the big plains of a plateaux. Life gets in the way and regardless of your goal, you end up doing the same rides each week. And once your body can comfortably do the rides, you won’t get any fitter by doing the same thing over and over.

That’s why in the world of endurance training, progression is key. To get fitter than you once were you must do more than you once did.

You're a high performance sports car.…

One way to look at how progression works comes from world-renowned sports physiologist, Peter Keen, who once described it like this:

“Imagine you're in a high-performance sports car at the bottom of the M1. The road is clear and you floor it, driving flat out with the engine screaming. You fly past the Southern towns and junctions, past Derby and head further North until you get to Sheffield, when your car suddenly starts billowing smoke and splutters to a halt. You have driven it so hard that the engine has blown up and you have destroyed it. There is nothing you can do, so you get out and leave it there.

But, when you come back to the car the next day, not only is the engine repaired, but it is faster and more powerful than it was before!”

That is what happens to our bodies too. We work them hard and break them down and after rest, they grow back stronger. And the beauty is, this process repeats itself, the more we train the better we get.
 

Creating Progression: The 3 weeks on, 1 week off approach

So, how do you build progression into your riding?

One way is to apply a strategic, three week on, one week off approach. The fourth week is recovery, a crucial and often underestimated component of building fitness.

This means you train for three weeks (each week doing a little bit more than the week before) and then have one week of recovery. You don’t stop cycling completely but the total load is a lot less than the previous week. Then, when you start your next block, your first week should be the same distance as in week 2 before. That way your three-week blocks increase too.

We get fitter by giving our body a load – in our case cycling - and then giving it time to recover. The work breaks our bodies down, the rest allows it to grow back stronger – it’s almost magic.

The beauty of 3 weeks on, 1 week off is that it also makes adding progression easier. By gradually increasing both the frequency and duration of your rides, your body adapts to the demands placed upon it. What once seemed like a tough ride becomes your new normal. All you have to do is rinse and repeat….

But how do you do it?

To build progression into your training start by working out how much load you are giving it. You don't need high tech gadgets like power meters or heart rate monitors at this stage, just start by measuring the time and distance you do each month. Then, try and increase both by around 10% a month.  Thinking in weekly blocks is too short but monthly averages smooth out the normal fluctuations of our cycle - life balance quite well.

Having a target for your riding each month is a great training aid as it gives you something concrete to aim for. And there is nothing more satisfying than seeing your totals climb each month. Just one thing, don't expect to be able to keep them going up for ever, you need to rest on a monthly basis too. And guess what - 3 months on, one month off works in this context too.

So, what's the key takeaway?

As you navigate the coming weeks and build your riding skill, keep in mind that progression is not just a concept; it's a vital part of your cycling success. Fitness doesn’t come from doing just one big ride or one hard week. It comes from over time, gradually increasing the work you do.
Trust the process, allow your body the recovery it deserves, and you will soon be ready for your big ride.

And here's the exciting part.

All this knowledge, the secret to progressing from a novice to a confident rider, is not hidden. It comes from The Cent-Soulor, a transformative cycle training program built specifically to help new and returning riders complete their first big ride. 

Created by Peter Georgi, the Cent-Soulor is breaking new ground in cycle coaching. Video and written instructions guide you through each week and every ride. You're told not only what rides to do but how to do them. Background videos reveal the context of why, helping you build fitness, confidence and skill. Helping you to love riding your bike.

The Cent-Soulor: 0 to 100km in 16 weeks.

 www.cent-soulor.uk