This week I have had a semi successful week of training so far.
Monday:
I swapped out the interval training for basketball with my brother and nephew as they had hired a court so it was rude not to play :-). It was a really good workout and really fun so I worked out without really noticing it!
Tuesday:
I went to meet my friend and his daughter and we did sprints which was good except that I found out that my sprint stand was too high as every time I put my pedal on it the back wheel cam up off of the floor! I also had another annoying issue that my seat was stuck in the frame so I was unable to use my warm-up seat and post so warmup and cool down wasn’t as effective as it could have been.
We did some lats of the carpark to warm up and then did 2 sets of 3 x 25m sprints with a rest in between followed by 2 sets of 3 x 50m sprints to finish off.
I did my sprints at the same time as my friend which highlighted that I am lacking top end leg speed compared to my friend as in the 50m sprints he would catch me up in around 40m and we videoed our last set and it showed that I kept the same cadence to the 50m mark but he increased his cadence and revealed me in and over took me before the end of the sprint! I think this has been highlighted recently as I have dropped my gearing from 37×16 to 36×16 so the gearing has a lower spin out that I am used to and my lack of leg speed was masked by the harder gearing.
After that I decided that I was going to do downhill sprints once a week to get that issue sorted out as they really work on leg speed!
Wednesday:
I had a basketball match in the evening so had a good workout again.
Thursday:
I had to rush into work early on Thursday morning so I rode my road bike into the office after swapping over the front wheel from my allez elite as the new road bike still had a puncture! I also rode the bike with normal shoes and clipless road pedals which was far from ideal! I had to stay in the office until way after 6pm so decided to have a rest day as I was hurting from the exercise done all week and also from the long day at work.
On the plus side I managed to get the seat out of my race cruiser and get the warmup post in so it was ready for sprints the next time that I did them.
Friday:
This was my team’s first day in the office so I rode my race cruiser into work as it now had the warmup post and seat on it! As the day went on my back and knee started to hurt progressively more until when I was walking home with my son I had to ride the bike that I was pushing as my knee was too sore to walk any more!
I iced my knee all evening in the hopes that it would be OK for training in the morning.
Saturday:
Woke up and the knee was still sore so I decided not to ride in practice today and rest the knee a bit more!
If my knee is better in the morning I will try and do some downhill sprints in the morning early and then go for a ride on the road bike with my son later on to recover and get some extra work in.
Changing up Training:
This week has showed that just adding sprints to my usual training week has been enough of a change to stress my body so I have decided to put off doing the interval training until the new year and instead do 2 longer rides on the road bike a week instead! I think that the 2 longer rides a week will help build a good base fitness level and help get the weight off a bit and get me ready to start the interval training properly in January. I am thinking that in late December if I am lighter and fitter I can swap one of the road bike days for interval training as my body will be well used to the sprint sessions by then so I will be OK to increase the training load again.
I am also thinking that I should use Thursday and my rest day instead of Sunday as I usually hurting a lot from Basketball on Wednesday nights anyway! And when I am racing on a Wednesday night I will definitely be sore on a Thursday morning so it makes sense.
The fact that I am hurt again after only 4 days of training has highlighted the need for me to start stretching to improve my flexibility when I first wake up too as I am really struggling with my back and knee after only increasing my training load a little bit! I plan to start add 20-30 minutes of stretching as soon as I wake up to my morning routing from Tomorrow morning which I hope will help to reduce my back and knee issues a bit and allow me to at least make it through a weeks training without getting hurt! I am also going to make more of an effort to use my standing desk more during the work day as. I have been sitting more and more over the past couple months and I am definitely feeling worse from it! It is an easy change to make so I will make more of an effort from Monday.
All in all the week wasn’t so bad and I don’t think that the knee is too bad and is more a reaction to sitting all day in the office on Thursday and Friday than a reaction to the training but time will tell if that is the case or not!
I also have to urgently add some manual sessions to my training as I am still really struggling with them and that is severely limiting my track speed at the moment! I am thinking that I start getting up early in the morning’s again on Monday, Tuesday and Friday’s to go out to my local college carpark and then just work on my flat manuals for an hour or so before I start work. Monday and Friday’s are the easiest mornings to get up early as I don’t get home late on Sunday’s or Thursday nights so I can get to sleep early and make it easier to wake up early! Tuesday’s and Wednesday’s I get home about 10pm and then can’t get to sleep until about midnight so getting up early is a sever struggle on Wednesday and Thursday mornings. So my rough Training week will be:
Monday:
AM – Stretching and Manuals,
Lunch – Road Ride,
Tuesday:
AM – Stretching and Manuals,
PM – Sprints (Flat)
Wednesday:
AM – Stretch
PM – Basketball Match or Club Race at Bristol
Thursday:
REST
Friday:
AM – Stretching and Sprints (Downhill),
PM – Manuals
Saturday:
AM – Stretching
Lunch – Club Training
Sunday:
AM – Stretching and Sprints
Lunch – Road Ride (light)
I am also going to fit my speed and cadence sensors back onto my Cruiser so that I can more accurately measure my progress over the training period. This will make it easier to see if I am progressing as I should be and also make it easier to see if and when I need to increase the training load again to get over any plateau’s in performance.
I am predicting that from now until January my performance should slowly keep improving as I am a long way from peak fitness and as. I continue to train and lose weigh from the training I will continue to get faster! In the new year I think that I will start to plateu as my body get used to the training loads that have been put on it and therefore the weigh loss will also plateu until the training load is increased again. This is why I am planning to start the interval training in the new year in order to overcome the stagnation in my performance gains and kick start the weight loss again with the increase load from the intervals. After xmas I also want to add a day of uphill sprints as well to start working on leg strength as well as speed and power from the downhill and flat sprints. I am not sure what session I will replace just yet but I thunk that I will most likely replace one of the road bike sessions as they are the least BMX specific workouts that I am doing. Also I will be replacing one of the road bike sessions with intervals which are great for fitness and weight loss and also way more bmx specific too.