Physical Tuning | Skills & Drills | Thought Design | Team Work

VO2 Blues
Creating Context for Success in Any Training Session

It was a slightly overcast day, early March. The type of day you’d use to take a nap if you didn’t have to generate yourself for work or a training session. I was out for a session of VO 2 intervals and looking forward to achieving the intentions of my workout: increased aerobic fitness, wattage goals, time, and speed up a short, steady hill. After two intervals out of a planned ten, my legs and lungs (and heart I’d later learn) were done. Unable to produce anything approaching my goals, or my previous efforts, I turned my disappointment in my performance into an opportunity to produce a new intention for my workout. Instead of the lung-busting, leg searing VO2s, I focused on spinning a smooth cadence up the hill, relaxing on the bike and calming my breathing. Having accomplished the ten planned intervals as this new way of being, I proceeded homeward knowing I’d accomplished something not previously planned.

The context we take into our training shapes what we achieve in the sessions. Approaching an interval session as something “you have to do”, or with an attitude of “if I do this workout, then I’ll be able to…” transforms training into a means to an end. There is certainly nothing wrong with that, except that the nature of being human means that no matter what, you won’t accomplish in every training session what you’ve set out to do. Add to that basic truth the numerous pitfalls to a successful workout, especially one of high intensity, and you might see how easily we can be stopped in achieving our maximum athletic potential.

There are mental as well as physical barriers to “perfect” performance, whether in a race, training, or in your day job. Imagine approaching a training session on its own merit; a training session done for the joy of being in action around your performance commitment, regardless of the outcome, will be a lot more enjoyable and ultimately have more impact than a training session done “in order to…” Furthermore, a workout that seems as a failure as an interval session can be turned into success as a “joy-ride”. Does it feel better to beat yourself up because you didn’t complete a planned workout, or to create something from an apparent nothing. How often do we allow ourselves that pleasure? Take the perspective that each training session is in fact an opportunity for the training and development of not only your body, but for your mind.

At their most basic, recovery workouts (and recovery weeks) are intended as an opportunity for your body to recover from previous efforts. Many athletes, however, see them as a boring waste of time that slows them down. As I mentioned in a previous article, the benefits of recovery are many. Still, it is common to find athletes who will skip recovery workouts, favoring instead to add an intense session in that place on their training schedule, driven by a perspective that these recovery periods are a “waste” or impediment to training. For these athletes, creating a different context for recovery workouts may be key. Athletes can be coached to create these workout s as opportunities to work on cadence, breathing and other bike technique. Recovery workouts are also an opportunity to practice patience and restraint. Do you think it serves you to be pedaling sweet soft cadence down the bike path while some guy with hairy legs and panniers passes you by? No doubt. Having practiced such restraint, you’ll be a bit more observant when a break heads up the road, you know that it’s only mile 12 of 72, and you can choose to save precious energy by NOT chasing the doomed break down.

Since I mentioned recovery weeks, look at creating a context for those weeks that might be a bit more inspiring than “giving your body a rest”. Taken as an opportunity to catch-up on reading, time with the kids or fulfill on other commitments, one might embrace a recovery week, rather than fight it off with workouts that don’t fulfill on the training mission of the week.

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Jonathan Siegel, Director of Coaching
JDS Sportcoaching, LLC

Jonathan Siegel, CSCS is an USA Cycling certified expert coach. Don’t tell him this town ain’t got no heart, you just gotta poke around. If you have a comment or a training question, contact JDS Sportcoaching,LLC.