Maximum Performance for Cyclists

I picked up a copy of "Maximum Performance for Cyclists" by Dr. Michael Ross the other day. It's an interesting book; it reminded me of the Dave Morris book. Despite the title, it doesn't actually hit the physiology material as hard as Morris, but it includes a lot of other stuff. There's an interesting section on bike fit (including measurement of Q-angle, which I hadn't seen before), and it does a better job of laying out what a training plan would look like.




In general, I think the book doesn't go into enough detail on most topics, and it skips some important things. Basically, I think this shouldn't be your only training book. On the other hand, if you're already somewhat knowledgeable about training, I think this book is enough.

So, Dr. Ross is essentially advocating a focus on high-intensity training after a relatively short low-intensity training period. It's been a long time since I've read the Morris book, but I think the approaches are very similar. Unlike some of the "crazy" Internet sites I read, it looks like rides would still be long enough that there should be no problems actually sitting on the bike for 2 hours if you needed to for a race. Longer than that, and maybe you'd want to rethink it.

One thing that Dr. Ross does very well in the book is focus on training goals for a given workout. If your goal is to build mitochondria, or strengthen certain muscle fibers, then you should do a workout optimized for that specific goal. This is something that I lose sight of sometimes. I think it's definitely important to know what you want to accomplish for a given workout.

Even though I'm currently following the more traditional Friel program, I keep looking at the higher intensity programs for a few reasons:

1. Especially now with the baby, my training time is very limited.

2. With the Friel program, I feel like I'm too far out of racing shape for most of the year. For example, I felt like I was only in good shape for 2 of the 5 mountain bike races I did this year (had I done the 7 races I originally planned, it would have been 2 out of 7). For 'cross this year, it will be about 5 of 9. Maybe this is a problem with my planning, but I think that I may be in better racing shape off-peak with a higher intensity program.

3. Intuitively, I question the value of long rides for the type of racing that I do. My mountain bike races are usually around 90 minutes, and 'cross races will be 45 minutes this year for me. So, is it really effective to frequently ride 2+ hours? On the other hand, I feel that my biggest year over year gains come from the Base phases, but maybe that's because I spend most of the year in them.

Anyway, so I'm going to mull this all over a bit. I'm not changing anything for this season, since I've only got 3 months left, but I'm going to consider making a change for next year. Whether it's this program, or Morris, I at least want to take a look again.