All Criterium Specialty training plans have been improved to be more specific to your riding and racing goals.
What’s New
All Criterium plans include dedicated taper and race weeks. Specifically, week 7 of your plan is suited to B-priority events at any time; and the final week, week 8, is suited to A-priority events. Each of these weeks can be used independently of the plan as a taper week structure. Additionally, in the newly updated Criterium plans, you’ll find recovery weeks that are truly focused on recovery and race simulations that will prepare you for the demands of your specific event.
Summary of plan benefits: focused recovery weeks, race simulations and improved TSS progression fosters the ability to perform faster at criterium races.
The Type of Fitness You Will Gain
The Criterium plan fosters the sort of fitness that allows athletes to repeat really high- intensity efforts again and again and again. The type of training riders will see in the Criterium plans are basically a focus on anaerobic power delivery, but also high VO2max efforts, as well as levels of muscular endurance depending on the volume of plan.
Who are the Criterium plans for? A rider should follow the crit plan if they’re trying to cultivate the sort of fitness that allows them to work really hard for short periods of time, rest very briefly, and repeat that sort of effort. This is also a suitable plan for draft legal triathletes and cross country mountain bike racers who maybe want to try something outside the realm of the mountain bike plans.
Why the Drop in Stress from the Newly Updated Build Plans?
If you started training with TrainerRoad before March 20th of 2017, you’ll notice that there has been a slight reduction in TSS. This is to transition you from the Build phase into the Specialty phase at an appropriate ramp rate. If you look at your full Base, Build and Specialty training plans, Coach Chad steadily grows your TSS in the Base and Build phases. It isn’t until the Specialty phase that you’ll see TSS level off to make sure you’re as fresh as possible for your goal events or riding season.
How to Start the Criterium Specialty Plan
If you recently started (before July 20, 2017, the date the new plans were released) ) a Criterium Specialty plan and would like to update to one of the new plans, you must stop your current plan and reselect the Criterium plan to access the new improvements.
If you’d like to update your new plan with the completed workouts from your earlier plan, you must unassign the workouts from your past plan in order to assign them to the new plan. This will allow you to update your new plan with the rides you’ve completed from your original one.
If you’re new to structured training: Before you start the Criterium plan, we recommend completing Base and Build phase training plans first. The Sweet Spot Base plan, followed by the Short Power Build plan are great to follow before moving onto refine your abilities with the Criterium Specialty plan.
What’s Next
Stay tuned for a new round of improvements to all Off-Road Speciality plans! Coach Chad is currently working on refinements to the Cyclocross Specialty phase training plans.
Have a question about training plans? Leave it below or send our support team a message to support@trainerroad.com.
