Hi,
I’m a food courier on a mecanical bike working 24h a week and planning on working 35h.
I already got z2 training through work ( for now around 10h a week of pedalling, and on a 35h contract I think it will be around 12h a week )
I’d like to be able to do 2 intensity sessions a week, and I’m lucky enough to have a job where I can choose when I work.
So how should I plan this ? I’ve been thinking about it but I’m not sure how to do this.
The 2 only rules are :
Saturday is the only day that has to be a rest day ( not a perfect rest day though, my parents come visit so we walk all day )
The fewer days I work, the better ( I prefer a few hard days than more easier days )
Plan :
Sunday : Intensity workout
Monday : 10h work
Tuesday : Rest
Wednesday : 5h work + intensity workout
Thursday : 10h work
Friday : 10h work
Saturday : Rest
I would do 4 weeks blocks with 1 week without any workout outside of work.
Do you think there will be enough rest between the 2 workouts ?
If, let’s say, there’s one VO2max or Sprint workout and one threshold / sweets pot workout, should I do the VO2max / sprint workout during the three consecutive days?
Any ideas on how to approach the problem differently ?
How long have you been riding and have you done any interval training before?
If the answer is less than a year and no, then I might encourage you to try and find a second recovery day. Like you said, your Saturday isn’t a true recovery day and this may prove too much over time. Better to approach with caution than go too hard in your training program and burn out. Also, consider having a rest week every 4 weeks (3 weeks intensity, 1 week recovery), depending on what period of training you’re in. Typically TR plans give you a recovery week every 6 weeks in base phase and 4 weeks in build.
As for the time between your intensity, what you have is probably fine. Try it for a month and see how it goes. Make notes about your sleep, food and feelings of tiredness to help learn about how to adapt your plan as time goes on.
Lastly, try checking out some of the topics on the forum regarding commuting and training, you might find some useful information there.
I’ve been riding almost every day for a bit more than 3 years, and I’ve been doing structured workouts since February 2019 ( mostly 2x20m / 4x4m/2m and some sprint workouts + a few ssblv weeks before burning out ).
Yeah I burnt out 2 times in 2 years so this year I plan on not keeping the streak up. I’ll definitely be careful.
I didn’t think of taking notes of how I feel though, thanks for the suggestion ! This + my whoop data will really be helpful !
I do plan on doing this, although I’ll try to be more flexible because food delivery isn’t always the same. So on after a hard week I may not do intensity for 2 or 3 weeks depending on what is needed.
I won’t have recovery weeks though, just weeks without intensity workouts. I don’t like this but I don’t have a choice
It’s not clear from your posts whether you plan to use TR training plans. I would suggest that you do. You could choose low volume plans and just remove one of the workouts each week, to allow yourself plenty of recovery given your job. This will take care of a proper training progression and give you a good balance of intensity and recovery weeks.
For maximum gains, don’t be TOO flexible. Follow the structure of the TR plans as best you can. Doing this and allowing your work mileage to fluctuate will be much better than allowing the structure of your intensity workouts to fluctuate.
That’s exactly what a recovery week is - similar number of hours on the bike to a normal week but without the intensity. Again, I suggest taking a look at the TR plans and you’ll see how they are structured.
I’m not sure if I want to use TR plans for now. The sweet spot approach didn’t work for me and I found that with work I was accumulating way less fatigue from a more polarized approach ( with good progress ).
However when I stopped using TR, polarized approach was very recent and Trainnow / adaptative training were in alpha or beta release.
So I’ll have to check out if it would work better for me now.
Noted !
It will be z2 and not z1 though. Is 10h of z2 still considered a rest week?
TR plans use zone 2 workouts for recovery weeks so you might be ok if you’re strict about sticking to Z2 at work.
Even if you dont use TR plans you might find some value in looking at them. See how they are structured, how much intensity there is and how recovery weeks are planned etc. This may give you some help filling in any gaps when planning your own programme.
