Work Capacity… how much can you handle?

Tren’sTrainingTip:

Much of what BASE building represents for me is the process of slowly and steadily building up the amount of stress my body can handle so that by the time I start my high intensity work (above threshold) 8 weeks out from a peak, I’ll be able to recover from these workouts and theoretically get more higher quality workouts into less time (8 breakthrough workouts, as opposed to 6, for example in a 3 week period).

BASE is also a great time to experiment with scheduling design. We get to design programs, then implement them and see how the body responds… too much stress? too little?? Just right?? (did I mention that you should be keeping a training journal?)

For me I’m finding that the 3 days on (monday, tuesday, wednesday), 1 day off, 2 days on (friday, saturday), 1 day off schedule is working great for me. But as I begin my build period (5 weeks from now) I’ll likely cut to 4 days a week to allow for increaced recovery time due to higher intensities.

So, where are you at now in terms of volume, intensity and weekly stress? How are you recovering from your current workouts? Do you feel like your workload has been too easy lately? too hard? How do you plan to adjust it?

These are all questions I’m asking myself as I attempt to apply as much stress (within certain parameters of intensity) as I can without pushing myself over the edge (which leads to crappy workouts, reduced enthusiasm and if not kept in check, overtraining).

So, I write this now as I’m in the midst of a recovery week after putting in 22 hard days of training (15 quality workouts during that time period). The body is starting to heal nicely and the mind is getting ready for some more hard work come saturday as I kick off BASE3 with a long ride this Saturday. I can feel my work capacity increacing and my higher end power is starting to come up… just gotta stay focused on some big volume weeks to get my body ready for the struggles of BKR, my first “A” race of the season.

Keep training, thresholders!

-Leo