This week in the Training Guide, Coach Christian talks about simple performance testing to monitor improvements.

A good training program should be built on hard data and evidence. One of the most important sets of data points you can have as a cyclist is testing data to track your performance over time. You want to know your training is working, you want to know if it’s not working, and you also want to be able to look back and see how you’ve progressed as an athlete over time.

Yet, I’ve come to realize many athletes don’t have a solid, repeatable performance test that they use to measure their form. These tests don’t need to be complicated: yes, lab data or complicated power testing protocols have their place. But today, we’re going to suggest some simple performance tests that anyone can do multiple times during the season to track their progress.

Power Testing

If you have a power meter or a smart trainer, the best combination of simplicity, repeatability and useful data is to simply do a long, well-paced time trial effort every time you want to test your form.

Twenty minute tests are most common, and I think these are fine for most athletes (note: please don’t calculate your FTP by using this number and multiplying by .95, but we can get into that another day).

The most important thing is to always repeat the test under similar conditions: if you use a hill, always use the same or a similar hill. If you use your trainer once, use it always. If you use a flat road, continue using a flat road.

Power output can vary given terrain, so trying to compare an indoor test to an outdoor uphill test is foolish. You’ll only get bad data and trick yourself into seeing improvement when there is none.

Even if you don’t own a power meter, you may have some options for power testing. Many areas have cycling gyms or studios which have smart trainers that measure power output: consider booking a session every 6-12 weeks at one of these to do your testing in an accurate, repeatable way.

Hill-Climb Testing

If you don’t have a power meter, the next best thing is a hill-climb test. This is an age-old practice: if you go to any town where lots of pro riders live, you’ll find there’s a local testing climb where everyone goes to check their form. Monte Serra in Lucca, La Madone on the Cote d’azur, or Rocacorba in Girona are all examples of climbs that are famous not for their use in races, but for being famous test climbs.

If you don’t have a power meter and are using a hill, you can be a bit more flexible with time: ideally a 20-30 minute climb is perfect, but if you only have shorter climbs available, something as short as 10 minutes is fine. I would suggest not going below 10 minutes as the anaerobic contribution starts to become too great.

For outdoor testing, it’s even more important to guarantee similar conditions: when you do a test track the clothing you wore, bottles you carried, and atmospheric conditions that day. Avoid especially windy days that will give you bad data.

Flat TT Testing

The last option for any cyclist should be tracking improvement on a flat TT course. This is suitable if you don’t have a power meter or a local climb to test on, but it’s not ideal.

For flat TT testing, you should choose a loop or an out-and-back to help eliminate the effects of wind. A 20-30 minute course is ideal.

With flat TT testing it’s really important to try to match atmospheric conditions: go on days with low wind-speed and similar conditions to your last test.

If you live somewhere with cold winters, you’ll go slower in winter due to baggier clothes and higher air density. Because of that, you may have to compare tests by time of year: compare winter tests to winter tests, and summer tests to summer tests. You’ll also need far larger improvements to be confident that you’ve actually gotten faster and didn’t just have faster conditions.

Conclusion

The goal with performance testing is to track improvement over time and make sure your training plan is working. Otherwise, you’re only going by feel, and have no real idea if what you’re doing is working.

There’s a number of ways to test, as we’ve laid out above, but it’s worth doing your best to seek out power testing or using a long climb. Flat TT testing should be a last option.

Be sure to record your test data somewhere where you won’t lose it. Training Peaks or Strava is a great way to do this. Include important data so that you can repeat the test under the same or similar conditions.

Remember, you can find the Training Center Podcast wherever you listen to your podcasts:

In this week’s edition of the Training Guide, GFNY Coach Christian discusses whether or not you should program rest weeks into your training plan.

Rest Weeks vs De-load weeks

Before we start, it’s important to discuss some definitions. Athletes often think of rest weeks and de-load weeks as being interchangeable. However, in my opinion, they are very different things.

A rest week is just that: a week solid of rest or very easy training. On one hand, it can give the body a big break from the stress of training. On the other hand, after a week of rest or near-rest, detraining will already take a major chunk out of your fitness.

A de-load week is simply a small reduction in training volume and intensity. Perhaps 70% of the volume and intensity of your hardest week of training during that particular training cycle is a good number for a de-load week.

A de-load week can also be accomplished in several ways. One way would be to apply that 70% factor across the whole training week: reduce volume and intensity of all workouts across the week.

Another way is to simply take a few rest days, followed by normal training. My favorite way to do this is simple: take Monday and Tuesday totally off, ride easy on Wednesday to wake the body up a bit, and get back to normal training on Thursday. So while the volume will be down for the week, it’s really three days of rest vs an entire week of rest. This can be ideal to recover from a big week of training: a training camp; a holiday weekend full of long rides; or just a big-time overload week.

Rest Weeks: The dos and don’ts

I always cringe when I see amateur athletes taking very easy weeks or full rest weeks on a routine basis. In my opinion, there’s no reason an athlete should have to take rest weeks through the course of a season.

After seven days of rest or easy riding, detraining is already occurring. Athletes who take frequent rest weeks often note feeling flat, stale and unfit the week following their rest week.

Also, most athletes aren’t doing enough damage to truly need frequent rest weeks. Adhering to the common 3 week on/1 week cycle of training, where the 4th week is a rest week, will simply lead to under-training for most people.

There’s a few exceptions:

-At the end of the season. Taking a rest week, or even two or three, is a good idea at the end of a long season.

-Mid-season if you have a very long season. If, say, you have a goal event in May, and another in September, taking a rest week right after your event in May can be a good re-set before beginning to train again for your event in September.

De-load weeks: the dos and don’ts

De-load weeks are far more useful, and should be far more frequent, than rest weeks. Whereas a rest week will leave you lethargic and under-trained, a deload week should leave you fresh, sharp, and motivated.

However, I still see athletes overuse de-load weeks. For example, the traditional 3 weeks on/1 week ‘off’ format can work well when we use the 4th week as a de-load week and not a pure rest week. However, I don’t think this is necessary for athletes training at low volume. If your big weeks are less than around 14 hours a week of training, I don’t suggest taking a de-load week after every 3 weeks of training.

That doesn’t mean to never take deload weeks, it just means to take them when you need them: after a training camp or long weekend of riding as we mentioned above, during a period that life has you slammed and you’re extremely busy with work/family/off-the-bike things, or after a race.

For athletes who are training with high volume, then taking a de-load week after 3-4 weeks of hard training can be a good way to freshen your legs and guard against overtraining.

Remember that life often intervenes

Another reason I don’t plan deload or rest weeks often for amateur athletes is that life often intervenes and provides unplanned rest anyway.

Work trips and vacations often provide rest throughout the season.

On the other hand, life stress can come up and force me, as a coach, to plan some rest if I know the athlete is stressed, busy, or not sleeping enough.

For that reason, I rarely pre-plan deload or rest weeks with busy athletes, and instead adapt on the fly when I see signs they might need some rest. If you’re a self-coached athlete, I suggest you try to do the same.