Off-season training questions

Triathlon Forum
1

With the main part of my season now over (Southern hemisphere) I’m starting to look at how I’m going to structure on off season to try and improve my speed, hopefully on the bike and run.

In the past I have had a coach as well as followed generic plans for in season training, and I thought I’d have a go at making my own program this off season and next season, but I have a few questions I was hoping I could find answers for on here.

I’d like to focus on speed work with intervals over Winter, and I was wondering if I will see better results by just focusing on one discipline for a block of time (say 4 weeks) to allow enough time for recovery and adaptation between workouts, or if I can focus on both run and bike at the same time and still have enough recovery to improve? From what I’ve read, people either seem to focus on improving either the run or bike, but not normally both.

I’d also like to improve strength, but would adding in strength training as well have a be a bit of overkill, and I’d end up with a lot of high intensity workouts with not enough time to recover and improve?

I.e. Would 1 day VO2 max and 1 day FTP on the bike and the corresponding for the run a week plus 1 day of strength be too much?

2

There is no reason you cannot work on both bike and run at the same time. Search for BarryP running on here and you will find a wealth of knowledge on how best to improve your run. You will get many thoughts on the bike as well. Some will say threshold intervals, some will say sweet spot. You need to find what will work for you. There are no magic workouts. Good solid consistent work leads to improvement.

3

Great, thanks for that. And thanks for the heads up about BarryP!

4

Speedwork/Vo2 max work in the early stages of the off-season will see you peak too early. Your focus on bike run should be aerobic development, BarrP has a great run program.

On your bike, I’d focus on building base with mileage, adding some strength endurance efforts later in your off-season.

If you are to concentrate on one discipline, make it your swim. You can afford to work on that at this time. Once you’ve got technique you have it for life. I find if I’m fit for the swim I am pretty fit overall. Time in water by days per week is key.