Description
The Plan
This 6-week plan will help you to determine what kind of triathlete you are and where your strengths and weaknesses lie. The plan consists of a number of ‘Key Sessions’ and fitness assessments interspersed with challenging but non-essential training sessions you can swap out for your own sessions if you have a regular plan. This plan is great for revealing your characteristics as an athlete and goes beyond telling you what your FTP is and your run pace zones. We delve into areas such as your climbing ability, speed endurance and how well developed your body’s ‘gears’ are even within specific training zones. Such information can prove invaluable when choosing race courses that suit you or even what sort of racing you should actually focus on.
We have endeavoured to create a balanced training plan that will still help you build, however, the main focus is on data collection and discovering where you’re at. We do this by assessing a number of parameters, including speed endurance, peak power/pace over different durations, hill climbing ability etc. There are instructions in the plan on how to interpret your data and what to make of the results. However, if you feel you would like more help in analysing your data, you can request a consultation call with one of our coaches for an additional £30 by emailing us at [email protected].
At RIAK Fitness, our plans do not work to a traditional 6-day training week with one rest day and a mesocycle of 3 weeks loading and 1 week unloading (or a rest week). This is because your body does not work in this arbitrary way. Your body needs recovery when it needs recovery and therefore, all our plans have recovery at their centre as this is ultimately when your body supercompensates (gets stronger). Therefore, we recommend a recovery day, which is either pure recovery or active recovery every 3-4 days. Otherwise, in our opinion, going beyond 4 days without proper recovery can make the training week a big slog and have a knock on effect into subsequent weeks. So, prioritise the recovery and avoid back-loading the week if you are unable to fit sessions in. If you can’t do a session, skip it and move on. There’s always more training to come! Prioritise the ‘Key Sessions’ and skip the others if you struggle to fit them in.
Full Spectrum Performance Testing included
The plan culminates in one of our online full spectrum performance testing session for the bike. This is included in the price of the plan and in this coached group session we will test your V02max, Anaerobic Capacity, Neuromuscular (max) Power and Functional Threshold Power (FTP). The coach will teach you in the session how to interpret the data you collect and how to use it in terms of adapting your training to develop any areas requiring work. It’s also just a good opportunity to ask any training related questions you might have.
If you would prefer to do this session in-studio, please get in touch at [email protected] and subject to availability, we will book you on at the discounted rate.
In the plan we have put in a placeholder as a reminder to sign up for this session. The placement of the placeholder is unlikely to equate to when a testing session actually is. Testing sessions are run once a month and you can find the dates on the Events Calendar on the E-Racing page.
Who is it suitable for?
IMPORTANT: Completion of this plan is premised on you already having a relatively decent base level of fitness. We would NOT recommend trying to follow this plan if you are not already relatively fit. Firstly, because the ‘Key Sessions’ will be pure hell if you’re not at a decent level, and secondly, the data won’t be reliable because it will simply suggest you need to improve on everything because you’re not fit enough.
Please ensure you take time to read the session instructions carefully as some of the sessions are a touch more complicated than might appear on first glance. This is especially the case for the ‘Key Sessions’ where it is important you come away with reliable data.
For any road rides, please take care and do not take any unnecessary risks for a good result. Your safety is paramount and there will always be other opportunities to challenge yourself.
What you will need?
In order to follow this plan, you will need:
– a Training Peaks account;
– a turbo trainer which is either a smart trainer/bike or a basic trainer with a power meter on your bike;
– a good idea of your FTP. If you’re unsure of your FTP or if it’s been a while since you’ve been tested, you would be very welcome to sing up to one of our online Standard FTP tests. These are far less physiologically demanding than the Full Spectrum testing you will do at the end of the plan; and
– some way of tracking your run and swim data i.e. a Garmin/Suunto/Polar or similar smart watch.
We would recommend purchasing a Training Peaks premium subscription for the duration of this plan to enable you to move your sessions around to suit (within the recommendations above) and so that you can more easily interpret and collate your data in-line with the instructions in this plan.
Otherwise, best of luck with the plan and please ensure you look after yourself and don’t take any unnecessary risks with your safety, health or mental well-being.
Next Steps
- Firstly, set yourself up with a free Training Peaks account if you don’t already have one – Training Peaks
- Pick the plan you would like to do from the dropdown above
- Once you have ordered the plan, you will receive a confirmation email, which will contain a link asking you to add us as your coach on Training Peaks
- Click the link and add us as a coach and we’ll import the plan into your Training Peaks account
- Then off you go!
