5 key sessions from Tim Kerrison

Tim Kerrison is the head performance coach at Team Ineos and has been responsible for all of the team’s Tour de France wins including Bradley Wiggins, Chris Froome, Geraint Thomas and Egan Bernal and has also been coaching Ironman professional Cam Wurf.

I have been following Tim’s career for sometime now and here are five key sessions that have stuck out at me.

Five Key Sessions

1. 3x 50min @ threshold – This session is used once or twice in the lead up to a grand tour. Often you will see his athletes do this session as a 4 hour ride with the main set being 3x 50min at threshold with 10min easy between. (note that this is at threshold and not sweet spot). Normally this session will take a number of weeks to build up to.
2. High threshold in Andorra – There is a 6% clime in Andorra that takes his athletes between 38-42 minutes to ride up. The ride isn’t max effort but it is a high threshold session. I have put this in the list as it is a very common session to see for most of his athletes 6-8 weeks out from key races.
3. Alternating cadence – Most weeks you will find sessions with this or a version of this for his athletes. Often these are done on different terrain. A high portion of his athletes invest heavily on pedal efficiency. 24min hovering at or just under threshold done as 6min/6min alternating cadence 50/85rpm followed by 24min slightly lower in power done as 6min/6min 45/90rpm
4. Threshold with surges – A lot of the sessions Tim gives his athletes you will find surges and bursts sets ranging from 10-90sec. A common session found is 2x 40min at threshold with 10x 20sec surges to low anaerobic zone every 4min at the same power all with a high cadence between 90-100rpm.
5. Mix UP – Mix up sessions are found multiple times each week that targets a number of different energy systems. A common session would be something like 15min hovering under threshold, 20min done as 5x 3:30min @ tempo, 30sec burst followed by 15min @ threshold, 8min @ tempo, 45min high zone two.

Summary

There are four common things when looking at training logs from the athletes Tim coaches that stick out at me.

1. High Volume
2. A lot of time spent at or hovering just under threshold
3. Most sessions will have surges and burst sets
4. An endless chase to improve peddle efficiency