Following on from my last post on Dr Ferrari’s training zones, this is a three day micro cycle Dr Ferrari would get Lance Armstrong to do while training for the Le Tour de France.

Please note that I am not positive what time of year Lance would be doing these training blocks. Like most cyclists, Lance was on a three day micro cycle that looked like

• Day One: 4.5hrs done as 2hr @ Lento, 1hr @ Medio @ 30-40min @ Soglia
• Day Two: 5.5hrs with 2.5hrs @ Medio
• Day Three: 2.5hrs done @ Lento

This three day micro cycling was repeated over and over and over again. As you can see, Lance spent a lot of his training volume riding tempo and threshold.

It appears the most popular posts on this site is information regarding Dr. Ferrari and his training formula. In the past three posts I covered are

• Dr Ferrari’s Coaching Philosophies – Click Here
• Dr Ferrari’s Training Sessions – Click Here
• Dr Ferrari’s Training Base training program – Click Here

Before I post the training cycle Lance Armstrong would do under Dr Ferrari, I thought I would post his Zone list using Lactate levels.

Dr Ferrari’s Zone List

• Lento – Lactate level will be approximately 1-2 mmol/L
• Medio – Lactate levels will be approximately 2-3 mmol/L
• Soglia  – Lactate levels will be approximately 3-4 mmol/L
• Super Soglia Lactate levels will be over 4 mmol/L

It is clear from everything I have read regarding Dr Ferrari’s Coaching methods is he regards spending a lot of time in the Medio zone for his athletes.

This is a mathematical equation that you can use to workout from past races how many watts needed for a set time. Please note that this only takes into account that everything is the same as the race info you input.

I will use myself for this example

Looking at my last Ironman bike of 5:14, if I want to take 14min off my time to have a bike split of 5hrs,

• Normalized Power (NP): 193 watts
• Bike Time: 5:14 (18,900 seconds)
• 193 watts x 18,900 (5:14 in seconds) = 3647,700
• 3647,700 ÷ 18,000 (5hr in seconds) = NP 202.65 watts giving a NP 9.65 watt difference (5.05% increase of NP)

So if I had rode that last Ironman at 203 watts instead of 193 watts, I would have got 5hrs bike split instead of 5:14.

Enjoy crunching numbers.

Tim

Seeing as my last two articles on Dr. Michele Ferrari was so popular, I thought I would share his three training block base training program.

• The First article I describe his coaching philosophies – Click Here

• The Second article I go further into his training sessions – Click Here

Dr Michele Ferrari’s base training program looks likes

Block One:

Block Two:

Block Three:

The Nnorwegian Triathlon Training System

• Day One: Two threshold sessions + one easy session

• Day Two: Long easy sessions (5-8 hours in total)

• Day Three: Two threshold sessions + one easy session

• Day Four: Very easy training, often around 2hrs of choice.

Threshold Training

They do a lot of double threshold training days. Because triathlon is swim, bike & run, they aim to hit a threshold session on each discipline a minimum of once per cycle. They will sometimes have all day swim, bike, run threshold day but this isn’t done too often.

The goal within these threshold sessions is to stay as close to threshold as possible so coaching staff will take lactate tests between each interval.

With these sessions, there is a lot of variations in the training sessions at threshold.

Craig Alexander who is talked about as one of the greatest Ironman athlete of all time who won the 2008, 2009 and 2011 Ironman World Championships would train over 40+ hours per week when leading into Kona. This is what a build week would look like for Crowie who would aim to repeat this week 4-5 times in a row.

Kona Build weeks.

Monday:

• Swim – Squad 3-7km

• Bike – 4hrs
• Gym

Tuesday:

• Swim – Squad 3-7km

• Bike – 2hrs threshold session, this is often done on the indoor trainer (before Zwift and smart trainers)
• Gym

Wednesday:

• Swim – Squad 3-7km

• Either a race simulation or Bike 5-6hrs + 60-90min brick run (often mile repeats)

Thursday:

• Swim – Squad 3-7km

• Bike – 2hrs often motor pacing.

• Run – Long normally around 100min

Friday:

• Swim – Squad 3-7km

• Bike – 4hrs
• Gym

Saturday:

• Either a race simulation or Bike 5-6hrs + 60-90min brick run (often mile repeats)

• Swim – Recovery session

Sunday: (Double run day)

• Run – Long normally around 2:15hrs

• Run – Tempo run

Jan’s Program Olympic Program (February 2008)

Monday:

• Swim 5km (strength with sprints)
• Bike – 120km with 3x (5x 8sec sprints / 1min rest) All aerobic
• Run 8km aerobic + drills + 10x (2x 100 hill repeats)

Tuesday:

• Swim 5km aerobic
• Bike 45km aerobic + 15km SE @ 60-70rpm
• Run (Brick) 5km aerobic + 3km threshold + 2km easy
• Run 10km easy

Wednesday:

• Bike 80km flat with 3km @ 120 rpm
• Swim 5km anerobic
• Run 25km aerobic + drills + 4x strides

Thursday:

• Swim – 5km aerobic
• Bike – 80km aerobic
• Run – 8km easy

Friday:

• Run 8km aerobic + drills + sprints + 2km easy
• Swim 5km strength + sprints
• Run 3km + 10x 400 fast / 200 easy + 2km easy

Saturday:

• Bike 100km with 3 (5x 8sec sprints)
• Swim 4km different paces
• Run 20km aerobic + drills + 4 strides

Sunday:

• Swim 5km aerobic
• Bike – 45km aerobic + 15km SE @ 60-70 rpm
• Run (brick) 3x (2.5km aerobic to build to threshold) + 2km easy
• Run – 8km aerobic

Maximian Schwetz is a retired German pro triathlete that focus was being one of the worlds best Olympic distance triathletes. Below Maximian’s load week.

Load Week

Monday: Swim 5km + Gym 1hr

Tuesday: Swim 5.4km + Bike 90min + Run 1hr (9x 1km hard efforts)

Wednesday: Bike 3hrs (10x 6min) + Brick run 40min + swim 5km

Thursday: Bike 4hrs aerobic with low carbs + 1:10 easy run

Friday: Swim 4.6km + Gym 1hr

Saturday: Swim 4km + Bike 90min + Run 1hrs

Sunday: Run 90min + Bike 3hrs (7x 8min)

Weekly Summary

Total training hours: 30:24 hrs

Total TSS: 1424

Swim distance: 24400m

Bike duration: 13:22hr

Run duration: 5:37hr (75km)

Strength duration: 3:55 (this also included pre swim/bike/run activations)