Chris Carmichael agrees with RnP
Chris Carmichael (coach to Lance Armstrong) has just put out a book entitled "The Time-Crunched Cyclist". Below is a review of the book. Interestingly while many triathlon coaches urge us to "train like Lance" - long slow distance, Lance's actual coach disagrees. For age group athletes (cyclists in this case) he seems to follow the EN approach where short and very hard gets you the results.
The reviewer was not quite enamoured with this approach after he followed it for 11 weeks because frankly, its just plain hard. It might be interesting to see if people purchasing EN plans that are not part of the "haus" (giving each other lots of encouragement, etc) have the same view. I'm sure it is much harder to kill yourself each workout without the support we have.
Anyway, thought the team would find the review an interesting read. Taken from the website nine2FivePro.com (a network / remote "team" of cyclists as far as I can tell).
Chris Carmichael Tried to Crunch Me
Nine2FivePro rider Tod Mohamed gives Carmichael’s newest book, The Time-Crunched Cyclist, a read and wonders if his time would have been better spent on the bike.
For bike racers, there is no denying the street cred of Chris Carmichael. He is, after all, the wizard who turned one post-cancer classics rider into the titan of the Tour. Carmichael is so closely associated with Lance Armstrong’s scientific, methodical rise to the pinnacle of the sport that we cyclists have, for more than a decade now, hung on his every word, and bought his books, hoping to glean game-changing training secrets.That’s why, reading Carmichael’s new book, The Time Crunched Cyclist, it’s easy to get the feeling right off the bat that Carmichael may be trying to cash in on his considerable cache by repackaging many of the stories and training tips we’ve heard before.
This time, some of those old stories have been gathered together, repackaged and shot back out the publisher’s cannon at the most valuable subset of his target market – riders who have jobs, kids, disposable income (that is to say – masters racers), and a very limited training schedule. Those of us struggling to get fit between our other commitments are like sitting ducks for this kind of marketing. I bought the book as soon as I could.
And the early pages do retread some old stories - but they’re stories I still love to hear. In particular, there is the tale of how Carmichael searched for new training techniques for Armstrong when the Texan was mounting comeback 1.0. Carmichael found that the standard high-intensity workouts Armstrong had rocked before his bout with cancer just weren’t working anymore.
“It crushed him physically,” Carmichael writes, “ and he didn’t have the motivation to push through the efforts.” Instead, Carmichael tried something different - lower intensity workouts, often below lactate threshold, a counter-intuitive approach that still some how netted Armstrong his Tour de France-conquering form. The lower-intensity still seemed to stimulate the necessary physiological adaptations, and Armstrong could spend more time at his target heart rates.
“Going a little easier actually made him stronger and faster,” Carmichael writes. As one of the aforementioned masters racers with limited time, this was one old story with real appeal - could I really go easier in training and race better?
Not on your life, says Carmichael. After teasing us with the tales of training techniques that work for the pros - indeed the king of the pros - Carmichael sings a much different tune when he finally turns his mind to the real subject of this book, training on limited time. Carmichael’s message, essentially, is that you can’t train like Armstrong on six hours a week (six hours is the most training time that Carmichael thinks many weekend warriors can muster). There is no point dedicating precious training hours to building a massive base and slowly sharpening form over the early season. Instead, Carmichael says, your best option is to go hard – really, really hard – almost all the time; it’s a case of quality over quantity. The book includes a set of training plans with workouts at lung splitting intensities. Keep it up for eight to 11 weeks, Carmichael says, and you still won’t be the strongest guy around – but you’ll be pretty good and get a decent return on a small time investment. Not the message I was hoping for when I picked the book up, but, considering who’s saying it, something I was willing to entertain.
So does it work? I don’t know yet. I did follow Carmichael’s regime - more or less - for about two months. It was hard, and even exhilarating, at first. Most cyclists enjoy suffering to some extent, and the intense pain of these workouts, structured and doled out in specific doses with the promise of improved performance was enticing. But the programs on offer in the book are unrelenting. Over the 11-week program that I followed, tailored for “experienced competitors”, there is exactly one - one - workout described as “easy spinning.” As side from that each and every ride includes targeted heart-rate workouts or weekend group rides. The workouts are often very intense, based on what Carmichael calls power intervals that are supposed to be maximal efforts; in terms of perceived exertion, they are 10 out of 10.
I came to understand why Armstrong began to feel crushed. My schedule may pale in comparison to a real pro, but doing hard workouts nearly every time you swing your leg over a bike can still become de-motivating. Over time I found it was difficult to maintain the program. I found myself craving easy spins, or, at the other end of the intensity scale, gladly replacing scheduled workouts with the local Tuesday night criteriums or other fast group rides. It’s easier and more fun to go for a group ride with the boys then searching for the motivation to throttle yourself on a quiet country road again and again. Unfortunately – or maybe luckily, the season came to and end before I could follow through on the full 11 week program. The non-stop intensity is not the only part of Carmichael’s message I found odd and even counter intuitive. For experienced riders that have been off the bike for a while, he recommends jumping into his program with relatively little base mileage. “It’s important to note that each of the…programs starts with lactate threshold intervals right out of the gate,” he writes. For those who have been off the bike, Carmichael recommends a week or two of tempo rides to get back into the groove before beginning the program. Just two weeks? Really?
In truth, in my case, I started the Carmichael program in mid summer - with several thousand kilometers in my legs, a reasonably solid base. But jumping right into high intensity seems to be an invitation to injury - especially for those “time-crunched” riders who may be older and who are not as resilient as they once were. Carmichael supplements the book with lots of exercises to better shore up muscles and joints against the considerable physical stress that will come with the road workouts in this book. This is absolutely crucial. But if riders can only squeeze out six hours for the road, they may not be able to put the necessary time aside for strength and flexibility exercises that are so important.
Contrary to what you think from this review, this is a book worth reading, but it’s certainly not a program worth following unquestioningly. Think of it like one of the better self help books marketed to catch our attention with skewed, unexpected takes on life and how best to live; we may glean something interesting from them, but surely we shouldn’t live our lives strictly according to these slim philosophies. Carmichael has achieved great things, but he’s no god, and this book, interesting as it is, is no training bible.
Comments
Two phrases in that review stand out for me: "unrelenting" and "doing hard workouts nearly every time you swing your leg over a bike can still become de-motivating." I don't have a bike racing background, I came to triathlons with a lot of mileage at long distance multi-day trips with friends/family, tandem riding with my wife and kids, mountain biking, and commuting to work. He's right, cycling should be FUN. A couple of hard hour sessions a week is OK, but I still need that other stuff. Even if it doesn't get me fitter faster, it keeps me fresher.
I have to agree with Al, going all out all the time gets a little boring. Sometimes I like my "hey wheres that road go" rides just riding for the sake of riding.
Hey guys,
Good discussion. Nothing wrong with wanting to throw your leg over the bike and just ride, without hammering all of the time. And, yes, there is/can be definitely a mental cost with hammering on the bike EVERY time you get on it, especially when you're indoors. But hopefully we've done a pretty job here of creating mojo/motivation/accountability resources for you with the team vibe, etc, that make it a little easier. And hopefully we've done a good job of explaining the WHY of why we do it, and team has reassured you about the results you're likely to get, and these combine to help you keep the nose on the dial and get the work done.
But there is a BIG difference between the above (I know I should/need to be doing lots of hard work, to make myself faster, but I CHOOSE to do something else) than to think you are developing some special flavor of fitness because you have not let your HR get over z2 during your 4hr Saturday trainer ride. Trust me, there are many, many people out there training for CDA, LP, WI, etc, putting up 16-18hrs per week, right now, in February. You know, from the things we've taugh you here, that they are wasting about 10 of those hours, per week. That's an entire work week, every month.
Again, it's all about time investment. If you make an informed decision to noodle on the bike, it's likely your return is some significant mental rehab, which is often. After all of these years and miles, I still luv, luv, luv riding my bike. Hard, easy, fast, slow, I just dig it.
I generally agree, but if you have time to go cruising off and exploring random roads I wouldn't really consider you all that time crunched. The review mentions Carmichael stating about 6hrs/week available training time for a cyclist. You can't do much noodling around and expect to get significantly stronger faster with that 6hrs. Just riding for the sake of riding is great but it isn't necessarily training, it's recreation and lifestyle.
Exactly. If you know better, know what you should be doing if your goal is to become faster, than choosing to go on several, or regular, 2+hr easy rides is a recreation/lifestyle choice...which I'm totally cool with as long as it's an informed choice that fits your athletic as well as personal goals.
Around here there's a small group of older doodes, like Steve's age
, who ride around on recumbents with fairing, some of them with the tent/cockpit dealio's, with motorolas and ear peices to talk to each other. I hope when I'm 70+, like Steve, I'll be doing stuff like that!
If I had to "hammer" for 60 minutes straight day in and day out, I'd probably be looking for a way to "accidentally" stab myself with a fork (or a screw, ha) to get out of the workout, but I LOVE what we do on the bike here. In fact, the variety of intensity is definitely, 100% without a doubt what is keeping me sane and on the bike this winter.
A few quotes from customer reviews of this book on Amazon
My takeaway, EN vs. CC is kinda an apples to oranges comparison. CC's plans are designed to thrash you for 2 months to get you ready to race crits, cross, etc. Not to sustain you throughout a season. And one of the critiques of the book is that he doesn't tell you what you should be doing in those months where you're not in an 8 week build...
Mike
CC also have a triathlon program so it would be interesting to see & compare "The Time-Crunched Triathlete" version of the book (if & whenever it comes out) until then, it is really not a valid comparison.
Can any triathlete really go hard all of the time when they have to run too? I can't even do it when my peak training volume is cut by 60%. Even when you do structured L5 it typically only amounts to a max of 25' per workout. And I would struggle to do 2x/week.
Thanks, Chris
Werd! We're on the bleeding edge of what I can handle in the power clinic, and after just 4 weeks, I'm eagerly looking forward to it being done. I have no idea how someone could go hard all the time and also run.
Mike
Rich, I bought that bike from you, as you now need a bike with a MOTOR on it