A question for the coaches and physiologically knowledgable.
In the course of a 12 week plan, say the Intermediate All Purpose Road Indoor for instance, when do the bulk of the athlete’s training adaptations occur?
In the rest weeks is of course the answer, but now that we have Half Monty in the middle of the plans and can get some usable data, I am curious whether the bulk of the adaptations will occur in the first half or second half of the program?
My guess is that less trained cyclists will experience the bulk of their gains in the first half; whilst more trained cyclists will see fewer gains in the first half because they need the more intensive stimulus of the latter weeks to yield adaptations.
My alternate guess is that all cyclists will see greater gains in the second half, but the split will be more even for less trained cyclists.
No particular reason for my question. Just curious.
Great Post.
I’m in week 11 of Metric century and am curious to know having the frightening Tool Shed tomorrow then very easy week and a half to the end of plan, is that when all the muscle recovery and strengthening takes place?
Great question! I talked abit more bout adaptations and responding to stimulus on this topic:
I would say it depends on the rider when they respond to a stimulus but by week 6 of the plan they will have gone through 2 cycles of work:rest so there will definitely be some gains, the reason we put HM there is to avoid the plateau by shifting the stimulus to keep you working towards the targets.
Mentally, it can also be really beneficial to do the ramp mid-way and see some small gains as this will help keep your motivation going all the way to the end of the 12 weeks and leave you wanting to build even more
