5 Training Rules for Masters Cyclists (What Bicycling Magazine Left Out)

What's up Fastcats? Welcome to another training tip. Today I'm going to talk about five rules you can follow to level up your training. The backstory is a Bicycling Magazine interviewed me recently and they published a training article titled "I Coach Older Cyclists for a Living".

These five rules deliver the most impressive gains. Now, I do coach older cyclists for a living, but I also coach athletes of all ages. Bicycling was just going for a catchy title and honestly, I think it worked. So, wanted to come on here and make a video and expand on each of these five rules because there's more to each of them than fits in their article.

So, before we dive into rule number one, I want to flag that rule number five is probably the biggest one of them all and I want you to stick around for it, especially if you're someone who takes a long break over the winter or is about to go on vacation and planning on not riding. And especially if you're over 50 or 60, you really need to hear what I have to say. So, please watch until the end. Rule number one is to balance your training to your recovery.

Bicycling titled this as don't overdo the miles and that's true, but the core principle is simple. The amount of training you do has to match the amount of recovery you can achieve. They have to be in balance. We've talked about this in several past videos on masters intervals and age appropriate training volume.

So, go check out those if you haven't. But you can't ride 20 hours a week and expect to benefit if you can only recover from 10 hours. Especially if you're recently retired. Just because you have 20 hours a week doesn't mean you should ride 20 hours a week.

And even if you are putting in that kind of volume, I want you to take a hard look at what those hours actually look like because there's a good chance there's a significant chunk of those that are junk miles. What are junk miles? It's intensity so low that it doesn't stimulate any meaningful physiological adaptations. You're not getting fitter, you're just getting more tired and that fatigue cuts into the recovery you need to benefit from your training.

More miles does not mean better more training. What's an appropriate amount of hours per week if you're 50 or 60 plus if you have a unlimited time to train? I find that eight to 12 hours for 50 plus cyclists works really well and maybe one or two hours less for 60 plus cyclists. Sure, you can do a big volume week here or there like on a cycling trip or a training camp.

But eight to 12 hours on average week after week in my opinion is the sweet spot for masters cyclists, even if you have unlimited time to train. Take that time that you want to train, which is admirable and commendable as your commitment to improving, but dedicate that to recovery and nutrition. Namely in the form of better sleep and winning in the kitchen. And when you combine those three together, that trifecta is going to explode your improvement.

Rule number two is to do high intensity work. This one comes directly from a pattern I see with older riders all the time. There's a tendency to shy away from the anaerobic zone six work, the really hard stuff, the all out efforts, but I'm here to tell you you're leaving watts on the table if you're avoiding zone six. Understand this, even as an older athlete you can improve a lot from high intensity work, significantly.

It's not just for the young bucks. We're talking short sharp 30 to 60 second efforts. They can unlock a lot of speed and power faster than almost anything else in your training, especially if you've been neglecting it because there's a whole energy system ready to contribute to your power output. But, and I want to be really clear here, you have to actually go hard.

Don't patsy cake it. These are not moderate hard efforts. These are efforts greater than 120% of your FTP, more or less all out for 30 to 60 seconds. And then do them right by prioritizing them on your training plan and that means a rest day before uh yeah, possibly an easier or rest day after.

My coaching cue is this, go as hard as you possibly can on each interval and do an age appropriate number of intervals as described in my masters intervals video. For example, if you're 40 plus do two sets of four by one minute on. If you're 50 plus do two sets of three by one minute on. If you're 60 plus just do four one minute intervals.

Quality over quantity is better every single time. Rule number three is to strength train year round, but know the nuance because there's a right way and there's a wrong way. And this is where I see a lot of athletes doing it wrong and sabotaging their training. Because there are two distinct types of strength training.

The first kind is the traditional winter off-season weightlifting, 10 week weightlifting phase and we're talking three to four times in the gym per week, squat, leg press, leg curl, the heavy stuff, the strength stuff. That style of lifting builds muscle and strength from the ground up. The winter is the time to go all in on it and if you haven't been doing this, start. But, and this is the mistake I see athletes make, start next fall and winter because it's a mistake to start lifting heavy while you're trying to be fast on the bike during the spring and the summer.

Which leads me to the second kind of lifting and that's your maintenance lifting. This is the kind of lifting that you do in the spring and the summer and the goal is simple, to preserve the strength you built in the winter without adding so much fatigue that it sabotages your power output. Don't lift heavy, don't lift a lot, you just need to lift once a week. But here's the catch, this only works if you've actually done the real lifting in the winter.

And if you did, once a week is enough to keep everything you built. If you didn't, there's nothing to maintain. So, make it a priority to getting on the traditional 10 week weightlifting in the fall in the winter, the heavy stuff. Now, the mistake I see athletes make all the time, they skip the winter program or then they keep lifting heavy all year round.

They can't figure out why their legs feel like concrete on the bike, but once a week, that's your minimum effective dose in the spring and the summer. And if you're going to do one exercise, do squats. Three reps, 70% of your one rep max, that's all you need to do to hold onto your hard earned muscle and power. Rule number four, you don't need to have an event to have goals.

And this one originates from something I hear a cyclist say all the time and it drives me a little crazy. I'm not really training for anything. I hear this all the time and every single time I want to say, yes, you are. You just haven't articulated it yet.

You're training so you can hang on the group ride. You're training so you can go on that cycling trip. You're training so you can keep up with your friends and you can feel good on the bike. Fastcats, these are legitimate goals.

They just need a reframe. You don't need to be registered for an event to benefit from structured training or to have something worth training for. The group ride that matters to you every Saturday morning, that's your goal. That big climb that you've been wanting to ride faster up, that is also your goal.

Find what genuinely matters to you in your cycling right now and let that drive your consistency and your motivation to follow a plan. Just make sure that plan matches where you're at. And sometimes if you dig a little deeper, there's something even more meaningful underneath your new goals. Maybe it's your health, your community, your family, sense of accomplishment, proving to yourself that you can still do hard things.

Find that and the motivation for your training will take care of itself. Rule number five, consistency is everything and extended breaks crush your training. That's what I was wanting you to wait around for. That's the most important rule that I promised you at the beginning of the video and it's from statements that I hear every day like, I'm going on vacation.

I'm taking a break. I don't really ride over the winter. I want to be extremely direct with you. The older you get, the harder and the longer it takes to come back from an extended break.

What used to take you a month to come back from can take dramatically longer now and in some cases you may not even get fully back to where you once were. The solution isn't to white knuckle a structured training plan year round. The solution is to never actually take an extended break. Instead, deliberately ride a lower volume for a period of a few weeks while maintaining your consistency.

Personally, when I'm not racing cyclocross, I chill in the fall in the early winter for about two to three weeks and this just means for me not following a training plan, riding when I want to, not when I don't, not inside when the weather's bad, two to three times per week, maybe for three to five hours a week and that's it. No structure, no intervals, just riding. It's my middle break from structured training, but I'm still riding. I'm still turning over the wheels.

I still get that consistency and you don't get out of shape that much from it. But a break for a month or two in the winter is bad, bad, bad. Don't do that. And vacations, in my world vacations are for riding more, not less and I plan my trips around my riding.

When I'm going to the beach, I look at how the riding is at that beach and I avoid places that don't have good riding. I also manage my schedule so that there is no extended breaks between me and my goal like if you have any elective surgeries or if you need to go on a business trip. And I realize it's not that always the way that works out and some of you have also may have had a doctor tell you to stop riding for medical reason. And if that's your situation, the first thing I'd say is talk to your coach about what you can do in the interim.

There's creative solutions that depend on the medical reason. So, reach out to us or reach out to Coach Cat and tell coach Kat what's going on and try to stay as active as you can preferably with aerobic exercise and also have a plan to come back cuz consistency is the whole game and extended breaks will just annihilate your training, your improvement, and your momentum. So, those are all five. That's the real coaching context between them.

I'll link the full Bicycling Magazine article in the description below. Go give it a read and tell me what does or doesn't resonate with you. If you want training and coaching built around these principles, check out the coach Kat app. I'll put the link below.

The first month is free and a complimentary coaching consultation is included. Or if you want more personalized help, we also offer one-on-one coaching. Fill out our new athlete questionnaire to have a consultation with a Fastcat coach. Tomorrow.

All right, thanks a lot for watching and until the next video, you know what to do. Work hard, ride fast, have fun, and as always, FTW. Peace.

Are you a master's cyclist trying to get faster but feel like something is missing from mainstream advice? Train this way FREE for 1 Month /app

In this video, Coach Frank breaks down the 5 most important training rules for cyclists over 40, 50, and 60+ , and more importantly, what Bicycling Magazine didn’t have space to tell you.

Frank was recently featured in their article on coaching older cyclists, and while they nailed the headlines, there’s a lot more nuance that can make or break your performance. Today, Coach Frank is giving you the full coaching perspective.

🚴‍♂️ What You’ll Learn: - Why more miles ≠ more fitness (and how to balance training with recovery) - The truth about high-intensity (Zone 6) work for older athletes - How to strength train the right way (without sabotaging your riding) - Why you don’t need a race to train with purpose - The #1 mistake masters cyclists make: taking extended breaks ⚠️ Stick Around for Rule #5

If you take winters off, skip riding on vacation, or think breaks help you reset… this could be holding you back more than you realize.

📖 Read the Original Article https://www.bicycling.com/training/a70723113/older-cyclist-training-rules/

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Which of these 5 rules are you already following—and which one surprised you the most?

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Work Hard. Ride Fast. Have Fun. FtFP.