How training every day can take your riding to a whole new level. – By Mark Carroll

We all want to get faster – it’s why we train. But we also want to see those improvements quickly.
While it may sound counter-intuitive, one of the best ways to get quick results is to train every day. Fear of burning out is the main reason we incorporate rest days into training plans, but training every day can be effective if approached as a low-volume, high-frequency plan over a three- to four-week mini-block.

It’s more productive to train seven days a week, one hour a day, than it is to ride the same number of hours over three sessions a week. It also allows for better time management: almost all of us can find an hour that won’t impact on any other life commitments (like 5am, when the household is still asleep and the office doors are shut).

Why The High-Frequency Mini-Block? //

Your body responds to varied training stimuli, and needs to be overreached (pushed a little further than it’s used to) in order to force the structural adaptations that translate into improved performance. Training every day works well, provided you manage the intensity – and follow the guidelines for recovery, because it’s during recovery that the adaptations happen.

Once you’ve finished a four-week mini-block, take a rest day or two and then feel free to test out your legs. Choose a group you’re familiar with, and compare your performance from that of a month ago. If this training method worked for you, then provided you keep variety and progression on the intensity days, follow on with another block.

[box] Managing Fatigue And Improving Recovery
If your typical training week is around seven hours (two short weekday rides, and a three- to four-hour ride on the weekend), then a daily training structure will feel more taxing. Here are four ways to manage fatigue and recovery:

Nutrition and hydration
Junk in, junk out. What you eat and your hydration will play a key role in your entire metabolic process. You can’t out-train a garbage diet.

Managing Intensity
You can’t train hard every day, so at the most, don’t do more than three high-intensity sessions in a week. That means separating intensity days by 48 to 72 hours, with the rides in between being either easy rides, or moderate-intensity rides without race-pace efforts.

Sleep Well
A bad night’s sleep, or several bad nights in a row, can really set your training back. To improve sleep quality, eat only a light meal in the evening, avoid caffeine and alcohol, and consider reading a book before sleep rather than flicking through an LCD screen on your phone or tablet.

Take a day off
Yes, the idea was to train an hour every day – but a day may arrive on which you feel spent. This is when you just take the day off; freshen your body and mind, and pick it up again the following day. [/box]

Finding Variety

The key to maintaining quality high-intensity training is variation and progression – you must constantly test and overreach your body in new ways. There are several options for this, such as joining a fast-paced weekday club ride.

A local midweek criterium ‘race’ or short track MTB XC race will ensure a fair degree of intensity and suffering. A recovery ride the next day (at the very most) would be in order after one of these.
Alternatively, you could join one of the many indoor studios offering high-intensity training sessions on bikes with power meters. Training with your power zones ensures high quality, and leaves you with nowhere to hide.

READ MORE ON: strength training programmes workouts