Training Questions – “Ask Rupert”
Rupert Bezuidenhout - Is a registered Biokineticist with a Masters in Biokinetics, Certified Intrinsic Coach and 10 years of experience in Corporate WELLNESS Operations. An avid mountainbiker with strong connections to the Institute of Sport Science and Development at the university of North West training center in the Northwest University.
You can “Ask Rupert” our training expert any training related question in the “Leave a Reply” section below and he will gladly give you top advise and assistance as soon as he got off his bike:
9 comments
Hi Rupert. 2 Questions:
1 – I am training for the 78 km, how many hours a week do you suggest I train?
2 – With winter and the lack of light before and after work to put in a long session, will two shorters sessions, one before work and one after work do the trick?
1 – Best fellow biker.
Beforehand a few pointers are important here:
1. Do you want to race the 78 km (marathon) or just complete it enjoyable?
2. What time do you have available?
If you want to just complete it enjoyably and are on the Short Term Intervention Plan I would suggest an increase of your weekly rides with an half hour to an hour longer (if you have this type of time on hand) and your weekend ride at least every second weekend to 4 hours in the saddle, thus giving you a 9 to 10 hour training week. YOUR BODY NEEDS TO, AT LEAST, EVERY 2ND WEEK BE EXPOSED TO THE TIME YOU ARE GOING TO SPEND IN THE SADDLE COMING RACE DAY.
If mid week time is a constraint, you can do the sessions as described but with your intensity at 80% of your age adjusted maximum heart rate.
If you are however going to race hard on the day I would suggest also increasing your base training to 10 hours a week and keeping your mid week session at the 80% of HR max level (after a good warm-up of course). Coming the last 5 weeks of conditioning your lactate tolerance I would suggest slightly longer route simulations sessions and pushing your weekend rides up to 5 hours at least. Ideally all your weeks should be time allocated as the 5th week in the example.
VERY IMPORTANT – ON THE RACE LENGTH WEEKEND RIDES YOU NEED TO EXPERIMENT WITH THE EXACT NUTRITION YOU ARE GOING TO USE.
You will be very unhappy if your legs are superb but your stomach let you down!! Some pointers form the Insitute of SportSience and Development of the university of the North West are:
• 600 to 800ml of any (6-8% glucemic index drink) drank at 150ml gusts throughout the event
• Fruit juice (with added 3grams of salt per bottle) – not suggested if you find your stomach an easy runner
• Coke also at 6 to 8% mixture (if it is to sweet water is not absorbed)
• Sportbars 1 to 1and half (60 – 75 gram)
• Sportgels 2 x 45grams
• Over ripe banana (2 medium size)
• Granola bars (not highly suggested due to residue build-up)
• Sweets – tube like as jellybabes
• Chocolate bars
(nearing the end of the race above intake can increase to every 20minutes to keep the glycogen stores up)
2 – With winter and the lack of light before and after work to put in a long session, will two shorters sessions, one before work and one after work do the trick?
With both the half marathon and more especially the marathon YOU NEED VOLUME ON YOUR LEGS!!
So YES, 2 separate sessions will give you the necessary added volume you need, BUT you still need at least once every 2ND weekend to ride continuously as long as on race day.
Hi Rupert.
After a hard training session, when is the best time to take carbohydrates and protein supplements for optimum body intake?
Hi Marie-Louise
We suggest firstly that after training the first 2 hours directly with your Carbohydrate intake an additional 0.3g/kg body mass/hour protein should be ingested to further accelerate the glycogen-production tempo. Mostly research indicates that protein intake and use is optimum directly after training. Furthermore researchers also suggested that an intake of 1.2-1.6 g/kg body mass/day protein be administered.
To summarise:
The best times for a protein supplement to be taken due to the most favourable hormone concentrations needed for uptake is:
• Just after you wake up in the morning, and your body is hungry for protein after the nights “fast”,
• Between meals because the body is more likely to take up protein, and
• Just before you turn in for the night and uptake can be optimal for the recovery and rebuilding processes
Hi Rupert,
I have had a hectic start to the year, with my work taking me away form home for most of the past three months!, Consequently I have not been on my bike for some time,….
I have earmarekd the Big Induna last year already and realy want to do the half marathon.
Knowing I have just on 10 days to train – what woul dyou suggest?
I went for a short ride last night and feel I have not lost all my fitness.
Thank you!
Best Danie
Yes this is the boat many of us find ourselves in with the responsibilities of life taking up our training time.
6 weeks is the minimum you’ll need for any adaptations to develop physiologically. Thus using your 10 day’s optimally I would suggest a something of the following:
[table id=8 /]Due to the build-up – brake down characteristic training has on the body any hard exercise will most probably have you hitting your brake down phase somewhere close to race day. I would suggest your focus should be on easy Cardio respiratory fitness stimulation to get all your systems running as smoothly as possible with some technical terrain thrown in for your taper-week.
DO NOT GO HARDER THAN 70% of your age adjusted maximum heart rate (Age adjusted maximum Heart Rate = 220 – resting heart rate – age times 0.7 + resting Heart rate). You are going to be tempted to because you feel quite strong after the long time of the bike. DON’T FALL FOR IT!! The golden rule now is COME FRESH and on race day pace yourself for maximum enjoyment. Check out the suggestions on how to stock up on your supplementation in 11 May’s answer.
Also if you are susceptible to cramping make sure you use any of the available anti cramping supplementation available on the market in the suggested doses before, during and after the event. Looking forward to having you here with us on the11th.
Hi Rupert
When you have been training and doing events for a while (3 years or so) and you think you have pretty much reached a plateau in where you are in terms of fitness, endurance, speed, etc, to improve beyond this, you obviously need to increase your training (riding longer distances or increasing speed on rides). How would you suggest you go about without this exhausting yourself which results in you actually getting weaker from training more?
Rupert
Wow Colleen you are in a place many a cyclist wish to be in their training efforts.
I believe you are already doing the basics correctly for the performance you are mentioning. What is thus needed is to polish up on the areas that are in lack. But what are they?
Thus to be able to answer you from a scientific assessment of your exercise program, I would need to get all the information thereof:
1. exercise program composition (pertaining power-, endurance-, anearobic conditioning, body profiling etc…), 2. nutrition (throughout the normaal week, building up to an event and on race day’s), 3. in what way you taper before events, 4. the exercise cycle length you go through in order to peak at the right time and 5. how fresh you need to be to perform at your optimum. To but name a few
If you could give me an indication of the latter it is possible to identify the areas you can work on to improve your performance. This is many an elite athletes challenge when reaching a plateau and desiring that breakthrough to better performance. Please liaise with me on the information above at rupert@wellnessafrica.com and I will gladly assist you in finding the key in your exercise to better your performance.
From the Induna team