 So welcome back or welcome to the 10th edition of the RCA training tip show where every Wednesday Aussie time I'm going to be your YouTube road cycling coach and host of the show, Cam Nicole. So as a road cycling coach, I get this question a lot and that is, how do I get faster and or stronger on the bike with limited time in the week and also with life distractions getting in the way? Now I get this big time while I personally have a little bit more freedom now that my kids are getting a touch older and I left the corporate world behind in 2017, rewind to 2015. So five years ago, I was in a corporate job working for an American software company flying to the US almost every single month for a week at a time. I had a two year old, a five year old and a wife that was trying to get her business off the ground. All while I was trying to stay fit enough to race for the original amateur informed racing team which included many state tours and criteria in racing. So that was a hectic time as you could imagine and life was like that for almost two years. So I really did learn a lot about what is really practical and possible when it comes to cycling performance and juggling the craziness of life and guess what? There is no magic pill to being a super fast or strong cyclist on a couple of hours a week. Really, you need consistency in your training and I would say at least six to eight hours to be competitive for on-road events, that's six to eight hours a week. Now I know some people are going to argue with that and I can appreciate. Assuming you've got a smart trainer and a thorough understanding of high intensity training, you can probably be competitive on Zwift and maybe even criterion racing on around five hours per week, but it's a stretch. So what I want to do in this video today is share with you a strategy or framework that you can use that I have personally used in the past and still use today that enables you to be as good as you possibly can be with what is practical in your life. So let's break this video into five main parts. Number one, finding your best time of year. Number two, having a clear goal that sits to your schedule. Number three, setting expectations. Number four, using the step ladder approach to your training. And number five, letting it all go until next time. Now I know some people out there may be lifting an eyebrow saying you should always start with a goal, but when it comes to the subject matter of a busy amateur cyclist or athlete, I disagree and I'll explain why shortly. So let's get into point number one, which is finding your best time of year. So what do I mean by finding your best time of year? Find a time of year where there's less travel booked, less birthdays, less work commitments, whatever it may be. Surely there is a section of the year that's going to be a little bit more quieter for you to be able to dedicate some training time to a specific target event. Now how much time do you exactly need at a high level? Now assuming you've got a little bit of conditioning, a little bit of base fitness before you go into a dedicated training block, I'd say 12 weeks minimum for a good block of high intensity or event specific training. Ideally 16 or a touch more if you can, but if you can get 12 weeks in, that's great at a stretch, maybe 10. Now once you've identified this quieter time of year to be able to dedicate, say a 12 week training block, the next question you need to ask yourself is how many possible hours do you think you can train per week without sleep deprivation, which is going to completely disrupt those fitness gains. Now everyone's going to be different. You might have six hours possible, eight hours, 12 hours, et cetera. Either way, you'll know with the variables that you have at hand that you've got X amount of hours to train over this 12 week block during this quieter time of year. Number two, having a clear goal that suits your schedule. So the reason why I have setting a goal coming after understanding the schedule is simply because we now understand what's possible time wise. There's no point in targeting a key event or a goal of yours during a super busy time of year, yet many people do it. So the question we need to ask ourselves now is, what goals or events are actually possible? Now that you have a clear idea of a good time of year where you can dedicate to a proper training schedule, let's look for events that fall at the end of that 12 week period. Now, depending on where you live will depend on what's available, but don't rule out traveling interstate or maybe overseas. This is your goal for the year. It's your time. Now, while you're assessing what is actually possible, please also keep in mind what is practical. Do not pick an event that requires you to ride for 160 miles when you can only train six hours per week. Do not pick an event that has heaps of hill climbing when you don't actually like hill climbing. Pick something that suits your availability to train that you feel matches your strengths as a bike rider. As you know, this is your time. Now, I understand these things may not always be possible, but please keep them in mind now for bonus points. Once we've identified a good event, we're gonna call that your A event. So the bonus points are, can you find some other events? We're gonna call them your C and B events leading into the A event. Why would you have these lower tiered B and C events? Three big reasons. Number one, use your fitness gains wisely. If you're gonna commit to a solid 12 weeks of high intensity or event specific training, why not use that fitness you're gaining for other events too? Number two, match practice. B and C events can be used to sharpen the pencil for the A event. For example, if your A event is a road race, we ideally don't wanna go into that road race cold, having not raced at all leading in. By racing prior, you'll get your eye in, you'll start honing your skills and you'll also push the boundaries beyond what you would most likely be able to achieve in training which is ideal preparation for the big day. And number three is insurance. Meaning that if something goes wrong during your A event, like you get rear ended and stand on the side of the road waiting for a sad wagon, you've at least had some opportunities prior. So number three, setting expectations. So this could be before number two but I like to run it this way because once we've identified the target event, our story becomes so much more compelling to go set some expectations with some important people in your life which may include your partner, close family, your employer or boss, your good cycling mates and maybe even your dog. So the way I would approach this is I would start with my wife Alice and I would wait for a really good time when she's super happy, things are good, life is excellent and I'd sit down and say, hey, I've been doing a little bit of research and I've identified a quieter time in the year to target a cycling event. I'd like to train X amount of hours for a 12 week period and here is the event date with a few smaller events leading in. This is really important to me for X, Y and Z reasons. Now, assuming your partner knows that you're gonna make up for it and also that you've got a understanding partner, somebody who gets you, then you should get a resounding yes. And if you don't, it might be time to consider that partner of yours. Now, I'll also personally do this with close family. So I'll call up my mom and dad and say, hey, I'm gonna be training pretty hard during this block. Is there any family events that I don't know about that I should know about before I start this training? So I've set the expectations with them. You might also do it with your employer. Of course, get in the good books first, work hard and drop the news to your boss during a positive review or something like that. Tell them you might be late to work on a few occasions to get some big training rides in for the big event that you're targeting. Once again, if your boss isn't good with this and you've been a good employee, you might be time to reconsider that employer of yours. And the last one is your cycling mates. Find any cycling mates that might want to do the event with you. It's great motivation for training and also awesome to be able to share a training journey leading into a target event with a good mate. So number four, using the step ladder approach to your training. So when the time comes, let's just say you're using the 12 week approach, you're 12 weeks out from the event, what do you do? Now I'm assuming if you're using 12 weeks that you've got a bit of conditioning, you've been doing a bit of riding before the 12 week block. If you haven't been, you're going in cold, you're gonna need more than 12 weeks. But essentially what you're gonna be doing is using something called the step ladder approach, which is a layered approach to training. Now I have a free e-book and video training which talks about the step ladder approach which I'll link to below, but at a high level, you're going to progressively make your training load harder over the course of the 12 week block. You're gonna include targeted rest weeks to absorb adaptations that occur when you're really training at high intensity or event specific focus training. And in the training, I would recommend no more than three high quality, high intensity sessions per week that become more aligned to the needs of your target event the closer you get to event day. Now with high intensity sessions, the reason why we have rest days or easier days in between is purely so we can really absorb the fitness adaptations that occur when you train at high intensity. However, if your target event requires you to go back to back high intensity days, then you might need to start thinking of how you can incorporate that into your training schedule. Number five, letting it all go until next time. So letting it go, what do I mean by that? I used to fight with my cycling form all the bloody time. I always wanted to be fit, smashing turns at the front of the bunch, fit enough to race criteriums, et cetera. And the fact is if you're a busy amateur cyclist, you've got a busy schedule, a busy lifestyle, it's very, very difficult, near most impossible to maintain good levels of fitness all year round. So why fight it? Just let it go. And the easiest way to let it go is to know that you've got something planned at a specific point of the year. I am going to rip it up. I'm gonna be super committed and I'm even gonna lay off the beers. In fact, I'm gonna put so much energy, focus, and commitment into that period of the year. Right now, I'm just gonna enjoy cycling for what it is. I'm gonna enjoy the social side of it, the mental health side. I'm gonna throw structured training out the window and just enjoy cycling for what it is. Now, the big challenge actually comes when you get to the end of your block of training, let's say it's a 12-week block, and you're super fit and firing. You go to your local bunch ride a week or two after your A event and you rip it to shreds. Everyone is saying you are on point. So what do you do? Well, in my opinion, you stay true to the expectations that you set with the people around you and no doubt you will hold your fitness for probably a month or two anyway, so you'll be ripping it up. You might even target another event while you're holding onto those fitness gains, but either way, you've got a strategy, you've got a framework when something gets in the way or you've lost your fitness, we just let it go until next time. I hope you've got good value out of this video today. If you haven't subscribed yet, please consider doing it below and also give the video a thumbs up if you've got value out of it and I'll catch you all in the next video.