Last night was the 4th in our Monday night workshop series. Previously, we had covered “Setting Your Compass”, “Goal Setting” and “Components of Fitness”. If you missed the Components of Fitness workshop, watch out for the video in the Clubhouse that explains what we mean.
In these last two sessions before Christmas, the attendees got together into two teams to design their own turbo session based on a discipline they were given. The room split into two – the girls
The girls start to form their session plan.
immediately laid down the rules and migrated to their own table, whilst the boys had no choice but create their own separate work space.
The brief was simple – first, give yourself a team name and devise a turbo session for A Circuit Racer (Girls) or An Endurance Time Trial Rider (Boys). Both groups were asked to look at the various demands a rider must face and then introduce a training session that would help the rider meet those challenges. They were also reminded of where various of components of fitness come into force to help to make the event demands appear, well, less demanding. Both teams set off creating their sessions, discussing elements and writing down their specifics. They were asked to assume that the warm-up had been done, so they could move straight into the body of the session.
Of course, with any session plan, the proof is in the execution. So, the Girls would have everyone take their session this week, and the Boys present their’s next week. Ralph picked up the task of delivering the session – without rehearsal (a coach’s nightmare!)
What follows is the first of those sessions:
[ultimatetables 1 /]
Analysis of the plan:
The girls built a lot into their plan – it contained a pyramid structure mixing varying length of activity and recovery. They remembered that recovery plays a part in interval training, and the efforts mimic pace changes that are common in a circuit race. The freewheel section, that brought the legs to a complete stop before going straight into a hard effort is difficult to do, but good at training that all important “kick” when needed. The 5 minute hard then 6 minute recovery and 15 minute warm down could probably have been restructured to have two 5 minute efforts with 6 minute recovery between them.
In execution, everyone appeared to have been working as prescribed – and the varied elements looked (and sounded) fun to do. Well done girls!