3 Tips for Better Preseason Training

Preseason training is a great time during the competitive season. You are motivated after an extended rest, you’ve set your goals for the season and enthusiasm is high. Moreover, for many of us spring is in the air and the weather is starting to improve. However, it is easy to get overeager and injure yourself or push yourself too hard when your main goals is to build a foundation for later training. These 3 tips should help you stay on track!

Do your most intense workouts when you are fresh

HIIT workouts are hard, both mentally and physically. You need to be “ready” for these workouts. While you don’t have to set new PRs every workout, it is important that you are fresh enough to put in quality efforts. If you are dragging with residual fatigue, you’ll either fail to complete the workout as planned or have to dig extra deep to do so. This is likely to have consequences later in the season when you want to be at your best!

Do your long endurance ride after your higher intensity workouts

Doing longer rides at Zone 2 requires less mental and physical resources. You can have residual fatigue from your HIIT workouts and still manage good quality endurance work. But be disciplined! Don’t get sucked into hard riding by your friends or the local group ride. This just adds to the fatigue and may put you off your schedule because you need extra rest.

Take an extra rest day

If you don’t feel quite ready for a workout take another full rest day or just go for an easy spin. You can’t get the benefit from a workout if you are too tired to execute well. If you always rest just enough to be ready to accomplish the planned workout, you are progressing as fast as possible! Let your body dictate the optimal pace for progression.