SUFR

🇮🇪 L’Étape Ireland is 7 weeks away 🚴

⛰️ With some current clients taking part I’ve opened up a 6 week training program in the lead up to this event.

⬇️ Learn how to:
• Train with intent towards this Sportive and other events.
• Fuel correctly in training and during the event.
• Recover from various training sessions.
• Train using a range of tools such as heart rate, cadence and power.

📲 Weekly feedback and check-ins throughout each week.

☑️ Join a community of like minded cyclists set up specifically to target this event.

❗️Only 8️⃣ Spaces Available

📧 For more information, contact:
[email protected]

🏃🏻The Interference Effect 🏋️
🤔 What is it ?

Hybrid training has always been a ‘thing’. It’s been around for decades but due to the influencer space on Instagram, it’s been presented as this new phenomenon/form of training that has never been done before and only started in the last 2 years.

🧐 In fact there’s been research performed in this area dating back to the 70’s.

Being a hybrid athlete is now the next cool thing. It is a great form of training for the general population, a mix of endurance and strength training in a balanced format is great. But what about for athletes ?

📖 Read more in the slides above to learn about the interference effect and how it can be mitigated.

🚴‍♂️🏃🏻For endurance coaching - TrainingPeaks is the main software I use on a daily basis.

📊 All endurance athletes I work with receive regular updates via Training Peaks and training is synced directly to their phone or training device (running watch or bike computer).

🔐 As a sports scientist, trainingpeaks has great tools for analysing key physiological data around training and racing. Allowing me to provide in-depth feedback to athletes on their progress during micro, meso and macro cycles.

📲 Struggling to understand some of the information or data points in TrainingPeaks? Get in touch with any questions.

❗️Check out what OBN Performance athletes were up to in May and June, with a number of coached athletes also heading to Europe for some interesting challenges.

🇫🇷 .daly.14 went to France to take on the L’étape and got some good climbing in around the Alpes. Taking some form home and into recent racing, lots more to come over the next few weeks.

🇵🇹 is currently hitting the roads of Portugal for some warm weather training. After a crash in RAS Tailteann Barry came back strong in the Gran Fondo in Sligo and is preparing for the remaining part of the season.

🇪🇸 had another good block of racing in Spain and is currently riding the final stage of the junior tour of Ireland today. A high speed crash on stage 1 put an end to GC aspirations but Callum has pushed on through the injuries each day. A resilient rider!

🇳🇱 is gearing up for racing in the Netherlands at the end of July in the European Youth Tour of Assen. Holly has a good block of racing coming up in preparation.

🇪🇸 recently completed a bikepacking trip around Spain. Riding from Dublin to get the ferry in Rosslare and then beginning his trip in Bilbao and taking in some famous climbs over 14 days and 1300km before catching the ferry back to Rosslare and riding another 160km back to Dublin to finish off the trip.

🇮🇪 also recently competed in the Gran Fondo in Sligo and has been setting some good power numbers and PB’s in training. Some good racing coming up for Micheal over the next month. Micheal had an injury setback but put in a number of weeks on the trainer and has come out stronger than before the injury!

🇪🇸 Ger McEvoy is also out in Spain at the moment taking in some good climbing. A strong string of recent results with more to come!

🇩🇰 as recently mentioned Alan is preparing for the Gran Fondo World Championships in Denmark in the coming weeks. Couple of big weeks of prep!

🔜 More updates in the coming days of our athletes racing locally.

✅ ➡️ 🇩🇰

🚴 After another under the belt for , the goal was to push on for June and July with the UCI Gran Fondo World Championships a goal.
Top effort in Sligo to secure a qualification to Denmark ✔️

🏁 Followed by a good result last weekend in 4th at the Ballivor GP.

📊 Coaching is not just for professional or elite athletes.

Coaching amateur riders and athletes is a large part of the work I do, focusing on individualised training combined with a science driven approach.

Ger has progressed well since the beginning of the season and is looking forward to the remaining races! A good result recently in the Meath Championships.

🤔 Looking to improve your performance?

📈 With experience in professional sport working with individual athletes and teams and also having coached hundreds of amateur athletes, I understand what it takes to help you reach a new level of performance. Combining this with a sports science background ensures you receive not only personalised and communicative coaching but an evidence based approach to training.

🏁 With the season in full swing a number of coached athletes have big goals coming up. With some milestones already achieved which we’ll be covering over the coming days.

🔵 Next up takes on the Junior Tour of Ireland tomorrow as part of the team. Callum recently returned from another stint racing in Spain with his team and has recovered very well from a fractured elbow picked up earlier in the season.

🚴‍♂️ Best of luck to Callum and all the riders 2024.

📸

✖️ A common misconception.

✔️ Yes lactic acid can be a reason why you feel ‘sore’ during a workout or race, however it clears quickly and is not the reason you feel ‘sore’ in the days after the workout.

ℹ️ Lactic acid is a chemical your body produces when your cells break down carbohydrates for energy. Your liver and kidneys filter lactic acid out of your blood and break it down into glucose.

🦿Knee pain is a common complaint among many athletes at some point in time.

➕ Strengthening the muscles surrounding the knee can help significantly reduce knee pain or likelihood of injury.

👆 The following are some key exercises which are part of many athletes rehabilitation program and/or continuous strength and conditioning program when dealing with knee pain.

🚴 Cyclists can often experience knee pain even in a low impact sport, it can most often occur due to incorrect bike fit.

Keep in mind knee injuries vary and it is important to understand your current status of pain/injury before beginning exercises.

Looking to develop your cycling performance or reach a higher category ? Through a structured and individualised approach with an experienced and educated coach, you can achieve your goals.

📲 Get in touch for a free consultation.

Availability - Now 2 coaching spaces free for May start.

📊 Coaching for performance.

Available Coaching Places for Athletes:

• Endurance Coaching - 2 Places
• Strength & Conditioning - 3 Places

ℹ️ For some background info as a coach:

• Experienced working with athletes & teams in endurance road cycling nationally and internationally.

• S&C - Experienced working in a sports science role programming Pre-Season and In-Season S&C schedules and managing academy player load within League of Ireland Clubs.

• GAA - S&C Sigerson session planning (TUS)

• Athletics academy coaching (TUS), focusing on middle to long distance distance athletes.

• Upcoming work over the following months within professional rugby (Munster Rugby) with first team & academy players.

📈 2024 has been a good year for a number of coached athletes. If performance is your goal and you match any of the above areas, then get in touch via the link in my bio or via DM☝️

🗓️ Creating Your 2024 Race Schedule

🚴 Planning your racing season will enable you to identify your 2/3 main goals and put the most effective training program in place.

📈 Racing week to week without a clear plan for your season is not optimal. Will you improve ? Yes, perhaps.
But riders who have a clear goal/event to work towards can then periodise their training to arrive in peak shape or at least very close to peak shape. This can be done 2/3 times per season.

Whereas riders with no clear plan can fall into a plateau in their racing performance, particularly without structured training towards a specific goal or event.

❓What to do next ?
📊 If you haven’t planned your season yet, you really need to sit down and look at the Cycling Ireland calendar, identify 2/3 key goals that are seperated by approximately 2/3 months.

Then speak with your coach/team/club or by yourself try and plan your weekly races leading up to these events. After this point your training should be aligned with your races which in turn lead to a structured mesocycle leading in to the events.

✅ Now get planning.

📊 Understanding Your Zones

5️⃣ Zone 5 (Heart Rate & Power)

Heart rate (% of threshold HR) – More than 106%
Power (% of threshold power) – 106 to 120%

▪️ This is the zone where you will find yourself beginning to suffer a lot earlier in the effort in comparison to zone 3 & zone 4.
Zone 5 training efforts will be typically 3 to 8 minutes in duration and allowing for equal amounts of recovery in relation to the duration of each effort.

▪️ It will be difficult to maintain the effort for long periods and this is because you will begin to reach your max volume of oxygen consumption or VO2 Max.

✅ These sessions will build up significantly more fatigue than zone 4 and below for similar durations, so ensuring recovery days and sessions will be key following zone 5 work.

📊 Understanding Your Zones

4️⃣ Zone 4 (Heart rate & Power)

Heart rate (% of threshold HR) – 95 to 105%
Power (% of threshold power) – 91 to 105%

▪️ Zone 4 training or training around your lactate threshold can be quite a topic among coaches with varying opinions. This zone is right at the point where your rate of lactate production starts to exceed your rate of lactate clearance.

🚴‍♂️ Efforts in this zone during training generally range from 10-30 minutes however, in racing you might push yourself far longer in this zone.

✅ You may also include blocks of 10-30 minutes in zone 4 which will increase your total time at threshold during the session. This means total time in zone 4 for a session can be 20-60 minutes in most cases.

💤 When scheduling in threshold work it is important to structure your training plan to factor in a rest day in close proximity (1 day before or after) to these threshold sessions.

📊 Understanding Your Training Zones

3️⃣ Zone 3 (Power & Heart Rate)

- Heart rate (% of threshold HR) – 84 to 94%
- Power (% of threshold power) – 76 to 90%

📈 Zone 3 is still an intensity that promotes aerobic. adaptations. In zone 3 we are at a higher level of intensity in comparison to zone 2. Efforts at zone 3 should be structured as this can create substantially more fatigued.

🚴‍♂️ Well-trained riders can complete a full ride anywhere from 2 hours + at zone 3 with adequate fuelling. Beginner riders will need to gradually include zone 3 blocks in their individual training sessions in order to develop their ability to resist fatigue for longer periods/to rider longer.

What does zone 3 feel like ? Well simply, you know when you've been half-wheeled, chances are you've edged into zone 3 🤣
It's a steady pace that trained racing cyclists can comfortably hold for longer periods.

Graham O' Brien
High Performance Coach
SUFR Cycling

📊 Understanding Your Training Zones

2️⃣ Zone 2 (Power & Heart Rate)

- Heart rate (% of threshold HR) – 69 to 83%
- Power (% of threshold power) – 56 to 75%

👉 Zone 2 is the intensity range you’ll likely be spending the vast majority of your training time in, so it’s a crucial part of your training program to get right.

🚴‍♂️ Well-trained riders can ride for many hours at this pace with adequate fuelling. Your club ride is an example of a mainly zone 2 ride, apart from the sprint to the sign.

▪️ Zone 2 is also associated with the commonly used Base Training Phase, but it is used regularly in all training cycles throughout the year. The specific time in this zone varies depending on your goals in cycling.

🔝 Benefits of Zone 2 Training:
- Increased mitochondrial density
- Increased capillarization of muscle tissue
- Increased fat oxidation/sparing of glycogen stores

Simply put, you can increase your lactate threshold, stimulate the development of more small blood vessels and optimise fat oxidation.

If you are a beginner rider and want to ride your bike longer, begin with zone 2 training and forget about all the fancy stuff for the moment.

If you are an advanced rider, then zone 2 training will be a valuable part of your training throughout the week combined with all 6 zones in the majority of cases.

📊 This Week I Will Cover Training Zones

You will see many models out there, from 3 zone training models to 6 and 7 zone training models. For this week, I will use a 6 zone training model.

1️⃣ Starting off with Zone 1 (Power & Heart Rate)

- Heart rate (% of threshold HR) – less than 68%
- Power (% of threshold power) – less than 55%

✅ This should feel very easy with little pressure on the pedals. Breathing will be light and conversation easy. Usually used during/after a hard training session, race or sportive to aid recovery.

☕️ Active Recovery rides are also performed in zone 1. Compared to complete recovery — meaning, not riding — an active recovery ride increases lactate clearance after maximal exercise (Martin, 1998). Recovery in many cases can be improved in comparison to complete rest.

🤔 Not Seeing any Progress ?

📉 Here are some potential reasons you are noticing a plateau in your training.

The most common reason for reaching a plateau is a lack of variety in a training program.

▫️Training at the same pace/intensity throughout a long period of time (e.g every session is a steady zone 2 ride)
This rider then wants to increase their performance or power numbers and cannot due to a lack of variation/density in their training program.

▫️Lack of recovery.
This is a common issue, many riders hit a plateau as they are unable to let their body adapt to their current training program. Lack of focus on the importance of rest and recovery. A need to constantly train and skip rest days.

▫️Overtraining.
Also common, many competitive amateur riders can experience this when combining work, family life and a high level of training towards a goal that requires a high level. Other life stresses can impact training status.
However, the majority of riders are not going to be in this category. It takes a significant level of volume and intensity over a long period of time to begin experiencing symptoms of overtraining.

Don’t forget, improvements are harder to come by as you progress. Sometimes even in a high quality training program we may not see progress as often as we expect and this isn’t a plateau. Sometimes we need to persevere.

Just be aware that if you are not seeing any progress over a long period of time, that the above 3 areas could be affecting this.

Graham O’ Brien
High Performance Coach
SUFR Cycling

☝️ One quote from James Clear that is worth sharing.

🏆 The winners out there, the top athletes, they have a system in place and they’re more concerned about it, than their goal.

Winners focus on the system, the consistent work required to follow the pathway they have in place, which aims them towards their goal. Of course it’s important to set a goal, but then set out a plan. It’s surprising how many don’t.

Losers focus on the goal and don’t have the right system in place. If any at all.

Put a system in place that allows you to chase your goal. As they say, a goal without a plan is just a wish.

Graham
High Performance Coach
SUFR Cycling

🏆 3 Coaching Spaces Available

🚨 This is the first time since January 2023 I have advertised 3 spaces for coaching. I open 3 spaces at the beginning of every year. Other than the yearly January intake, I am busy with my current athletes (mostly long standing clients), client referrals and teams.

▪️ Why choose SUFR Cycling ? I ensure the highest of coaching standards, qualified advice and a passion to help you succeed. BUT, you need to be equally as ready to put in the work. Are you ready ?

✅ If you want to see where you can take your performance, get in touch to see if we’re a suitable fit.

Graham O' Brien
High Performance Coach
SUFR Cycling

🚀 Zwift Ride tomorrow evening (Tuesday 16th Jan) @ 6:30pm

📍Steady 90 minute endurance ride for most people at intermediate to racing level (2.5-3.2w/kg)

📈 I include a few training tips throughout the session.

Hope to see you there
Graham
SUFR Cycling

🫵 Your Daily Performance in Training Matters

🏆 It’s common as an athlete to think about performance as something measurable only on race days. How did we race ? What was the result ?

📈 Instead we should be expecting a certain level of performance in our daily training. Top performing athletes don’t just wait until race day to analyse how they performed. They take stock at the end of the day and work off their coach on a weekly basis.

Having awareness about your performance on a daily basis is key to being able to perform when it matters on race day.

Below are some daily training areas to monitor. They are subjective and we can all argue on what matters most. The simple and fundamentals are important to monitor. These are:

- Training & Nutrition
- Sleep & Recovery
- Planning

Did you cover all areas today that you had planned ? If not, improve by 1% tomorrow.

🤌 The club ride
Zone 2 - Coffee - Cruising - Social element - More Coffee

🔝 The benefits of a club ride go far beyond just getting some base miles in the legs.

📊 Even with the more advanced riders I coach, I ensure to keep the group ride as a weekly ride in my clients training plan. The benefits of a 3/4 hour club ride are underrated.

☕️ The social aspect to training with a group is one of the biggest benefits of riding with your local club at this time of year. Don't feel like you always have to train solo to get your efforts done. The ol sprint to the sign before the coffee stop, almost frowned upon nowadays in the times of 'everything must be structured'.

Cruising along in the group will also help you increase or maintain your awareness when riding in a bunch.

Not every single watt has to be followed, not every single bpm has to be matched. Chill out, enjoy the weekly group ride.

Graham
SUFR Cycling Coaching

SUFR Cycling Club Zwift Ride
🗓️Tuesday 9th January
⏰ 6:30pm

🚴 A 2 hour endurance ride at 2.5-3.2w/kg, hop on for as long as you can and build your endurance during this mid-week ride.

💪 This is the first SUFR Cycling Club group ride on Zwift, we’ll more than likely have a small group to start and hope to grow over a few weeks.

Anyone is welcome to join, not just coaching clients.

Hope to see you there,
Graham

2023 ➡️ 2024

Entering my 4th year in business in 2024 🚴

🏆 2023 was the most successful year to date in terms of race wins, podiums, national selection and international racing experience.

👉 However, not every rider I coach is in it for wins and podiums. While I coach athletes who compete at elite level which requires a results driven approach. I also coach riders who completed other goals in sportive events and transformed their performance and health over the course of the 2023 season.

💪 As with social media, all we see is the good results and the positive carefully selected pieces from our business & life. There were times athletes weren’t happy with their performance and we had to re-structure training programs among other obstacles. Always finding a way to push forward and THIS is what coaching is about and why it means so much to me. Helping athletes push through tough times and find success.

✅ 2024 is about continuing as normal. No grand ideas just high coaching standards that have been in place for years now.

📧 Contact: [email protected] for coaching enquiries.

✅ Identifying Your Strengths & Weaknesses ❗️

Identifying what you need to work on is important in developing your overall cycling performance.

Many of us have some idea what our strengths and weaknesses are but are not honest with accepting them.

It’s always easy to train your strengths, you feel confident and in control. Training your weaknesses is uncomfortable and the majority of riders will avoid this.

The points above are important to note if you want to recognise your strengths and weaknesses. While each rider has at least one really strong area, overlooking your weaker areas can limit you from reaching your maximum potential.

Enter different events, ride different races and include all forms of training in your program. You’ll quickly notice what you need to work on if you don’t already know!

A common theme nowadays towards training is that all you have to do is show up.

If you want to be a high performance athlete, then just showing up is not enough. ‘Just showing up’ can be an excuse for letting high standards slip, an escape from putting in high quality work on a consistent basis.

High performing athletes show up, but they show up AND perform day in day out.

Raise your standards and expect more from yourself than ‘just showing up’ if you want to bring your performance to a high level.

Common comments at this time of year as our athletes get back into S&C work in the gym!

𝗪𝗛𝗔𝗧 𝗔𝗥𝗘 𝗬𝗢𝗨 𝗧𝗥𝗔𝗜𝗡𝗜𝗡𝗚 𝗙𝗢𝗥 ?

Part 3 in the Diary of a Cycling Coach series is live on our website under the ‘latest news’ section. Discussing the reasoning behind training for certain events versus having the strength of mind to keep training regardless of if you have events coming up or not.

Follow the link below to read the full piece:

The Diary of a Cycling Coach - What are you training for ? Have you ever been in a situation where you pick a goal and say "right, I'm going to train for X event in 3 months time". The event rolls around and either you do or don't complete it. You've either trained hard for it and achieved your goal or you didn't get to the start line/complete the event. It...