Breaking through a plateau in performance

Words: Mark Fenner
 
Each of us will reach stages in our training lives where we seem to be battering our head against a brick wall and wondering why we’re seemingly not progressing, not seeing those new power numbers, reduced lap times on our local track or progressing in our local races! Don’t be worried by this as it is very normal as you could well have reached a plateau in performance.

When an athlete first starts out on a structured training program,big improvement can be seen. I have witnessed improvements in power output between 5– 20% across multiple time durations. Big gains are often associated with the athletes cycling history and would generally be bigger for those new to cycling.

Using a power meter to measure our output on the bike is the best way for us to quantify our performance gains and make educated decisions about the type of energy systems we may need to focus on to continue to improve. Gains in performance can be seen in as little as 4 weeks, but, for more highly trained athletes this can take longer.

What can we do if we have reached a plateau in performance?

Let’s identify some reasons for this stalling in performance gains and look at some ways to break through a plateau in performance;

1.     Are you tired a lot of the time and been training solidly without a break all year? If the answer to this is yes and you have tried adding load, but the results are not happening, it could be time to have a break. Taking a few weeks off can allow all that training load to be absorbed by the body and make the adaptations to come back stronger in the next block of training.

2.     Have you been consistent in your training or do you miss workouts often and/or sometimes miss a week here and there? Sometimes breaking through a plateau can be as simple as consistency of training over time. Often it is better to do less training more consistently, rather than cramming and missing blocks.

3.     You might well be very consistent in your training, but always do the same thing week in week out. The same bunch rides and the same route all the time. Is this you? If it is look at areas within your cycling that you don’t address in these rides. Often bunch rides are a mixture of very easy riding at the back of the bunch generally at recovery/low endurance intensity. This is interspersed by short periods of threshold or vo2 intensity when coming through for a turn or chopping off back to the coffee shop. These rides can be great, but they need to form part of a structured approach to the plan as key areas of building condition are often neglected by doing this week in and week out. The body often needs new stimulus to create new adaptations. Often, we tend to neglect the workouts we don’t like doing, pretty simple really, but the 5-minute vo2 ergo efforts or the 1-minute anaerobic froth fest efforts are often the workouts we need to complete to help us to step up to another level.

What we do as coaches is look at all the data from an athlete and try to identify these patterns and develop ways to break them and change them to help the athlete improve. We might try a traditional periodisation model and start off with a Foundation, Base, Build, Peak and Race type approach. This classic approach can work fantastically well for most athletes and for many years, however, sometimes changing things up can again help push the body to make adaptations due to the changed stimulus. You could approach a change like this by completing block periodised approach.

Block periodisation focuses on a specific area for improvement and could take the shape of a 10 or 14 day very focused block of VO2 followed by an easy recovery week after to allow for adaptation. By a focused block I mean 3 or even 4 x VO2 workouts in a week with recovery between the workouts. It could mean double workout days with a tempo in the morning, followed by a VO2 in the afternoon on the erg. Remember if all you have ever done is 3 weeks building and 1-week recovery and single workout days, these changes can be just what you need.

Another intervention I have used is to throw a few curve balls in the mix. By this I mean that after the initial foundation period where you build some base fitness along with interconnective tissue strength,I might dive straight into a VO2 or anaerobic block early in the program. These can often be incredible at creating change and adaptation. At the start of any block of training the body is fresh, and all the body systems are recharged and ready after the break. These high intensity workouts can be absorbed quickly, and big gains made before settling back into a more traditional approach. Again, think outside the box, understand if you have become stuck in a rut and change things up.

We can also look at changes and adaptations through increased duration, or load defined as CTL, but most athletes, especially working athletes, mums and dads can struggle to find the time. If 8 to 10 hours a week availability is the maximum that can be devoted to training, adding another 6 – 8 hours into the schedule could see a positive performance change. But adding another 8 hours into a plan can often have a negative effect due to extra stress on work and home life and this leads to sickness and therefore can be negative to performance.

Well there you go, it’s not the definitive list of interventions and changes that can be made to break through a plateau, but it does highlight a few things that might get that lightbulb going off in your minds. Get stuck into making some changes and break through that plateau in performance.