4 Ways to Overcome a Performance Plateau

If you are a cyclist, sooner or later, you're going to hit a plateau. This happens when your performance just doesn't improve, no matter how hard you try.

This can occur for a variety of reasons. One of the most common is training without a proper plan. In order to get the most from your workouts, it is important to approach training from a scientific point of view. Knowing what you are trying to accomplish with each day's effort as well as knowing what not to do can greatly improve your performance.

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Hitting a performance plateau can be a very frustrating experience. Follow these four tips to figure out where you've gone wrong.

Keep a Training Journal

A journal provides context for your workouts and helps you understand how your training is progressing. It paints a picture of what you have accomplished over a particular period of time and how you were able to accomplish it. For example, if you set a personal best in a particular event, you can take a look at the weeks leading up to that event to gain perspective on what you did that enabled you to maximize your performance.

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Conversely, by examining your training in the weeks prior to a plateau, you can gain a greater understanding of what's happening, and why you are stuck. To maximize the effectiveness of your journal, keep track of the following information:

• Date and time of day for each workout
• Weather (temperature, humidity and wind)
• Body weight
• Workout length (in time and distance)
• Route
• Intensity level (using heart rate and/or power output)
• Hours of sleep the previous night, and your general feelings about the ride (on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being poor and 5 being awesome)

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Follow the 75 Percent Rule

Generally speaking, during a given week, 75 percent of your training volume (either miles or time) should be at or below 85 percent of your lactate threshold heart rate (LTHR). In other words, at least three-quarters of your training should take place in Zones 1 and 2 (i.e., at a conversational pace). This keeps you fresh enough to apply the other part of the 75 percent rule. Ten percent of your weekly training volume should be above 100 percent of your LTHR.

In other words, it should consist of extremely intense riding or racing, which are the efforts that help facilitate the physiological adaptation process that leads to improved performance (i.e., the training effect). The 75 percent rule helps you avoid the "Zone 3 syndrome" where you spend too much time riding at an intensity that is too hard to facilitate recovery, but not hard enough to promote the training effect. This is one of the most common reasons cyclists hit plateaus.

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Use Training Zones

Training with power and heart rate has been around for years. It is based on the notion that you can improve the quality of your training by matching your workout intensity with the goals of a particular training session. You do this by calculating heart rate training zones (and/or power-based training levels) while working in the zone that best fits the goal for a particular workout.

For instance, if you want to improve your lactate threshold and functional threshold power (FTP), you would train in zone 4, which is 98 percent to 105 percent of LTHR, and 91 percent to 105 percent of FTP.

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Likewise, if you want to improve your aerobic endurance, you would ride in zone 2 (75 percent to 85 percent of LTHR, and 56 percent to 75 percent of FTP). Training zones work by letting you know how hard you are exercising, and by providing you with the feedback needed to modify the intensity of your workout if you are exercising too hard or not hard enough. They offer an easy way to continuously monitor intensity in order to keep it at the desired level, which makes it much easier to apply the 75 percent rule.

Build Recovery into Every Training Mesocycle

A mesocycle is a three or four week block of training designed to accomplish a particular goal such as improved aerobic endurance or increased anaerobic capacity. The key to making your training blocks successful and reducing the incidence of plateaus is to include a block of recovery at the end of each mesocycle.

For example, many cyclists benefit from a 28-day block with a 23/5 training pattern. This consists of 23 days of relatively hard work followed by five days of recovery and easy spinning. Conversely, an older or less experienced cyclist may opt for a 16/5 training pattern (i.e., a 21-day mesocycle) that includes 16 days of hard training followed by five days of recovery. This will provide you with ample opportunities to train hard and then recover, which increases your chances of maximizing performance and reduces the likelihood of hitting a plateau.

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