Transcription
We are now less than 100 days from the Tour stage, and it's not too late to prepare well. In this video, we'll give you all the keys to successfully complete your final preparation for the Tour stage. So, as we said in the introduction, we are now entering the last 100 days of preparation for the Tour stage. We are entering a very limited period. We'll see that later. One of the most important factors now will be specificity. So, to launch into this topic of specificity, determining the zones. In this video, we will propose a unique test for you to perform. It will be an FTP test, for the simple and good reason that there are approximately three cycles left before the Tour stage. And so, these will be cycles really focused on this FTP work, sweet spot work, on medium intensity work, and all the high-intensity work, unfortunately, we won't really have time to do it in these last three months. So we will assume it was done beforehand. And for those who will only do a 3-month preparation, there will be no very high-intensity work, in any case, no targeted very high-intensity work. You will necessarily have a few small sessions here and there, but you won't have a dedicated 3-week cycle with two sessions per week on this very high-intensity aspect. So, a unique FTP test, we can do, for example, the emblematic 20-minute test with 92%. Rémy will then present the zone breakdown, or we can do a lactate test in parallel. We can even do both to complement each other. Rémy, I'll let you explain a bit about the zone calibration aspect, how it will work? Yes, as you say, we do an FTP test, so we get a value afterwards, but the value is good, but you have to be able to interpret it so that it's useful for training. So, for that, we will try to calibrate the zones, and yes, it can always be tricky with zone calibration because sometimes we calibrate them incorrectly. And again, an FTP test, if we take a value from a 20-minute test, we often hear 95%, we've already said it before in other videos, but 95% is too much for most amateur cyclists. You should rather rely on a range of 90-92% of FTP. If you've had the chance to do a lactate test, it can be very interesting to cross-reference your two sets of data, your two tests, to refine your zones even further. So, here on the screen, you have the zones we favor on a seven-zone model, the percentages for power and heart rate. Just a small point on heart rate. Be careful, zones 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 do not necessarily correspond to power zones 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, because we know that, for example, zone 6 and zone 7 in terms of power, we are in the anaerobic pathway, and therefore heart rate is not significant for these zones. And so, simply with heart rate, we still work with these zones, which allows us to have a more refined model, notably with zone 3 which will be our SV1 work zone, zone 4 for tempo. This zone 3 and zone 4, in terms of power, are both located in zone 3 on a power model.
Now, what to work on? I touched on it a bit in the introduction. We have 3 months left, time is limited. We have three cycles left. So we have an obvious need for specificity. If we've done a longer preparation, say 6 months or more, then obviously we've had time to develop our base in winter. We've had time to develop our first ventilatory threshold, we've had time to develop our VO2 max and explosiveness qualities. For example, for those who followed my preparation, that's the path I followed: SV1 during the winter. Then, I did a big FFC cycle to work on VO2 max and explosiveness, and now I'm going to switch to this specificity part. And by the way, I'll let Rémy present the ideal plan, so to speak. Yes, when you have 3 months, an ideal plan is complicated, but in any case, we'll try to do our best with Mathias. The idea is really to go for the most specific, the most targeted. So, the Tour stage, a mountain race with big difficulties, long climbs. So, for that, we've decided in May to do an SV2 cycle followed by a micro-recovery. So these are the green parts, they are micro-breaks of 3 days at the end of each cycle. This is really our approach, and it's how I work with my athletes: to have them recover for 3 days without a bike, without sport, after each cycle, to recover well, to recreate freshness before starting a new cycle. So, after this SV2 cycle and this micro-break, we move on to a sweet spot cycle, very specific to the Tour stage, you'll see that just after. And again, a micro-break. And the last cycle, we'll combine sweet spot and VO2 max. You'll understand the interest of VO2 max later. And then finally, a tapering period of 10 days just before the competition. So, to go into a little detail about the three cycles that Rémy just presented, I'll first talk about the SV2 cycle. So, the goal of this cycle is for you to aim to increase your ceiling. So, as I said, if you've done a preparation longer than 3 months, for example, 6 months, you've been able to develop your VO2 max and explosiveness qualities, which correspond precisely to your performance ceiling. That is to say, if your VO2 max remains blocked at a certain value in watts or even in VO2 in milliliters, this value will block all your lower values. So, SV2, SV1, specific pace on the climb, etc. So, the goal of this SV2 cycle will be to raise your ceiling, maximize FTP, and as Rémy says on this slide, gain in FTP equals gain on the climb. So, examples of sessions you can do are, for example, 4 x 15 minutes at 100% of FTP. In fact, it will be a lot of work around this 100% of FTP, or even a little above, 105-110%. We can do, for example, hover under sessions. I also like to do, for example, 6 x 10 minutes, sessions like that, progressive sessions. In fact, the more intervals I add, for example, on 6 x 10, I will often try to be progressive, starting at 95% of FTP to reach 105% at the end, or even almost 10 minutes almost all out at the end of the session. So, to develop this FTP. Now, on the 2nd Sweet Spot cycle, I'll let Rémy explain the approach a bit. Yes, as you said, this first SV2 cycle, the goal is to add some height to the ceiling, but on the other hand, if you're very small, it's useless. And that's a bit the goal of this sweet spot cycle. In fact, we will work on a power that is really specific to the pace we should adopt on the climb during the Tour stage, or at least we get very close to it, and we will aim to maximize the percentage of FTP that we can use on the climb. And so, for that, this sweet spot work will be broken down into outings and long sustained efforts at a significant percentage of FTP. So, a typical session example would be 3 x 30 minutes at 90% of FTP. So, it's 85-90% of FTP. We get very close to the power we will aim to maintain on the climb during the Tour stage. So, these sessions typically simulate this type of effort. Of course, this can be done on a home trainer, but it's best to always do it on the road in real conditions, meaning on a climb, and even better at altitude, since that is also one of the constraints of the Tour stage. So, that's it for this second sweet spot cycle. And following this sweet spot cycle, we do sweet spot plus VO2 max work. So, we continue to work at that percentage but by adding VO2 max fractions. So, we mobilize VO2 max just before the event, and these will be sessions that will be closer to Jiménez type, as we often hear. And I'll let Mathias explain why this addition of VO2 Max just before the event. Yes. Adding VO2 max before major objectives is really very important because, in fact, there are many studies that have shown that you will get 80% of the desired effects from training in 3 weeks. So, that's why in the last three weeks, we are looking for this little peak in VO2 max. Once we have accumulated volume, as Rémy said with a sweet spot block, we have really maximized, developed our engine. And now, with this VO2 max cycle, we will aim to gain 1, 2, 3 points on our VO2, and therefore gain the watts associated with this VO2. But also, if you think about it, the FTP value is nothing more than a percentage associated with this VO2 max. So, on your FTP, you are capable of maintaining 85% of your VO2 max for 1 hour, for example. And so, it will also develop the associated sweet spot, which is a value slightly below, for example, 82% of your VO2 max for 1 hour. Well, if you've gained 2, 3, 4 points on your VO2 max during this last month and in parallel you've maintained, notably with Jiménez's work which continues to work on this target pace on the climb, you've maintained the same percentage of VO2 max on this sweet spot value and you've increased your VO2 max. So, in the end, you've unlocked a little boost effect, you've triggered what's called peak form. Yes. And to add to that, Mathias, I'd say this approach is also widely used by pros, even before Grand Tours. So, Grand Tours are a bit like preparation for the Tour stage, or at least for general classification riders, and you can check, but all the favorites before a Grand Tour will always add VO2 max just before to get the last gains just before starting the event. So, after this cycle is finished, we move on to tapering. The tapering in what we've presented will last 10 days. The goal of tapering, now, be careful, don't get it wrong. The goal is not to do nothing, to stop cycling altogether hoping to create freshness. That won't work. The goal is to reduce the volume. So, maybe 50% of the usual volume. If we don't ride much, maybe 60-70% will be targeted, and importantly, maintain training frequency and especially intensity. The goal is to ride less to create freshness, but to ride enough in frequency and intensity to keep the body active and not have cotton legs on the day of the event if you haven't ridden for 10 days beforehand. Mathias, we're getting very close to the event, and people are wondering about race day management. Can you tell us a bit more? Yes, that's it. Once we've really developed all this physical part, when we're really at the top of what we could expect, at least for the Tour stage deadline, then the thing that will be very important to succeed in your race is beyond having the watts on race day, what will allow you to get a good ranking is to have a good strategy. Obviously, on an event like this, over 170 km with over 5000 m of elevation gain, at equivalent watts, riders can take 30 minutes more or less, or even more in case of bonking if the nutrition strategy is poorly managed, in case of cramps if the pacing strategy is poorly managed. So, you can really lose everything or win everything on this strategy. In 2024, when I achieved my first top 100 in the event, I had a solid strategy, and that day I didn't have impressive associated watts, at least compared to the riders around me in around 700th place, fewer watts than at FTP, but I had a solid effort management strategy on race day. So, to help you build this strategy, don't hesitate to check out the video we made with Rémy. I'll put the little bubble at the top of the screen. Don't hesitate to check out this video on how to succeed in your Tour stage to help you build your strategy. So, if I summarize the global idea of this video, the idea was to present the right preparation in 3 months. As we said, 3 months is not enough. In any case, it's not enough to reach your full potential. However, it's enough to have a good event and to succeed in a preparation to arrive on race day prepared. But simply, if you really want to, if you have a performance objective, obviously, it takes more than 3 months, as we said, to develop other qualities, SV1, VO2 max, etc. And then, to go in order for a 3-month preparation, what is it? It's testing yourself, calibrating your zones. This is really the key point of such a short preparation. We get to the essentials. So, we think about specificity, we think only about the specific part for this type of event. We slightly squeeze the general preparation part because we don't have time, so to speak, to do it. And the little extra that we gave you with Rémy in this video, don't forget the little VO2 boost just before a big objective. This is really very important. And then, be careful to manage your tapering phase well. It's a very delicate phase because we often have bad sensations because the body is recovering. So, we often feel like we're losing everything. These are phases where we can make big mistakes. We can either want to rest too much and thus completely numb the body, or want to do too much because we're afraid of detraining and thus not creating enough freshness. So, really learn to know yourself during this phase, and over the course of preparations, you will learn to manage your tapering perfectly. Rémy, I'll let you conclude with the final word. Thank you for watching until this part of the video. Don't hesitate to tell us in the comments what your preparation is for this Tour stage. If you have a different vision of training, we'll be curious and want to debate with you in this comment section. Don't hesitate to subscribe if you haven't already to follow our next videos. We'll have some more videos dedicated to the Tour stage, notably for Mathias who is preparing for it intensely. And if you liked this video, give it a like, and see you next time Mathias. Bye! Ciao!