40 Goals

Best Practices in Planning Methodologies As part of the planning and design of planning functionality in GoldenCheetah I interviewed a number of elite coaches working with athletes in Olympic and Pro-tour cycling teams. Whilst there are some differences in the overall philosophy to training, how to manipulate training volume, intensity and density or the relative importance and focus of different types of workout in developing skills or capabilities, there was a lot of similarity in the methods they followed. I thought it would be valuable to capture some of these themes as they may prove useful to other coaches, if only to validate what they are already doing. 1. Understanding the individual The age of the athlete and their training history, their type (sprinter, rouleur etc.), their genetic disposition such as work capacity and trainability, their weaknesses and desired changes are all commonly measured and monitored by the elite coach. Special attention is paid to the t