Random Training, Reading WKO+ Charts From A Season

An athlete recently did a consultation with me over his training, where he sent me all his WKO+ files from this past season, and I reviewed the charts, telling him what I saw about his training.

Here is one of the charts I used, which showed me how his cycling training went for the year, fairly clearly:

(Click on image to enlarge)

You'll notice the athlete starts off the season really well, from January until May, with consistent improvement, only to see the second half of the season not resemble anything like the first half. This is something I see common in self-coached athletes. They will spend the first part of the season doing all the group workouts they can, racing in practice all the time, going hard as often as they can, training by peer pressure. After awhile, the body begins to plateau, or they get mentally tired, and they struggle to perform well at the same workouts which were bringing them such great fitness in the early season. By the end of the season, the athlete is just shot, mentally and physically, usually finishing on a negative note.

If you're looking for ways to prevent this from happening, then using technology in your training and analysis of your training will help you to make better training decisions. You can create training decisions based on data, not on peer pressure! After a few weeks of seeing a plateau, as a coach I would be changing training for sure!

This is the type of thing I discussed in the webinar on "Advanced Charts and Tracking in WKO+ for Athlete Performance," at Performance Webinars. If you use WKO+, or are interested in using it, then my webinar which is archived on there is something you'll want to see, for helping you see these plateaus before they happen.

I will share some more charts from this athlete and others, which show some interesting things from the year and season of 2009. Stay tuned!

Coach Vance