The Time-Crunched Cyclist Podcast by CTS

Why You Shouldn’t Train Alone All the Time

• CTS • Season 6 • Episode 302

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0:00 | 15:01

Training alone might feel productive, but it’s not always the most effective way to improve. In this episode, CTS Coach Adam Pulford explores the concept of social facilitation and how training with others can enhance performance, motivation, and skill development.

We also cover when group rides can backfire, how to find the right balance between solo and group training, and how to structure your week to get the most out of both.


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HOST

Adam Pulford has been a CTS Coach for nearly two decades and holds a B.S. in Exercise Physiology. He's participated in and coached hundreds of athletes for endurance events all around the world.


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Resources:

The Big Claim And The Catch

SPEAKER_00

What if I told you you could increase your performance, speed, motivation, handling skills, and efficiency all with one simple solution? Would you do it? Or would you hide behind some excuse like it probably costs too much or there's no one solution for that? Well, it doesn't cost anything other than your time and effort, and science says you could do all of this with decreased effort and have more fun on your bike. Sounds too good to be true, doesn't it? So what is it? It's called social facilitation. In other words, having a partner or a group of training partners. That's right. There is a fancy term from social psychology that is very helpful in explaining why what we do as endurance athletes in training actually works. Namely, leveraging the accountability of a training partner to punch through on the hard days or jumping in a group ride to hone your race skills and help the miles tick by. Now, before you're like, okay, man, that was a big buildup for something I already do. Next topic, please, hear me out. Not everyone knows this, and not everyone who has a training partner or does group rides may know the whole story. Of all the benefits I just described, there's some drawbacks too. In my coaching experience, and according to some well-documented sport psychology, you shouldn't train with a partner or group all of the time. Nor should you just lone wolf it every day because there are deeper social benefits if you train with others, even if you've decided you'll never race your bike. There's a balance to it all, to maximize your performance as well as your fun factor. Today, let's move away from the super specific targeted workout advice and move into the area of psychology, motivation, and the power of community when it comes to training, racing, and riding your bike. Social facilitation. Simply put, social facilitation refers to describing how performance changes in the presence of others. In sport psychology, social facilitation can increase physiological arousal, which means your interest, curiosity, and motivation to do something. When optimal physiological arousal is matched with the right amount of challenge, it creates flow. According to one of the GOATs of psychology, Mihai Chiksefmihai, flow is one of the most pleasurable and enjoyable experiences humans may ever experience in their lifetimes. When an athlete is in flow, everything clicks, you're smooth, time slows, joy increases, you're in the moment, performing and doing what you love to do. Flow is a big part of it, and riding with, competing against, or in front of others can help unlock this special power for performance. Norman Triplett was an American psychologist whose experiment from 1898 on competitive performance is regarded as the first observed and documented social facilitation experiment. He noticed that a group of cyclists' performance could increase when they work together versus attempting to do similar efforts in a solo situation. Floyd Alport coined the term social facilitation in 1920, and other researchers went on to determine there are two types of social facilitation. There's the co-action effects. This is where, in the case of a training partner or teammate, where you're working together to achieve something, then you have audience effects. This is where like fans show up to cheer you on. So maybe not a huge shocker to hear that working with others who challenge us in positive ways can help bring the best out of each other. Sports do that. And when we practice it deliberately, we can unlock some powerful aspects in our brain. That's what social facilitation is really getting at. And it's important to know so you know the tools you're working with and why they work. But there's always two sides of the coin. Social facilitation can backfire. It can lead to bad outcomes, such as too much intensity, too much pressure to perform, and feeling like you always have to be on it. Three other aspects that can backfire. One is over-arousal. So way too much anxiety because the ride is too long, too fast, or the course is daunting, or the riders were just super sketchy. You can also have a skill breakdown. Even if your skills are good, if the pace is too high for your fitness, you can make some mistakes. If your skill is poor and you're in the deep end, watch out. This is when bad things can happen. You can have a mismatch partner. If your partner is way stronger than you and isn't backing down the pace, not communicating with you, or not doing what they said they would, it won't work. Think of a training partner like a relationship. It needs to be a partnership, a two-way street to be successful. There's also social inhibition, where if you don't have the skills or the motivation to do something, the social aspect can work against you. This is where developing skills and finding the right group is super important rather than just jumping into the local group ride because some guy on YouTube told you to do so. Even if you have or think you may have some social inhibitions about riding with others, finding the right person or group does exist. I'll touch more on this later, but I've worked with beginners who thought group riding wasn't for them. And when they were in a safe environment, they couldn't get enough of it. Along with skills, goals, and finding the right fit, there's a balance between the total number of sessions with the group partner and solo training to get the right mix overall. Remember, I'm not saying train with someone every day. That's not my message. Start to find the balance with it so that you leverage the best of both worlds. Let's put this into action. Here's a simple way to apply social facilitation into any training phase. Three days per week, you go out with your training partner. That leaves you with two to three other days per week to go easy or do solo riding. The three days with a training partner could be one day of endurance riding where you both agree to keep it into your zone two. One day could be intervals where you both do your work on the same hill climb and push each other. And then finally, one day on the weekend where you hit the group ride and practice being in the wheels, launching attacks, going for the sprints, aka playing bikes. But what's the right balance maybe when you're coming into a race phase? This can certainly vary from person to person, but if we let intensity be our guide, we know based on a lot of successful training modalities or rhythms from people like Joe Freel, Dr. Steven Siler, Dr. Stacey Sims, and countless others, that two to three times per week for hard intensity is both appropriate and effective in moving the needle forward on progress while allowing enough time between for recovery and aerobic endurance to happen. So in this example, I'm assuming this athlete is going to be like many of you listening or watching here on YouTube, where you're likely training five to six times per week. Let's say you're in a build to peak period, so six to eight weeks out from a major race, and you're really focused on high intensity and honing your skills. My advice is to hit two group rides per week and have one individualized hard training session, with the other days being recovery andor endurance. Hitting two group rides because it's very specific to racing. This is putting your hard group rides on Tuesday and Saturday, intervals Thursday with endurance days on Sunday and Wednesday, rest day Monday, and an optional easy spin Friday, or just take another day off the bike. If you're doing some strength training too, I'd try to do these on your hard days so long as it doesn't interfere with your group rides or intervals. But if it does, or if you don't have time on those days, feel free to get in the strength on Wednesday or Friday or whenever else it fits into your schedule. Getting it in is still important at this time. And if you've been in the gym for several months at this point, the work done shouldn't mess up the legs too much for the harder rides. Let's talk about how to pick a training partner. Try to find a partner that is stronger than you in some aspects, but not in others. Say if you're a good sprinter and okay at climbing. Find a friend that's a good climber that will push you on the climbs and make you better. You can then help them in the sprint. You want to find somebody that will help you, but you will also help them. A few obvious things. Pick someone that has a similar schedule to you, at least on the days where you'll want to ride hard or long together. Pick someone you like or at least can tolerate. You're more likely to show up to rides if it's that way. It can be your spouse, but it doesn't have to. For some, this won't work at all. But if you're like Tade and Yerska, you'll be riding together in loving life. Heroes, both of them. Additionally, don't pick somebody that is on a totally different level than you unless the one who is stronger than the other is super okay taking it down a few notches, always going as slow as the slowest of the pair. Remember, mismatched partners can lead to social facilitation breakdown. If you both have coaches, put your coaches in touch. See if you can pair up on the key training days. Most coaches I work with are very adaptable with stuff like this. So just communicate your wishes and you'll maximize the benefits of a training partner. I actually hate it when someone says, I can't do the group ride that day or intervals with you because my coach said not to. Usually that just means whoever says that is making excuses. And yeah, maybe they do have some super specific thing that they're training for. But with enough heads up and communication, I think most coaches would foster an environment that allows their athlete to go hard on different days of the week to leverage the benefits of social facilitation. Finally, agree to keep it fun. Because if it ain't fun, you aren't going to be motivated to do it. Now let's talk about how to find a group ride. To be honest, the best way to find a group ride is to start talking to people about it. Local bike shop, coffee shop, at the races, and at training camps. Tons of athletes who have come to our CTS camps stay in touch and they do races or group rides together after they meet at our camps. So it's a great way to meet up with like-minded people. Check out our camp schedule down below. Also, you can chat GPT it. If you're a modern day nerd, that's what you'll do. Or Google it if you're an old school nerd. USA Cycling has some resources. I've linked to their site below where you can put in your location to find club teams and local associations that will have group rides of all abilities. Next, ask your coach. If you have a coach, they probably know good people to ride with or know coaches in your area to connect with for group rides or training partners. Get the conversation started today. You can ask or DM ambassadors that you may know, brand ambassadors such as Brittly Bowman or Jody Wilson, who are working with Velocio and getting people excited about bikes in New England and Canada, places like this. Brad Huff and his collab with Tulsa Tuff and Project Dudman in Oklahoma or wherever the wind blows for Mr. Huff. Alison Tetrick and her tribe in Central Coast of California, both on the gravel scene and trail running scene these days. She's so crazy. Yuri Hoswald and Serena Bishop Gordon of Goo Energy Labs on the gravel scene. Just search for these people and start following them. Get to events where maybe they are and they can connect you with more people just like you. Brand ambassadors are different than influencers, at least the ones I mentioned here and hang out with, because they actually care about connecting good people with other good people to help everyone get fit, have fun, and go fast. One last word on this is about social dynamics. I'm not a social psychologist or a sports psychologist for that matter. I'm a lowly coach. But I can say with certainty from my professional experience and my own personal experience that there are more benefits going on here when you're training with people regularly versus always going solo. And that benefit is from the power of community, creating a culture around what you want in your life. Recently, I was riding with friends and teammates at our DC Velo team camp over the weekend, and I was reminded about how powerful this is. The conversations I had were rich and inspiring. Some people were super fit and training up for a good season. Others were coming off of a bunch of challenges and just getting their fitness going again. It was the type of rides where you look down and three hours had gone by and you swear it was only like an hour or 90 minutes. Time slowed down, joy was all around. That weekend we showed up for each other despite all the excuses we had and came together for three days of riding to reconnect with one another. Of course, we have our own standing 9 a.m. group ride on Saturday, but that's the racy hard day where you show up, get after it, and move on. This weekend was about getting the miles in, getting to learn some new faces, and getting some good work done on the bike with friends. I share that with you not because it gives you any pro tips on which intervals to do when or how to optimize fueling for the long ride. It's way better than that, and the benefits can push you further than any of that other advice. And the last thing I'll say about that weekend was whether it was some of the rider's family opening their homes to host the ride or provide lunch, or story shared about how teammates pulled each other out of some dark times after COVID, or a group of us that ride mountain bikes that have a renewed focus to put some miles in on the dirt together. It was a solid reminder that all of us need each other to train, race, and have fun on the bike, to be our best selves. That's it for today. Hope you liked it. If you've never ridden in a group or with a training partner before, I hope that you try it soon. If you're hitting the group ride seven days a week, you are wild. But I hope you learn that some solo riding may be a benefit too. If you want to come ride with us at a camp or do a one on one skills ride or learn more about coaching, that's what we do at CTS. Links below.

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Adam Pulford

Host