FAQ's
Q: eCoach/eQuipe - What do I get for my monthly fee?
A: You will get a detailed easy to follow bespoke training plan supplied weekly with alternative road and turbo sessions if required. A sample weekly schedule is here. We will always take account of your weekly feedback to 'fine tune' your training schedule and answer any queries you have.
Q: What are your qualifications?
A: Paul Winkley is an ABCC level 3 qualified coach.
Q: Are you insured?
A: Yes we are covered for public liability up to £10 million under our membership to ABCC
Q: Do I need power measuring and GPS to be coached?
A: No, ideally we'd like you to have a Heart Rate Monitor with a chest belt [devices like Fitbit exercise trackers and Apple watches are not really suitable] but we have coached riders on perceived effort.
Its a great help for us if we can see how you've performed during the week. If you do have a device such as Garmin GPS that can upload your training performances it helps to set your training more accurately.
Q: What if I can't complete a training session?
A: It happens to us all and even to professional cyclists. Its not a problem but for eCoach and eQuipe clients we need to know so we can adjust your training schedule. It might be caused by illness, stress or overtraining. Contact us immediately if it happens.
Rest - Assess - Try again - is our motto
Q: Do I need a turbo trainer?
A: While its good to have something to train indoors for bad weather, dark evenings or if you're short of time. We will always give alternatives on the road if required.
Q: Will I need to train every day?
A: No we would not recommend this. You need at least one rest and recovery day each week, some riders require more. This will depend on age, gender and type of events you wish to do. We always fit training to your available time.
Train smarter not longer!
Q: What is periodisation?
A: When we write your training schedule we will know your goals and when you need to be at peak fitness. We work back from this point in a series of training cycles, usually a series of 6 week blocks to bring you to this point with adaptation [easier] weeks built in so you don't become overtrained.
Q: Can you tell me if my position is correct on the bike?
A: We can generally tell just by looking!
Its all a case of:
Comfort-Efficiency-Handling-Aerodynamics
Its impossible to do all these so we all have to compromise.
We can give you a series of instructions as a starting point that you can carry out yourself. We have some ingenious 'tricks' for things like setting cleats learned over the years! With this starting point you can then fine tune your position to achieve the best compromise as laid down above.
Do I need a Ramp Test?
Under most circumstances we would recommend you do this* so we can accurately set your training loads - sure, its a little bit of hard work but worth while. For most the test takes 12 minutes or less plus a proper warm up and warm down. You may think you can do this yourself but we have found that athletes who thought they knew their training zones were surprised at the outcome when the test was conducted under controlled conditions.
The Ramp Test will accurately give you your heart rate and power zones as well as power to weight ratio and estimated FTP, FTHR and V02 max.
*Because this is a maximal test we ask about your medical history before you undertake it. Under certain circumstances we may suggest another way to calculate your zones.
