Coach Hughes on Riding for Health

Coach John Hughes publishes regularly on the Road Bike Rider website, both downloadable eBooks that can be purchased and columns that can be read for free. This post is about one of those columns, the one entitled "Anti-Aging: The Optimal Training Weeks*", dated June 24, 2021. One of the things that originally attracted me to Hughes is that he covers training for a wider variety of goals than any other coach I have encountered. In this column he covered something that has been on my mind a lot. That is, when I am not training for an event, when I am just training to maintain fitness and stay healthy, what is a reasonable ride schedule? Not only did he cover it, he covered it with older riders like me in mind.

Coach Hughes' schedule for health, shown in the first three rows of the chart above, contains rides at three levels of Intensity (effort): Recovery, corresponding on an easy ride in Heart Rate Zone 1, Endurance, corresponding to a ride at moderate effort in Heart Rate Zone 2, and Tempo, corresponding to a ride at moderately high effort in Heart Rate Zone 3. This schedule is part of Coach Hughes overall "Anti-Aging" plan which closely follows the recommendations of the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM). The overall plan also includes strength training, flexibility training, and balance training (none of which I will be discussing in this post). When I say Hughes has older riders in mind, I mean two different things: 1) He discusses what an older rider is still physically capable of doing. 2) He discusses what an older rider should do to slow their rate of aging. 

Where did Hughes get his Normal/Fit/Vigorous weekly exercise schedules? Very generally, they come from the ACSM but with some pretty significant changes. [Clarity Note: Unfortunately, Hughes and the ACSM use the word "Vigorous" for different things. Do not confuse the ACSM's use of Vigorous for an Intensity Level (equivalent to Hughes' "Tempo") and Hughes use of the word Vigorous to describe a weekly exercise schedule.] The ACSM's recommendation is for a minimum of 150 minutes a week of Moderate Intensity aerobic exercise or 75 minutes of Vigorous Intensity aerobic activity a week or any combination of the two (e.g. 100 minutes of Moderate Intensity and 25 minutes of Vigorous Intensity.) Their goal is twice that, 300 minutes a week of Moderate Intensity or 150 minutes of Vigorous Intensity or any combination of the two. They note that there may be additional benefits of exercising even more than their goal. What does the ACSM mean by Moderate and Vigorous Intensity? This has always confused me because there are many different definitions of these terms (which are widely used in the medical literature) but for the purposes of this post it is reasonable to suggest that Moderate Intensity is Heart Rate Zone 2, described as Endurance Training by Hughes, and that Vigorous Intensity is Heart Rate Zone 3, described as Tempo Training by Hughes. Anything below Moderate (e.g. Zone 1/Recovery) is termed Light Exercise by the ACSM and they believe it has no medical benefit.

Coach Hughes defines four levels of weekly exercise; below the ACSM minimum, at the ACSM minimum, at the ACSM goal, and above the the ACSM goal. He names these levels Unhealthy, Normal, Fit, and Vigorous. Here's where Hughes' recommendations differ from those of the ACSM:

• Hughes recommends some riding in Zone 1 which the ASM sees as having no value.
• The total of Hughes minutes of exercise (even excluding the Zone 1 rides) is significantly above that suggested by the ACSM. 
• ACSM assumes all rides are about the same length whereas Hughes recommends varying the length of rides pretty significantly.
• The ACSM has no preference for Moderate vs. Vigorous exercise, they suggest athletes mix and match these as they wish. Hughes believes that it is valuable to exercise at specific Intensity levels for specific amounts of time, e.g. 75 minutes/week in Zone 1, 300 minutes/week in Zone 2, and 45 minutes/week in Zone 3 in his Fit schedule.
• Hughes includes warmup and cool down in the time he gives for each ride, ACSM does not. That means that when the ACSM suggests a 60 minute ride Coach Hughes would include warmup and cool down so would describe the exact same rides as a 75 minute ride. (This is not a difference in recommendations but is important for comparing the recommendations of Coach Hughes to those of the ACSM.)
• Hughes suggests warmup and cool down for Zone 3 and above, ACSM for Zone 2 and above.

I have included a line on the figure at the top of the post illustrating one way of achieving the ACSM recommendations. To make it comparable, I have included the recommended warmup and cool down to the times. That said, it will be Coach Hughes recommendations I will be discussing for the remainder of the post.

When I looked at Coach Hughes' three plans, especially at the "Total Minutes" column, my first reaction is that the Vigorous schedule is almost certainly beyond my reach and even the Fit schedule might be a stretch. Next, I despair at implementing any of his plans in that they all involve doing rides at controlled Intensity: Recovery (Zone 1), Endurance (Zone 2), and Tempo (Zone 3.) I find it impossible to maintain a fixed Intensity on the hilly rides that are my only option here in California; inevitably my Intensity going up hills increases. I confronted this before when I wanted to convert the Hughes plan to prepare to ride a 200 Kilometer Brevet into a plan to prepare for a 100 Kilometer Metric Century. What I did was to replace the higher Intensity rides with additional minutes added to my mixed Intensity hilly rides with the idea that my higher Intensity on the hills of my medium Intensity Endurance rides would provide the same training, and that is what I did here as well. Instead of Endurance and Tempo rides, I have Mixed Intensity rides that include both. I have added a line to the figure at the top of the post illustrating a set of rides I might do here in Emerald Hills that add up to Hughes' Fit week and a second line illustrating a somewhat more modest schedule which is more like what I am doing today.

If I substitute my mixed intensity rides, especially now that I have moved into a more hilly part of California, does that work out to be the right amount of time in the different zones? Unfortunately not. In my post where I developed my schedule to ride a metric century a month, I initially calculated that they did. However, in my very next post I noted that Hughes' had different heart rate boundaries for his Intensity zones that the ones I had been using. It seemed most appropriate to use Hughes zones to follow a Hughes plan, and when I did that, I found that I had too much time in Zone 3 and too little in Zone 2. In the case of the Riding for Health plan I am attempting to replicate here, Hughes calls for roughly 20% of ride time in Zone 1, 70% in Zone 2, and 10% in Zone 3. When I substitute my mixed intensity rides, I end up with roughly 20% in Zone 1, 40% in Zone 2, and 40% in Zone 3. I will address possible solutions to this problem in future posts.

What is the purpose of having the three plans, Normal, Fit, and Vigorous? As is often the case with Coach Hughes, there are a multiplicity of purposes, he is nothing if not flexible. For example, one thing he suggests is the following: "These weeks could also correspond to different seasons. In the summer your cardio [aerobic exercise] could resemble the Vigorous week, in the spring and fall the Fit week, and in the winter the Normal week." However, another purposes is based on "the more the healthier." The following is summarized from his column:

• Unhealthy: Aging happens rapidly.
• Normal: Fitness declines normally.
• Fit: Fitness declines more slowly.
• Vigorous: Fitness declines very slowly.

In the "the more the healthier" approach, one should strive to be has high on this fitness hierarchy as possible. As always, Hughes suggests a progressive approach, working your way from a Normal to a Fit to a Vigorous exercise schedule. To tell which weekly plan to start with and when to graduate to the next level, Hughes uses a point system. You earn points by exercising for multiple years, by maintaining a schedule that accumulates a significant number of miles each year, and by completing one or more long rides each year. You get 1 point if you have been riding 1-2 years, 2 points for  3-5 years and 3 points for 6 or more years. I have been riding pretty continuously for 13 years so I get 3 points. For miles per year, the ranges are that less than 3,000 miles per year gets you 1 point, 3,000-3,500 miles per year gets you 2 points, and greater than 3,500 miles per year gets you 3 points. For some perspective, randonneurs^ are expected to ride at least 5,000 miles per year, and at my peak in 2013 I reached 5,571 miles per year and between 2013 and 2014 had 54 straight weeks where I was above 5,000 miles per year. I stayed above 4,000 miles per year until 2017 when my wife's cancer got worse and she needed more care. I was below 3,500 miles a year a month later and, with one brief exception, have not since been above that level since. I dropped below 3,000 miles per year near the end of 2021 and am currently at 2,532 miles/year so only get 1 point. Finally, there is the longest ride in a year with the kicker that it must be ridden at at least 12.5 miles per hour. Those who follow my blog know that, for me, that is a pretty fast ride. For comparison, in randonneuring, to qualify for a 200 kilometer brevet (124 miles) one only needs to ride it at just above 9 miles per hour. In 2018 and 2019 I rode metric centuries (62 miles) and I think in each case I managed to ride them faster than 12.5 miles per hour. However, I have not been able to ride Metric Centuries for the last two years  (mostly for reasons having nothing to do with my fitness.) The one ride over 50 miles I have done in the last year was done at 11.2 miles per hour so doesn't count. The three groups in this case are less than 50 miles gets 1 point, 50-100 miles gets 2 points and above 100 miles gets 3 points. Thus, technically I am in the less than 50 mile group and only get 1 point. This gives me a total of 5 points. To qualify to ride a Normal schedule requires 3-4 points, Fit requires 5-7 points, and Vigorous requires 8-9 points. This puts me into the Fit group.

What are my prospects for training myself into the Vigorous group with its promise of a longer, more fit life? At this point I am going to address a problem I see in this column by Hughes, the absence of any consideration of the effect of hills on riding speed. A hilly route is slower than a flat route. In the context of his recommended schedule, this is not a problem because his schedule is expressed in minutes instead of miles. One can spend an hour doing a short, hilly ride or an hour doing a long, flat ride and they are the same in terms of Coach Hughes' schedule. That is why I switched from tracking miles to tracking minutes when I moved from the flat geography of Texas to the hilly geography of California. When this becomes a problem is when Hughes switches back to using miles in his evaluation plan, total miles ridden in a year and miles per hour on the longest ride. Reaching 3,500 miles per year was much easier in Texas than it is here in California, and riding faster than 12.5 mile per hour is similarly so. I might be inspired to do something about that, revise these criteria, if I really felt I could handle Hughes' Vigorous schedule, but I don't so I won't.

Why do I believe I can't handle Hughes' Vigorous schedule? Based on my 13 years of riding as an old man I believe that how much I train is limited less by what I decide to do and more by what I am physically able to do. Bearing that in mind, let's work through what it would take to "qualify" for that schedule using Hughes' evaluation plan. Right now I have 5 points and would need 3 more to reach the 8 points needed to qualify for a Vigorous schedule. I am maxed out on years of riding so those 3 points would have to come from increases in both miles per year and longest ride ridden faster than 12.5 mph. On November 10 of 2019, I rode 65 miles at 13 mph which would have earned me 2 points in the longest ride category. I have had a mileage above 3,000 for the previous year from March of 2019 through September of 2021, but only had a mileage above 3,500 for three weeks in the middle of that. If I give myself 2 points for annual mileage, that gives me 7 points, still 1 below what is needed for the Vigorous category. Sure, it is not impossible I could push my annual mileage above 3,500 and sure, I feel like I'm being penalized for the hills in which I live, still, I think the most reasonable interpretation is that, according to Hughes' guidelines, I ought to be following his Fit schedule. That, combined with my intuition based on my experience says the Vigorous schedule is a level of training I could not sustain. I guess I just have to resign myself to dying young.

After all that, what did I learn from this column by Coach Hughes? First, for those of you who prefer their humor flagged, the last sentence of the previous paragraph is a joke. The ACSM recommends 150 to 300 minutes of moderate aerobic exercise (or half that of vigorous aerobic exercise) a week, and I am currently averaging significantly more than their upper recommendation. It is generally agreed that, with aerobic exercise, more is almost always better, but Coach Hughes' Vigorous schedule is completely arbitrary,  there is no strong argument for my trying to meet that level of exercise specifically. On the other hand, it is reassuring that the maximum amount of cycling I have come up with on my own and the amount that Hughes' guidelines suggest for me are essentially the same, it seems I have gotten fairly good at listening to my body. Finally, I was reassured that, based on this column by Coach Hughes, my long rides are not too long, my easy rides on the trainer are worth riding and I am doing about the right number of them, and that I am getting plenty of high Intensity riding. Good job, Zombie!

* The rather awkward use of "weeks" in the title is Hughes way of communicating that he is offering multiple different weekly plans for staying fit and healthy.

^ I posted a lot about Randonneuring back in 2012-2014. It is a kind of cycling which consists of a series of long distance challenge rides, most commonly 200 kilometers, 300 kilometers, 400 kilometers, 600 kilometers, and 1,200 kilometers (approximately 125 to 750 miles.) In my minimal career as a randonneur, I completed 2 of the 200 kilometer rides, referred to as "brevets" in the jargon of Randonneuring.