Everyone has been there during a long, cold, and snowy winter. Weary from riding outside and braving the elements over the course of the first part of winter. Tired of aimlessly grinding it out on the indoor trainer. Looking for some structure to keep the drive alive. Enter Carmichael Training Systems‘ CTS Progressive Power interval training series, circa 2008.
Don’t get us wrong. We know you could go “new-school” with your indoor cycling with Zwift. Zwift entered the scene in 2014, gained traction pre-pandemic, and has now exploded globally as a result of pandemic-related lockdowns. We get it – some enjoy the competition and virtual engagement with other riders and riding faraway dreamlands.
But what if you don’t want to race avatars, or just need a change up from the virtual world. You could use the group workouts and training features on Zwift or sign up for other great services like Wahoo’s The Sufferfest. For sure. But what if you don’t want to incur monthly subscription fees, or simply want to go it “old-school?”
CTS Progressive Power Interval Training Series
The CTS Progressive Power interval training series is perfect. It consists of 16 one-hour interval training sessions meant to be completed in an eight-week training block.
Who is CTS?
For those unfamiliar with CTS, the company was founded by Chris Carmichael in 2000 with the goal of making “world-class coaching accessible to athletes of all ability levels.” Carmichael is an ex-pro road racer racing with the famed 7-Eleven Cycling Team, a former U.S. Olympic coach, and a coach to a litany of successful athletes. Carmichael has written several books, and CTS has produced a host of interval training videos. CTS is a force in endurance sports coaching.
As indicated in JB’s About page, he dabbled in “road racing.” Road racing is in quotes because the race usually ended with JB getting dropped and riding solo as fast as he could on some great country roads throughout western PA and northern WV. That didn’t stop him from yearning to educate himself on how to train in an effort to get faster. As a result, he read a lot of Carmichael’s books, and started using the CTS Train Right DVDs (remember DVDs!). By no means do the books and DVDs replace a coach, but a coach hasn’t been in the cards. Some day. The CTS Progressive Power Training interval training series videos are some of the best indoor cycling interval workouts out there.
How to Benefit from the CTS Progressive Power Interval Training Series
The CTS Progressive Power series is brilliant. The series is easy to use for those without a coach, and is a great eight-week training block to break up winter’s monotony (or to jump start your training at other points in the year). Research indicates that a cyclist can increase sustainable power by up to around 12% or 13% over the course of the series. The 16 interval sessions can also be used individually throughout the year to substitute for a particular interval workout in your training schedule. When using as an eight-week training block, simply complete two interval sessions per week. You can supplement the Progressive Power sessions with other rides, runs, or weight training on days you aren’t completing a session.
What do you need for the CTS Progressive Power Interval Training Series?
You may be asking how you can access the workouts and what equipment do you need to get started?
Early on in the pandemic, CTS announced that it was releasing all of its cycling training videos to the public for free. All you have to do to gain access is enter your email address, here. It is that simple! Pretty cool CTS! Don’t judge if we stick with the DVDs though, ha! By entering your email you will receive the CTS newsletter and promotional emails. We recommend signing up and reading those anyway as you get great info from Carmichael, other CTS coaches, and various CTS athletes.
As far as equipment, you will need some form of indoor bike. You can go full old-school like us with a “dumb” trainer, or you can get a new fandangled “smart” trainer or Peloton Bike or a stationary bike. . . . You get the picture.
As the name implies, the series (as with most other interval training) utilizes power output as measured by a cycling power meter to measure the intensity for each interval type in the session. Obviously, a power meter, along with a heart rate monitor, is preferable. However, you can also train with just a heart rate monitor. That’s what we use. That’s it. Essentially, all you need is the video and an indoor bike that measures either power or heart rate (or both). Read about The Hub’s indoor trainer setup.
Overview of Workouts
As indicated above, there are 16 workout sessions in the Progressive Power series. Each session is around an hour in duration, give or take, including warmup and cool down. The first session is the “CTS Field Test.” The Field Test works to establish the power and heart rate intensity ranges for each interval type used in the series. To dispel any confusion, the Field Test is included in the 16 sessions, but CTS does not count it when numbering the workouts on the video download page referenced above. In other words, the second workout session (Field Test Verification) is titled “Progressive Power Workout 1” on the video download page, but you will see it is labeled “Class # 2” at the beginning of the video. The Hub uses the class number, not the workout number in its subsequent articles.
The following is a list of the workout sessions:
- CTS Field Test (Class #1)
- Progressive Power Workout 1 (Class #2): CTS Field Test Verification
- 2 (Class #3): Driving Your Cadence
- 3 (Class #4): Muscular Endurance
- 4 (Class #5): Steady State Intervals
- 5 (Class #6): Tempo and Steady State Intervals
- 6 (Class #7): Aerobic Development – Tempo
- 7 (Class #8): Interval Ladders
- 8 (Class #9): What it Takes to Win
- 9 (Class #10): Time Trialing
- 10 (Class #11): Power Intervals Ladder
- 11 (Class #12): Power Intervals – Maxing Out VO2
- 12 (Class #13): Powering Up Your Time Trial
- 13 (Class #14): Pouring on the Power
- 14 (Class #15): Strong and Steady
- 15 (Class #16): Final Field Test
What to Expect from The Hub’s Follow-ups?
The Hub provides an overview of each of the above sessions in several follow-up articles. We also provide some observations from our years using the series. Please do not expect any expert coaching advice. The Hub hopes the summaries will introduce novices to interval training, and will provide more indoor training options for those with training experience.
As far as organization, the explanatory articles are labeled by class, not by the CTS workout. There will be an article for each week of the series (two classes per week). This enables you to read along while you complete the series. The only exception is for the CTS Field Test and Field Test Verification. Each of these classes are covered in separate articles. We suggest you complete them in week one, and start Classes 3 and 4 in week two. Start with the Field Test, and go from there. Each of the articles are linked to the next (and back to the prior article) for convenience.
Thanks for reading. If you found this article interesting, we’d love it if you’d sign up for The Hub’s newsletter and follow us on your favorite social media channels (form and links on the right and bottom of this page).