Periodization anyone?

Who follows a periodization training program? Last year I loosely followed one. And the last 3.5 months I've been trying to be more committed to staying on track.

But I have found that every 2.5 weeks into the build, I have a big crash. I've been blaming it on personal and professional stress situations. But I'm starting to wonder if my inability to cope with that stress and crashing to the point of being bedridden doesn't have something to do with overtraining.

I am thinking about adjusting my schedule to a periodization that is 3 weeks long: 2 week build, 1 week recovery. Or even a 2 week build, 2-3 day complete rest, 3 day push, followed by a week recovery.

Thoughts?

My guess is your build periods are too aggressive. You are increasing something, i.e. mileage or intensity by too much during that period. I would not change the number of weeks in the build, but I would tone down the build a bit.

Something that a lot of people do not take into consideration when training is even in build phases rest is imperative. And, the other thing that people do not take into account is the stress, physical or mental, in their daily lives. You are training your body, and what you are doing is repetitive stresses, building of stress level, with appropriate rest in between that builds the muscles, heart lungs to be able to do a harder workout the next time. Outside stresses (other than cycling/workout stresses) should be taken into account when you are doing a build. If you are particularly stressed outside your workout, then you need more time to recover, or you need to decrease the intended workload to compensate.

Hope I explained this well enough?

I believe your build periods maybe to long. Depending on the time of year and the intensity my coach has me do 3 week builds at the begining of the season as the intensity is not as high and I don't have many important races, but mostly I do 2 week with a recovery week after. Also I get enough rest days in between in order to avoid over training. It looks like 3 week maybe to long for you, remember that you need to take into account life in general and any other stuff that may come your way. ;)

I think you're heading in the right direction after perhaps finding your natural training cycle by default. Or possibly it's too aggressive this early, depending on your winter. Is your iron ok? And are your recovery weeks light enough? Or perhaps masters? Friel recommends more rest for masters between hard days (just as you have suggested) and trying a 16/5 or 15/6 kind of pattern. If you are self-trained, I'd recommend The Cyclist's Training Bible. Very thorough and covers women.

I build rest into my build weeks in addition to taking an easy recovery week every 3-4 weeks. I work 40+hours a week, so my schedule is pretty compressed. I only have time for 2 rides during the work week. That said, I am training for ultra distance and the schedule has worked so well that tue 250 miler I did a week and a half ago was phenomenal at over 16 mph average.

So my "build" weeks look like this:

T/Th - 90 minute high intensity intervals (power based, on computrainer with my bike

M/W/F - off

Saturday - 75 miles plus. I built up to the 400k by doing centuries in Nov/Dec, 200ks in Jan, 300ks in Feb and the 400k this month. These rides are all training for a series of very hard double centuries I am doing.

A rest week is the same format with lower intensity and distance for all workouts.

YMMV, but this has worked well for me. I also have focused a lot on improvin the quality of my nutrition - whole food, plant and lean meat focused.